The Patriot Post® · Police-Bashing's Contemptible Consequences

An unclassified FBI report reveals the consequences of the American Left’s penchant for police-bashing.

According to “Assailant Study — Mindsets and Behaviors,” which examined “multiple high-profile police incidents across the country,” the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and the ensuing mayhem it engendered “initiated a movement that some perceived made it socially acceptable to challenge and discredit the actions of law enforcement,” the report states. “This attitude was fueled by the narrative of police misconduct and excessive force perpetuated through politicians and the media.”

“Hands Up Don’t Shoot” has been the most enduring narrative promoted by the Leftmedia and their political allies, despite being ultimately labeled one of 2014’s “biggest lies of the year” by Washington Post “fact-checker” Glen Kessler. The lefty Kessler also reminded us that four Democrat members of the Congressional Black Caucus “raised their hands during their speeches in solidarity” with the anti-cop gesture it spawned, despite the reality the “grand jury had questioned this characterization by then.”

For a racially polarized Obama administration, the grand jury that ultimately exonerated Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson was considered insufficient. The Justice Department, led by former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, conducted its own investigation — and much to the dismay of a race-baiting left, Wilson remained un-indicted.

But what about the plethora of witnesses who claimed Michael Brown’s hands were in the air when Wilson shot him? “All of these purported witnesses, upon being interviewed by law enforcement, acknowledged that they did not actually witness the shooting, but rather repeated what others told them in the immediate aftermath of the shooting,” the DOJ report reveals.

Moreover, forensic evidence backed Wilson’s version of the events.

None of it mattered. “Hands up don’t shoot” is now a business. Amazon sells t-shirts with the phrase, and merchandise like stationery, bags and home decor is flacked at Redbubble. And as the http://handsupdontshoot.com/ website insists, “‘Hands Up Don’t Shoot’ DID happen.”

No, it didn’t. But that hasn’t stopped leftists from exploiting the lie. A CNN article insists hands up don’t shoot “has transcended the specifics of Ferguson to make a longstanding grievance a national issue.” An NPR article titled “Whether History Or Hype, ‘Hands Up, Don’t Shoot’ Endures” speaks to Holder throwing “cold water on the hands-up scenario,” but quotes Holder insisting it “remains not only valid but essential to question how such a strong alternative version of events was able to take hold so swiftly and to be accepted so readily.”

How about “the lie told often enough it becomes the truth?”

Unfortunately, that lie spearheaded the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, a despicable collection of anti-police activists with ties “to Cuba, Northern Ireland, Europe and the Middle East,” according to a report compiled by noted criminologist and law enforcement expert Ron Martinelli.

Martinelli also reveals a substantial portion of BLM’s funding comes from “George Soros through his Open Society Institute.”

BLM’s mission? “The Black Lives Matter organization is relatively transparent in its intent to create a new Marxist style policing and criminal justice paradigm,” he writes. “However, their less than transparent and ultimate goals to achieve this objective are to disenfranchise and diminish law enforcement officers in the eyes of the low-informed and disengaged general public and media.”

The FBI report reveals they are making serious inroads. An examination of 50 of the 53 incidents where officers were killed in the line of duty in 2016, (the three cases involving minors or unknown perpetrators were excluded) reveals most assailants using deadly force did so to avoid capture. But the report states 28% “expressed a desire to kill law enforcement prior to carrying out their attacks,” because they had a “hatred of law enforcement.” Furthermore, “assailants in this category posted their beliefs on social media and/or informed their friends and family of their intentions prior to ambushing or initiating violence against law enforcement.”

BLM? “Specifically in the Dallas, TX and Baton Rouge, LA attacks, assailants said they were influenced by the Black Lives Matter movement and their belief that law enforcement was targeting black males.”

Who’s targeting whom? Five police officers were murdered and seven injured in Dallas. Three officers were slain and three others injured in Baton Rouge.

The BLM movement hardly stands alone. “Due to the coverage of the high-profile police incidents,” the FBI report states, “it appears that immediately following the incidents, assailants were constantly exposed to a singular narrative by news organizations and social media of police misconduct and wrongdoing.”

It also states the decriminalization of drugs has fueled a “turnstile justice system” that in turn fuels the “increase in violent attacks on law enforcement,” courtesy of those who believe “consequences no longer exist for criminal acts,” or those in drug-induced psychoses “more willing to shoot an officer to stay out of jail.”

And what does this toxic mix engender? “Ask any police department recruiter across the country about efforts to attract new officers and you will likely get a similar answer — fewer people are willing to wear the uniform, fewer see a future in policing, fewer want to risk their futures on a profession where you face public disdain, media attacks, and the increased potential for financial wreckage from unwarranted charges,” former assistant FBI director Ron Hosko explains.

Officers still on the job? “Departments — and individual officers — have increasingly made the conscious decision to stop engaging in proactive policing,” the report warns. “The intense scrutiny and law enforcement officers have received in the wake of several high-profile incidents has caused several officers to (1) ‘become scared and demoralized’ and (2) avoid interacting with the community.”

The oh-so predictable results? In 2016, one year after the nationwide murder rate rose at its fastest pace since 1990, it ticked up another 8%, according to a report by Matthew Friedman, Ames C. Grawert and James Cullen of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.

One city under virtual siege is Baltimore, now enduring its highest murder rate per capita ever. It’s also operating with the smallest number of police officers in approximately a decade. Neither fact is surprising in a city where politically motivated prosecutor Marilyn Mosby attempted and failed to punish police officers for the death of Freddie Gray, and city officials ordered police to stand down while those using Gray’s death as an excuse to riot were given “space” to destroy the city.

“All the data studied over the past two and a half years proves beyond any reasonable doubt that the Ferguson Effect is real,” explains Manhattan Institute scholar Heather Mac Donald. “But what we often forget is that beyond these abstract numbers are the faces of real people, our innocent fellow Americans, who might still be alive today had the police been allowed to do their jobs.”

Innocent victims are largely irrelevant to leftist activists who believe identity politics and racial grievance-mongering remain vital components of their ability to maintain political power. Better to rule in a tribalist nation than serve in a united one.

Cop-bashing? A contemptible means to an anarchistic end. Nothing more, nothing less.