Everything is amplified in big cities like New York and Los Angeles, where large and diverse populations live in limited space; shootings and violent crimes are no exceptions.
In New York City, a single shooting in Times Square is amplified by the media and broadcast on a loop on cable channels. Police union mouthpieces who will never be satisfied unless given the optimum power to do as they please use incidents of violence to demand more power.
They create a lot of noise and give the impression that the sky is falling, hoping that more power will be vested in them to abuse citizens.
In New York City, a single shooting in Times Square is amplified by the media and broadcast on a loop on cable channels. Police union mouthpieces who will never be satisfied unless given the optimum power to do as they please use incidents of violence to demand more power.
They create a lot of noise and give the impression that the sky is falling, hoping that more power will be vested in them to abuse citizens.
Even as we would like to have a crime-free society, literally every week, several mass shootings are carried out by [white] shooters all across America.
Those mass shootings are mass casualty affairs.
Where is the hyperbolic language from Police groups whose duty it is to keep people safe?
Where is the hyperbolic gibberish from the right-wing pundit class in the peanut gallery, left or right?
Be wary of those who would amplify individual incidents of violence to distract you from the burning task at hand, which is to change the way the Police are allowed to operate.
Even people who ought to know better use their platforms to spew false narratives. They spin those opinions, and after a while, their opinions become [alternative truths].
Brian Williams, one such so-called liberal journalist/commentator, has been actively pushing the narrative that calls in 2020 to defund the police by social justice activists after George Floyd’s lynching, has been responsible for the Democrat’s loss of seats in the US House of Representatives.
Williams, who NBC punished for lying in a report and banished to the red-eye segment of television broadcasting, is now using his 11: pm time slot to push that narrative without any data to support his opinion.
In fact, it is difficult to conceive how Williams or anyone for that matter could arrive at that conclusion when Democrats won the House, even though less convincing than they did in 2018, won the White House, giving Joe Biden the distinction of being the president to have received the most votes of any president in history.
Additionally, Democrats won back the Senate after being in the minority for a decade. Even though Democrats may have miscalculated on how many seats they could have won in places like North Carolina and Alaska. Nevertheless, they performed admirably by winning a senate seat in Arizona, a Republican bastion, and picking up both Georgia seats, something many thought impossible.
There is a perception that Democrats underperformed; the blame ought to be laid squarely at the feet of weak individual candidates and the feckless national Democratic party.
Progressive candidates like Corey Bush In Minnesota and Jamal Bowman in New York further cemented my view that voters are not opposed to defunding the powerful police machine.
Brian Williams, one such so-called liberal journalist/commentator, has been actively pushing the narrative that calls in 2020 to defund the police by social justice activists after George Floyd’s lynching, has been responsible for the Democrat’s loss of seats in the US House of Representatives.
Williams, who NBC punished for lying in a report and banished to the red-eye segment of television broadcasting, is now using his 11: pm time slot to push that narrative without any data to support his opinion.
In fact, it is difficult to conceive how Williams or anyone for that matter could arrive at that conclusion when Democrats won the House, even though less convincing than they did in 2018, won the White House, giving Joe Biden the distinction of being the president to have received the most votes of any president in history.
Additionally, Democrats won back the Senate after being in the minority for a decade. Even though Democrats may have miscalculated on how many seats they could have won in places like North Carolina and Alaska. Nevertheless, they performed admirably by winning a senate seat in Arizona, a Republican bastion, and picking up both Georgia seats, something many thought impossible.
There is a perception that Democrats underperformed; the blame ought to be laid squarely at the feet of weak individual candidates and the feckless national Democratic party.
Progressive candidates like Corey Bush In Minnesota and Jamal Bowman in New York further cemented my view that voters are not opposed to defunding the powerful police machine.
A large part of the Democratic base is quasi-conservative, quasi-progressive. The problem with being lukewarm is that it satisfies no one. No One likes lukewarm coffee; no one likes lukewarm drinking water.
The base of the Democratic Party-African-Americans, wants the party to move decisively on voting rights and reimagining how police are allowed to operate.
There is no question of what Republicans want. They want to stop Black people from voting & they do not care if the police murder every one of us.
Those are the facts. The majority of the 320 million people in the United States support a progressive agenda, one that respects the rule of law but demands that all people’s rights and dignity be respected.
When Police are allowed to kill without accountability, it unravels society. It cannot be allowed to continue because crime begins to tick upward.
Defunding the police means ending the militarization of police. It means ending qualified immunity. It means allowing police to carry insurance like doctors, lawyers, business ‑owners, operators of motor vehicles, and even the guy cutting trees for a living. It means having independent bodies investigate police violence and prosecuting them to the fullest extent of the law when they break the laws.
American police immunity is police impunity. Defund the police now.
The base of the Democratic Party-African-Americans, wants the party to move decisively on voting rights and reimagining how police are allowed to operate.
There is no question of what Republicans want. They want to stop Black people from voting & they do not care if the police murder every one of us.
Those are the facts. The majority of the 320 million people in the United States support a progressive agenda, one that respects the rule of law but demands that all people’s rights and dignity be respected.
When Police are allowed to kill without accountability, it unravels society. It cannot be allowed to continue because crime begins to tick upward.
Defunding the police means ending the militarization of police. It means ending qualified immunity. It means allowing police to carry insurance like doctors, lawyers, business ‑owners, operators of motor vehicles, and even the guy cutting trees for a living. It means having independent bodies investigate police violence and prosecuting them to the fullest extent of the law when they break the laws.
American police immunity is police impunity. Defund the police now.
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.Mike Beckles is a former Police Detective, businessman, freelance writer, black achiever honoree, and creator of the blog mikebeckles.com.