From Comment To Blog Post

Field Negro got me to thinking and commenting about the Black plainclothes police officer who was shot and killed by one of his White fellow officers. For those of you who didn't peep this over there, I pulled it over here because I'd been meaning to post about this for some time now. There are two comments, the second was a response to an anon poster who posted a statement purported to be from an organization of Black Police officers. If you want to read that, you'll have to go to the Field and cruise the comments. It's pretty vanilla, what you'd expect basically, until I read the part about the modified pistols the NYPD storm troopers are using.

What I have to say may sound insensitive, but it needs to be said. Officer Edwards' death, like all untimely deaths of young people is a tragedy.


But the worse tragedy is ongoing and can, in no small part, be laid at the very feet of those who feel the most aggrieved. Those brown skinned members of the brotherhood in blue, who yesterday joined arms (literally and symbolically) with Rev. Al Sharpton must have felt no small measure of hypocrisy. These Black and Latino officers are daily both witness and participant in the very behavior which they now publicly decry.


But that rings very hollow indeed to one who knows who the Blue line works. In fact, this is the classic case of "chickens coming home to roost". These officers of color, and very likely Officer Edwards himself, have turned a blind eye to the actions of their brother officers. Perhaps even to the previous excessive force of the very officer who ended Officer Edwards life. And now the shoot first and ask questions later tactics that had previously been at best ignored and at worst encouraged, has resulted in an unintended, though certainly forseeable, tragedy.


Forty years ago, Blacks were not allowed to be police officers in most of this country. The few places they were allowed were primarily to keep their own populations in line. One of the tactics of the civil rights movement and other racial equality activists was to push for more Black police officers. The thought process was that these officers would be more responsive to their communities, less inclined to use brutality as a control mechanism, and also would serve as a check on the activities of their white counterparts, who could not be expected to make an immediate 180 degree turn from centuries of heavy-handed law enforcement practices in the Black community. It seemed like a logical idea.


And forty years later you will find a significant minority presence in every urban area. Blacks and Latinos are head of many major metropolitan law enforcement agencies. Yet here we are forty years later, still marching down the same streets about the same thing. Instead of the minority officers changing the police culture, it appears that the police culture has corrupted the minority officers. That's the only way these incidents of excessive police force and general police lawlessness and depredations could continue to plague our communities.


To be fair, some of them really are trying to make a difference and help their communities. But that gets lost in a misguided police culture that requires a certain loyalty, and evaluates job performance by arrest stats. There is very little chance that an officer of any color can be in it, but not of it.


But that cannot excuse them. Claiming to be working from the inside to make things better only goes so far when the observable signs of your work indicate that you have become part of the problem rather than part of the solution.


I'm not speaking hypothetically. I've been there, and I know exactly what I'm talking about. I've seen it with my own eyes. Those black officers with Rev. Al probably feel doubly devastated. They have turned their backs on their community in solidarity with the Blue line, but they have to know that they are only honorary or provisional members of the club. they have all probably bee the victim of police profiling; something they generally shrug off because they have a badge that gets them out of most hassles. Something like this should bring home to them that they are part of a serious problem, and that they are all the more culpable because they know it and yet have chosen not to act.


It's not what most people want to hear, especially on the heels of a death like this one. But unless somebody in a position to make some changes stands up and says it, tomorrow as Field suggests, will be much the same as today.


(and about those suped up pistols)


BE AFRAID!!! BE VERY AFRAID!!!


I just read that statement, from the Black Officers association and in it they politely prove my point.


"Consider that Dutton’s weapon is limited to a three round burst. Six to seven rounds were fired. This means that Dutton pulled the trigger at least twice."


This is going to slip by 99% of the population. But I've had my fair share of combat training, and I'm sort of a combat buff. Believe me when I tell you that there is ABSOLUTELY NO JUSTIFICATION WHATSOEVER FOR ALLOWING A POLICE OFFICER TO MODIFY HIS SERVICE WEAPON TO FIRE THREE ROUND BURSTS(aka "TRIPLE TAP").


Especially an officer who works in a heavily populated urban area. If this is true, and it's the first time I've heard of it anywhere, then it explains how a young brother can get shot at 50 times after his bachelor party.


Just a little background. This modification came into vogue in the early 60's, by Special Forces in Vietnam. They expected to be outnumbered typically 3-7 man long range patrols against everything out there if they got caught. And they fully intended to kill anything and everything they ran into, with overwhelming firepower, so it made sense for them. So who do you suppose the police are at war with?


The modification allows a well trained person to start with a low left center aiming point and put three rounds on target with the natural rise of the barrel. The other reason you want to start low is that in stress situations, most people tend to shoot high to begin with, so training to start lower made sense. It is not something that police officers are trained to do. They are trained to put two shots, center mass, then re-assess. Of course much of that training goes out of the window when you're under fire, so most tend to pull the trigger until the threat is stopped.


Perhaps if it were the tactical weapons of NYPD ESU officers, or other places SWAT officers, it would make a bit more sense. But this statement reads like it is a common practice and allowed to any officer. I can tell you that none of these cops ever gets enough firearms training and range time to be properly trained for that three shot modification. The majority of police never even fire their weapons, except a few times a year for required range time. So I would expect these officers to be throwing a lot of rounds high and right. IN CROWDED URBAN AREAS. (Did you know in some states, if you are committing a felony and the police shoot at you and accidentally kill someone else, you could be charged with felony murder because that person died as a result of your felonious activity?)


I'm shocked the collateral damage isn't through the roof, and can only attribute it to brothers an sistas being fast on their feet when they hear gunshots. Does anyone know how many bullets struck Officer Edwards, since we now know that 7 rounds went downrange?


And to bring this around full circle, you mean to tell me there is not one Black officer in this whole association who has a problem with these cops running around with weapons modified to make them more lethal than they already are?


If you ain't part of the solution, you're part of the problem.