One of the problems we face in our country is the common practice of many people giving opinions on things they know nothing about.  Police work is at the top of the list of things people comment about without a scintilla of experience in law enforcement.  Take the George Floyd fiasco, which became the perfect opportunity for left-wing, anti-police propaganda.  The arrest of a degenerate, drug-addled criminal, with a rap sheet that should have kept him off the street for decades, became the rallying cry for every lowlife radical with a hatred for the rule of law.  The photo of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, with his knee on Floyd’s neck, was disseminated throughout the world, faster than the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center.

That photo, along with the words “I can’t breathe” and the subsequent death of Floyd, whose arteries were almost completely blocked from severe heart disease, complicated by large quantities of fentanyl and methamphetamines in his system, was enough to spark riots in several countries.  The fact that officer Chauvin and a few other cops had been struggling with the violent ex-con for several minutes as he was resisting arrest didn’t make a difference to all those opinion columnists and editors, none of whom were at the scene to view what led up to the knee incident.  Moreover, the film footage of the battle that occurred just before Floyd ended up on the ground, didn’t show up in mass media for weeks.  Not that it would have mattered, because the photo was all that was needed to give license to rampaging thugs from coast to coast.

During my 20 years with the NYPD, I struggled with hundreds, if not thousands of George Floyds during arrest situations.  If you’ve never been a cop, you have no idea how difficult it is to put handcuffs on and arrest a prisoner who fights it.  Floyd was 6’ 4” tall and weighed about 200 pounds.  I’ve had tough times trying to put cuffs on women who were half his size.

Imagine that you’re a cop, and you tell a wanted felon he’s under arrest.  Imagine further that he says something like, “You ain’t taking me in, m-----------!”  Should you stop to think about the fact that he’s black, and therefore any action you take could end up making you the bad guy?

Or should you decide to do your job and engage in a violent encounter with him?  Of course, you could slink away in fear and hope no one noticed that you shirked your duty.  Officer Chauvin and a few other cops on the scene grappled with Floyd as they tried to get him into the police car after he had been cuffed.  Floyd used the tactics of every street hustler facing more time in prison.  He squirmed, kicked, and pleaded not to be taken in.  When he ended up on the ground, Chauvin held him in place with a knee to the back of his neck. I’ve used that restraining move many times with recalcitrant prisoners.  If they’d had as many drugs in their system as Floyd, and someone had snapped a picture, I, like Chauvin, might have become characterized as the symbol of jackbooted brutality, if the recidivist criminal had died.

Chauvin was a family man, an active cop with 19 years’ experience, and numerous arrests that took a lot of hardened criminals off the street.  Now he’s in prison, sentenced to 19 years for doing the job he was trained to do.  That’s right: the knee on the neck is part of the training in the Minneapolis P.D.

You know that the world has gone completely mad when crime is at an all-time high, and dedicated cops are being sent to prison for enforcing the law.  Derek Chauvin’s imprisonment is more than a miscarriage of justice; it’s what happens when mob mentality defeats the sound practical judgment of common sense.  How many jurors in his trial would have the courage to find him not guilty, knowing the consequences they’d face from area residents?  Once that photo went viral, a fair trial was out of the question.

Are cops supposed to be liable for every junkie who resists arrest and ends up dead?  The same people who shake their head and utter bitter condemnation of cops do so in the comfort and security of their neat and cozy homes, surrounded by loving families.  Do they ever consider what their lives would be like if there were no cops willing to take on the violent predators who roam their streets?

Suppose you had to personally deal with the dregs of society, trying to break into your home, or accosting you and your family on the street.  Do you think you could fight off the muggers and the burglars by yourself?  If you continue to make cops afraid to do their job, you might be forced to find out.

Image: Tony Webster via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0 (cropped).