“Depolicing”

Greater Manchester Police chief constable rejects taking the knee

Stephen Watson told the Daily Telegraph he “would probably kneel before the Queen, God, and Mrs Watson, that’s it”.

He also said he was concerned about the creation of new “hate crimes” which could overwhelm police as they “sought to criminalise what people think”.

Mr Watson joined the force, which is in special measures, in May.

He told the newspaper the public were “getting a little bit fed up of virtue-signalling police officers” and would “rather we just locked up burglars”.

Shots ring out despite Baltimore’s attempted crime crackdown after businesses threatened to stop paying taxes

Bullets fired in Baltimore’s Fells Point neighborhood on Saturday suggest the city’s attempted crime crackdown amid a threatened tax revolt by businesses is off to a shaky start, regardless of how the gunfire might be euphemized.

Baltimore police told local media outlet WBAL Radio that they’re investigating an overnight “discharging,” not shooting, in Fells Point. The discharging, as it turns out, came from a gun or guns, and the bullets damaged several vehicles. A man sitting in one of the vehicles suffered a laceration to the head, perhaps when the discharging broke a window in his car.

CHICAGO—Since Illinois lawmakers passed a major criminal justice reform bill in January, five Illinois sheriffs have retired early and six sheriffs are set to retire this summer, according to Illinois Sheriff Association (ISA) executive director Jim Kaitschuk.

“This is the most I’ve seen. They’re quitting as a direct result of the legislation,” Kaitschuk told The Epoch Times.

When I lived in Baltimore I used to joke that Charm City, as the city called itself, should be honest and drop that first “c.” Harm in the form of violent crime was terrible and it was everywhere. There were open-air drug markets and the mid-sized city with so much history and such great potential was often the murder capital of the United States. This was the day of the infamous “Stop Snitchin’” DVD warning against going to police to inform against criminals or for any other reason.

Protests, defunded departments, and incompetent Democrat response have created a law enforcement crisis.

Just over one year after George Floyd’s death, Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests and anti-police rhetoric from Democrat politicians have led to a record number of police officer deaths and retirements. In 2020 alone, 264 police officers were killed in the line of duty, a staggering 96 percent increase from 2019.

Chicago police officers are being told to assess whether it is “worth the risk” to chase down a suspect in a new foot pursuit policy announced by the city’s police department.

The new policy will prioritize the immediate safety of officers and those involved in the pursuit, as well as members of the public, according to a new announcement from Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Chicago Police Department Superintendent David O. Brown.

It’s been one year since last summer’s George Floyd demonstrations took over America’s cities, and in these last 12 months, police officers have left those respective cities’ police forces in droves. Some were forced out due to budget cuts while others are voluntarily retiring or moving to neighboring police departments. The city of Seattle has lost for than 260 officers in the last 18 months, nearly 20 percent of the entire force.

Ten people were shot, two of them fatally, when gunfire broke out outside a downtown Minneapolis nightclub overnight Saturday, capping an exceptionally violent night across the city.

The incident, one of the most casualty-laden shootings in the city’s history, occurred just before 2 a.m. outside Monarch, 322 N. 1st Av., police spokesman John Elder said.

The two deaths, coming just hours after a shooting homicide in north Minneapolis, brought the number of 2021 homicides in the city to 31. They also came as a loosening of pandemic restrictions and warmer weather are drawing crowds back to restaurants, bars and entertainment venues.

Coincidence: Murders in Minneapolis have doubled this year, police point out their ranks are still depleted

After budget cuts and months of Black Lives Matter and Antifa rioting, Seattle’s Police Chief indicated Wednesday that nearly 20 percent of the city’s police officers have left in the past year and a half.

“The support that we had in my generation of policing is no longer there,” veteran Officer Clayton Powell told CBS News, concurring with Interim Police Chief Adrian Diaz’s assessment. More than 260 officers have quit the force since the beginning of last year.

When it comes to covering law enforcement issues, the American media should, in the words of fictional TV detective Joe Friday, stick to “just the facts, ma’am.” A new poll shows that the American public now believes a series of verifiable untruths propagated by some members of the media and activists.

The findings of the May 2021 TIPP Poll survey of 1300 American adults should dismay us all as to how misinformed about policing the public has become.

A line in Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson’s “Mammas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys,” warns: “Them that don’t know him won’t like him.” As a retired law-enforcement professional, it deeply saddens me to witness how my former profession suddenly finds itself in similar straits — reviled, the object of scorn and derision.

Dangerous tropes abound. False narratives proliferate. Bigotry and intolerance are suddenly acceptable, so long as the target wears a blue uniform.

After Derek Chauvin was found guilty of the murder of George Floyd, many organizations and celebrities issued press releases that went beyond celebrating justice, offering blanket condemnations of the police as universally racist and oppressive. For instance, Seventh Generation, the Unilever-owned laundry detergent maker, tweeted that to stop the “killing of Black and Brown people at the hands of the police . . . we must divest from systems of harm.” The NBA’s LeBron James tweeted what appeared to be a threat (since deleted) toward the Columbus, Ohio police officer involved in the fatal shooting of 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant as she assaulted another person with a knife.