Ian Hans Lichterman, a Philadelphia PD officer, proudly flaunting his Nazi tattoos.
There’s a pattern that has repeated itself on a loop in this country indefinitely in recent years. It goes like this: The police are caught doing something unjust. People are fed up with the police, and so it sparks outrage. There are mass protests and upheavals. The police whine and snivel about the protests and proclaim self-serving propaganda about themselves. This entitled and unapologetic behavior solidifies why people are fed up with the police. Things simmer down. Then the police are caught doing something else unjust. And it repeats.
It’s unclear when the collective police began to act so butt hurt when people objected to their brutality – but I believe this behavior gained traction following the Rodney King incident in 1991, when the LAPD was caught on camera committing gang-battery.
The beating followed handheld cameras becoming readily accessible to the general public. The guy who shot the King footage had recently purchased a Sony Handycam and when he heard a police helicopter above his house he stumbled onto his porch and filmed the beating with it.
The cameras got cheaper and smaller and eventually everyone had a camera in their pocket at all times. This bothered police. Before this development they were even less seldom held accountable for their actions. In the good old days they could needlessly assault someone and not have to answer for it. They bitched about it frequently, about how the videos clearly depicting their acts of brutality didn’t tell the full story.
Then someone, in an act of genius, turned their own logic on them: Wear your own cameras. On your body. This way you cannot complain about context when you shoot an unarmed black kid. The police responded en masse by complaining about the body-cams and simply refusing to turn them on.
It’s that sort of entitled behavior which leads people to not respect police, because they don’t collectively behave in a way that deserves it. They think you should thank them for their service as they’re writing you a traffic ticket – and as they do so they look at you as though you’d better behave – or else.
The first elephant in the room is that police do not have the most dangerous job in America. The most recent year that data is available shows 95 officers suffering fatalities on the job out of roughly 800,000 total. Electricians have a more dangerous job. So does the teenage girl who works behind the counter at the gas station, in terms of her chances of being murdered. So does your Uber driver. Pilots, steelworkers, loggers, fisherman and construction workers all suffer more fatalities on the job than police. All of these workers provide vital services. The police are not special in this regard.
Police also like to incessantly bitch about how they are underpaid. This is rich. Their pension plans are robbing public taxpayers blind. Policing is a job which requires virtually no education. It’s the highest paying job any of these people could possibly attain.
This Messiah complex frequently exhibited by the police makes sense. They’re uneducated and frequently low-intelligence people who have had it drummed into their heads that extracting revenue from American citizens in the form of traffic tickets or minor drug violations is heroic behavior. Most people who aren’t police know that it’s not – and this bothers them.
This leads to their sense of entitlement, which is indeed so very strong that they throw public hissy fits when there are protests against their clearly documented indiscretions. Again, it goes like this:
The police are caught doing something unjust. People are fed up with the police, and so it sparks outrage. There are mass protests and upheavals. The police whine and snivel about the protests and proclaim self-serving propaganda about themselves.
This entitled and unapologetic behavior solidifies why people are fed up with the police. Things simmer down. Then the police are caught doing something else unjust. And it repeats.
Cue Alex Viallanueva, the Sheriff of Los Angeles County. Villanueva recently did a radio interview with the Associated Press regarding the unfortunate incident in which two Los Angeles County deputies were shot at point-blank range in an assassination attempt.
The shooter has not yet been identified and there is currently a reward of $175,000 for information leading to his capture. Villanueva took the opportunity to suggest that LeBron James was tangentially responsible for the attack because he has spoken about police brutality.
“I want to make a challenge…to LeBron James”, said Villanueva, “I want you to match that and double that reward because I know you care about law enforcement.”
Instead of focusing on the issue at hand Villanueva decided to insult a basketball player who has been vocal in his support of police reform following the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and countless other innocent people who were executed by police.
This is the pattern. This bloated, entitled, whiny bitch is mad that someone would have the nerve to protest indisputable atrocities committed at the hands of police. He blames anyone who doesn’t hold him in completely undeserved reverence for the unconscionable acts that he and his people are responsible for. He is a child.
“You expressed a very interesting statement on race relations and officer-involved shootings and the impact that it has on the African-American community and I appreciate that”, Villanueva continued, “but likewise, we need to appreciate that respect for life goes across professions, races, creeds, and I’d like to see LeBron James step up to the plate and double that.”
Holding police accountable doesn’t mean you are responsible for violence against police. Questioning them is the right thing to do, and it’s right specifically because they want to bully you into not doing it.
This is the whole point, and they just don’t get it. This is why we need reform.
Villanueva has donated zero dollars to the reward fund. His publicly paid salary is $349,000 per year.