Several hundred NYPD officers showed their true colors at the funeral for one of their slain comrades. Officer Rafael Ramos was one of the two cops brutally murdered by Ismaaiyl Brinsley after the gunman had allegedly murdered his girlfriend earlier that day.
After a year that saw several high-profile cases of white cops killing black men, usually unarmed (though I’m not sure if we consider a BB gun “armed” or not, so perhaps it should just be noted that one of the high-profile victims of police brutality was just 12-years old, gunned down literally within moments of cops in Ohio rolling up on him), it was only a matter of time before the lesser intelligent ones among us started trying to conflate Ramos and his partner — Wenjian Liu — being murdered by someone with the miscarriages of justice in places like Ferguson, Missouri this year, and it all culminated with a few hundred cops turning their backs on Mayor Bill de Blasio as he eulogized Ramos on Saturday.
Let’s just come right out and say it — this kind of snotty behavior is exactly why many people in this country don’t like or distrust cops. You combine this display of childishness with NYPD Union Chief Patrick Lynch declaring that de Blasio and other politicians who showed support for protesters in the wake of the travesty in Ferguson, as well as in Mayor de Blasio’s own state of New York, had “blood on their hands” for the killing of Liu and Ramos, and you have yourself the perfect example of cops feeling they are “above the law.” The reality is that no one but Brinsley has blood on their hands for the assassination of Liu and Ramos, and the fact is that with the most naked of eye anyone can see how rightfully angry some citizens of this country were and still are over the Tamir Rice, Eric Garner and Mike Brown cases.
It would seem that the NYPD back-turners and Lynch need a little reminding that the rule of law applies not just to citizens, but the representatives of the state that are charged with upholding them. It is entirely possible, well, and good to be outraged by all of this mess. We can as Americans, as human beings on planet Earth, be absolutely apoplectic about Darren Wilson not being indicted as well as downright angry and incensed over Liu and Ramos’ slaughtering. It’s as if the NYPD back-turners have never heard the phrase “two wrongs don’t make a right,” because I can’t find a single fault in anything any of the public figures said about the Ferguson protests, or the Garner protests either.
Saying “we should all respect the laws of this country” is not the same as “all cops are bad cops, so feel free to hunt them down and murder them all now.” To imply otherwise is to be an idiot…or the NYPD union president apparently. I wanted Darren Wilson to stand public trial for the murder of Mike Brown more than anything, and nowhere in the hundreds of words I wrote in support of that idea, or in support of the right of protesters to peacefully register their complaints against the system would you find me encouraging citizens to put targets on cops’ backs. It’s madness to presume that anyone in the right mind feels that is an appropriate response, and the fact that Brinsley allegedly posted comments on social media sites to the effect of his attack being revenge for Mike Brown and Eric Garner is meaningless in the grand scheme of things.
Brinsley had no large, mass audience he was preaching to. He had also most likely just murdered his girlfriend, so something tells me the political motivation behind his brazen and cowardly attack on Ramos and his partner was something he tacked on. He was clearly not in his right mind, one way or the other, and the last time I checked we as a society are under zero obligation to dignify the rantings of a murderous psychopath. The truth is that Brinsley himself was the only one speaking in such a way as to intimate that murdering cops is justifiable.
In fact, the mayor has been quite vocally supportive of the NYPD in the wake of the killings. He asked the protesters at the heart of Lynch’s blind and stupid criticisms of de Blasio to hold off on their protests until Liu and Ramos were laid to rest. He vocally and forcefully condemned the violence against the two officers. Truthfully, it seems far more likely that Lynch and the back-turners are still fuming over the mayor’s decision to stop defending the police force’s controversial and undeniably racially charged practice of “stop and frisk,” combined with tensions over a mounting contract dispute between the city and the union than they were all truly miffed at the mayor for daring to assert the right of the people — the folks all those back-turning children work for — to protest in peaceful ways.
Through it all though, this commie-pinko-libtard completely and totally supports the right of the NYPD back-turners to turn their backs on the mayor. Sure, Mr. de Blasio was invited by the Ramos family to speak. Sure, the display was more a slap in the face to the same fallen brother behind the badge that they were presumably there to honor. And yes, those facts make this demonstration baffling in its insult to Ramos, Liu and the mayor, but I say let them turn their backs. Freedom of speech is really ugly and stupid sometimes; as it should be, and so shall I defend its inherent need to be just as such.
Let’s all get a good glimpse at the exact kind of cop we need to train out of existence — the kind of cop that would try to make people feel bad for daring to insist that due process under the law isn’t supposed to be a framework under which cops can kill with impunity. Let’s write down their names, let’s forever mark them down in history as being obvious and clear defenders of an overly-militarized and woefully inadequately constitutionally trained police state. Let’s let them stand up and declare themselves as part of the problem.
It’ll just make them all the easier to identify as you sweep the bad apples into the bin; something tells me there will be actual violations of law to fire those douchebags for, so let them have their freedom of expression.
But maybe we should also use this opportunity to reflect on the fact that while a few hundred cops just showed themselves to be self-serving, ignorant dumb asses, there were still many, many more who didn’t disrespect Ramos or the mayor. Let’s take this time to see the whole picture. The whole picture here, in my view, works as a microcosm of all that ails us with our police forces throughout the country. There are most assuredly people like the NYPD back-turners in every police force in every city in the country. But we have to remember that the good cops still outnumber the bad ones, and if they don’t, it’s time to do what we have to turn those odds in our favor.
The bottom line is simple. I am outraged by the NYPD back-turners. I feel righteous indignation over their display of disrespect if not for Officer Ramos and Mayor de Blasio, then for the Constitution and our country’s principles of justice as a whole. But unlike Lynch, and those who turned their backs at the funeral, I’m not going to use their shitty behavior to justify my sacrificing my principles, and the Freedom of Thought, Speech and Expression is my most cherished principle of all. So I do believe that even dicks have a right to be dicks as long as they aren’t harming anyone, and while I’m sure de Blasio and Ramos’ family were offended, I can’t say they were harmed by the cops’ idiotic display.
Even dicks deserve their First Amendment rights, shiny badges and all.
The post Why I Support the Right of the NYPD Back-Turners to Be Total Dicks appeared first on The Political Garbage Chute.