Bradenton, Fla., police officer hailed for pistol whipping burglar rather than using deadly force

[Lee-Lee]

10. There are a lot of folks out there who will always alter headline or videos to make the cops look ba

The clearly wrong examples like you mention deserve all the attention and aggressive prosecution.

But far too often we see attempts to try and paint cases of the officers just doing their jobs as abuse or misconduct. Like all the times it was a 15 minute response but all that goes on social media is a 15 second clip that shows an action without context.

Quite often it's a lose/lose proposition that an officer finds themselves in where no matter what happens either they end up badly injured or dead or they take action that is justifiable but then find themselves totally destroyed in the media and the focus of great hatred because people lie about the incident or releas edited video or any combination of that and more.

You can look at what happened in Charlotte last year as a great example. Perfectly legitimate use of force against a person with a history of violent behavior with an illegally carried gun refusing to drop the gun or follow any commands.

Immediate reaction was attacks on the officers with all sorts of false narratives- he didn't have a gun, he's not a violent person, he was just sitting there reading a book all were proven false. But the attacks on the officers character and reputation and threats made to them and their families were real.

You are seeing reports now more and more of arrests being down in places like LA and Chicago despite crime going up. And a lot of that is blowback from the constant attacks on police just for doing their job. You can do your job to the best of your ability and get out there trying to do as much possible and get as many criminals off the street, or you can do the bare minimum required not to get fired and make sure all calls have at least two officers so you have a witness even if it means a delayed response. Well when you feel like your job is in danger at every single call because people will misrepresent what happens if things force you to make hard choices you are no longer eager to go on calls- limiting the number of calls you answer a shift and demanding two officer response on all calls means less risk.

In all those areas where officers are backing off enforcement because they feel that way it is just the community getting what they are asking for.