The Washington Post published an article with a tantalizing headline: “Killings by police brought reforms. Fear of crime is unraveling them.”
Well, of course, I thought. That’s good news. The article detailed efforts in various cities citing “a groundswell of legislative and voter pushback against [police] reforms initiated” since the George Floyd episode. It quoted a Republican congressman: “We cannot allow any local government to embolden criminals by…demonizing law enforcement.”
The Coalition for a Better Oakland, which is nonpartisan, has been saying that for years.
The article would have been authentic journalism had it simply stuck to the backlash to anti-cop wokeism. But the reporters who wrote it, who are presumably progressives, just had to get their two cents in. “But advocates and experts said there is still much work to be done to improve policing…entrenched biases and constitutionally unsound traditions can counteract legislative changes” for greater oversight of cops.
So there it is: the woke Big Lie. Let’s first dispose of the falsehood that cops have “entrenched biases” that result in more people of color being arrested and jailed than White or Asian people. This is a myth that cop haters, like Pamela Price, Carroll Fife, Nikki Bas and Cat Brooks, resort to all the time. When they see the breakdown of criminal arrests and sentences by race—in which Black people indeed are overrepresented compared to their percentage of the population—all they can see is “entrenched biases.” According to their ideology, arrests by skin color should exactly mirror the percentage of the overall population of each racial group. Therefore, if Black people comprise 13.6 percent of the total U.S. population (which they do), then Black people should comprise 13.6 percent of arrests. If the percentage is any higher, it can only be the result of “entrenched biases.”
If the revolt against wokeism accomplishes just one thing, it would be to debunk forever this lie.
Even if you accept that some cops have entrenched biases—after all, most of us, including Black folks, do—that doesn’t mean cops can’t put those biases aside while performing their duties. Most of us do that all the time, especially at work. I believe that cops are able to put their emotions aside and do their jobs legally and professionally. Police training has become much better in these areas, and Oakland, in particular, has some of the best-trained officers in America. That’s why, if you’re an OPD officer looking for a job elsewhere, other police departments are eager to hire you.
Then there’s the article’s phrase, “constitutionally unsound traditions.” What the hell does that mean? Suddenly, the Washington Post’s reporters are constitutional scholars? They cite no examples, but their implication is that police violate the Constitution all the time. This is another aspect of the Big Lie—the same lie that Price, Fife and their cronies constantly tell. I can assure you that, in Oakland, police are very aware of what the laws are that govern their performance. They know they will be in big time trouble if they violate laws, and they take special care to remain within the law. In fact, they take pride in doing so.
As for the claim that “there is still much work to be done to improve policing,” actually, no, there isn’t. OPD knows exactly what it needs, and that’s to be left alone without meddling from outside “oversight” groups like the Police Commission and City Council. Where there is “much work to be done” is in the communities where crime is nourished and flourishes. Parents must do a better job raising kids, and neighbors have to report suspicious characters and known criminals to the authorities.
What I just said is truth. And yet the Big Lie continues to gurgle from the lips of woke politicians and their media enablers.
Steve Heimoff