A Policeman's Lot Is Not A Happy One

Police work can be incredibly stressful. Working the streets in a high crime area dealing with call after call, violent criminals,  hostile complainants, a hostile city administration and liberal courts breathing down your neck makes it worse. I wonder why I put up with it so long...

Four NYPD officers were murdered last year. So far in 2016, thirteen officers across the US have been shot to death and one killed via vehicular assault.

Therefore the results of a NYPD police union poll are not surprising:

The vast majority of NYPD officers who answered a new survey hate their jobs and believe they were a lot safer before Mayor de Blasio and Police Commissioner Bill Bratton took office, according to a new survey by the city’s police union.

The polling of more than 6,000 of the NYPD’s roughly 24,000 rank-and-file revealed a resounding lack of passion for the job, with cops on average rating morale at just 2.49 on a scale of 1 to 10.

“The results of this survey prove what we’ve been hearing time and time again from members over the past two years — the job is more difficult than ever, the dangers are greater, and morale is extremely low,” said Patrick Lynch, president of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association.

The City's self-serving, nonsensical response is also not surprising. Story here.

Listen To Your Dad

It may very well be a tempest in a small to middling-sized teapot, but it is getting interesting.

Quentin Tarantino's father, actor Tony Tarantino, became a member of the NYPD PBA in protest at his son's actions.

Add another bellow from the police unions condemning director Quentin Tarantino and his movies, plus a slap from his own father, amidst continuing deafening silence from the Oscar-winning filmmaker.

"I love my son and have great respect for him as an artist but he is dead wrong in calling police officers, particularly in New York City where I grew up, murderers," said actor Tony Tarantino in a statement released Friday by the New York Police Patrolmen's Benevolent Association.

"He is a passionate man and that comes out in his art but sometimes he lets his passion blind him to the facts and to reality."

Police unions in New York, Philadelphia and Los Angeles have already called for a boycott of Tarantino films — his latest, The Hateful Eight, lands on Christmas Day — and now the New Jersey State Police Benevolent Association has joined the shame-on-Tarantino chorus.

More here.

Police Boycott Tarantino

Three large police unions are manifesting their displeasure with the actions of movie producer Quentin Tarantino by calling for a boycott of his latest movie.

A third major police union has added its voice to calls for a boycott of Quentin Tarantino’s movies, after the Oscar-winning film-maker spoke at a rally against police brutality in New York.

NYPD union boss urges Tarantino film boycott over director's comments

John McNesby, president of the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5, said the organisation had voted unanimously to join the protest. Patrick Lynch, president of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association in New York, first mooted the boycott on Monday and has since also received backing from the Los Angeles Police Protective League.

“Tarantino has shown through his actions that he is anti-police,” McNesby said in a statement. “Mr Tarantino has made a good living through his films, projecting into society at large violence and respect for criminals; it turns out he also hates cops.”

Tarantino joined three days of protests in New York last week organised by Rise Up October, a group opposing police violence and what organisers call a “genocidal assault on black and Latino people in this country”. Police unions have criticised the film-maker for appearing at the rally and labelling killings by police as “murder” a week after NYPD officer Randolph Holder was fatally shot in the city.

Tarantino has also received criticism from conservative commentators such as Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly, who said the film-maker had “ruined his career” following the remarks. The Pulp Fiction director, whose new film The Hateful Eight debuts in the US on Christmas Day, has not responded to talk of a boycott.

Historically, boycotts of popular movies generally do not work. [As this movie will not be released until Christmas, the author of the article cannot know if it will be popular or not ~sig94]

As they say; bad publicity is better  than no publicity. I wonder if he spoke as he did hoping to provoke this reaction?

Police Officers Killed In the Line Of Duty

I often go to this site, the Officer Down Memorial Page, and read about my fallen brothers. Last night was different, I downloaded ten years of Police Line Of Duty (LOD) deaths. I did this not from some macabre urge but from statistical curiosity - I have done law enforcement analysis for decades and wanted to see if this year's recent spike was part of a larger trend.

After compiling the LOD deaths for the period 2005 through 2014, I compared the total deaths per state with each state's estimated 2012 population and arrived at the following rankings of LOD deaths per 100,000 population for each state. Even though the number of deaths for these jurisdictions are listed, I did not include LOD figures for Guam, American Samoa, Puerto Rico, Railroad Police, Tribal Police, US Government or the Virgin Islands.

For the fifty states and the District of Columbia, there were 1,414 Police LOD deaths within a total population of 313,940,610 citizens, resulting in a national average of 0.45 Police LOD deaths per 100,000. These deaths of course are not all murders and not all LOD murders are committed with a firearm. LOD deaths include accidents, drownings, plane crashes, you name it.

The following states are the most deadly for police officers:

If Puerto Rico was a state it would rank as the third most dangerous with a LOD ratio of 0.91.

Funny thing - the state with the toughest gun control laws in the country had the most LOD deaths and is one of the 10 deadliest states for police officers. That's right New York, we're talking about you.

These states have the lowest LOD ratios: 

Another funny thing - the safest state for cops in the country, Vermont, is a shall issue state; no pistol license required. Vermont pistol laws:

Concealed Permit:
It is lawful to carry a firearm openly or concealed provided the firearm is not carried with the intent or avowed purpose of injuring a fellow
man. There is no permit required to carry concealed.

Requirements:
1. Be of age. In the state of Vermont, that age is 16 or older. You must be at least 16 years of age to legally purchase a gun and keep it loaded on your person in public.
2. Obtain permission from a parent or guardian to carry a gun if you’re under the age of 16. Failure to do so may result in being deemed a delinquent child by the state.
3. Have a clean record if purchasing a firearm. Things like felony convictions and dishonorable military discharge will show up during the federal instant check, and prohibit purchase.

For those interested, the following chart covers all states in alphabetical order with their ranking. The lowest numbers still indicate the highest level of Police LOD deaths.

So far this year, 83 officers have died LOD and 24 of them were by gunfire

The highest number of Police LOD deaths was in 1974; 280 officers were killed that year, half (140) were indeed killed by gunfire. . I joined my department that year. NYS did not start issuing body armor for cops until 1980. You best believe I bought my own Second Chance ballistic vest as soon as I got out of the academy.