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What is in a Name?

As a result of the Movement to Defund the Police, Police Departments are facing the same issue that Animal Control organizations have faced for years.  For some reason,  Community leaders think that an organization’s name is everything.  Animal Control Officers have faced the gambit of Pound, to Animal Control, to Animal Services, to Animal Care and Protective Services.  The fact is that changing a name does little.  If you want to see more community support, you need to fund the organization sufficiently to allow it to do their job.

Police Departments are undergoing name changes to Department of Public Services.  To me, a “public service” includes trash pickup.  The purpose of Defunding the Police movement is to stop officers from arresting people.  The fewer people arrested of minor crimes will reduce the number of minorities going to jail.  If a community is serious about wanting every community to be treated the same, then the solution is to fund racial sensitivity training to encourage our officers to see into the mind of the minorities that they come in contact with.  I am not talking about the idiotic training that claims that there is something wrong with people born white.  Racial equality is not reached by suppressing whites.  Racial equality is to show the community that everyone is treated the same.  It should  also show that when arrested, that people should act the same.  If you act like a butthead when you are arrested, you should not expect the same treatment as someone how respects the officer arresting you.

Changing the name of an organization will do nothing.   It takes the proper funding and attention to an organization to facilitate change.  It should not restrict an officer from applying the sufficient force to keep from getting hurt, or doing their jobs.  The best thing that a community can give to their employees is to provide them the necessary training to do their jobs correctly.  Unfortunately, during budget cuts, employee training is the first to go.

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The Evolution of Riot Control. When are we going to learn?

This is an odd topic to be found on this blog, but images of the “peaceful protects” that I’ve seen on the nightly news appear similar to watching a dog fight.   As an old cop, I am puzzled as to the current state of police officer tactics in performing crowd control.

I entered the field of law enforcement as a military cop in the early 70s. Crowd (riot) control was administered by pushing crowds using psychology; military personnel put their bayonette on their M-16s and used a technique of “stomp and drag” to maneuver the crowd. Stomp and drag was how the military personnel moved, by stomping their left foot forward and dragging their right foot up to their left foot. The cadence was very effect, but hard on the sole of your right boot. Even sheaving the bayonette, it was an impressive sight.

The next iteration was using shield and batons to physically push crowds where you want them. This is the technique that I think police are attempting to use ineffectively because they are missing the most important element of using water cannons. Modern day looters like to set fires, fire trucks are the perfect solution to today’s crowd control. Water cannons (fire hoses) can be used to push rioters back, while putting out the fires that the looters started. I am sure that politics play into the role, or lack of role, of bringing fire trucks in at the start of riot, but wait until the neighborhood is in flames. I have to say that water cannons were the most effective crowd control device of all times. As a K-9 officer, we and our dogs were pale in the face of the effective use of those cannons. Although, I have seen the effect of turning loose a dog to get the attention of a crowd.

As best as I can tell, the current technique in crowd control is what I would refer to as a “snowball fight.” A snowball fight is where one side lobs over a bunch of “snowballs” and then the other side lobs some back. In the old days, kids would cheat by putting a rock inside a snowball; now  people put gasoline inside bottles. The side with the most snowballs won.

A rule that seems to be forgotten is in the old days, if you showed up at a snowball fight, you were a participant. Today, we have a new term of “innocent bystander.” So, a person can decide at will if they are an active participant or step back from the action and call themselves an innocent bystander. The media seems to think that if they are in the midst of a snowball fight, they are protected. If you stand on one side, you might get tear gassed or hit with a rubber bullet; but, if you stand on the other side, you get hit with gasoline, fireworks and blinded by lasers. Protesters are cleverly disguising themselves as media personnel in hopes of using that as camouflage to get closer to the police lines.

So, politicians have stepped up to determine the rules of engagement, limiting the types of snowballs that the police can use. So you take away all of law enforcement’s snowballs and you are left with a lopsided playing field. The politicians have not even asked that the protesters put down their maultoff cocktails because they don’t want to recognize that the protests have become violent.  As some politicians call it, “A summer of love.”

After we have learned our lesson from the idiot idea to defund our police, I hope that when we restore the police to their rightful place and that we give them the tools to property do their jobs. I suspect that companies that sell riot control vehicles are going to make a lot of money as we look back to our current failure in handling angry mobs. We were ill prepared and the politics worked in favor of mob rule.

If, on the off chance that you came across this blog in a search for your new riot control vehicle.  I have found that the water hoses mounted at bumper level appear to be most effective.  It is like playing pool in which you put the rioter “in the corner pocket.”  These vehicles make is safer for the police and less harmful to the mob.

Since this is my blog, I would like to make some recommendations:  paint ball guns can be used effectively in riot control. Police can “paint” the rioters with permanent dye or skunk oil (or both).  The dye helps identify who attended the riot and the skunk oil helps the rioters decide if they want to come back the following night.  A word of caution, skunk oil will cause the riot area to stink for months, as anyone would know who has driven a country road.

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Cancel Culture

I believe that social media laid the fertile ground for what we now know as the cancel culture. I see social media as the ossuary of the human mind. It might help that we explore the evolution of this culture.

I witnessed a group of insecure people looking for validation among people who they wanted to be their friends. In the animal welfare movement, people found kinship in animals. To garner attention, people would get themselves talked into adopting animals and later cast out for returning the animal that they were ill prepared to care for.  In an effort to be liked, they were cast off. 

Next came the Me Too movement that was intended to give women a voice,  Clearly something that everyone should embrace; but it gave forum to women who abused their new found authority to showcase that men were seen as people with uncontrollable toxic masculinity; thereby untrustworthy. Woman had the upper hand and even their lies would ring true.  This movement said that only women could be trusted.

We have entered the Black Lives Matter culture, one that I embrace because I believe all lives matter; however, this movement was hijacked to push the message that it is wrong to be white and the police are evil. Oddly, every time people protest on behalf of black lives, violence breaks out and looting begins. The only way that you can truly express your support is through acts of destruction.  This hijacked movement says that it is wrong to be white (and books have been written to help us understand our failings) police need to be eliminated..

It is not surprising that crime is on the rise. Communities are now instructing their citizens to surrender to an assault and give the criminals what they want. I am sure that telling people to back down is not going to decrease the crime.  This movement says that police cannot be trusted.  The best way to control our police is to eliminate them.  In my mind, only criminals would support such a concept.   The problem in government service is that training is the first line item to be eliminated during budget cuts.  If there is a problem with a few police officers, then funding needs to be increased for training and for greater supervision.  

We are being asked to now cancel our lives. Allow ourselves to be victims and hope that we are not killed in the process.  But I digress, this is a blog about animal welfare, where we have been engage in the cancel culture for years.

Pitbull dogs can relate to the Defund the Police movement, in that a few bad dogs paved the way for cities to completely ban the breed.   That is the problem with our cancel culture; a few bad eggs cause the carton to be thrown out.  Of course, in our current age of overreaction,  the chicken coop is burned to the ground and looted.

We are all subject to this cancel culture.  I started boycotting a company that wanted to show how Woke they were by attaching their company to the cause de jure.  When you ostracize half of your customer base, you have to expect to lose some customers.  Some of us are so hard headed that we find it difficult to find a middle ground.

Sometimes we just need to step back, take a breath and try to find that portion of our being where our conscience resides.   We need to rise up against the insanity of our times.   If a cause is worthwhile, then it should be protected from those that would abuse it.