Stopping Police Ambushes

It is all so easy. Stir up emotions, call police systemically racist, defund them, vilify those who protect you every day, then watch American towns overrun by violence and drugs, lives shattered by reckless words, police ambushes, and suicides at a record. Just walk away, and blame others. No. No. No. Democrats own these police ambushes, just as they own the record homicides, carjackings, and police deaths.

Last week again, America saw another funeral for police officers ambushed by those who have been encouraged to attack them, to see them as targets, to miscast selfless heroes as malicious villains, to serve the indefensible mission of demeaning police to advance political careers. No. No. No.

How else can we say it, but NO! This kind of bold untruth – assessing all police as evil because a few overuse, misuse, or personally abuse their authority – has got to stop. Are all professional athletes drug users or domestic abusers because a few are? Are all lawyers and politicians corrupt because some are?

Democrats are disowning, ignoring, and blaming others for what they clearly created – a culture of general disrespect, distrust, and dangerous justification for violence against police. It must stop, or the rule of law will fall, police will disengage, recruiting and retention follow dismal morale, life get worse.

Direct and indirect effects of defunding, demoralizing, and disenfranchising police – at the local, State and Federal levels – are being felt everywhere now. 

In Nevada, five deputy sheriffs get hospitalized for exposure to fentanyl, and “dirt weed” marijuana is covered in it, potencies rising with border gaps, parents grieving by thousands.

In Connecticut, thousands of police gather to commemorate two more officers killed in yet another police ambush for doing their job, protecting those who need their protection – including the unconscionable critics of their life mission and selfless devotion.

Frankly, Democrats – and any Independents or Republicans – who rail against police, who urged their defunding, who lumped them together and decried their professionalism, who allowed border gaps in the name of hating Trump, who look the other way at drug legalization and overdoses, deserve to go.

Can we continue to tolerate, stay silent, shrug, and not care about those who – with their lives and families and devotion – defend us? No. No. No. This craziness has gone far enough.

The number of US police officers murdered is up 59 percent this year. In 2021, 73 officers fell to “felonious killings,” and many more were shot just for being an officer. All this follows organized orchestration and highly violent riots in 2020, which continued into 2021.

Police officers face risk of death every day, more as drug traffickers, hardened cartel operatives, homicides, and criminal violence widens – a product of the under-protected southern border, under-funded police departments, under-attended police academies, and demoralized forces. 

While elevated risk lies firmly at the feet of Democrats who senselessly pushed anti-police policies, for a variety of political reasons, the number of police ambushes and suicides is stunning. Is that just something voters should shrug at? Is that okay in a nation dependent on rule of law? No. No. No.

In short, we are approaching yet another inflection point. This one relates to rule of law. It is not about the economy, foreign policy, traditional national security, China, or some abstract policy. It is about what happens in our town, in our county, on our block, in our lives – and it is getting out of control. 

Bottom line: Republicans – whether you love or hate Donald Trump – did not advocate for defunding, demoralizing, demeaning, or demonizing police. They argued for prudent, specific, evidence-based police reform – especially via US Senator Tim Scott’s reform bill. He is a level-headed, reason-based black Republican. Senate Democrats blocked his reform bill, so they could claim there was none.

Is all this fair, right, good for America, honest, or any way to support and care for those who give their lives for us, who risk their lives and families for this country, who are overwhelmingly devoted to your safety, your race notwithstanding? Is this the way any politician should treat them? No. No. No.

Is there an answer? Yes. This tragedy, which continues to devastate America’s law enforcement community, diminishing their sacrifices at all levels, can be stopped. It lies – especially ambushes, like the one last week – at the feet of “Defund Democrats.” Should they go? Yes. Yes. Yes. It is time.