The right falls for it every time.

There is another insidious, political tactic the left employs, and too many on the right fall for it. The left perpetuates myths such as the Michael Brown “hands up, don’t shoot” fairytale and perpetrate frauds such as the federal consent decrees the DOJ has slapped on more than twenty of the nation’s major police departments including Seattle in a move to quasi-federalize American law enforcement. It was the perennial cop-critic Attorney General Eric Holder’s DOJ (through FBI investigators) that found that Brown never put his hands up in surrender and plead for Officer Wilson not to shoot him. A Seattle University professor proved the data used by the DOJ to extort Seattle into its consent decree was bogus. Regardless of these circumstances, many on the right often concede “a significant problem with the practice of racial bias in the criminal justice system, particularly by police officers, generally, exists.” Why do we do this? Because most people don’t understand police work because the cops’ leaders, largely, suck at teaching society what it does and how and why.

White cops hunting black men? Black Harvard professor says, “No.”

Does it bother anyone when the left asserts that police officers are racist and are “hunting down black men in the streets” when the statistics don’t even approach supporting it? In fact, no one was more surprised than the black, Harvard professor who conducted a newly-released study, which delved into whether or not police officers were killing black men at an inordinate rate. According to the study by Professor Roland Fryer, “Black suspects are actually less likely to be shot than other suspects.” Fryer and his students spent 3,000 hours studying ten major U.S. police departments before arriving at their conclusions.

Why does the left eschew perspective and context?

Does it bother anyone when President Obama and others cite the discrepancy in the rate at which black suspects are shot by police versus white suspect, but they fail to put this statistic into proper context by simultaneously citing the massively lopsided murder rates for black men compared to white and Hispanic men?  Heather MacDonald, in her new book The War on Cops, points out that ProPublica published the results of a study that found, “young black males are 21 times more likely to be shot dead by police than are young white males.” However, MacDonald also points out how misleading this statistic is when not put into the proper perspective—as Paul Harvey might have told us, “…the rest of the story.” MacDonald writes, “…young black men commit homicide at nearly ten times the rate of young white and Hispanic males combined.” Is it any wonder these young men will have lethal contact with police at a disproportionate rate? Why won’t the president put this issue into proper context by supplying both sides of a statistical equation? Could it be that he is more beholding to party and social justice politics than he is to being the president of all Americans?

The left excels at perpetuating myth and fraud.

Regardless of the existence of perception-correcting, contextual data, the myths and frauds continue because the left is deft at corralling the right into accepting a portion of their false premises. The right stipulates to 10% of the left’s argument, thus tacitly quasi-validating the remaining 90%. I just heard one of my favorite radio hosts, Michael Medved, concede that the Minnesota shooting of Philando Castile was “questionable,” and Castile shouldn’t have been shot. The suspect, Castile, is a known criminal with a long record, had reportedly already threatened another person with his gun, which precipitated the 911call, refused to comply with the officers’ instructions, and reportedly still had the gun in his pocket. Michael questioned whether or not the officers were in imminent danger. Well, after over two decades on the streets, I can tell the good talk show host that the danger doesn’t get much more imminent than a suspect armed with a gun. It seems that if Castile had his way, Minnesota would be joining Texas in mourning dead cops.

Stop getting suckered in by the left.

Let’s not get suckered into conceding ground that is ours and on which we should stand firm. While all cops and police departments can always improve, this does not automatically mean that the police, generally, are doing anything wrong. Just because the left doesn’t like the way law enforcement is conducted does not automatically make it bad. Of course, cop-haters don’t like the way law enforcement is done. Even some good citizens don’t like police work when they’re on the violating end of it. When discussing use-of-force policies, I’ve had cop-critics who know me say, “well, you’re not like them (other cops who use force).” I tell them that I’m exactly like the vast majority of cops who used force sparingly but aggressively enough to achieve my law enforcement and officer/public safety goals—before someone shoots me.