You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
Being a cop now-a-days.
I wake up Tuesday to a number of officers texting me saying “have you seen this?”
I click on the link.
I’m appalled. I’m amazed.
“Where the hell did this come from?” I say aloud.
It’s vertical, and grainy, and badly shot.
What the video lacks in photographic quality, it more than makes up for in angry rhetoric.
In the shadow of Ferguson and angry marches across this great land, the video takes on a new reality.
In the light of two NYPD officers gunned down simply because they wear a uniform, the video seems poignant, almost scary to watch.
By all accounts this is a common arrest.
In a world before Ferguson, this wouldn’t make the news.
In a world before Zimmerman, these punk ass kids shut their traps and say “yes sir” and move on.
But now-a-days, any punk with a bad attitude and misguided thought can instigate trouble.
Today almost anything can get a cop killed.
It starts with an 18-year-old kid on the basketball court. 2 Metro Nashville cops spot him and take him into custody.
The teen has an outstanding warrant for a probation violation out of Juvenile Hall.
It’s a mundane police procedure at best.
Pick the kid up and haul him to juvy.
The video begins with the officers walking the suspect to a nearby patrol car.
But then the kid’s friends, armed with smart phones begin taping the arrest.
They are not quiet observers.
They are street angry and the English language is being decimated.
They tell the officers “this aint Ferguson”
“You know how some white people get down.” someone screams in reference to white cops pulling weapons and shooting unarmed black suspects.
“You better tell em you need back up better watch the news to see what’s there,” they say intimating to the officers that the cops will be on the news tonight if anything happens.
“”man they some bitches. I’d beat his ass up if he take off that badge” This is exactly what it sounds like. A threat. An all up in your face challenge to the two officers making the arrest.
“As long as you don’t put your Mother F***** hands on me I don’t give a damn bout no badge.” Another sign of disrespect for law and the people who enforce it.
“We dont’ give a F*** we will take that bullet.” Just a stupid sentence uttered by jackyls with no brain.
“they put hands on you we will put hands on them.” A threat of retaliation if the mob mentality doesn’t like the way the arrest goes down.
And so it goes.
It’s angry. It’s intimidating. It’s thug justice multiplied by mob stupidity.
The female officer could be overwhelmed. I would be. But she is rock solid. She remains calm and does her job. She explains to the animated crowd there are active warrants. She tells them to back up.
But things get crazy for about 20 seconds when the crowd incites the teen to resist arrest.
Instead of ducking into the back of the police car, he stands on the door jamb, towering over her.
Though he is handcuffed, he bucks up and he resists as she tries to push him into the back seat.
The male officer is off video, and I don’t see much of him. It turns out, he is trying to pull the suspect into the back seat from the other side.
The crowd closes in, and the female feels it.
She gives them a look and shouts, “Back up.”
She finally gets the man into the squad car and moves the crowd back with a stare.
The crowd is defiant, angry, blatantly talking about shooting the officers.
It’s a total lack of respect for law and order.
It’s a lack of respect for the badge.
The cops do a fantastic job of keeping their cool and not escalating the situation.
The law officers never put hands on anyone, nor do they pull their weapons.
I am not sure I would be so forgiving, so patient.
I would have called for back up and I would have pulled my gun.
If anyone got near me, telling me they were going to shoot me, I would have given them a new hole to look through in their skull.
I’d sort it out later.
I’m going home.
If you can’t respect the police, then you get what you get.
It’s not that hard.
When the cops are working, get out of their way. Don’t threaten to kill them.
If you do threaten to kill them and they kill you, then you get what you get, a dirt nap.
Threaten the badge with violence and you get what you get. A new porthole vent in your noggin.
Sorry. Life’s a bitch when you act like a bitch.
So to the Metro cops who kept their cool and went home alive with a bad guy in the back seat, Kudos to you.
To the punks who try to intimidate hard working men and women and butcher the English language while doing it, I expect to see a crying momma some day sporting an RIP t shirt with your face on it.
Your momma might cry.
I sure won’t.
Learn some damn manners street thug.
Respect the badge.
Life’s Crazy™