Comments

1
I won't believe there are good cops until they demand he steps down as president.
This kind of rhetoric is completely out of step with our city, and out of step with reality.
2
Dear Ron Smith,

The Federal Government isn't creating a War on Cops. Cops throughout this country have created a war on their own citizenry... at least the dark skinned ones.

You can argue about individual cases, but you cannot argue the fact that cops are arresting black and brown citizens at a far higher rate than white citizens despite the fact that whites commit crimes at roughly the same rate. If you are black, you are far more likely to be arrested, be prosecuted, and receive a longer sentence than if you are white.

There is clearly racial bias going on in police forces (and criminal justice system) throughout the country. Minorities didn't cause this. Police did.

By blaming Obama or the Federal government for bringing your own bad deeds into the public light is simply blaming the victim. You damage your own credibility.

You want an end to your "War on Cops"? Then do something yourself to clean your own house. Do something to end racial bias in policing. When that happens, the "War on Cops" will end too. You will regain the public's trust in the police. That trust isn't something you demand in angry Facebook rants. That trust has to be earned. Your statements like this damage that trust, not help it.

Sincerely,

A citizen you are supposed to serve and protect.
3
That is some straight badger business right there. Is that even an interview? You were basically just telling the guy he's an idiot.

Also, although it is equivocating, his words were that the Obama Admininstrations message has *fueled the war on cops. Fox's word was 'created' a war on cops but Smith never went that far, except implicitly in his post. That's a small difference but an important one, and one that you - as someone constantly blowing the horn of journalistic integrity - should know and respect.

This, tho - "Leaders should speak responsibly and not RUSH to judgment with their rhetoric" - just wow. Was he doing some meta-art thing where he talked about himself in the third person/abstract?
4
Of course they believe there's a war on cops. They walk around in military field combat equipment.
5
A moron and his bullshit together again.

This asshole is as bad as his predecessor.

As Kos so eloquently put it this morning:

We have a nation that kills brown people at will, with no repercussions. After hundreds of years of that shit, we finally have a movement exposing that atrocity, and Shaun King is a key figure in that movement. So how does the right wing respond? By "investigating" Shaun, and claiming that he's not black, that he's faking it! Because, you know, being black is the key to becoming a Fortune 500 CEO and a life of richness and success.... Heck, maybe those conservatives believe their nonsense that "the blacks" have it so easy because of affirmative action and other "special" advantages.


http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/08/21…
6
...responsibly, and not create more panic, more fear, more anxiety across this country.


Oh Kimberly Guilfoyle—former First Lady of San Francisco and pride of Daly City—what have the done to you?
7
My favorite part is how this comes less than a month after SPD was invited to White House to be honored as national model for police reform.
8
In other news: Ansel has a Windows Phone. Rep them tiles, Ansel!
9
I definitely support a war on bad cops.
11
It's amazing how powerful President Obama is. He is blamed for EVERY SINGLE THING that happens in this country. Who knew he was the all and powerful OZ? What a joke.
12
@10...

Why don't YOU look it up Mehlman.

You might learn something.
13
@10- Would you care to reply to the actual text you quoted.
14
@11...... It goes with the job, remember the buck stops there; but don't feel so glum, Obama can also claim credit universal health care and turning around the economy.
15
guys, gusy. I think @2 means that caucasoids and negroids use illegal drugs at the same rate, but negroids are arrested and punished disproportionately.
16
He's absolutely right.

Most of us are not being hassled by cops. Far from it! Our neighborhoods are ransacked every day by bangers, pimps and pushers.

The average African-American family, living in a poor neighborhood, is 99% more concerned with having their 13 year old get from the front door to the school without being beaten, conscripted into a gang, or injected with heroin and raped than with being tazed because a cop stopped them for a speeding ticket and they decided to go crazy nuts.

We need more police and we have to stop "Community Policing" and go on a full scale Search And Destroy Mission to end the criminal stranglehold the bad guys -- both legal and illegal -- have on large swatches of metropolitcan real estate.
17
Ansel I am 100 percent in your corner, but you're insufferable.
18
The city could play hardball with SPOG. They've done it before, but not in this generation of leadership, who are so afraid of offending someone somewhere that they wouldn't dare do it.
19
What a dick. And likely a very good representation of many cops both on SPD and off. Though that is a blatant assumption and generalization. I don't care - print it!

Nice job on this Ansel. Usually I find your writing pedantic and that you stir up shit for no good reason other than to be a shit disturber. But this is some of your better work.
21
@14:

No, he doesn't get "credit" for those things; so far as the Right is concerned he gets the "blame" for those things, because no matter what reality looks like, they always find a way to twist even his successes into abject failures. Remember: ANYTHING Obama Does = BAD. If Obama were to miraculously cure all forms of cancer tomorrow, the GOP would find fault. "Obama Devastates Health Care Industry: Thousands of Oncologists Thrown Into Unemployment" or something similar. This is what they DO.
22
"Obama's such a d#$k for trying to f@#k up our illegal abusive racist fun! I joined the force so I could pick on people, beat people up and get away with it - he's expecting me to be like, I dunno, "fair" or somethin'. Thanks Obama!"
24
@18, our current candyassed establishment tool mayor play hardball with SPOG? Are you fucking kidding?
25
Tingleyfeeln dear, wasn't that what I said?
26
I'm sensing that Ansel's continued good relationship with Ron Smith has ended.
27
ha cops are the real victims. don't blame the victims yall /s

The act of sleeping in a room about to be breached by a SWAT team constituted “criminal” conduct on the part of the infant. At the very least, the infant was fully liable for the nearly fatal injuries inflicted on him when Habersham County Sheriff’s Deputy Charles Long blindly heaved a flash-bang grenade – a “destructive device,” as described by the ATF, that when detonated burns at 2,000-3,500 degrees Fahrenheit – into the crib.
Merely by being in that room, Bou-Bou had assumed the risk of coming under attack by a SWAT team. By impeding the trajectory of that grenade, rather than fleeing from his crib, Bou-Bou failed to “avoid the consequences” of that attack.
In any case, Bou-Bou, along with his parents and his siblings, are fully and exclusively to blame for the injuries that nearly killed the child and left the family with more than one million dollars in medical bills. The SWAT team that invaded the home in Cornelia, Georgia on the basis of a bogus anonymous tip that a $50 drug transaction had occurred there is legally blameless.
According to this researcher, the poor family had to listen to those responsible for the mutilation of their child accuse their infant of bringing it upon himself. Apparently it doesn’t matter that the authorities didn’t do a proper investigation, or that they blindly threw explosives into someone’s home “by mistake,” it was the baby’s fault.

In his report, Grigg explains how Baby Bou is the chief plaintiff, and notes the claims made in the Tenth Defense (see page 35) that the injuries and damages “were caused by the deliberate, criminal conduct of plaintiffs.” As the department has failed to specifically denote the parents as the plaintiffs, the defense mounted on behalf of Sheriff Joey and his minions focused squarely on the lead plaintiff, the infant who was nearly murdered in his sleep.

Read more at http://thefreethoughtproject.com/infant-…
28
In Spokane... Otto Zehm, Pastor Creach.

"Kill the Messenger".

"The Mena Connection".

http://thefreethoughtproject.com/
29
"Chicago, Baltimore, DC and others have a homicide rate 10x ours"
Not strictly true. Seattle has a homicide rate of 3.7 per 100k per year. Chicago's is 18.5, Baltimore's is 34.9, and DC's is 13.9. He comes close at the Seattle-Baltimore comparison (about a 9.4-fold difference) but is nowhere near the mark at the other two. In fact, only two American cities have a murder rate of 10x or greater that of Seattle: Detroit and New Orleans. (Using 2012 numbers.)

What is it with people picking on Chicago, anyway? Sure there's a LOT of murders there, but that's more that it's a big city than anything else. It's not particularly bad, as far as enormous cities go, and it's a hell of a lot safer than a lot of smaller or wealthier cities. Is it the Prohibition-era mob violence? The past horrors of Cabrini-Green? The fact that it's a Democratic stronghold and Republicans want to score points by attacking it? Eh, fuck 'em anyway.
30
What a fucking cunt
31
De-fund the SPD. Cut their budget by 90%. Keep one tenth of the force, lay off the rest.

Take the money saved and create a new unarmed crisis intervention service to keep order and sort out the usual day to day conflicts that arise in a city. Hand out tickets and do crowd control. We can call these agents cops or police or call them something else. It doesn't matter what we call them. The point is that they're not militarized, and they have no cultural roots with the old SPD. We can't reform the Seattle Police Department, but we can replace it with something else.

The tenth of the SPD that we keep on the payroll can be called by the crisis intervention agency if they really need them. In the rare instance when there's violence and we think the solution is to roll in with a bunch of armed cowboys and escalate it.
33
Actually this whole thing is not entirely about the police but an overall misuse of authority in general. The police are the frontline of every day authority but all forms of authority are misused, especially in education. Teachers are always trying to impose their "beliefs" upon their students, and if you do not tow their line the dish out loads of abuse. Media editors make sure only certain sides of an issue are presented. If you don't donate to the boss's favorite charity you're on his list. There will will be an explosion of anarchy then a wave of fascism.
34
Yet another example of the asinine and inflammatory things police and police supporters say anytime someone attempts to hold them accountable for their actions.

If the Obama Administration Has Created a "War on Cops.” Then Obama is the WORLDS SHITTIEST WARLORD EVER!

According to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund (NLEOMF)

1. There are more than 900,000 sworn law enforcement officers now serving in the United States*

2. In 2014, there were 126 federal, state, local, tribal and territorial officers were killed in the line of duty this year.

3. Of 126 officers 49 were killed in traffic-related, incidents and 27 died due to other causes, such as heart attacks while performing their duties. Leaving 50 officers killed by firearms.

4. Given the "War on Cops,” rhetoric a strong argument could be made to only the 50 officers killed by firearms are casualties of this “War on Cops.” I have chosen to include all 126-officer deaths. If for no other reason than to further prove my point.

5. When you do the math. 126 officer deaths out of 900,000 officers is equal to 0.014% Or 1 officer out of every 7,142 officers. Hardly a war.

NOTE: In 2013, 167 out of 900,000 women in the U.S. died in childbirth.
35
Ron Smith, you have no right to patrol my streets by your own words. So get the fuck out if my city, you fascist, Alex Jones worshipping intellectual shit stain.
36
@3 and @17 are right. That to me wasn't an interview, that's just harassing to get a quote.
37
...and btw, I'm pro reform, but this article is just trying gotcha journalism in the worse way.
39
Repeat after me "what a crock of s#*t"!
40
Why blame Obama? We all know it's the UN's New World Order council.

Thinking outside the box it may just be that God does not like cops. (Due to an unfortunate incident in the deity's youth.)
42
Ansel deserves a Pulitzer for this coverage, and Ron Smith just handed the police chief and Seattle as a whole a huge gift. I almost can't believe this, but I can believe it.

When is the next public hearing on this issue? Ciy council? Ron Smith is obviously delusional, a bit paranoid, likely racist (and I'll bet after his firing stories will come out).

Haha I and two others got lectured about our "comportment and decorum," or lack thereof, at the CPC farce of a public meeting with SPD last week because we had serious questions. I don't care about public safety surveys and I don't care how police conduct investigations. I actually know that already. I care about why are police shooting unarmed citizens and WTF do we allow numbskulls like this racist paranoid on our police force or union or wherever he is.

People need to get their priorities straight in this small town or it's always going to be smalltown. I hope we all can make it to the public hearing on this matter, assuming there will be one.
43
#30 @no excuses, I love you.
44
@pol pot #35, I love you, too. Well said.
45
"Privilege doesn't feel like privilege.
It feels like the way things are.
No reason to be aware of it."
47
Seattleblahs has a cop fetish.
50
@46: No, you fuckwit, he is a journalist. I don't think he's an especially good journalist, but he is employed as a writer and journalist by an actual news publication, and he actually engages in (frivolous and overly slanted, in my opinion) journalistic reporting.
This is your problem; you can't distinguish between your personal like or dislike for something and the actual (il)legitimacy of it. Because you don't like the idea that humans may be negatively affecting the Earth's climate, you insist that all evidence supporting such a notion is fraudulent and invalid. Because you disagree with certain SCOTUS rulings, you refuse to acknowledge the judicial authority of the court. Because you personally disapprove of FDR's policies, you demand that he be remembered as a traitor rather than as one of the five greatest presidents in American history. You're no different from the Birthers who because they dislike President Obama claim that they do not have to respect his authority, or the Sovereign Citizens who deny the civil authority of all governments here in the States.

It all comes back to the greater problem of your megalomania and egocentrism. You believe (apparently in earnest) that you alone determine what is true and what is false and that all conflicting beliefs are inherently wrong. You want to make reality fit your opinions instead of the other way around. What a blind fool you are, believing that you know everything or, in fact, anything.
51
@50 - Yes. Yes, yes, yes.
52
Where are the good, morally decent SPD cops who really could end all this insanely corrupted SPOG bullshit?
53
@52, Part II: By the way, I already knew to skim past reading the Ron Smith Blog altogether. FOX is clearly not news; only rantings by the most clueless of extremist asshats and bimbos waxing pathetic.
55
If there is a "war on cops," it was not started by Obama. Such scapegoating is the hallmark of small minds. Any backlash against the police is due to their own actions. This type of misconduct by law enforcement has existed in the shadows for many decades. It is finally getting exposed due to the ability of regular people to videotape and disseminate the misconduct. Blaming Obama is so predictable, and tired, frankly. What will they do when their boogey man ends his term?
56
And there go Seattleblues' posts again.

I know I'm not the boss of you, SLOG administrators, but I can't help but think that every time you delete Seattleblues' vile sophistry, his conception of himself as a threat, as a warrior speaking truth to the barbarian hordes on behalf of the silent majority, is confirmed. I can imagine nothing more dangerous.

Better to leave him to have his words judged on their merits, or on the counterarguments against them, that he may be stripped ever more naked in front of the eyes of your readership, until his shrill tantrums dry to a raspy whisper, and he either finds shame and becomes something close to human or he wanders off, muttering to himself, to die, friendless, in the outskirts of civilization.
57
I call bullshit on this.
I've held my tongue until now.
I read an article today about how they took down the sniper in Dallas. He was taken down by the Police with a robot equipped with a bomb.
WTF? A robot equipped bomb? They are the Police.
So much of this began after 9/11 when Homeland Security was created out of the fears of the American Public and the sales pitch of the Bush Administration, all to help "keep us safe."
Police agencies suddenly got many of the same weapons as the Armed Services.
That is not the function of the Police. They are not the Armed Services, nor an extension of the same, their role is to Serve and Protect, period.
All these big boy "toys" have done nothing to serve and protect, they have done harm to the psyche of the American People. I don't want to see the Police driving tanks. It unnerves me.
It is one step closer to the creation of a Militarized Police State, and it must stop.
President Obama hasn't created a war on cops, it's the cops that have overstepped, emboldened by their shiny new playthings over the past decade.

Please wait...

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