Two cops shot. The shooter targeted them and espoused hatred for law enforcement officers before pulling the trigger.
The public was outraged and public safety threatened.
But unlike New York City, there were little to no invectives against public officials when these two Pennsylvania officers were shot. There was no blame or heated rhetoric. No mention of “blood being on the hands” of Pa. Gov. Tom Corbett. There were no Rudy Giuliani stings and blame on President Barack Obama and protesters around the country calling attention to the chronic problem of unarmed Black men dying at the hands of police, or want-to-be cops like George Zimmerman who fatally shot Trayvon Martin.
But when Eric Frein ambushed two Pa. state troopers with a high-powered rifle in Blooming Grove in September, there was little to no blame cast from police organizations, even though he killed Cpl. Bryon Dickson and critically wounded Trooper Alex Douglass.
Frein said he carried out the attack to “wake people up.” He told police afterward the ambush was “an assassination.”
Two cops shot. The shooters targeted them and espoused hatred for law enforcement officers before pulling the trigger.
This time, the tragedy happened in Las Vegas in June. Officers Igor Soldo and Alyn Beck were gunned down by a man and his wife who officials said “thought police were the oppressors.”
Jerad Miller and his wife, Amanda, killed themselves shortly after they shot the officers and a nearby bystander. The couple had recently visited and supported Cliven Bundy, a western rancher whose supporters — who thought he was a darling of the “patriot” movement — were locked in an armed standoff with federal officials.
Again, no outcry from police organizations about the perpetrators or their politics. No mentions of blood on the hands of public officials. This, even with the charged rhetoric of 2012 Nevada U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle who called for “Second Amendment remedies” to political standoffs, including with Obama.
The Second Amendment is a favorite of gun enthusiasts. It details the right of Americans to own guns.
The only common denominator the perpetrators of these heinous crimes seem to share is some level of mental illness and the availability of a firearm. That includes the most recent sicko, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, who gunned down two New York City police officers earlier this month. He fatally shot himself moments later.
Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey, who heads a national panel on policing practices, was right when he said the comments of New York police union leader Patrick Lynch about blood on Mayor de Blasio’s hands were “not helpful.”
Too true.
Not helpful and not accurate.
(Reprinted from the Philadelphia Tribune)
