The plot of the Amazon Prime video series The Terminal List is a conspiracy by the government to infect tier one troops - fatally. Robocop follows a similar plotline. If you watched The Manchurian Candidate, the one with Frank Sinatra and Angela Lansbury, in the end, there was institutional betrayal, by drugging and indoctrination and treating our best and brightest like guinea pigs.
About 18 months ago, I received a call from Dr. Travis Yates. He began the call: “Roland, you’re not going to believe this!” What he found out recently should shock you. Can we really be in a situation due to policy, harm to first responders was an acceptable outcome? About 13 years ago I would have had a hard time believing that, but then I was mandated to attend hours of training with our partners from the ‘Peace and Justice Initiative’ from our local community college.
Every police and fire employee in the city were subjected to the attempted indoctrination with the disproven bunk science of implicit bias and microaggressions. These trainings missed their target of persuading every firefighter and police officer that they were enemies of minorities but was clear was that we were put on notice: any accusations of discrimination or racism, regardless of merit, would mean not only our jobs would be on the line, but also our freedom.
Years ago, Dr. Yates and I found a common origin for what has been referred to as anti-police sentiment by mainstream media since Ferguson, except we found the root, prior to Arab Spring, came about in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The 21st Century Task Force on Policing
Collogues and friends of mine were a part of these meetings in the White House Eisenhower Executive Office Building in 2015. This could have been a wonderful advance to policing. It could have focused federal dollars to thriving programs in need. Sadly, the conclusions were determined well before the process.
Supposed pillars of this overall report were transparency, accountability and community trust, and the recommendations were higher guardrails, more surveillance, and more training for de-escalation.
Trust rankings have never been a real problem for policing but few law enforcement professionals know this. Polls on trust regularly rank police officers far higher than teachers, surgeons, reporters and especially politicians. Even after the politicians and the media did their best to destroy law enforcement credibility, despite a drop of 6 or 7 percent, law enforcement officers were still way above religious leaders, high school teachers, politicians and the media. This was discussed in one of my previous articles from 2023 linked here:
Two unremarkable cases
Keep in mind that from 2009 to 2012, despite fine tooth comb investigations of every officer-involved death, activists found no traction. Isn’t that a significant testimony of the integrity of our 800,000 peace officers? Two cases gained national attention but neither were remarkable in any way. Both of these cases, both technically self defense cases, were solved by traditional means, by truthful and deceptive testimony and forensic evidence. Neither case benefited from cell phone data or surveillance video.
That ceased in 2012 with the new activists from the ‘free-pizza’ Occupy Wall Street movement seizing upon the death of Trayvon Martin who died in Sanford, Florida attacking and trying to murder George Zimmerman. The designation of neighborhood watch volunteer and police applicant was the only way to link law enforcement to the unarmed black attacker. Zimmerman wasn’t the police, but calling him the neighborhood watch volunteer made him ‘police adjacent.’
Martin, a teenager from Miami Gardens, about 230 miles away, had no identification on requiring Sanford Police detectives to canvas with a photo of him deceased in an attempt to find a living relative. No one had reported him missing.
At the end of his statement, treated for wounds on the back of his head and his face, Zimmerman volunteered this statement still bloody with evident injuries:
Investigator Singleton: Okay. Okay. Okay, so he’s hitting your head
George Zimmerman: Yes, ma’am. As I went to sit up, then he grabbed me by the, the front of my head and started banging it into the -
Investigator Singleton: And that’s when you could look either to your left or right and you could see this guy? And you were saying help me?
George Zimmennan: I don’t remember. I screamed help me probably 50 times as loud as I could.
This statement was provided voluntarily to the police while Zimmerman was not charged with any crime. He was given a check up on scene by EMS and declined further medical treatment despite obvious head wounds front and back. The next day, Zimmerman voluntarily participated in an on-site recreation of the events, recorded on video by Sanford Police.
The death of Martin ignited Alinsky style activists, leading to racial tensions including an occupation of the Florida Governor’s office by the Dream Defenders. Two Florida civil rights attorneys, Benjamin Crump and Natalie Jackson, having no functional role in the criminal case, introduced at least one false witness that instigated the criminal case against Zimmerman, an offense and ethical violation that justified their permanent disbarment equally to the prosecutor Bernie De la Rionda who knowingly put her on the stand.
The July 2013 acquittal of Zimmerman did not quench the bloodlust of the media. Quite the opposite. The new leftist activists began using this case as an example of injustice and confirmation of longstanding ethnic grievance. The next big case birthed the Black Lives Matter movement.
Following the justified officer involved shooting death of police attacker Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri another fabricated narrative created an opportunity for the race grifters to forment synthetic division. Brown had immediately prior committed a violent robbery at a convenience store when he was stopped for walking down the center, the double yellow line, of the roadway by an officer. Brown was experiencing cannabis intoxication, according to the Department of Justice investigation and manifested psychosis consistent with his level of THC.
The official DOJ report states:
Brown tested positive for the presence of cannabinoids, the hallucinogenic substances associated with marijuana use. The SLU Toxicology Laboratory found 12 nanograms per milliliter of Delta-9-THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, where AFMES found 11 nanograms per milliliter of Delta-9-THC in Brown’s blood.
According to both laboratories, these levels of Delta-9-THC are consistent with Brown having ingested THC within a few hours before his death. This concentration of THC would have rendered Brown impaired at the time of his death. As a general matter, this level of impairment can alter one’s perception of time and space, but the extent to which this was true in Brown’s case cannot be determined.
The dozens of false witnesses experienced the fatigue of being impeached by the grand jury. They complained repeatedly of being exposed as liars and frauds. One false witness complained, you’ve proven that I wasn’t there and that I didn’t see what I claim to have seen, so why do you keep calling and subpoenaing me? Even Eric Holder’s Department of Justice couldn’t find any fault in Darren Wilson’s deadly force response to Brown’s bold attack.
If your position is pro-body worn camera, this case is credited as the turning point for the need for body worn cameras, yet this stands out as the textbook case for why police don’t need body worn camera. Despite this being described as a story with two sides, only one side of the testimony offered was consistent with the evidence inside the vehicle, the firearm, the suspect injuries and wounds, and the laws of physics. We need to understand that the most pivotal and controversial case to date was resolved by conventional evidence and testimony.
Trading tangible safety for intangible community trust
De-escalation works 100% of the time when the suspect deescalates and only when the suspect de-escalates. It has never worked when suspects and criminals have made the decision to resist and attack. My academy training was helpful but woefully primitive. A warning sign that someone is getting ready to fight with you is that they stop listening and begin taking off their jewelry and eyewear. After about 18 months solo, I got a clue and began to see the obvious coming and would have non-emergency assistance, our signal 45 – the lowest level of backup – either on-scene or real close, as the suspect was approaching peak confidence.
Later in my career, every season, I was assigned to organize field operations during school summer break, the fall and spring school semesters, and a fifty-day holiday shopping detail. One officer and I would partner up to get out in the field as he loved self-initiated activity. His resume included author, actor, international security expert and probably a few qualifications that exceed my security clearance. He had a gifting, backed by some top tier training, he was and is, someone who is as intuitively aware as he is tactically aware. To me, a uniformed civilian employee in high-risk situations, he was the keeper of the lost art, like someone who lived Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. He instinctually recognized who in the situation was about cause trouble and would get close to them. By close, a quarter of an inch. He was repeatedly consistent and that is not redundant. How do we take what he has and bottle it for the next generation?
Why I recommend FOCUS Certified Training
As noble as de-escalation sounds, it is not, and never will be, a one size fits all solution for all situations. It may sound easy to agree about that. You wouldn’t know that by the laws written during the last decade that mandate de-escalation. In some states, an officer’s failure to de-escalate is no longer just a training issue or a policy violation. It can be used to charge that officer with a crime. Some from states you wouldn’t expect.
Mandatory de-escalation is a thing. America is paying the price. Attacks on officers have reached an all-time high. This is not limited to cops on the beat but anyone wearing a police uniform including CSI and Communications Operators. Dumb political moves make everything more dangerous for everybody.
That is why FOCUS training is so vital in today’s law enforcement environment. Last month I was honored to host this training during its inaugural session in Florida. Seeing young officers excited to put their new skills into practice was an unexpected reward. To bring FOCUS Certified Training to your agency, visit https://tacbehavior.com
Please keep all peace officers and first responders in your prayers.
Roland Clee served a major Florida police department as a Community Service Officer for more than 26 years. His career included uniformed patrol, training, media relations, intelligence, criminal investigations, and chief’s staff. He writes the American Peace Officer newsletter, speaks at public safety, recruiting and leadership conferences and helps local governments and public safety agencies through his business, CommandStaffConsulting.com.
His work is frequently featured on LawOfficer.com, the only law enforcement owned major media presence in the public safety realm.
For media interviews and podcast appearances, click here: http://bit.ly/40pT3NS
References
https://famous-trials.civilaw.tech/images/ftrials/zimmerman/documents/Zimmerman_Police_Interview.pdf
