'Democrats Side with the Mob, Support Efforts to Defund or Outright Abolish Us - We Must Re-Elect President Donald J. Trump!

'Democrats Side with the Mob, Support Efforts to Defund or Outright Abolish Us
We Must Re-Elect President Donald J. Trump!

For the men and women of our nation’s law enforcement community, President’s Trump’s reelection isn’t just desirable — it’s imperative.

Joe Biden, despite his efforts to play it coy, has directly endorsed the objectives of the "defund the police" movement, sharpening the contrast between his increasingly radical platform and the Trump administration’s consistent support for the law enforcement professionals enforcing our laws and keeping our communities safe.

Trump recently won the endorsement of many police organizations, including this publication, which represents more than 800,000 law enforcement officers nationally.

This is particularly significant in light of the many endorsements of President Obama in 2008 and 2012.

As our nation’s men and women in blue watch the news, many are justifiably horrified.

In New York City, a protester attacked a law enforcement officer with a wooden object, instigating an "all-out brawl" between police officers and protesters armed with wooden bats. Meanwhile, many Democratic elected officials are siding with the mob, supporting efforts to defund or outright abolish local law enforcement agencies and police departments.

Trump, on the other hand, has taken decisive action to protect America’s history and heritage, directing Attorney General William "Bill" Barr (as one example) to prosecute those who damage historical monuments and assault our officers in uniform.

The president has also actively fought for and secured passage of numerous bills to provide support to our men and women in uniform.

Trump’s advocacy for the Law Enforcement Mental Health and Wellness Act is one example of the actions he has taken on behalf of police. During his first year in office, Trump aggressively pushed for Congress to pass this law, which seeks to ensure that our men and women in blue have access to quality mental health treatment if necessary; this is a recognition of the reality that an officer’s mental health is just as critical as their physical health.

Additionally, Trump signed legislation making the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund permanent, appropriating $7.4 billion to benefit the police officers, firefighters and other first responders who sacrificed their own health and safety to save lives on Sept. 11, 2001.

Our nation's 45th president recognizes that these heroes deserve to be rewarded for their courage, not forced to bear the costs of treating medical conditions related to their selfless actions.

Trump has also revitalized the Project Safe Neighborhoods program geared toward reducing violent crime. This initiative seeks to reduce violent crime by coordinating federal, state, tribal and local law enforcement to "develop comprehensive solutions" for reducing violent crime. The revitalized PSN has already made great strides, with Attorney General Barr proclaiming the initiative a "major success."

Donald J. Trump's record of defending law and order and supporting our nation’s law enforcement officers is not only extensive, it's indisputable. On the other hand, and at the opposite end of the spectrum, Joe Biden’s rhetoric makes it abundantly clear that he represents an existential threat to public safety, that is if he ever makes it to the Oval Office.

I ask that every officer in our great country take a moment to think and who supports law enforcement and who is worthy of your vote. Let’s send President Trump back to the White House for another four years.

Congratulations to President Trump for being awarded Blue Magazine’s 2020 Man of the Year. You are most deserving of this award.

As New York City’s 40th Police Commissioner, Bernard Kerik was in command of the NYPD on September 11, 2001, and responsible for the city’s response, rescue, recovery, and the investigative efforts of the most substantial terror attack in world history. His 35-year career has been recognized in more than 100 awards for meritorious and heroic service, including a presidential commendation for heroism by President Ronald Reagan, two Distinguished Service Awards from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, The Ellis Island Medal of Honor, and an appointment as Honorary Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

Trump’s Support For Police Is Undying. Meanwhile, His Opponent's Support is Mediocre.

By David A. Clarke Jr., Sheriff (Ret.) Milwaukee County

www.flickr.com

During my nearly 40 years serving my community from a beat patrol officer working the graveyard shift as it was called, and ending it as the elected sheriff of Milwaukee County, there were several things you could count on as sure as the sun rising in the east and setting in the west. One was that criminals would do what criminals do: commit crime. Another was that law-abiding people wanted to feel safe in their neighborhoods, in their homes and they wanted their children to be safe at school. Police officers have always had the support of the people they served. They still do, and in big numbers.

According to a recent poll by noted pollster Scott Rasmussen, 80% of registered voters agreed that policing is a “noble profession” and that police, “dedicate their lives to upholding the law and protecting the sacred rights of their fellow citizens,” and that they should be shown ”support and respect” for the work they do. A recent Gallup poll of black Americans showed the same support. That poll shows an overwhelming number of black Americans, 81%, support either the same amount or an increased amount of police presence in their neighborhoods. That is a far cry from how police have been slandered in the drive-by liberal media. I challenge anyone reading here to show that level of support for anything in any poll in our deeply divided country.

Once upon a time there was another group whose support police could rely on. They once could trust that politicians as a whole backed the police. It was important to have law enforcement endorsement at election time. If you didn’t have it and your opponent did, voters took note of that. Unfortunately, however, the political class has gotten into bed with the devil as I like to say.  They have cuddled up with groups who hate and despise law enforcement officers and agencies. These groups publicly demonize cops. Even activist prosecutors are now shamefully and with no legal basis making politically motivated decisions on police use of force. The people of ANTIFA and the Marxist organization called Black Lives Matter (BLM) not only both call for the killing of police officers and the overthrow of the US government. They attack police, show up at their homes and terrorize their families. After two Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies were shot in an ambush attack as they sat in their cruisers, these low lifes identifying as BLM showed up at the hospital they were transported to, blocked the entrance and cheered for them to die. Now it has been taken to a new level as law enforcement officers are literally being gunned down in the streets. The response from the political class, mainly from, let’s be honest, notable Democrats to the violence against police has been tepid at best. Their silence is deafening. Their silence speaks volumes. A survey taken several years ago ranking the trustworthiness of 20 professions had law enforcement ranked number two behind only the military at number one. Politicians in the same survey were ranked number 19 ahead of only used car salesmen.

Enter President Donald J. Trump.

President Trump from the day he rode down the escalator at Trump Tower to announce his candidacy made it very clear that he was going to be the law and order candidate. From that day forward, he has spoken unambiguously about his support for the police. It is the police who defend law and order in keeping our communities safe from the ravages of criminals. He has defended this profession against the smears of the cop-hating crowd. He has spoken out against the inane idea of defunding and abolishing police when local government politicians go along with the idea. At the Republican National Convention, he picked me to deliver a prime-time speech on Make America Safe Again night where I called for him to be elected the 45th President of the United States because of his full-throated support for this profession. And he hasn’t stopped. And he’s being rewarded.

Recently, several large law enforcement organizations have announced their endorsement for President Trump’s re-election. The Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), with a reported membership of 330,000 law enforcement officers and 2,200 local chapters has announced their support for Trump’s re-election, as has the National Organization of Police Associations and the International Union of Police Associations (IUPA). Others have as well like the New York City Police Benevolent Association (PBA) the largest police union in the world. Other small to mid-size police unions have joined in, like the Milwaukee (Wisconsin) Police Association (MPA). It was very telling during the first presidential debate of 2020 when after stating that he had the support of most police organizations like the FOP and IUPA, President Trump turned toward Joe Biden and asked him directly to name one police group that endorsed his candidacy and Biden stood their speechless with that deer in the headlights stare not being able to name even one. Keep in mind that Joe Biden early on said that he supported defunding the police before he saw how it hurt him politically in polling. Then, like a chameleon changes its color, Biden changed his mind. That is typical political behavior-expedient and self-serving. Behavior you cannot count on in this critical time for law enforcement.

Is it any wonder politicians ended up second to last only above used car salesmen in a survey of trustworthy professions?

I know that a few officers disagree with the endorsement of their unions. But it’s go time. My advice is to put the survival and best interest of this profession ahead of any personal agenda. It makes President Trump the right choice. It is one team, one goal time.

Sheriff David Clarke Jr. is former Sheriff of Milwaukee Co, Wisconsin, President of AmericasSheriff LLC, Board member of the Crime Research Center, author of the book Cop Under Fire: Beyond Hashtags of Race Crime and Politics for a Better America. To learn more visit www.americassheriff.com

George Floyd: Was It Murder? ‘What Happened is Different Than What Most People Think.’

By: Lt. Patrick J. Ciser (ret.)

What happened to George Floyd in Minneapolis at the hands of his arresting officer should never have happened. But what did happen is different than what most people think. It appeared to many that Officer Derek Chauvin displayed malice toward Mr. Floyd, and even made it seem personal; but did he?  Chauvin knelt on the side of Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds as he lay on the ground. One or two days later, we found out that Floyd and Chauvin knew each other from working security at an area restaurant/club. Floyd worked inside, while Chauvin worked outside, and only time will tell if there was any friction between the men prior to Floyd’s arrest.

As I watched the viral video, it initially appeared to me that perhaps Chauvin was “teaching Floyd a lesson,” due to the duration of the event. So I watched the video a few times more in an effort to understand what the officer was doing exactly, and what concerns he may have had about the suspect. Understand that Floyd was a very large man at 6’7” and must have weighed 280 lbs. or more. His sheer size, coupled with the fact that Chauvin knew him and may have known about his violent past and criminal history, could explain why Chauvin had no interest in letting him up until the ambulance arrived.

We’ve all been taught that a knee on the side of a suspect’s neck will ensure that the suspect will not be able to stand and become combative. According to media reports, Floyd initially resisted officers’ efforts to put him in the back of the squad car, as he reportedly claimed that he was claustrophobic and couldn’t breathe. This, while standing and under little duress.  Floyd, an ex-con, was also found to be under the influence of narcotics, as per the state autopsy report, which may have affected his state of mind.

Being a retired cop and teaching martial arts my entire life, I do not believe that it ever occurred to Officer Chauvin that his actions would lead to the death of Mr. Floyd. The biggest reason is because he knew he was being recorded on a witness’ cellphone.The other reason is that it is unlikely that a knee on the side of somebody’s neck would kill them, which can easily be demonstrated by two volunteers in a court of law. Many of us have used this technique to control a suspect, but usually not for an extended period of time.

What was disturbing about his actions, however, was that he didn’t react to George Floyd’s plea that he couldn’t breathe while also calling “Mama,” which was definitely a sign that he was in distress. So many LEO’s across the country would’ve at that point, had we been there, told Chauvin to ease up on the knee. So why didn’t the three officers there intercede? Were they a bit fearful of the 19-year veteran, or the very large suspect? Mr. Floyd died of a heart attack, the state autopsy concluded, while ruling out asphyxiation. Also, I’m still not convinced that there was a racial element involved unless we see some real evidence that I’m not aware of at trial.  Problem is, Chauvin already has been tried and convicted by the media, and 90% of America.  Ever want to knock out an asshole, or an unruly criminal?  Doesn’t really matter what race they are, you just wanna knock ‘em out (although we usually don’t). Interesting that when a black cop kills a white guy, no one ever yells RACISM! And let’s not forget that more whites are killed by cops in America than blacks are, and that’s with 47-50% of the crimes being committed by blacks.  Floyd did five years for a home invasion, where he pressed a gun into a pregnant woman’s stomach while demanding drugs and money. Chauvin may have “had Floyd’s number” and had good reason not to like or trust the guy.  As a result, maybe he wasn’t taking any chances letting him up, especially if the very large George Floyd seemed agitated. We all know that if we’re dealing with an EDP (Emotionally Disturbed Person), protocol dictates that we try to keep them calm until the ambulance or mental health experts arrive.

As far as the riots are concerned, weak politicians do us all a disservice and never learn lessons from the past, including the Ferguson and Dallas riots, when they don’t allow us to do our jobs. What’s happening here, however, is on a much larger scale that we haven’t seen since 1968. Cities are burning all across America, and protests are taking place overseas; but why? It’s because Black Lives Matter, Antifa (antifascists that are actually fascists), and other Marxist groups, were waiting for just a moment like this to join forces. They grew strong during the Obama years, and with frustration over the COVID-19 lockdowns, along with “Trump Derangement Syndrome” these probably were contributing factors in stoking the flames.

The planning of these attacks across the country seemed to be more coordinated than we’ve seen in the past, including pallets of bricks being delivered to many downtown areas in our cities. Trucks were seen, and recorded, pulling up with pre-made protest signs and shields as well. In a protest, you hold a sign; in a riot, you throw a brick, bottle, or even a Molotov cocktail. Antifa, made up of mostly “progressive” white guys and gals, only want to cause anarchy and bring down capitalist America, they don’t give a shit about George Floyd. They used his death as the “spark” needed for civil disobedience and destruction. Reminds me of the Weather Underground of the ‘70s, setting off bombs in major cities.

Cops can’t win the war of words or facts while the liberal media and Democrat politicians are so incredibly biased against us. If they were honest, they could simply put up stats and case studies proving what an outstanding job police officers are doing every day under incredible stress. It seems that they dwell on sensationalism at our expense. The truth is, cops of all races in our inner cities have been saving black youths for years, and in most cases, from other blacks. Stay strong Brothers and Sisters, as we all need each other today more than ever. Oh, and stop kneeling already!!

‘They Made Him Watch As They Killed His 10-year-old Daughter in Front Of Him.’ Exclusive Interview: Hunting Down Pablo Escobar.

When it comes to television shows, I’m very picky. I keep a watchful eye out for flaws, inconsistencies, unlikely coincidences- anything that will make me shun the show and give up on it.

But every once I while I come across a gem that is perfect in every way. And that show is Netflix’s “Narcos.”

“Narcos” is the true story of the DEA’s hunt for the world’s first narco-trafficker- Pablo Escobar, one of the most ruthless drug lords in modern history.

The Blue Magazine sat down in a Zoom interview with the two retired lead DEA agents responsible for hunting Escobar: Steve Murphy and Javier Pena. They were both portrayed in the hit series and now the Blue readers get to hear the real story of hunting down Escobar.

We discussed everything from the accuracy of “Narcos,” the extreme right-wing group Los Pepes, their new book Manhunters: How We Took Down Pablo Escobar and much more.

The first thing I wanted to know was the show’s accuracy.

Javier Pena tells Blue, “I tell people that the chronology is pretty accurate on the show; the timeline, the assassination, a lot of the major events -- but the producers have to make it interesting.”

And interesting it was. The series was so successful, it led to a third fictional season and a spin-off series, “Narcos: Mexico” (which is just as thrilling by the way).

Javier’s character in the series was pretty bad-ass; a booze-chugging womanizer who threw policy and morality right out of the window. But I wondered how accurate that was, especially considering his role as a law enforcer.

Javier said, “If that were all true, I’d be getting out of prison right about now.The executive producer called me up and says ‘We know you’re not dirty, but we’re going to make you out to be a little bit on the dirty side -- working with Los Pepes, killing people and all the affairs -- I do wish all the affairs were true.” Javier laughed.

Steve tells Blue, “Second thing was the violence. As bad as it was in the Narcos series, in real life, it was much, much worse.”

If you google how many deaths was Escobar responsible for, it will say 4,000. But as any patrolman walking the beat knows, the situation on the frontlines is far different than what upper brass realize.

Steve said, “We attribute 15, maybe 20 thousand murders to Escobar. Popeye, Escobar’s main sicario, says that number is more like 50 thousand people.”

That’s a lot of souls.

Among the most well-known atrocities Escobar orchestrated were blowing up a commercial airliner that killed over 100 people in an attempt to assassinate a presidential candidate.

The other gruesome incident involved a bus loaded with 500 kilos of dynamite that destroyed a city block and also killed over 100 people.

“The chassis of the bus was found on a building a couple of blocks away. A perfect example of Escobar’s viciousness.” Steve continued, “If Pablo wanted to kill you, he would not only come after you, he come up to your wife, your children, your parents, anybody that he could find associated with you!”

Escobar was not afraid to spend money to further his agenda … and his ruthless style.

Javier said, “Escobar put a bounty on police officers and another 15-year-old thug nonchalantly said to me ‘I’ve already killed 10 police officers, at a hundred bucks a head, I get paid at the end of the day.’ That’s the attitude the sicarios had … multiply that by 500 sicarios!”

With all that violence and death Steve and Javier were embroiled in, one would have to assume their daily job was extremely dangerous.

According to Steve, “You had to travel with your gun to your chest ready to engage targets because two riders on a motorcycle was one of their favorite ways to assassinate people.”

And Javier said, “One of the most dangerous parts were the car bombs … a lot of cops got killed because of them. We passed by and a couple missed us, but you hear that noise, that bomb, that sound -- that was the scariest part.”

Steve and Javier were not alone. In addition to the Colombian national police force, they were working with US military special operations, Navy SEALs and Delta Force. But much like police work today, politics got in the way of the mission.

Steve tells Blue, “If Delta and SEALs have been allowed to do the job and go out of base, we firmly believe that we would have had Escobar captured or dead in less than three months, but politics got in the way. The bureaucracy cost thousands of people their lives.”

Javier adds, “We had him located several times, and we’d go in helicopters- the only way in jungles- but people would warn him. He heard the noise. We would get there and his coffee was still warm. We barely missed him so many times.”

Los Pepes (persecuted by Pablo Escobar)

The subject of Los Pepes was unavoidable.

After Escobar killed his closest partner and friend, Kiko Moncada, his wife, Judy Moncada teamed up with Don Burnas and created Los Pepes -- an extreme right-wing vigilante group. Los Pepes’ main objective was to kill Pablo Escobar and everyone he was associated with.

Los Pepes were funded by Escobar’s rival, the Cali cartel; and they were just as ruthless as Escobar. They were quite effective because they didn’t fall under the morality of the legal system.

But there was another reason they were successful. According to Steve, the attorney general of Colombia assigned Don Burnas to help them after Escobar killed Kiko Moncada.

Steve said, “We went to Colonel Martinez and said, ‘Who is this guy (Don Burnas)?’ But he was authorized to work with us and the Search Bloc.”

Javier then said, “Los Pepes is one of those sore spots. Don Burnas was helping us out with intelligence. However, we did not know he was setting off a lot of bombs, trying to kill Escobar and his family.”

“Everyone else knew who Don Burnas was except us. After Escobar’s death, we found out he was the head of Los Pepes! That was very eye opening when I found out because they are stone cold killers. I’m sure they would’ve had no problem putting a bullet in our heads because they’ve done it to a lot of other people!” Steve said.

Mexican Cartels
The focus of the current war on drugs has moved to Mexican cartels, which are just as brutal as in the days of Escobar’s reign.

Javier said, “We’ve all seen the photos of bodies hanging off bridges … when they kill people … the heads being rolled onto a dance floor. They’re vicious but I think the Colombians were more violent.” Javier continued, “They [Mexican cartels] caught a guy stealing dope from them. They had his whole family in a room, the 10-year-old daughter … they made him watch, they opened his eyes, killed her in front of him.”

Steve added, “Some of the Mexican authorities that we work with later in our careers, former attorney general down there has been indicted here in the United States for taking millions and millions of dollars in payoffs from the drug traffickers in Mexico. It’s one of the most horrendous situations in the world right now.”

Drugs still continue to cross into the United States, but there is a plan in place to curtail drug smuggling -- going after the traffickers and the people who support it. But as any law enforcement officer knows, you can never stop the flow of drugs. As long as there is money to be made, crafty criminals will find a way to get it.

Steve Murphy and Javier Pena are both retired from the DEA and now spend their time doing interviews, public speaking engagements and promoting their book Manhunters: How We Took Down Pablo Escobar.

You can get in on the action. For a limited time, you can order a signed, personalized copy of their book by visiting their website, www.DEAnarcos.com . To see the full unedited Zoom interview with Steve and Javier, go to www.eddiemolina.com

Eddie Molina is a leadership professional, blogger and author. He writes articles for the law enforcement, military and first responder community to keep them informed on important issues. For more information go to www.eddiemolina.com

DISARM OFFICERS: U.S. SEN. ED MARKEY (D) OF MASSACHUSETTS. THE WAY FORWARD REMAINS A MYSTERY.

By: Joel E. Gordon

I really think we needed to have a plan moving forward - and I was disappointed that didn’t happen. - Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best (ret.)

What a challenging time we find ourselves in.

During the last many months and years, the trust people have placed in every level of government has diminished. Many new plans and restrictions are being proposed in an attempt to hold police accountable. Where however, are the plans to hold those for criminal acts and all of the chaos and destruction accountable? Where are the plans to reduce the violence? Where are the plans to improve community relations instead using such divisive measures that only serve to portray police as the enemy? Crickets…

So who are the people that are mostly proposing plans for reform and police oversight? Is it professionals with extensive knowledge of the law, a perspective on the evolution of law enforcement and of the job itself? No, instead in many communities it is comprised of politicians and ordinary citizens with anti-police agendas; facts be damned.  Would you want a committee of non-medical people organized to monitor doctors or non-educational persons to educate educators?  Maybe there should be a committee of non-aviation people to tell pilots how to fly aircraft? 

Take, for example, U.S. Senator Ed Markey (D) of Massachusetts weighing in on matters concerning the riot-ravaged city of Portland Oregon (over 3,000 miles away from Massachusetts,) he tweeted: “Portland police routinely attack peaceful protestors with brute force. We must disarm these officers, and every other police department in America, of weapons of war, and enact a nationwide ban on tear gas, rubber and plastic bullets, and bean bag rounds.” Was Markey seriously advocating the disarming of police, just days after the attempted assignation of two Los Angeles police officers?

Law Enforcement has evolved from a Reactionary Policing model to Proactive Policing to Community Policing to Broken Windows Theory to Intelligence Lead Policing into Evidence Based Policing. Evidence Based Policing is subjective and is the brainchild of academia. It makes judgments on outcomes opening the door to many unresolved contradictory ideas which routinely override long established mandates for diversity and opportunity for personal growth and promotion. Since subjective to the whims of political correctness many unintended consequences are resulting in an environment which is untenable to the newer generation of law enforcement leaders who were, in fact, in many cases born of the culture of the importance of the diversity philosophy.

The Great Escape: EVOLUTION TO EXODUS
Ever watched dominoes falling in real time? The sad reality is that many in law enforcement are throwing in the towel and just can't take it anymore.  The pressure of the job and sudden pivot away from decades old reforms for diversity, increased training with community policing and de-escalation techniques being replaced by a cry for sweeping defunding have resulted in reevaluation of many considering entering the profession along with resignations of many tenured and highly respected law enforcement leaders, a substantial number of which who identified as minority professionals who successfully worked their way up the ranks. From Dallas to Seattle to an entire command staff in Rochester New York along with many other chiefs nationwide, the time to move out of law enforcement has come on the heels of their defiance against those with an anti-police mindset, ideology and agenda.

Will this result in more feckless police leadership remaining in office or in being hired who will be willing to put their officers in unsafe, retreating or defenseless positions at the behest of those lacking sufficient knowledge to make informed or rational judgments? Society can’t reasonably expect law enforcement to succumb to violence without responding in such a fashion as to protect the very lives of the protectors themselves. No one signed up to be physically harmed by becoming a law enforcement officer. Although the job remains largely one of regulating human behavior, the desire to help others continues to be the driving motivational force and reason that many answer the calling to keep the peace.

The bottom line appears to be that regardless of the current preferred model of policing practiced, the diversity achieved within agencies or the high level of professional training implemented, the idea that the police are unwanted (until needed for selfish or individual safety reasons) has become the guiding principle of those politicians holding the power of life and death over our future.

The way forward remains a mystery. I have long professed that we must reject an "us versus them" mentality. In this current environment, through the actions of many others, it is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain this mindset. The truth remains, however, we are all in this TOGETHER. Unfortunately though, if things continue on their current trajectory this clearly isn’t going to end well.

BOLO: THE NEW MULTI-MEDIA SITE, LAW ENFORCEMENT NEWS NETWORK.

By: Lori Cooper

A multi-media news network created for cops by cops, officially named Law Enforcement News Network (www.lawenforcementnewsnetwork.com), will be launched over the next 30 days.

Retired 34-year veteran law enforcement officer Randy Sutton, along with fellow retired law enforcement officers Ray Dietrich and Ryan Mason, have collaborated for a common purpose to solve a problem long plaguing our country: combating the limited scope of law enforcement news by mainstream media and the false narratives reported by these news organizations about our law enforcement officers and communities.

Many law enforcement officers and civilians alike know Randy Sutton as a household name and commentator for national news networks, with a large social media presence, his various shows on streaming television apps, and his Blue Lives Radio Program on the America Out Loud Network, among other programs. The nonprofit organization he founded in 2019, The Wounded Blue (www.TheWoundedBlue.org), is the national organization for injured and disabled law enforcement officers and is saving lives every day.  

Add to the mix the outstanding service of the retired law enforcement officer from California in Ray Dietrich, who also has 2 million followers across a dozen or more social media platforms and streaming television channels. Lastly, add Ryan Mason, another retired law enforcement officer who is no stranger to the business of multi-media, with over 21 publications to his credit.  "The 3 R's" in Randy Sutton, Ray Dietrich, and Ryan Mason have become their own "force" in the development of their media brand based on factual, impartial, and unbiased news called True Blue News," according to founder Randy Sutton.

Sutton indicated that there is really "only one way to report real law enforcement news, and that is to involve yourself on the ground, or, essentially, to go undercover," which is what he and Mason did on several occasions in the city of Portland. Out of those undercover experiences came a Special Report created and developed by Sutton and Mason, with a working title of "Siege of Portland," and it will be aired on the Streaming Television Channel of the Law Enforcement News Network in the days to come. Sadly, Sutton reported that "Portland Law Enforcement Officers view this whole situation as a monumental failure of leadership and politics at its worst.” According to Ryan, he and Sutton were unable to connect with the chief of police there, and both have stated their calls to the district attorney and the mayor of Portland have gone unreturned.

Dietrich says that the Law Enforcement News Network will be a site everyone can visit free of charge and to which they can subscribe. Their online news segment will be launched first, with the eventual goal to have live news reported five days a week. All of the programs already being aired and hosted by Dietrich and Sutton will be moved over to the Law Enforcement News Network, creating an immediate viewing audience of 2 million followers.

Finally, Dietrich explained one of the greatest accomplishments that will come out of this new network is the Use-of-Force expert who will be able to break down bodycam footage worn by officers in this country in controversial shootings or use-of-force cases, something no network has ever done. Ray Dietrich noted that part of the problems which have created the chaos and rioting in this country is related to incorrect information from an officer's bodycam on which the mainstream media has reported, without any law enforcement expert actually interpreting the actions of the officer. Dietrich explained how use of force cannot often be avoided, only compounding the false narratives of some of the more recent cases we've seen that have contributed to the civil unrest and destruction across this country. "We're going to combat that," Dietrich said very emphatically. "We're going to dispel myths and eliminate the unnecessary outrage of the American people who haven't been given information that is an accurate interpretation or assessment as to why certain circumstances or incidents have resulted in an officer's use-of-force. We're going to have our expert demonstrate that what sometimes looks awful is actually lawful," Dietrich cited.

A press release will be issued to all media outlets about the launch date of the Law Enforcement News Network, where along with the BLUE magazine and thebluemagazine.com cops and supporters can now have more  safe places to receive all of their law enforcement-related news. A separate release will be issued for the Special Presentation of "Siege of Portland," a film no American will want to miss.

Lori Cooper is a published writer and the daughter of a late Columbus, Ohio police officer shot in the line of duty and whose killer eluded authorities for 44 years until her own search resulted in his apprehension. Her story, featured by hundreds of news organizations, catapulted her to success as an expert law enforcement advocate, where she now writes for law enforcement media groups and is a highly-acclaimed guest on national radio and television. An Ohio University Social Studies Major, she is writing a book about her story, tentatively titled THE SOUND OF SILENCE. She can be reached at www.WriterLoriCooper.com.

Chief David Dorn's Life Mattered. The Bloody Cross: Tribute to Chief Dorn.

By: Kirk Lawless

On 23 June 2019 I watched the live-streamed death of Police Officer Michael Langsdorf, murdered in the line of duty because he was a cop doing his job. It broke my heart as I watched his blood pool beneath him and saw him take his last breath on the floor of a convenience store in North Saint Louis County.   I prayed I would never see such a thing again.

Exactly 345 days later, on June 2, 2020 at 2:30 a.m., I saw the exact same thing again, this time played out on the hard concrete of a Saint Louis City sidewalk, when retired St. Louis Metropolitan Police Captain and former Moline Acres Police Chief David Dorn was murdered while checking a friend’s pawnshop, as he often did when the burglar alarm went off.

Someone started recording right after Dave got shot.  A friend texted and the text read, “They just shot Dave!” I have many police friends and several are named Dave, so I made a phone call and learned that it was Dave Dorn, and there was a video of either the actual shooting or the aftermath of it. 

I found it.  I shouldn’t have watched it, but the “once a cop, always a cop” in me made me hit the play arrow and it started.  I did not expect the video to start with a brother cop’s face, a man I knew and considered a friend, as the first thing I saw. I stopped it and took a deep breath and started it again.

My heart has been broken on the job many times, and here it was about to be broken again. Oh yeah, there was audio as well.  Dave was lying on his back. His eyes wide open, arms out at his sides, like Jesus on the cross. His cellphone was in his left hand, the screen still lit.  Clutched in his right hand, in the shadows, up against the pawnshop building was his pistol.  My blood was boiling and I found myself once again, in a dark, dark place (where I spend quality time) and I was awash in rage.  Dave was not dead yet, although he was obviously dying.  Like Michael Langsdorf’s death scene, I could see Dave’s blood pooling beneath him.  He was fighting to stay alive and I could see him trying to catch his breath, the only movement was the short rising and falling of his chest, and the shifting of his eyes.  I wept.  I knew that by the time I was watching the video, our Heavenly father had already taken Dave home.  I was reminded of that because of one simple thing that stood out when I first hit play, his blood.

The scene was chaotic and still in motion, there was broken glass everywhere, on the street, on the sidewalk, on the stoop of the pawnshop, but there was the blood. There was plenty of blood.  This may sound odd, but hear me out. Even though I saw Dave’s blood flowing from beneath his body, I felt an immediate sense of calm and comfort that I have never felt before when I saw blood.  I’ve seen buckets of the stuff during a long career, blood of victims, blood of enemies, blood of friends, blood of other cops, some I knew, some I didn’t know, and I’ve even seen my own blood.  This time it was different. Dave’s blood, as it flowed from an unseen wound, began to fill the expansion joints in the sidewalk and as it crept further into the cracks and into the first “T’ and continued on its journey, it formed a cross.

That bloody cross soothed my mind for a minute and reminded me of why I became a cop.  It was probably why Dave became a cop and probably why most of us became cops.  We become cops because we are helpers and we were brought up to do the right thing and “being the cops” is a calling.

I was still pissed off that Dave had been murdered and that he had been murdered over televisions and whatever ill-gotten gains could be pilfered from a closed pawnshop! I though black lives mattered? Dave happened to be black, so explain that to me?

There were thieves coming in and out of the pawnshop, crunching across the shattered glass that was everywhere, the bandits screaming and yelling at each other. It was a like a Mad Hatter’s tea party, except with guns, looting and murder!

The person filming the death scene, whether he intended to do it or not, provided those with trained eyes plenty of intelligence that was ultimately seen by the homicide detectives of the SLMPD tasked with solving Dave’s murder.

I watched and re-watched the video, probably 50 times.  I listened to the commentary.  Whether it was real or bullshit, prayers, “Hang in there, OG!”

“Did somebody call an ambulance?” 

“Hang in there, OG. Help is on the way,” the faceless voice said to Dave, as he was still taking his last breaths. A little later he said,

“He gone. Rest in peace OG.”

The person filming scanned the crowd and started yelling, “Don’t go back in that store, cuz. Y’all  (expletive deleted) killed some old man over some TVs?  You just killed somebody’s granddaddy!”

He told some other folks who were with him, “Don’t let nobody back in that store”

I saw the faces in the crowd.  I haven’t heard the official word on who the suspected shooter was in relation to the faces I saw as the camera panned the crowd, but I’m pretty sure I picked the right guy. He got a little aggressive with the cameraman.  I couldn’t hear what he said but the cameraman’s response was, “What, you gonna pop me too, Cuz?”   The dreadlock wearing young man was wearing a black T-shirt with a Jamaican style and color graphic on the front.  He had a bandage on his left hand and I’d bet he had a handgun in his waistband beneath that shirt, as he was protective of it and it appeared to have some heft to it, given the position of his clothing. He was passively aggressive, but he looked as though he really wanted to get into that pawnshop, but was unsure if he should try, given the warning given to him by the cameraman and his friends.  My money is on him being the murderer.

Later in the video, someone placed a blue blanket over Dave, covering his face.  Appropriate that it was blue, but had it been placed there out of respect while the camera was not pointed in that direction, or was there another reason?  Thinking my mind might have been playing tricks on me, I watched the video again and again.  My mind wasn’t playing tricks on me. One minute Dave had his “Thumper” in his right hand, and the next as if by feat of prestidigitation, “Poof!” Dave’s pistol was gone!  So, not only did someone murder the man in cold blood, they stole his gun from him while he lay dying, or after he had died.  It takes a special kind of criminal to steal something from a dead or dying man’s hand.

So was the blanket just part of an act? What else did they steal from him, his watch, jewelry, badge and wallet?  There were way too many folks milling around gawking at Dave and the pawnshop and the entire scene, but there was plenty of video evidence.  We’ll hear the rest of the story further on down the road.  But, still I can’t stop seeing the cross of blood.  That’s OK. It serves as a reminder for all of us who are cops.  We are always cops and we are everywhere! On June 7th the SLMPD arrested Dave’s killer and several men captured on surveillance video from inside the pawnshop.

I noticed that Dave was wearing a police T-shirt while lay dying, emblazoned with the silhouette of blue policemen and the words, “Whose streets? Our streets!”

No doubt these were your streets, Captain Dave Dorn! You died protecting them. “That’s a good man, right there! Rest easy, brother.”

Must Reads for SWAT and Counter Terror Operators. Knowledge Will Save Your Life.

By: Ron Camacho

In 1905, famed philosopher, author, literary and cultural critic, George Santayana, warned us that “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” (The Life of Reason: Reason in Common Sense. Scribner's, 1905: 284).

In short, Santayana’s message is simply to “Never Forget.” Indeed, these words have resounded through history to remind us of many human tragedies. They serve as a last bastion of preparedness and prevention; a bugle call to never let them happen again. Jews in the diaspora of Israel, and elsewhere, use the term to remember the unconscionable events of the Holocaust. Americans say them as reminders of the horrific 9/11 terror attacks. Drive around any neighborhood in the United States and you will still see this “call to arms” on flags, T-shirts, and car stickers, serving as a constant reminder to honor those who have died in attacks that are a blight on humanity. Unfortunately, we do forget. Maybe we haven’t yet forgotten the Holocaust or 9/11, but certainly many other attacks on schools, hospitals, and other civilian targets have faded into the recesses of our minds. Though we may have forgotten, the education, training, and knowledge of bellwether events are still there for law enforcement and security personnel to use. These exist in the writings and teachings of one man. These sources serve as reminders of all that have come before, and to help us be prepared for these incidents when they return. That person is author, terrorism expert and university professor Dr. John Giduck.

For those of us in law enforcement agencies and school and hospital security departments who are every day called upon to be ready to race into the worst hell imaginable to save our most innocent from all manner of threats, we must study the events history has given us. We cannot be condemned to repeat the mistakes of those who came before us; for if we do, our students, medical professionals and staff today are condemned to be added to the losses of the innocent victims of years past. But just what are those losses? In the Modern Era of Terrorism, which began in July 1968, schools, universities and hospitals the world over have been consistently targeted. And they have been targeted by more than just committed terrorists. In the US and other countries, we see more and more socially produced predators selecting them as targets, seeking to kill those found inside in the greatest possible numbers.

In his first book, Terror at Beslan, Dr. Giduck begins by offering us an in-depth understanding of terrorism and tactics. He skillfully uses an investigative “boots on the ground” method combined with an academic approach to document this horrific terror attack on a school in Russia, where Islamist terrorism uses targets as dress rehearsals for other nations. Yet, Beslan was not the first documented terror attack on a school. On May 15, 1974, in Ma’alot, Israel, Palestinian terrorists attacked a school, where they killed 26 hostages, 23 of whom were children. Those numbers paled in comparison with Beslan, which saw 314 teachers, parents, and children killed; 186 under the age of 18. In addition to being able to go onsite to the Ma’alot school with Israeli special forces, Giduck was able to gain access to the Beslan school in the immediate aftermath of the military rescue operation. He took eyewitness accounts of the siege, and was even able to interview Russian commandos who assaulted the school as well as review Russian government reports on the incident. Due to his ability to speak and read Russian, Giduck was able to do an in-depth examination of the attack and reconstruct what the terrorist plans were during the school takeover. This was not the first time terrorists in Russia used a hostage-siege as a tactic. In June 1995, Chechen terrorists stormed the city of Budyonovsk and ultimately took over a hospital for days, then repeated that attack at another hospital in the city of Kizlyar in January 1996. These were not just Chechen attacks, but Al-Qaeda planned and funded terror operations. Ask any American hospital administrator or director of security if he has ever heard of Budyonovsk or Kizlyar, or understands the significance these two cities have on the safety and security of our own facilities, and the answer will most likely be “no.” The death tolls at Budyonovsk and Kizlyar did not reach the levels at Beslan, however, as Giduck writes that “Beslan is where the terrorists perfected mass-hostage siege tactics.”

Terror at Beslan gets inside the minds of the terrorists, hostages, and rescue forces. It is a primer for all law enforcement and security personnel on what to expect during a terrorist-initiated school takeover. Not only did Giduck fervently write this informative book, he also conducted presentations and debriefings, that ranged 4 to 8 hours, for police officers, college and school staffs, safety officials and the military. In these debriefings, Giduck broke down the main points of what occurred at Beslan, often leaving his audience stunned while describing the horrifying actions that occurred before, during, and after the rescue attempt. In his many briefings, Giduck would tell audiences to imagine what would occur in the United States if an elementary school were seized and over 300 people, of whom 200 were children, were killed. Giduck said, “Life as we know it would never be the same. Parents would refuse to send their kids to school.”

Dave Acosta, a national authority on school shootings and author of the book Victims No More! wrote this about Terror at Beslan: “It chronicled the events of the world’s worst school shooting. John pleaded for us to be vigilant, to acknowledge that something like this can happen here in the US. It inspired me to work hard to find a solution that would save lives.”

This is not the last time Giduck would share his extensive knowledge on the subject of school shootings or terrorist tactics.

After the November 2008 terror attack in Mumbai, India, Giduck and retired Chester, PA Police Chief Joe Bail traveled there to dissect this tragic, yet important event. The terrorists had evolved their methods and the results showed that a small group of well-armed militants was able to paralyze a city and hold it hostage for four days, killing 174 and wounding more than 300. Giduck and Bail were able to walk the grounds of the multiple bloody attack sites, take pictures and examine them with a critical eye. They were looking at the sites from the terrorists’ point of view with the goal of intimately accessing the attackers’ mindset. For many in the West, this would be their introduction to the terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the Army of the Righteous, but for the Indian Security Forces this was a well-known, active, and deadly enemy, one that had also partnered with Al Qaeda. As with the Chechens and Beslan, this attack was their announcement to the world that they had joined the global jihad. Once again, due to his reputation and contacts, Dr. Giduck was able to secure interviews with Indian special forces commanders who executed rescue operations. The information gleaned by his onsite examinations, along with the various interviews that were conducted, were then organized and put into an excellent, detailed, presentation. This training was used to educate the same audiences (law enforcement, security, and military) along with additional hospital, hotel and railway personnel, since these attacks exposed vulnerabilities in all aforementioned fields.

The extensive research Giduck and his teams conducted at Beslan, Mumbai, and other terror events across the world led to him developing a clear picture of terrorist methodology, particularly regarding the tactic of mass-hostage sieges. All of that work was provided to us in detail in his book When Terror Returns.

When Terror Returns is like having the NFL playbook of the opposing team. The book gives the reader a complete understanding of what actually goes on in the mind of a terrorist, particularly when engaged in mass-hostage siege attacks. When Terror Returns clearly demonstrates terrorist methodology, tactics, and strategy for taking over schools, universities, hospitals, hotels, malls or any combination of the listed locations. Giduck recognized and reported on the Six-Phase Mass Hostage Siege Model to describe, step by step, what the terrorists’ actions are and how the first responders and rescue forces can identify these activities. If first responders can recognize that a mass-hostage siege is taking place, they can quickly take steps to mitigate it, albeit a difficult task. Speed and forceful actions are a necessity due to the terrorist tactic of asking to negotiate while they continually fortify their positions. The terrorists’ secrets are in the book to be discovered, and every American responsible for the safety of others should read it and apply the collected and codified lessons within it.

Famed speaker, trainer and bestselling author of On Killing and On Combat, Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, has regularly called Dr. John Giduck a “national treasure.” In commenting on When Terror Returns, he wrote:

“When Terror Returns is the masterpiece of one of the great warrior scholars of our time. John Giduck has established himself as ‘the’ irrefutable world expert on the brutal and horrific Beslan school siege in Russia. Now he has applied his skills to inform and forewarn us, with a tour de force of the evolution of terrorist mass-hostage siege tactics in the Modern Era of Terrorism.”

Validating Dr. Giduck’s information and predictive modeling is the most recent in-depth research on the efficacy of the presence of police and armed security in those facilities that are prolific targets. In 2019, one of Dr. Giduck’s master’s students, Molly Jeffress, conducted an exhaustive analysis of all 297 mass shootings or attempts on US schools between 1996 and 2018. Titled, “Examining the Deterrent Effect of Armed Police and Security in Schools: An Analysis of the Circumstances Surrounding the Decisions by Students and Adults to Commit Mass Attacks on Schools in the US from 1996 to 2018,” this unprecedented research effort by Ms. Jeffress concluded that schools without SROs or armed security were 465 times more likely to be targeted for mass shootings than those with such a security presence. This reality can be applied to hospitals as well, yet another common target for terrorists and social predators. Such data add to the aggregate information that we must all be aware of, that we must commit to our knowledge, that must inform our training and, most of all, that we must “Never Forget”!

Colonel Grossman has also consistently offered a message that resonates with Santayana: “The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior”. By accessing Giduck’s study and analysis of decades of terror attacks, and studying the evolution of their tactics, targets and victims, we can be prepared for what is yet to come.

Molly Jeffress’ original research paper, or a summary of it, can be obtained by contacting her at: joyntm@hotmail.com.

E-copies of Dr. Giduck’s books, which include Terror at Beslan, When Terror Returns, and Shooter Down: The Dramatic, Untold Story of the Police Response to the Virginia Tech Massacre, can be found on Amazon.com. Hard copies can be obtained by writing to info2@circon.org.

Chief Ron Camacho is an accomplished law enforcement executive who spent time as an advisor in Afghanistan and Mexico. He is a graduate of the FBI National Academy, has a master’s in criminal justice from Liberty University, and is the chief of the Chambersburg Pennsylvania Police Department. He is the owner of Camacho Consulting LLC, a leadership and management training company.

Breonna Taylor Was Not The Target Of Racial Injustice. Confronting the Fallout.

By: Deon Joseph

This may anger many, but I’m a man of integrity. The truth is not popular in today’s times. It’s not welcome. It’s considered insensitive, rude and condescending. It’s sexist, misogynistic, judgmental and even racist as stated by some I’ve talked with. 

When a society gets to that point where facts don’t matter, when emotions outweigh reason, when the truth is considered a thing of evil, when waiting for all facts is considered being neutral in a moment of importance, that usually signifies the beginning of the end of civility, accountability and sanity. It is the harbinger for a world where ambulance-chasing attorneys, political figures and twisted people with ulterior motives become the puppet masters of us all. 

Yes I’m an honest man, but I also have a heart. I have compassion. So before I go further, I want to say Rest in Peace to Breonna Taylor. I pray for comfort for her family. No, she did not deserve to die. I mean that from the bottom of my soul. My prayers are with her family. 

With that, I still must say what needs to be said. 

Everything we were told about this incident was a lie. There is no need to go over the facts again. We have to confront the fallout now. 

We all have been played by overzealous and irresponsible reporting by some members of the media, social justice warriors, politicians, social media trolls, professional athletes, celebrities and influencers. 

Taylor was not a target of racial injustice.  She was an unfortunate and tragic casualty of crossfire as two police officers defended themselves against an immediate threat of serious injury or death after one of them was shot. That’s literally the crux of the story. 

How it went from that to what we have been led to believe speaks volumes to how badly we all, Black, white, gay, straight, cop, community, liberals, conservatives are being grossly manipulated and exploited. Someone, some group wants us to tear each other apart. 

We are all being pitted against each other for ratings, and a movement disguised as a movement of love and peace, that has driven us farther apart than I’ve seen in my lifetime. We have been used and spun up so badly, that lies and the animosity that comes with them is more acceptable and desired that what’s real. We have become addicted to gossip and outrage. 

As a cop, I do not mind scrutiny. I do not mind being held to a higher standard. I understand what I do affects people’s lives and freedoms which warrant those standards. 

Yet, when we see the damage from faulty and sensational reporting of these incidents and when we see our nation imploding from a rush for more eyeballs and ears, shouldn’t we be holding American media more accountable as well? When our journalists become activists, and embrace “the ends justify the means” strategy in their own personal efforts for social justice, justice, peace, civility and all the things they claim to desire from their actions erode away. Even they won’t be able to live safely in the world they are trying to create. 

We all have to do better. We all must be better. I and thousands of officers have accepted the challenge of being better public servants. We are better than we were 10, 20, 30 years ago. But as long as human beings wear a badge, someone is going to disappoint us all. Unfortunately our aforementioned detractors literally cannot wait for one of us to have a human moment to push their varied agendas and stereotypes of any group they deem the enemy of their personal crusades. But just like us, some in our media must be better, and report the facts as they come, and not try to guide people to a thought against anyone or group, no matter their skin color or profession. Because not doing so is literally killing and maiming people. 

Our communities must do better by waiting for facts to come out and thinking more critically, as many are extremely intelligent, but in the age of instant gratification, have become intellectually lazy. I can’t judge you for that. Even I have been guilty of that. I try to fight it with every fiber of my being. 

Our activists and community leaders have to be better, and stop exploiting marginalized groups for notoriety or for your personal vision of justice that breeds more injustice. Sit down with what you fear. You may just learn they want the same thing when you stop dehumanizing them. 

If this doesn’t change soon, we will lose each other. We will lose our humanity. We will lose our decency and any chance at brother and sisterhood in this nation. 

I pray you will not be angry with me. I’m at peace with speaking my heart, and am not afraid of losing friends for speaking the truth. True friends don’t lie to friends, even if it hurts. 

I consider myself a friend.

God bless.

REDCON1: The Murph Challenge. Honoring Fallen Navy SEAL Lt. Michael P. Murphy.

By Bernard B. Kerik

The coronavirus may have shut down events and activities throughout the country, but it didn’t stop our veterans and first responders from participating in The Murph Challenge – an annual event that honors fallen Navy SEAL Lt. Michael P. Murphy who died during a mission in Afghanistan on June 28, 2005.

The Murph Challenge is more than an intense workout, which consists of a 1-mile run, 100 pull ups, 200 push-ups, 300 squats and another mile run to finish out the workout – it’s meant to push participants to their physical limits to honor the memory of Lt. Murphy.

In 2005, Lt. Murphy was in charge of a 4-man SEAL Team in support of Operation Red Wings, a mission tasked with finding a key anti-coalition commander in Afghanistan. After being spotted by goat herders, a fierce gun battle ensued with Taliban fighters. Despite suffering very serious gunshot wounds, Lt. Murphy risked his life to save the lives of his teammates and fellow SEAL Team members.

Knowing that backup was needed, Lt. Murphy risked his life by going back into enemy fire in order to get better reception in his call for assistance. In pain and suffering from grave wounds, Lt. Murphy calmly provided his unit’s location and the number of enemy fighters. Returning to a safer position, he continued fighting, even saving the life of a teammate before he was killed.

For his brave and selfless actions, Lt. Murphy was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor on October 27, 2007.

Since The Murph Challenge began in 2012, they have raised more than $1 million for the Lt. Michael P. Murphy Memorial Scholarship Foundation and Murph Navy Seal Museum in New York.

This year, The Murph Challenge teamed up with Florida-based REDCON1, the nation’s fastest-growing supplement company in history. And despite 90-degree heat and high humidity, participants packed the parking lot of the REDCON1 Gym – home to this year’s event.

Founded by industry expert and entrepreneur Aaron Singerman, REDCON1 literally means the highest state of readiness. Whether a soccer mom, active duty military, a veteran, first responder or a body builder, REDCON1 reaches and serves a diverse clientele.

And 38 percent of their customers nationwide are military, veterans, police and paramedics – heroes who keep us safe and protect us from danger.

Today, REDCON1 is sold in over 80 countries, online direct and at major retailers such as Vitamin Shoppe, Dick’s Sporting Goods, GNC and at military exchanges and commissaries. The products have won the Vitamin Shoppe brand of the year, Stacked 3D Brand of the year two years in a row and bodybuilding.com’s fan-favorite brand.

But REDCON1 is more than just a supplement company. They are on a mission to serve those who serve us. It’s why during the pandemic, they kept their gym open for local police and first responders – and free of charge. In June, Singerman donated 20,000 protein bars to South Florida hospitals and local law enforcement.

And on the REDCON1 website, they offer a special discount to military, first responders and active or retired law enforcement for all REDCON1 apparel and products.

Last month, the REDCON1 Foundation paid the mortgage of Marine veteran Courtney Brown, who lost his job and tested positive for COVID-19 after buying his first house with his wife. Fox News host Shannon Bream honored the foundation for their work in assisting the Brown family in her regular Midnight Hero segment.

But that’s not all, every day, and out of the news headlines, Aaron Singerman and his REDCON1 team quietly serve the local first responder and law enforcement community – not for headlines – but because it’s the right thing to do.

During these challenging and unprecedented times, the first responder and law enforcement community should know this – the REDCON1 family is grateful for the work that you do and the sacrifices that you make to keep us safe.

Trump: The President We Need. He Fights For Us, Let's Fight for Him.

BREAKING NEWS;

Countless Police Unions across the country are endorsing Donald Trump for re-election. Love him or hate him, Donald J. Trump is certainly a phenomenon. Have you ever seen a United States president who draws crowds like a rock star? His detractors call his followers a “cult’ in an attempt to diminish his role, and what he means to the American people. Hated by the left, simply because there’s an R after his name, and hated by politicians on both sides of the aisle in 2016 because he wasn’t one of them. Trump is truly a man of the people who speaks in the vernacular, and doesn’t rely on focus groups to answer a question.

Here’s an NYC businessman that came out of nowhere as he came down the escalator with his beautiful, “urbane” wife, Melania. Trump’s been called a fool, a dummy, and more recently, a clown by Joe Biden in the first presidential debate. Sounds like juvenile name calling when someone gets beat at their own game and can’t make a solid argument to counter his successes. In 2016, Trump totally rolled over a dozen Republican candidates in the presidential primaries. This in itself infuriated the powerful GOP who couldn’t understand how someone who never even ran for dog catcher, outmaneuvered them. Donald Trump then beat the polls and beat the DNC anointed one, rattling political circles around the world. The crushing defeat made Hillary an extremely angry and vindictive foe; hence, the phony “Steele dossier” to frame our great president, while it was she who was actually colluding with the Russians. The powerful Democratic Party was in shambles it seemed, as millions of progressives across the country crumbled in self-destructive agony. Countless politicians, Hollywood celebrities and late-night talk show hosts that guaranteed his defeat at the hands of Hillary were now “eating crow.” What an amazing American success story!

So how did this man do it? He had a simple message; Make America Great Again! Republicans, along with other conservatives, and so many in the military and law enforcement from both parties, viewed the Obama administration as weak, and Trump new it. Obama, once elected, went on his “apology tour” and even bowed to the Saudi king. “Fast and Furious” was a disaster and got many people killed, including a U.S. Border Patrol Agent. Obama drew the famous “Red Line” in Syria, that the Syrians laughed at. Iran captured one of our Navy vessels in the Gulf of Oman, and Obama had his then-Secretary of State John Kerry apologize to the Iranians. Obama was feckless against ISIS while calling them a “JV” team, and made our military look weak. However, the weakest time in Obama’s presidency was his, and Hillary’s, inaction in Benghazi on 9/11/12. Joe Biden? He was even weaker than Obama while in the situation room, he advised his boss against the Osama bin Laden raid executed by our Navy SEALS. Making matters worse, Biden later “outed” SEAL Team 6 on national TV, putting an al Qaida target on their backs. Every past president I can think of would’ve given the green light to take out the architect of 9/11, except for Joe.

Barack Obama had absolutely no love for law enforcement and seemed to throw us under the bus at every turn. Under Obama’s watch, five police officers in Dallas were gunned down during riots there; does anybody really think that Biden will support us any better? Democrat politicians constantly told police officers in our cities to stand down and give the rioters some room, thereby tying the hands of our police and destroying morale across the country. Trayvon Martin was shot dead in Florida by a neighborhood watchman and somehow Democrats made villains of police officers as a result. Congressional Democrats stood up with their hands raised pushing the phony “Hands up, don’t shoot” narrative in Ferguson. Juxtapose Obama-Biden shortcomings with the successes of the Trump Administration and the choice is clear this election cycle.

Trump rebuilt the military, defeated ISIS, and took out their leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (Only small remnants of the Caliphate are left, mostly in Africa).

Trump ordered the strike that took out the Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, who was described by many as a global terrorist.

Trump stands up for our Second Amendment, where Biden and “The Squad” want to take away our guns. In the wake of the BLM/Antifa riots, by the way, law-abiding citizens are purchasing guns in record numbers.

Trump stands with law enforcement, and over the next 4 years will help us restore our honor. Biden will only be a puppet of the left, and allow Democrats pulling the strings to continue their demonization of our great American institutions.

And judges? Liberal judges are killing us all across America! Trump needs four more years to appoint more conservative judges that follow the constitution and not “legislate” from the bench! He’s appointed over 170 so far.

We, LEOs across the country, are a big voting block and also have the ability to influence many voters around us. Whether family, friends, or anyone else who will listen, drive home the need to VOTE REPUBLICAN across the board as we all need to fight against the liberal agenda and sanctuary cities. We need stricter gun laws and harsher sentences for people who use guns during the commission of a crime. We need to take back the House and retire many anti-cop Democrats who continue to spread hate and fallacies about what we do and who we are.

Did you know that President Trump wants the death penalty for cop killers? I’m definitely on board with that! Do you know that he brought back the program giving us surplus military equipment that Obama quashed, in order to keep us safer? He released over $600 million in equipment since bringing back the program, and is spending $29 million on training for us to use it efficiently.

The Democrat/socialist anti-police rhetoric is over the top! Bernie Sanders told a black audience to “respect police officers during a motor vehicle stop, so you don’t get shot in the back of the head.” WTF? And Joe Biden told a black girl recently, that, “Cops don’t pull over white girls” so they have nothing to fear. Did this guy miss his medication or something? We’ve been pulling over “lead footed” white girls for years!

I truly believe that after November 3rd, Donald J. Trump will continue to help us even more, with no concern any longer of re-election. Trump, like us, doesn’t see black and white, only right and wrong. And please give him the Senate and House, to help him, help America. Stay safe!

Pat Ciser is a retired lieutenant from the Clifton Police Department, and a 7th Degree Black Belt. He was a member of 5 U.S. Karate Teams, winning gold medals in South America and Europe. He is the Author of BUDO and the BADGE; Exploits of a Jersey Cop (BN.com/Amazon), and is a guest writer for Official Karate Magazine.

GONE TO SOON: REMEMBRANCE OF HENDERSON COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPUTY RYAN HENDRIX.

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Henderson County Sheriff’s Deputy Ryan Hendrix
Article & Artwork by Jonny Castro

On September 10th, Henderson County (North Carolina) Sheriff’s Deputy Ryan Hendrix responded to a 911 call for a vehicle break in. The owner of car stated that he exchanged gunfire with the suspect when he caught him inside of his vehicle. As deputies arrived on location and confronted the gunman (who had retreated across the street and had broken into a truck), he opened fire striking Deputy Hendrix in his face. The other deputies returned fire killing the suspect. Deputy Hendrix was rushed to nearby Mission Hospital but was unable to be saved. The wounded deputy was kept alive so his organs could be harvested for donation. From a friend: “It was only the second time in Mission Hospital’s history that every organ from an individual was able to be donated; some will be going to children. If God has a plan, it might make the slightest bit of sense that his life saved numerous children. Ryan would’ve loved that.”

Helping Our Youth Understand Law Enforcement. An Argument For Community Policing.

By: Michael D. Boll

After retirement, I really had no interest in continuing a career in law enforcement.  For the first time in my life, I took some time off and began focusing the majority of my time on building up the New Jersey Veterans Network and its racing team, The Operation Rebound Racing Team.  Unfortunately, I needed to pay off bills and began to look for a new career.  I sent out my resume and started going on some really boring job interviews. At first, there really weren’t too many opportunities that I wanted to pursue as a second career.  Since I always wanted to work in a school and loved coaching sports, I decided to accept a job as a school resource officer at Mendham High School.

Almost immediately I was able to work with both the Mendham Borough Police Department and the school administration with implementing a school-based community policing program.  Our community policing programs, along with a series of town-wide events, immediately became successful because of the collaboration between the police department and the school administration.

Since starting this partnership, the NJVN has been able to work with administration, staff, and students in various classes and events.  We started by teaching classes on New Jersey Criminal Law, including the topics “How to act properly during a motor vehicle stop,” DWI/DUI, and “What it’s like to be a police officer/veteran.”  Things didn’t stop there.  We hosted a “Feed the Hero” veterans’ ceremony and dinner, participated in the Relay for Life, established a “Veterans’ Day of Beauty” for disabled female veterans, and recently hosted a “9-11 Ceremony and Ruck March.”  The ruck march was a huge success, involving over 500 student participants.  At this event, we honored and paid tribute to our fallen first responders and those civilians we lost on that tragic day.

Unfortunately, COVID-19 and all the recent social change protests have really made things difficult for our community policing programs, but we are determined to develop safe and appropriate programs despite the challenges put before us.  During the summer we met with stakeholders and began troubleshooting ideas.  Looking ahead, we decided to work alongside students to pool resources and gain better perspectives from all sides of these issues.

Even during these harsh and difficult times, it’s amazing seeing our youth come together and want to make real positive changes.  Mendham High School has always supported our efforts and has shown nothing but great respect for our first responders and military.  This year we are planning on having “real talk” discussions with speakers from all different walks of life. These speaking events are extremely important in helping to educate young people about issues of diversity and inclusion and crucial for building a strong bridge between law enforcement and the student body.

Even though the student body of Mendham High School is not very diverse, they make huge efforts to learn things from different cultures and religions.  Exposing students to different beliefs and the implementation of programs that reflect a diverse curriculum will have a huge impact on their future.  In today’s climate, these efforts are necessary for people to develop a greater sense of empathy and build a better understanding of one another.

I am fortunate to be able to play a role in the school’s community policing program and I am glad to see the positive results that have come from this partnership.  As a police officer, I see both the negative and positive changes that are upon us as a community and as a nation.  Some things we have no control over, but one thing that I do know is, helping our youth understand law enforcement in a positive light will certainly carry over and affect positive outcomes for their future.  Community policing is one of the most powerful tools for law enforcement, and using it to teach our youth will be extremely effective in building a bridge between law enforcement and our younger generation.

Help us save Vets!

Michael D. Boll
NJVN President

BLUE MAGAZINE NATIONAL PASTOR CHRIS AMOS SPEAKS OUT. WHEN RIGHT IS WRONG AND WRONG IS RIGHT.

By: Chris Amos

As we approach a national election and the end the most tumultuous year I have ever witnessed, I’d like to provide, as a retired police officer and current pastor/police chaplain, a perspective that you may not have heard before. I pray that having done so you might find a little encouragement and hope. But first I want to remind you that what you are doing each and every day matters more than you could possibly know. You are appreciated and supported by what I believe to be the vast majority of people. And most importantly, you are not alone in this fight, but I digress.

You are seeing a spiritual blindness and the chaotic, destructive, and absolutely idiotic fruit of that blindness on an epic level. I lack words to properly describe the organized opposition to and war against law enforcement, and by extension our civil society in general. This opposition has come not simply from the criminals on the street who have always opposed law and order, but now they are joined by our political and civic leaders and academia elites, among many others. Behaviors that were widely criticized and discouraged a year ago are now being encouraged by many of our “leaders.” In fact, funds are being raised to bond out those responsible for riots, looting, arson, vandalism and assaults against LEOs. Famous athletes, actors, politicians, professors and even pastors are championing the causes of not only peaceful protesters, but with equal zeal, the criminals of whom I spoke. While at the same time these people are attacking law enforcement officers on every front. The irony is these are the same people who are the loudest to decry the unfairness of lumping them together with the few “bad apples” in their respective professions. Yet they have no hesitation or regret while doing this very thing to law enforcement officers. Hypocrites on the grandest of scales! The Bible tells us in Isaiah 5:20, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.”

King David faced opposition much of his life. As he looked back over the span of his life, he penned the words to the 37th Psalm. David wrote this as an old man, reflecting on what he had seen and experienced. Speaking of those who had unjustly attacked him, David wrote in verses 12-13, “The wicked plots against the just, And gnashes at him with his teeth.” We’ve seen a lot of plotting and the gnashing of teeth lately against LEOs. Just think of those deputies ambushed in CA. and the idiots who stood outside the emergency room chanting for their deaths. But then David continues in verse 13, “The Lord LAUGHS at him, For He sees that his day is coming.”  Friends, let that sink in for a second, “The Lord LAUGHS at him, For He sees that his day is coming.”

It may seem that chaos rules the day. Police officers are being unjustly charged, criminals hailed as heroes, departments defunded, even in some cases eliminated (we’ll see how well that works for them), and on I can go. And yet as this happens “The LORD laughs.” Not at the innocent men and women, young and old being impacted by the chaos but at those perpetuating the chaos, those stoking the fires, those fanning the flames, those seeking to “blow up the whole system.” God laughs because He knows their days are numbered.

David continues in his Psalm in verses 14-15, “The wicked have drawn the sword, and have bent their bow, To cast down the poor and needy, To slay those who are of upright conduct. Their sword shall enter their own heart, And their bows shall be broken.” Their wicked words inevitably turned to wicked actions, you see that every day. And yet David tells us God turned the very weapons the wicked had used to attack David on themselves. David stood across a field of battle from the giant Goliath. David would in short order kill Goliath and cut off Goliath’s head WITH Goliath’s sword [1 Samuel 17:51]. Later, David was attacked by King Saul, David’s only crime was that of loyally supporting the King. King Saul’s life ended as he fell on HIS OWN sword in battle [1 Samuel 31:4]. Haman made a gallows on which he would kill his hated enemy, the Jew Mordecai. Haman ended up being killed on the gallows HE HAD BUILT [Esther 7:10]. Mordecai was promoted to Haman’s now-vacant position.

Friends, things are not well. In fact I suspect they will grow even worse. But we can rest assured God is still on the Throne, He is in control. And when the moment is right He will act. Those who stand against Him will face destruction and death on a scale unlike anything mankind has ever seen. Our challenge, our call, our duty today is to put our very lives and trust in His only begotten Son Jesus Christ and then carry out our lives in a way that is just, righteous, and noble. Difficult days lie ahead, but as one cancer survivor once said, “It’s just today, not forever.” Friends, in Jesus we can and will overcome the evil one of this world. Of this we can be sure. I’ve staked my very life on it, and Jesus as never failed me, nor will He you.  See you at the finish line!

Five Keys to Beating the Quarantine-15! Kick The Extra 15 Pounds Now.

By Sgt. Kal “The Fitness Coach” Chipepo

“Netflix and Chill!”

The popular solution was all too common in March as a means of dealing with the shutdown due to COVID-19.

Fast forward seven months later and we’re seeing the results of all that chilling out in the form of weight gain. The average person has managed to put on about 15lbs, which has led to the tagging of the term, “Quarantine-15.”

Although the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted life as we know it, the extra pounds do not have to be here to stay. Weight loss has always been an elusive goal. A goal some people are tired of attempting. Some don’t know what it entails; some have no motivation, while others have simply thrown in the towel. Below, I share a framework of five steps you must follow in order to realize success at beating the Quarantine-15! The pandemic is projected to be with us well into next year, so now is a great time to get started.

1)     Decide to Change – Stop Procrastinating. Making a decision to change is one of the hardest things you can do because it entails disrupting routines, and we all know how we hate for our comfort zones to be disturbed. But, at some point you have get so fed up with your current situation that it triggers the want into a need. Once this threshold is met you are primed and ready to act.

2)     Get Active – Lace up your sneakers and go for a 20-minute walk, a hike or a quick bike ride. The goal is to demolish the dreaded first day of exercise. A lot of fitness businesses and professionals have pivoted their business models to offer online training and classes in the wake of the pandemic. So do the same, rethink your living space into your workout area. Plan your week with calorie-burning activities that you actually like. If the Barre Fitness Workout doesn’t do it for you, then find something that does. Whether it’s hitting the gym, doing yard work, or cleaning the house, calories are being burned in the process so give yourself credit. Aim to do at least 40-60 minutes total of exercise daily. 

3)     Adjust Your Eating – You will never be able to win at losing weight without modifying the food you eat. In order to prevent feeling overwhelmed by trying to make too many changes, focus on changing one thing at a time. If it’s reducing fast food this week, then that’s good. If you want focus on eliminating sweets next week, then write it on the calendar. Small changes lead to lasting changes. One of the best ways to start is by preparing your meals in advance. This added structure to your routine will eliminate unintentional eating, and allow you to monitor how many calories you’re consuming on a daily basis.

4)     Invest in Support – You don’t have to go it alone – and you shouldn’t. Make an appointment to sit down with a nutritionist, hire a Certified Personal Trainer and/or join group fitness classes. Not to mention, how about that yearly physical, prostate check, and stress level? According to the CDC, a whopping 94% of people who died from COVID-19 had underlying conditions. So the more you can build out your “Wellness Team” the more the journey toward reaching your fitness goals will become more manageable. As first responders we have great benefits - put them to work!

5)     Be Patient – This cannot be stressed enough. In a world where everything seems to get faster, more powerful, and efficient, etc. Effective weight loss takes time. If it took you seven months to add the Quarantine-15, then give yourself seven months to work on removing it. When done correctly a person should see 1-2 lbs come off per week.

At the end of the day, it is a fight for territory and the extra pounds are not going to go willingly. Each week, ask yourself, “What small change am I willing to make?” With each positive choice there will be a positive outcome. 

It is within this framework that the Quarantine-15 demise will be realized. Scheduling time to break a sweat, setting time aside to prepare your meals, seeking guidance along the way, and patience all amounts to an effective strategy to be successful. Keep in mind that there are a lot of fad diets out there. Although some can get you great short-term results, long-term results involve healthy habits practiced on a daily basis.

If you should have any questions feel free to contact me at coachkal@motivate1fitness.com

By Sgt. Kal “The Fitness Coach” Chipepo, MBA, ACE-CPT, ACSM-CPT, CI-LFP
Montclair State University Police Department

Road Sign: Judgers Ahead: How to Stay A Step Ahead Mentally.

By Anthony Mikatarian

Mark Twain once said: “Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”

Lao Tzu once said: “He who controls others may be powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still.”

These are some of the positive quotes that resonate the fact that who you surround yourself with will both influence who you are and will reflect to others who you are as an individual. It's a constant life struggle finding pure and beneficial relationships that will be your foundation for a fruitful life and a sound wellbeing.  Conversely, surrounding yourself consciously or subconsciously with people who are disruptive and harmful can and probably will destroy your mind, spirit and even your physical health. This may also create a negative ripple effect extending into other areas of your personal and professional lives. Navigating this interpersonal road both professionally and personally is not easy and you will at times get burned. However, as you mature and experience life, you get better at it.

With this said, I want to focus in on those relationships and environments you find yourself engaged in that make you feel constantly uneasy and chronically judged, which is either said to your face or the very common behind your back.

Generally, these feelings are connected to the unfortunate societal backdrop of being excessively exposed to deceitful and purposely harmful judgers, which will happen in our lives. A chronic exposure to these masters of facades, who will come to you both personally and professionally, can be quite detrimental to your mind, soul and physical health in the long run. Unfortunately, you will experience these unsavory judgers throughout your life. Their mission is to have you feeling unclear and unsure about yourself. They want your head spinning with doubt, fear of failure, insecurity, non-worthiness and other negative tones. They want to crack your proud foundation. They present themselves with a lot of gray in order to muddy your perception on how you can correctly act in order to feel admired, appreciated and accepted by them. This constant judging behavior I’ve found can be fueled by their own insecurities, hatred, jealousy, dirty tactics against peers, ignorance, narcissism, sick gratification and/or other misguided motivators.

These frauds set up illusions for you to believe that you are on the right path, while all along purposely sabotaging you along the way by feeding you lies about goals for yourself, which they know are really meant to be unachievable or when you are close to achieving that goal, they alter that goal for you to start all over again to keep you in perpetual limbo. They might even calculate sending you mixed signals to keep you frustrated and guessing. They also may perhaps utilize the beloved dangling carrot tactic of promised reward to string you along.

It is quite easy to first buy into these masters of selling unrealistic promises, goals and rewards, but it is important to recognize them, so you can defend against putting yourself in a vulnerable and exploited state.

There are many lurking judgers out there looking for the vulnerable targets to sell them the counterfeit promises of reward to harm them, control them and to use them for their solely selfish benefit. There are some narcissists and egomaniacs, who do this because they love the feeling of power and delusional self importance. Then there are those attention seekers who constantly judge the good and bad in you in a weird attempt to win over your attention. Don't forget about the insecure and threatened ones, who utilize this in order to break you down.

It is my belief that chronic judging behavior is generally motivated from extreme self-centeredness. Everyone is at some degree self-centered, which is natural. You as a reasonable person must conclusively gauge within your own consciousness the acceptable level of self-centeredness. This is a common sense approach based on our life experiences. When you decipher who the chronic unreasonable judger is, you don't ask "What am I doing wrong?" you really ask "What is wrong with the judger?" When that is answered, then gravitate toward those who share the same level of treatment and concern for others as you do. If you are forced to be around the judgers who negatively infringe on your wellbeing, develop a selective ear and limit your exposure to them as best you can. This can be tricky in a work environment filled with peers, subordinates, supervisors and administrative authorities, who can be notorious chronic judgers. You can't regulate all the judging noise, but you can control the amount of reasonable noise you let in that you feel will benefit your time, improve you and nurture your well being. Especially, in our profession practically all become judgers of each other. Just remember who it is coming from, why it's coming, what their true intentions are and if it has any valued substance to it.

Always stay a step ahead mentally.

Stay strong and God Bless...

Exclusive interview with America's Mayor: Rudy Giuliani - An uncensored and hard hitting commentary of the times

Regardless of your politics, you must admit Mayor Rudy Giuliani was accountable for his actions. He turned New York City into the safest large city in the world. His leadership in the aftermath of the attacks on 9/11 was unmatched because he understood the leadership rule of accountability.

Meanwhile, in our current American cities, crime is skyrocketing, including New York City, where De Blasio's leadership has been a cataclysmic failure to the point Manhattan is becoming unrecognizable. Mayor Giuliani restored safety and security to New York City, Mayor Bloomberg continued it, and Mayor De Blasio destroyed it. But New York City is not an anomaly.

De Blasio and other failed leaders like Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan and Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, to name a few, are seemingly not accountable for anything and are quick to place blame on others. These failed so-called leaders turn a blind eye on all the violence, including the increased assaults on cops, while claiming to act in pursuit of justice. Imagine if these leaders were like Mayor Giuliani and were accountable for their successes and failures under their watch.

Accountability will save America.

The Blue Magazine: So let's talk a little bit about our current climate for law enforcement. Police stations are being overrun by violent criminals with the police actually retreating. In many cities, we see a lot of de-policing because the politicians don't have the police officers’ backs and they know that they're one second away from being fired or even thrown in jail. So, in the long view, what does this sort of tolerance of crime mean for law enforcement's ability to police in the future for our communities?

Giuliani: What’s going on now is disastrous for law enforcement. It’s the worst I've ever seen. Nothing compares to what's happening right now and I don't think that many of the people who either aren’t upset about it or support it realize the damage they're doing — not just to police and law enforcement but also to society. This is sending a message of lawlessness. And since we are now in the internet, television internet age, I’ll give you an example, when the little boy who is the mayor of Minneapolis, I forget his name, he looks like he's about 12 years old and acts like he's about six, and when he let the rioters take over the precinct and ordered the police officers to run out, I think that blew the whole thing. I think the people that are inclined to take a protest and turn it into a riot (and are professionals at it trained to do that by Marxists), when they saw that they said, OK, this is the opportunity we've been waiting for, we've been training for this for three or four years, we tried to turn a couple of these others into massive riots, if every other police organization acts like Minneapolis, then we can just run right over them, boom.

Within days, they were in every city, within days they were doing coordinated riots… They came right up Madison Avenue, ripped out maybe, one or two stores a block and then a little further downtown, they took as much as two million dollars in Rolexes. So, this is not your rioter of the ‘60s, the ‘70s. The basic rioter now is a middle-class, upper middle-class, black or white. In some cases, more whites than blacks. In New York, everyone that I've seen firsthand were either equal white and black or if anything, more white than black. These are people that are making a political point. They hate America. They want to destroy America. They want to replace it with a socialist oligarchy dictatorship.

Black Lives Matter is not some kind of civil rights group and it's being treated that way. They are, to the American big businessman, they look like a civil rights group and the typical Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton shakedown operation, give me two million and you'll be safe. Look at all the money they got from all the big companies. Look at the commissioner of football bending his knee. The only thing I could say to my good friends in the law enforcement who I love… always follow who… they're not just after you, they're after us. They're after us, meaning they’re after our families. They don't want us to have nuclear families. They think it's much better if the wife is out working and the kid is in home care. What right is it theirs to decide that? That’s what socialist government does. They believe they have to get reparations. Every black is going to get money for the rest of his life, for no reason, other than being black, doesn't even have to have a slave background just gets money, and everybody that's not black has to pay, even though you had nothing to do with slavery. So, they’re going to get supported for the rest of their lives. Nobody else is. Now you've already kind of bastardized socialism into what always happens. Some people are more socialist than others, meaning socialism raises more rich people than capitalism except they never quite raise middle class people because they suck the blood out of the poor. Then, they want to do away with our private schools. No more Catholic schools. No more Jewish schools. No more… no more private schools for the poor or the rich. They want to have government ownership of property so they can pass it around to whoever they want to have it. They want to do away with police, so everybody thinks they just heard disbanding the police. It was new, spontaneous. They’ve been writing about this for five years, how they're going to disband the police. They even have alternatives. They’re going to appoint their own people, like the kinds who run around the autonomous zone with AK-47s and appoint goons. It’ll be like the mafia, control some place, and that’s just a little bit of it. We’re in for a big fight.

So, what do you do if you’re mayor now with these unruly mobs and all this violence? de Blasio's not doing anything.

I feel bad that I wasn’t mayor because I thought if in New York and I didn't give up the precinct and I drove them back decisively, it might have given courage to other mayors, not the worst Democrats but a lot of other mayors and police commissioners would have realized, hey, if we’re supported in New York, you know, we could always be supported elsewhere, and we'd be giving the president some backing and somebody he can point to say, hey you know, a mayor can do it.

I reduced crime in New York between 60 and 65 percent and homicides 60% and I did it when nobody thought I could. I took New York City from the most dangerous large city in America to the safest large city in four years, and we got results right away, even though we didn’t get crime down right away. We got results to build morale and I think we sparked other cities doing it. We challenged them to do it and we got a nice period of time of less crime.

Seems to me that these Democrats and Socialists because they want some votes so badly, I mean they want to sell us out, any number of crimes is OK, and then they don't care. Black Lives Matter is the phoniest organization. You can imagine right, right in its title. Look at all these black children that have been killed this weekend, a three-year-old, a nine-year-old, they don’t say anything about it. They don't care about about Brandon Hendricks life. Brandon Hendricks was a star basketball player. He got killed in the Bronx in crossfire. He was going on to St. John’s to play basketball.

Black Lives Matter doesn't give a damn about him. They don't care because… there are seven, eight thousand deaths like that every year of black people killing other black people and they won’t do a darn thing about it. They have 7,500 shootings of blacks by other blacks that lead to death and all they concentrate on are the police officers. Suppose you solve that problem, but you don’t solve the other one.

I think the easiest way to describe Black Lives Matter and I say this to all my friends anywhere, don’t get fooled. This is an organization that uses violence, that doesn't mind killing, that doesn't care about black people, just the black people they can exploit otherwise, they would do something about blacks being shot by other blacks, and that is not racist. I feel very bad about that. Beyond these feelings of feeling bad about it, when I was mayor, I did something about it and I saved more black lives than any mayor in history. So, I have a right to say that.

What do you think about the progress that Black Lives Matter has made because of the chaos? For them it’s a big accomplishment.

It’s exactly the same way Communists made progress in Russia, the chaos in Russia right at the turn of the century. Exactly the way the Nazis made progress, they bankrupted the economy, ruined the economy, tore down statues, by the way. One of the leaders of Black Lives Matter is a woman named Patrice Cullors. Patrice Cullors is quoted as, don't know if she wants this out now but about five years ago, very proudly saying that she is a very, very well trained, that she’s been taught Marxist tactics, Marxist philosophy, and they’re going to follow it. They’re following it. The theory of Marxism in taking over a society and destroying it by developing hatred for that country and getting the people of the country to hate the country.

How effective do you think this strategy of lawlessness, violence, and uproar, will be in terms of the president winning or losing the election?

Well, I think, people say, what can we do about it. Got a mayor like de Blasio, he’s in office, virtually, he invites crime. Look, he creates crime. I‘ve never heard of a mayor creating crime, he does it. He let 8,000 people out of jail. Drug dealers are violent criminals. They carry guns and they shoot. That’s part of the business. He released rapists. He released a guy and four days later, another rape. So, he has created some of the crime, plus the bail laws create crime. Then, he did away with our best undercover unit. That was the single, biggest contributor to reducing gun violence. Since the day they've left, gun violence has gone up 38 percent. We've had two days since they left and we had a shooting every 24 hours and each weekend we get closer to Chicago. It's like he wants to overtake Chicago in shootings. This weekend, we had 68, they had 80. We used to have like eight on a weekend. Broke 68 shootings on a weekend. And Chicago has come down from 100 to 80. I expect in the next two weeks, we’re going to match Chicago and de Blasio will probably have a party. It almost seems like he's doing it deliberately.

Why do you think people don't see what you see?

Because they are brainwashed by the left-wing media. The New York Times began a curriculum two years ago, rewriting our history. It’s written all from the point of view of how bad we are because we were slaveholders… I mean Columbus, just look. You want to get a key into that, look at the statues they took down and the symbolism of them, not just the vandalism; the symbolism is worse. They took down the discoverer of this country, at least the acknowledged discoverer of this country, Columbus, bad man, very bad man. They took down the man who won the war for independence, of our first president and had to self-sacrifice not to take a third term to become a dictator or a king. ..., but he was a bad guy… bad guy, ripped down the statue. Jefferson is the author of our freedom. He wrote the most brilliant document on human rights ever written that has probably helped to free people all over the world, bad man, tear his statue down. Now Jackson, tear his statue down. Jefferson got us Louisiana. Jackson won a war. And of all things, Abraham Lincoln, the great emancipator and the guy who fought and died for preserving our union. They’re basically saying, you don't have any heroes, America…You were founded by an evil man. You had a first president who was an evil man. The guy who wrote your founding document was an evil man. Even the man who emancipated us, we don’t owe him anything. He was an evil man. And, then they go on to criticize everything in our society. They say our president is a Nazi, a racist, a, I don’t what else he is, he’s an evil man. And all of us are… we’re evil white people; they even refer to us as evil white people. So, this is a movement that’s based on hatred. It's not just emotional hatred, it’s hatred in the United States so that our young people will get separated from the idea of the United States and then they’d be willing to accept a much better alternative, socialism. So, you degrade our flag, you degrade our national anthem. I mean, these are the things that hold the country together. It's all bull, this whole thing. You’re a great land.

Does this help or hurt Biden?

It helps him with the left-wing people. It helps him with the real weak ones who are willing to bend their knee and they all know I'm right, but they pretend because they're afraid. But I think it hurts him in that big vast majority of people that don't talk. There are many Americans in their home right now saying what the hell is going on, what, they’re taking over police precincts, they’re spitting at police, they’re looting stores and the cops are told to stand down, they’re going to do away with the police department and replace them with health care workers. They want to come and take my money and give it to a black person for slavery and the black person has no history of slavery, he came from Jamaica, and my family came from Slovenia 30 years ago, but I had nothing to do with slavery. What am I paying for? A lot of bad things happened to me too, nobody's paying me. I think that's what the average, intelligent common-sense view of this is. Our media is so bad. It's so left. It's almost like Pravda was to the Soviet Union. They print whatever the left-wing says and then they come up with justifications for it.

Have you ever seen politics this evil? They weaponize everything, including the seriousness of sex assault allegations against adversaries.

What I’ve seen in the last two years is pure evil, from the day I started representing President Trump as his lawyer to this day, it’s almost a revelation today, something I couldn't believe has happened. I couldn't believe it would happen in America. And I never believed I’d see a day in America in which a major city would disband the police department. I just didn’t think our people would be crazy enough or insane enough or like the whole city was on drugs. I've never seen it this evil.

I've never seen politicians like these Democrats want to accomplish something so bad. They want to accomplish two things and the second even more than the first. They want power. Trump stands in the way of power. Also, Trump is the first Republican to stand up to this big, phony, like the speech he gave at Mount Rushmore. I thought that was a beautiful defense of America, beautiful defense of let us preserve the American way of life. Every single thing he said is true about the violent tendencies of BLM, Antifa, about the aims they have. The New York Times knows that. They can read what I read, and then they say it was the worst speech he ever gave. It was racist. Now, a lot of people don't read the speech. They read the Times and they'll say, oh, Trump's a racist. People we get are the people that go beyond the Times. If we can get you beyond the Times, we’re probably going to get you to vote for Trump because almost every story in the Times now is tinged with this terrible bias condition, so desperate, they print things that are actually untrue now. They used to be more careful. So, I think it's gonna be a difficult campaign. I think the only chance we have is to elect Trump ‘cause he'll do what he says as he did the first time and he really does need a Republican House and Senate to straighten all this out. Even more important, the Democrats need a defeat. The Democrats need to be shown that there are all these American people that we think and believe are sitting in their homes, and find the killing of police officers despicable, that find taking over a police station awful.

What do you say to people today who feel our president is responsible for this because he is the man in charge? Does he have to take any accountability on his watch?
You mean all the riots that are going on?

It’s under his watch.
The riots have nothing to do with the president. The riots have to do with 20 years of this created anger in which they make police brutality the only problem they have and then utilize it. They did it three times under Obama. Nobody thought it was Obama's fault. The difference with Trump is everything is attributed to his fault. I think the only man whose act consistently was the same way under common sense is President Trump, ‘cause no one has the guts enough to actually say what he said at Mount Rushmore. Look at Biden, Biden hasn’t said anything.

The problems are all happening in Democrat-controlled cities. They're not happening in Republican places where he has great influence. You got a couple of cities where the Democratic… 100 years, 70 years, in Baltimore 50 years and in New York City you know how many times we had an increase in crime and rioting is when we had our last Democrat mayor. I mean it’s as if this guy’s out of office for 20 years, we go down to the safest, large city in America, no riots, we get a Democrat and we got two, three riots. This is a function of Democrat left-wing policies that have oppressed black people and have not allowed black people to grow the way they should be allowed to grow, by inflicting on them dependency, inflicting on them all these programs that deteriorate the work ethic. I turned New York around and I just didn’t turn it around through the point of view of crime, I removed 600,000 people from the welfare rolls and put them to work and most of them were minorities. And the reason we kept crime so low is not just policing, it was we had a much better situation like Trump did. Our unemployment went down from 10.5 ... whites benefit from that tremendously, blacks even more. Crime went down, murder went down 65%, 75% of the murderers were black, 75% of the victims were black so figure out who benefited from that, and the black people were made up mostly of good people who were victimized by these thugs and con men.

There are people who believe that President Trump shut the economy down for too long which created a lot of financial ruin in our country. We live in New Jersey. It's a major problem. Do you think he shut it down too long? Do you think he shut it down just enough or should he have never shut it down? And do you think that he's going to shut it down again?

There’s a lot of possibilities. First of all, I think he will never shut it down again because everyone now understands the disease well enough, so it's not necessary to shut down. But, I have to contrast that it is all politics and choices in elections. It's the art of the realistic. If it weren’t for the president, it’d still be shut down because every Democrat wants to keep it going.

The governor of New York, the governor of New Jersey, the governor of California… The governor of Michigan is way out of her mind. She’s got it shut down until September. And every time you listen to Fauci, we’re shut down even longer. First, he embraces baseball, and then we can’t play baseball. Then, he says, first you shouldn't wear masks, now we have to wear masks. Then he tells us two years ago that Hydroxychloroquine is a great, safe drug, been used for 60 years, no problems and all its problems they can control and then when it's recommended as a way to cut off coronavirus, he comes out against it, and now he's in favor of a drug that just, oh by coincidence cost $3,000 more, not that had anything to do with Dr. Fauci’s decision, even though I think he's very embarrassed now that there are now a dozen tests in a row that show that hydroxychloroquine is the most effective treatment for coronavirus if you take it in the first five days. In fact, there are now shortages of supplies because many doctors have bought it up so they can give it to their patients because they were afraid that in some states, they would cut it down. And the only reason they came out against hydroxychloroquine is because the president recommended it. The president recommended it just to say, take a look at it, and the fact is it's the number one treatment ... It’s the number one treatment in France. It’s the number one treatment in China, even. And here in America, in many places, the Democratic governors, in New York for example, Governor Cuomo said you can only get it at a hospital, and actually, that’s the worst place to get it. You’re supposed to take so you don't go to the hospital. So, the way they've politicked with it is terrible. When the president made the decision to shut down, I believe it was the right decision given the facts that we had, and at that time they were predicting a much bigger than terrible, right? They were talking in America even in the millions, what America is going to be 150, 200 thousand, terrible, terrible numbers, but not two million.

The fatality rate now is approaching a tough, but normal disease, down around 1%, and the thing that makes it unnecessary to have to close the economy again is you don't have to close it for young people. Young people are virtually unaffected by it, so if you had left open the schools and just put in careful practices about the young people communicating with their grandparents — not even their parents — their grandparents for some period of time. The fact that you put some emphasis on their grandparents, which they didn't do, your numbers would have been far less. I mean, look at New York, whether it was on purpose or by mistake, they wiped out the old people. It’s like the disease only affects old people, that's true. It only affects old people if they have another disease. So now you have a fairly narrow group of people that need all the resources. Now, you take all the resources and you spread out over everybody that means they are giving less attention to the people who need it and I think that's one of the terrible mistakes we’ve made, but I don't fault anybody for that because I don't think we understood it. I do fault the people who took old people and put them back in nursing homes, and it was like putting a time bomb in the middle of the nursing home.

But they're going to say that at that time, that’s the information they had.

They had the information. We had the information coming out of China that the only people died of this were old people. If they were the ones ... they changed the ages a bit, over 60, over 70, over 75. The truth is anybody over 60 is at risk, but there is a big difference between 60 and 80. So those are the people where all the concentration should be given, and the other people should be allowed to conduct our normal economy  and be careful about contact, and we immediately go to a good medicine right away, if in fact, they have the disease. Even with that, 99% of the people survive, including the old people.

General Flynn is now vindicated and many layers of corruption were uncovered at the FBI, how damaging is this to the FBI, and if the president asked you to lead the FBI, would you do it?

Well I don’t know if I would. I’d have to have the discussion with him. I believe we have to separate the damage to the FBI. The field agents I have not seen anyone of them do anything wrong. They do their job and they do it wonderfully. The way they’ve always done it; very professional and very well. But this is the Washington Field Office and a lot of those guys turned into politicians instead of law enforcement officers and not just politicians, but politicians who got carried away with themselves. When you listen to Peter Struck, who is an FBI agent, on the phone how he and his mistress hate Trump, you say to yourself this guy is no longer an FBI agent, he’s a political nut. I’d remove people like him from investigating cases. We take him off the case because first of all it’s not right and second you know it’s going to lead to corruption because he has so much hatred … Comey knew that and he wanted a guy like that investigating Trump and he wanted a guy like that investigating Hillary.

The Democratic Party has become very corrupt. There is only one answer for it; they have to be voted out of office. If they get voted out of office badly, they become practical, they reform themselves, and then people come in and say hey we have to save this place, we have to get rid of these people and we have to act differently.

Are you considering any future runs for political office?

I am not considering running for office again because I have so many good people that I support. I see these great opportunities for them. My sole focus right now is to get Donald Trump re-elected… He’s done a great job in a very short time.

Were you called a racist when you were mayor?

Yes, enough times but not nearly as often as nowadays. I was called a racist when I required people on welfare to work. I decided I had 1.1 million people on welfare and I had to work on that for their good. What’s the use of having kids grow up in families where they have three generations who don’t work? Where do they get their work ethic? Where did you get it? Where did I get it? You get it from growing up in families and neighborhoods, that’s why we are programmed to get up in the morning and go to work and if we don’t have work, we go out and find it. Now suppose you never saw anybody work. Suppose you saw everyone around you getting paid by the government and sometimes double and triple billing them. So I said to myself I have to save the next generation and build a work ethic into the welfare recipients … New York Times went crazy, said I was running a plantation. I went out into the neighborhoods and I told them I love you more and I love you the way I love my son. I wouldn’t just give my son money for the rest of his life and not to work. I moved 500,000 people off welfare to work.

Are you racist?

I wouldn’t even answer that. Actually, I will. I am the opposite of racist. The Black Lives Matter people are racists because they analyze everything through race. Joe Biden saying I am inclined to pick a woman of color is racist, as opposed to saying I am going to pick the best candidate. If you define racism by the way Martin Luther King did, they’re racists…

Every time we mention you as great mayor, some officers from 20 years ago say—

How come I gave them no increases in three years?

Yes they hold that against you.

Oh man they hold that against me… triple zeroes for heroes.

Now is the perfect time to put this to bed. Let’s all close this one. Was it triple zeroes?

Yeah. Three years of nothing but then two years of big raises that made up for it. I had to borrow money from the people who were working for me — they weren’t the only ones. It was the whole city, the whole city except where I was contractually obligated to give a raise. We also laid off 20,000 people and I didn’t lay off any cops. They can’t appreciate the fact that although I love them and they weren’t the number one department with the fire department in my view, that I didn’t have the money. They’re a big part of the budget and if I cut everything else and not them, I wouldn’t have achieved being able to correct the city's imbalance and we all gambled on each other, and I asked the unions to take a chance on me. I said in essence, I’m asking you to loan me the raise you would have gotten for the last three years. I'm gonna turn this city around. By the time I give you that raise, I think they got like 11% in the last two years together, like five and six or something like that and some bonuses. I'm gonna try to turn the city around. I'm gonna have a surplus. If you want to gamble on me, give me the three zeroes, and we'll try, if you make me pay it to you, ‘cause there are some rules I would probably have had to give them some raise like one or two percent. The most the board is going to require me to do is one or two percent. It doesn’t mean very much, but it is gonna mean I’m going to have to pay up, get you one or two every year, I’m not gonna to be able to give you the rest of it. Give me a chance to turn this city around. Give me a chance to bring business in, give me a chance to get the tax to go up and I'll give you a much bigger raise. And you gotta trust me. If you squeeze me just to get 1% and then I’m gonna have to lay off. I’m gonna have to lay off cops, which I don’t want to do. I got tremendous amount of crime. On the other hand, I'm not going to let the state take over the city because we’re bankrupt. So, we had long negotiations and then we agreed. And, when the cops got real angry and the union leadership was in trouble, they want to put the blame all on me because you know; they’re getting elected and reelected. It’s all me. It was my idea. It was an agreed deal.

Do you want to tell them anything now? They still hold it against you.

I can't help it, I mean, but they have to see it that I was fair and impartial mayor. I didn't treat anybody extra special when I had to save the city. I love cops. I think they’re the most important people in our city. I went to every funeral. You know, I didn’t just go to every funeral; I also went every time they were in the hospital. I went to the hospitals because I knew if the mayor went to the hospital you got the better doctor not the worst doctor. I also brought the police surgeon with me to tell me that I got the best doctor not the worst doctor. I tried to do everything else for them, and as soon as we had a surplus, we gave them a big raise.

We know your strength is leadership, but what’s your weakness?

Impatience. I do things too fast sometimes. Sometimes, if I’ve made mistakes, I usually can attribute it to I like to get things over with, I do them too fast, and so I try to have advisors and people around me to slow me down.

Blue suicide is a major issue affecting law enforcement. Could you give a direct message to an officer today who may be suicidal?

Sure. I would say to any officer that’s even contemplating it, just step back and take a little time … You probably have people who love you, people who care about you, also think about how much you harm them and if you have children, the burden for them if you take your life, and that’s going to hurt them for the rest of their lives. The best thing to do is to step back... The fact is you're just gonna make it all that much more worse for your family, for your colleagues, for the other police officers if you take away what God gave you. And believe me, I can tell you that without even knowing you, it is not as bad as you think. It really isn’t. If you just hold up and you wait, you’re gonna get up the next morning and say to yourself, gee, I had that too exaggerated. Just go talk to the person that loves you the most. Get their perspective on it, and I bet you, you've made it worse than it is. But, for the good of other people, just don't do this.

Thank you for that message.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to do it.

When leadership really counted

It was election night, November 1993.

New York City was a cesspool of filth and violent crime and had become the murder capital of the United States. Rudy Giuliani had just been elected mayor and I was clearing the stage as he was about to make his entrance onto the stage at the New York Hilton for his victory speech.

I had known him for close to two years at that point and was confident that he would be good for New York City, but I had no idea how good. In fact, I could not have predicted what the next eight years would look like, but knew in my heart that things were about to change.

From the second he took his oath of office; he was focused on one primary thing and that was crime. He knew that no one wanted to live in the city, or come to visit, or work, and come to go to school if they didn’t feel safe, and with 2,200 murders, young mothers were putting their babies to bed in bathtubs, afraid of random gunfire.

Giuliani appointed Bill Bratton out of Boston as his first police commissioner with a mandate: Reduce violent crime and murder and do so from the top down – meaning violent crime, and from the bottom up – begin enforcing quality of life crimes that had not been enforced in years.

He put more cops on the streets, more money into the courts and correction department, and told the police department to do the job it was supposed to do.

Over the next eight years during Rudy Giuliani’s term in office, violent crime dropped close to 65% and murder dropped by 70%. In the most violent communities which were predominantly black, the murder rate dropped by close to 80%.

For every percentage point we achieved reductions in violent crime, there were increases in economic development, real estate values and tourism, and New York City had gone from the “Rotten Apple,” to the “Capital of the World,” in an historic renaissance never achieved before in any city in America.

Then came 9/11 – we were under attack.

From the moment the mayor met me at the base of Tower II of the World Trade Center just minutes after the second plane slammed through the north side of the south tower, he took control and command of what was a war zone.

Standing at Ground Zero, at what would come to be known as the first real battle ground in our 20-year global war on terror, Rudy Giuliani was a pillar of strength for the nation, a battlefield commander, and a compassionate leader who brought the city and country together in a way that I have yet to see in any other man-made or natural crisis in our country.

As I watch from the cheap seats today of our country in chaos, with mayors and governors who have allowed their cities and states to be overrun by Marxist anarchists, who have injured more than 1,000 police officers, killed dozens of innocent people and engaged in violent crime, arson and looting that has resulted hundreds of millions of dollars in damage and devastation, I have yet to see one of those governors or mayors with the leadership skills and courage as I have the honor to witness in Rudy Giuliani.

Rudy Giuliani stands as a one-of-a-kind leader, who was fair but firm, who led by example, and who achieved historic results when others said it couldn’t be done. Hopefully, there are other mayors and governors out there in the shadows who will step up to the plate, but until then, cities like New York City, Chicago, Baltimore, Minneapolis and so many others will continue to decline.

Only time will tell. Strength and Honor, Bernard B. Kerik

As New York City’s 40th Police Commissioner, Bernard Kerik was in command of the NYPD on September 11, 2001, and responsible for the city’s response, rescue, recovery, and the investigative efforts of the most substantial terror attack in world history. His 35-year career has been recognized in more than 100 awards for meritorious and heroic service, including a presidential commendation for heroism by President Ronald Reagan, two Distinguished Service Awards from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, The Ellis Island Medal of Honor, and an appointment as Honorary Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

Effective leadership is not for the faint of heart

Everything rises or falls on leadership. To be clear there are only two types of leadership; effective and ineffective. In our current political state all across America we have an abundance of ineffective leadership whereas unfortunately effective leadership is lacking.

Let’s look at some examples with how cities and states are dealing with the riots and violent disturbances that engulf a growing number of major cities.

In Seattle a group of insurrectionists carved out and took over a section of the city, walling it off as a no go zone to the Seattle Police Department. This included a police precinct that was abandoned and turned over to the rioters. The clueless mayor empowered these domestic terrorists and called it the summer of love oblivious to the rage exhibited by these marauders.

In Portland Oregon, the city as of this writing was experiencing 60 straight days of violent disturbances. The mayor there again has no sense of urgency in getting things under control while being in complete denial about the violence.

In other cities like New York, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Chicago, Atlanta and Milwaukee you have mayors and a local political class that has crawled into bed with the devil, the cop-haters, while turning their backs on their law-abiding citizens and the men and women in law enforcement who are doing what they can to maintain law and order. This is not just shameful— it’s disgusting. The escalating anti-cop rhetoric is causing death and injury to police officers and citizens and resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars in property damaged, which is taking a huge toll on communities all across America.

Police commanders are another example of ineffective leadership as they cede business areas over to looters and arsonists by giving their officers stand-down orders. Chiefs and other commanders are kneeling and marching with the cop-haters of Black Lives Matter. It is a disgrace. Frontline officers are being pelted with rocks bottles and other projectiles. Officers being injured and killed has become a daily occurrence as if it is a part of the job description. They are under immense stress, under-resourced and have no political backing. Even minor uses of reasonable force are being looked at for possible criminal prosecution by overzealous politically-active prosecutors as Chiefs stand cowardly remain silent with their tails between their legs.

Calls for police reform are nothing more than a knee jerk reaction to what can be best described as an anomaly that occurred in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It serves as an excuse to ignore the real problem in all these urban cities and that problem is the street violence that occurs on a daily basis. Focusing on a“one-off” police officer’s action in Minneapolis allows spineless politicians to whistle past the graveyard of shootings and murders that are more prevalent than police use of force.

Let me add some perspective here. If you want to know what effective leadership looks like just go back to how Mayor Rudy Giuliani with ball-busting Commissioners William Bratton and Bernard Kerik made New York City livable again. Under there’re leadership they added more officers and resources. They enacted a crime reduction plan that led New York to being named the safest big city in America saving countless lives. They didn’t work with race hustlers like Al Sharpton. They shouted him down. They defended cops who acted appropriately. That doesn’t exist in these large cities today.

The elephant in the room is not policing, it the cultural rot and dysfunction that occurs in the urban ghettos across America. It’s things like ineffective parenting and in some cases, no parenting at all. It’s things like absent fathers, women having multiple children from different men leading to child abuse and neglect. It’s things like school failure and questionable lifestyle choices like joining gangs along with criminal behavior and drug use. But that’s the hard stuff for politicians. Leadership can start by holding up a mirror to the black underclass and demand that they adopt better lifestyle choices. Then we won’t need so much policing. Easier to go after the cops. After all they are the low hanging fruit.

Effective leadership would be starting a national discussion in America about the ugly reality of why so many black males choose criminality instead of leading a more mainstream lifestyle. Politicians need to ask why 53% of all known homicide suspects are black males and why 60% of all known robbery suspects are black males when blacks make up only 13% of the population. Yes, let’s have THAT conversation.

Policing doesn’t need to be reformed. The ghetto needs to be reformed. Changes in behavior and lifestyle of the underclass are what need to be reformed. But that is the hard stuff for politicians whose failed policies cause most of the conditions that require more policing. Policies like releasing career violent criminals from jails and prisons… another STUPID policy. All of this is then thrown into the lap of a police officer and you expect miracles and when things go awry through no fault of the police, the cop-haters demand change. The biggest threat to law-abiding people is not a police officer, it’s a stray bullet from a criminal indiscriminately shooting up the neighborhood.

Why won’t more politicians and police commanders state the obvious about ineffective leadership? Effective leadership is not for the faint of heart. It’s hard stuff. That is why it is in such short supply.

Sheriff David Clarke Jr. is former Sheriff of Milwaukee Co, Wisconsin, President of AmericasSheriff LLC, Board of Directors for the Crime Prevention Research Center, author of the book Cop Under Fire: Beyond Hashtags of Race Crime and Politics for a Better America. To learn more visit www.americassheriff.com

The 'movement' to end policing? A nation without police is one that nobody wants to live in

Nothing in this country has been the same since that insidious day in May when America witnessed the nearly nine-minute recording of a Minneapolis police officer’s maneuver of pinning his knee to the side of the neck of a man named George Floyd, effectively perceived as contributing to an end of his life over a $20 counterfeit bill he had used at a neighborhood corner market.

That’s the day part of the souls of law enforcement officers, the “blue community,” and law-abiding Americans died alongside George Floyd. None of us has been able to breathe since that day in May, either.

It’s also the day America’s war with its own citizens began; a “movement” of radical groups of people we’ve come to know as Black Lives Matter and Antifa. Both have made their presence well-known in previous uprisings in individual communities during protests over killings of black men by white police officers, a national narrative ignited not by statistics, but by both the media and leaders across America who participated in heightening that perception.

While the statistics do not support their claims, their “force” has grown in greater numbers, including people across all racial lines and socioeconomic classes. Politicians pandering to these groups demonstrated their willingness to go the distance with them. Mayors walked the streets with protesters, while police officers and chiefs of police in some cities thought that taking a knee with those revolting against their existence might show an expression of solidarity. Meanwhile, the media’s degree of sensationalism only served to fan the flames and ignite an even larger false narrative about the American police officer.

The fact of the matter remains that we didn’t accept Colin Kaepernick’s stand against police on September 1, 2016 when he kneeled during the national anthem. Never mind the blue socks with pigs on them. Did our police buy into his narrative then?

Americans have been subjected to the continuous, malicious mistruths about “peaceful protests” all over the country; stories of fiction. The chaos and destruction of our country unfolded right before our eyes. And yet, those of us who represent the majority sat quietly watching communities and businesses burn to the ground as rioters also burned and stomped on our American flag. Innocent people have lost their lives. Police officers have been wounded and killed. Our city and state leaders no longer control our streets.

Police officers across this nation have been ordered by their city leaders to use de-escalation methods while being stripped of their use of tear gas and, in some cities, even their pepper spray. What line of defense have the police been given? With calls to defund police departments around our nation, where are the leaders of this country? New York City has reduced the budget for its police force by a billion dollars, in spite of a significant spike in crime.

Are we heading toward an America without police?

A recent “deadly force” study by Washington State University researcher Lois James found that police officers were less likely to shoot unarmed black suspects than unarmed white or Hispanic ones in simulated threat scenarios. Harvard economics professor Roland Fryer analyzed more than 1,000 officer-involved shootings across the country. He concluded that there is zero evidence of racial bias in police shootings. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, black citizens were about 12 percent of the population in the United States. In the 75 largest U.S. counties, members of the black community were charged with 62 percent of all robberies, 61 percent of weapons offenses and 57 percent of murders. This disproportionate disparity is also reflected in the racial makeup of those victimized by this pattern of activity. It has been reported in New York City that black citizen’s account for just over 24 percent of the city’s population, yet the DOJ has reported 57 percent of all murder victims and 58 percent of those arrested for murder are black. These disparities in New York are repeated in virtually every racially diverse city in America. The real problem facing black communities today is not the police but criminals. The BLM and Antifa narratives are a lie folks. Black-on-black crime, however, is unfortunately true.

There is no government agency more dedicated to the proposition that “Black Lives Matter” than the police. The proactive policing revolution that began long ago has dramatically brought down the inner-city murder rate and likely has saved thousands of black lives. Unfortunately, that crime decline is now in jeopardy. This is tragic because when the police refrain from proactive policing, black lives are lost because of a myth. Sadly, police officers are historically 18.5 times more likely to be killed by a black male than an unarmed black male is to be killed by a police officer.

Stay safe… ‘Blue Lives Matter,’ too.

Lori Cooper is the daughter of a late police officer shot in the line of duty whose perpetrator eluded authorities for 44 years until her own search resulted in his apprehension. Her story has been featured by hundreds of news organizations. She now writes for law enforcement media groups and is a police advocate and guest on national radio and television. She is writing a book about her story, tentatively titled "The Sound of Silence". She can be reached at www.WriterLoriCooper.com