A Philadelphia Fire Department paramedic is under fire for posting this picture with the caption: “Our real enemy.” The caption also said “Need 2 stop pointing guns at each other & at the ones that’s legally killing innocents.” Marcell Salters has also published highly antagonistic language toward police officers. He has since apologized but some have called for his punishment or termination. In the meantime, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio is under attack after Ismaaiyl Brinsley effectively executed two police officers over his anger with the recent decisions by grand juries in Missouri and New York. police have been protesting what they view as de Blasio’s unfair portrayals of police after the decision, including turning their backs on the mayor when he came to give a press conference on the murders.
Salters
Marcell Salters has been denounced for his attack on officers who often protect paramedics at accident and crime scenes. In now deleted comments, Salters said that he “never did or will like police” and “[b]ecause of what i do i have to work with them but dont have to like them . . . There are numerous crooked & corrupted cops (mostly white) & mostly they harass, beat, or kill innocents (mostly blks).”
He has since apologized and posted the following: “I would like to deeply apologize to anyone i have offended. That post was out of anger of what is going on around the world (mike brown, eric garner & etc) & past experiences that i have had with the police. . . My intentions was not to slander or hurt anyone or my brothers in blue. Again i am sorry.”
I have previously written about concerns that public employees are increasingly being disciplined for actions in their private lives or views or associations outside of work. We have previously seen teachers (here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here), here, here, students (here and here) and other public employees (here and here and here) fired for their private speech or conduct, including school employees fired for posing in magazines (here), appearing on television shows in bikinis (here), or having a career in the adult entertainment industry (here).
One different wrinkle is that Joseph Schulle, head of the firefighters’ union Local 22, said that Salters could be disciplined because he allegedly made a comment about the post while on duty. That creates a different context than many of the prior cases above where comments or postings were made entirely during off-hours or outside of public jobs. It is not clear what the comment was that is being isolated as a possible basis for discipline however.
I tend to view these cases from a first amendment perspective. I find Salters’ comments to be highly offensive and wrong. However, I do believe that he has a right to say them just as others have a right to denounced them. While such comments obviously make for tense working conditions, some of us believe that free speech requires bright-line rules of protection even for hateful speech like that of Marcell Salters.
The uproar of police in Philadelphia has joined an equal if not greater outcry of officers in New York.
Ismaaiyl Brinsley, 28, the killer of officers Wenjian Liu, 32, and Rafael Ramos, 40, had a history of violence and mental instability. He shot the officers as they sat in their patrol car in Brooklyn on Saturday before he ran to a subway station and shot himself. Only hours earlier, he shot and wounded his 29-year-old ex-girlfriend, Shaneka Thompson, at her home in Baltimore, Maryland. After shooting Thompson, Brinsley threatened on Instagram to kill police officers while referencing the New York and Missouri grand jury decisions: “They Take 1 of Ours… Let’s Take 2 of Theirs #ShootThePolice #RIPEricGarner #RIPMike Brown. This May Be My Final Post.”
Before the murders, Brinsley reportedly struck up a conversation with two men. According to the police, he asked the men “for their gang affiliation; he asked them to follow him on Instagram; and then he says: ‘Watch what I’m going to do.'” That is when he walked past the patrol car, circled it and then crossed the street to come up behind the car. That is when he fired four bullets through the front passenger window, killing the officers.
Police directed their anger in part at de Blasio who has been viewed as supporting the protests against police after the decision of the New York grand jury. The Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association even went as far as having officers to sign a petition calling for Mr de Blasio to be barred from attending their funerals if they were killed in the line of duty. There is also a growing racial rift over de Blasio’s policies. A poll last week found seventy percent of black people approved of the mayor’s performance while only 32 percent of white people supported him. Yet, he had received good polling numbers over his handling of protests following the decisions in New York and Missouri.
and we have seen posters here say no one else has had the experience of using the subways and living in the inner cities
No one has said any such thing. You are hallucinating.
No you haven’t seen that, where do you get that? You’ve read that some of us have experienced bad things. We don’t know you, and since you seem smug about what we’ve experienced, we frankly don’t care.
I don’t ignore. I just don’t believe it most of the time. If you rode the subway and claim you never were in a bad spot than I just find it hard to believe. When you and po listed your experiences I will accept what you say at face value but find it hard to believe that you cast your lot with the criminals and miscreants instead of the police.
Our world views are just too different.
It is not fear. Just reality. Believe that the cops are the problems and not the criminals. Your choice.
Trooper wrote: I don’t ignore. I just don’t believe it most of the time. If you rode the subway and claim you never were in a bad spot than I just find it hard to believe. When you and po listed your experiences I will accept what you say at face value but find it hard to believe that you cast your lot with the criminals and miscreants instead of the police.
Our world views are just too different.
Your choice to believe or not. I lived there for 14 years and never had a problem. You don;t like my reality so it is therefore hard for you to believe.
I have never, and I won’t speak for po, she is very adept at speaking for herself, said I cast my lot with the criminals. Of course I have already pointed that out but again it is a truth that does not fit your narrative so you put words into my mouth (or posts) that I never said.
I imagine it is hard to live like that, your own reality and the work it takes to try and fit everyone else’s experience into your neat little misrepresenting package.
I am done responding to you. Why waste my “breath” when you will have me say what you want me to have said rather then what I did.
Criminals are the problem and as I have said repeatedly bad cops are the problem, not cops. I have already expressed my admiration for what they do, but you can’t afford to understand my words because it negates your need to represent what those who do not align with you say
(and we have seen posters here say no one else has had the experience of using the subways and living in the inner cities but when proven wrong just ignore it.)
leejcaroll
Anecdotal and personal experience does not necessarily extrapolate out
————————-
Yep!
I have lived all across the states, including NYC, the Bronx, 134th street, without hot water or heat in the middle of winter, among people worsly disadvantaged.
Also lived in Harlem before it was gentrified.
Rode the train daily, everywhere…played basketball in all the hot spots of the Bronx and Harlem.
I have had guns and knives pulled on me, was robbed and attacked. The only time I really feared for my life, was when a cop, undercover, high or drunk was gunning for me.
One can justify whatever the hell they want. Fear is one of those things that are self- fulfilling, and it demands one be binary about everything, black and white, good and evil.
No one here knows for sure who anyone is, and knows for sure what everyone’s life experience has been… one of the hallmark of blindness is to assume that no one has been through what one has been through…and to justify your fear and worry by creating the idea that you are the only one to have gone through what you have gone through is not only self-indulgent, but deceptive as hell.
It is such a waste of time going through life beholden to worry and fear…you are not living your life, rather you are wasting it. Your choice.
experiences color our perceptions. I lived in Soho, in NYC from 1976 – 1991 and used the subway almost everyday to go all over Manhattan, and rarely the Bronx too. (Only in Brooklyn maybe 2 x). I was never held up or mugged or anything else, absent once in Penn Station, Amtrak, where a guy followed me down the stairs into the station and kept saying “I’m going to kill you. “I’m going to kill you.” I lost him when I went to the station agent’s office.
I don’t wax nostalgic (and I resent your name calling characterization). I know what my experience and that of the folks I knew and lived with in the same apartment building. (There were burglarties, I was not one burglarized but about every 3 years the building was gone through. We all figured the word went out on the street, they must have gotten new things by now. During one burglary a cop was shot in the hand when the burglar came into his apartment).
When I moved to the P{a suburbs everyone said oh new York how scary and unsafe. Within 2 weeks of moving here there was a murder only a few blocks away. There were also a couple in the condo complex I lived in. Unsafe is unsafe wherever you live. If I relied nly on my experience I would say oh hey Lansdale area (Towamencin) not safe. In fact 3 of the people murdered a few weeks ago were in a house about 7 blocks away from me.
Anecdotal and personal experience does not necessarily extrapolate out
Ari you and I have unfortunately had experience that informs our opinion of what it is like in the real world.
I have been held up at gunpoint twice. Been a witness at a shooting. Been present at too many incidents on the subway to mention. I live in Brooklyn. I have traveled on every subway line in every borough in my former job as an accountant. From Great Kills in Staten Island to Bainbridge Avenue in the Bronx to Inwood in Manhattan to Jamaica in Queens.
The only saving grave I have is that I am a big Irish guy covered in donut crumbs so most of the knuckleheads thought I was a cop. I can’t tell you how many times I got on a subway car and some mook said to his friend “Five-O” and went to the next car. I was very lucky to avoid a bad result in those days. Some of my friends and acquaintances were not so fortunate.
I remember the 1970’s and 1980’s and what it was like. These hipster douchebags wax nostalgic about those days. They don’t have a freakin’ clue.
My time and the time of people like me in the city is almost over. I am old now and I doubt I would seem a threat to the new knuckleheads. They would just laugh and do what they want. They are much too bold now and getting bolder. De Blasio has done that. They know that they have the support of their “community” who will lionize them instead of the police who try to keep order and hold the lid down.
BTW…the photo that accompanies this post infuriates me. Period. It is the polar opposite of what is necessary….but well serves the purpose of this post none-the-less.
Po said …
Ari…Why did you think I was talking to you?
Because you failed to distinguish at the beginning just who you were addressing. Like many others, a blanket comment implies others. If I misunderstood, my bad. All I can say is be careful about the blanket remarks. You do seem to understand that I am rather independent in my thoughts.
That said, Trooper says nothing I don’t agree with so far…he may say it coarsely or bluntly, but he is simply reflecting what we both have experienced, first hand….likely he has more than me in fact. Truth be told, Trooper reflects considerable more “tolerance” than many do (including me)…but you have to have read his comments for some time to know that. He is vested in his city, both personally and financially, so his opinions matter…whether anyone agrees or not…in short, his financial future is placed where is mouth is, period. Therefore, I listen.
As I said earlier, we’ll never likely agree and the debate is tiring. I have to watch out for my tomorrow. You should too. Tell me you have some skin in the game, …e.g., from Detroit or at least another urban center, and I’ll give more credence to your ideas…or at the very least listen more attentively. It has reached that point on this board and others where I can no longer tell the posers from the real. And that is likely my fault. Academics just wear me out, other than Professor Turley and very few others, …tell me you are not one of that clan?
I have to (it is literally a blood obligation) go to Atlanta next month to visit with a long time friend, now suffering from dementia and an aneurysm, dating back to my teens, and I am going to be staying at his house, in Atlanta. Will I be safe? I expect so.
See, I don’t care, because I must go and I have been invited to stay with his family, by his wife, and I cannot refuse. Leo is that important to me, I cannot refuse. And I will not. Am I cool in the blackest of the Atlanta burbs? You tell me?
No mater, I am going anyway.
There was an absolute difference in the way the GJ is convened and handled normally and what McCullough did but I see giving out facts, with clicks so you can read, see for yourself, is an exercise in futility
I also blame the media for some of this. They sensationalize and repeatedly show the same stories giving those who are unbalanced the knowledge that a platform awauts them to have their name and face shown over and over again and giving them notoriety. I don’t say don’t tell the story but to repeat them again and again and show videos of the perpetrators and talk about them sometimes seemingly incessantly is to court these bad guys (and sometimes even challenge them)
Trooper…it is as I predicted, sadly…very sadly. I really hope it does not reach us here (Detroit), but I am less than 100% certain that it won’t. So far, so good. I agree with all you’ve said on the subject, as you know. I care less who thinks I am callous…I’ve lived in the midst of it all before, here and half a world away,…my experience informs me. Period. That a guy who once laid his rifle down, in an otherwise hostile area, to play baseball with some local national kids now feels he can’t go about most days without a sidearm in his homeland says it all. I am ashamed I feel that way … almost, but not quite.
Only positive thing I noticed in that sad story is that the pistol had a safety and likely saved Monsanto’s life because the idiot probably thought it was like a Glock and some other mfgrs. that think a separate manual safety is spurious. After 65 years out of my 72 using firearms, I will say unequivocally, a manual safety is a paramount necessity. It forces you to make a decision…simple. Argue all anyone wants otherwise, as some nuts do, it is a very simple fact. All of my pistols have separate (distinct from the trigger mechanism) manual safeties…won’t carry one without it. Regrettably, the killer figured the safety out and Officer Santiago is now dead.
There will be more. It is just beginning…now let me be wrong, please, just this time. Then I’ll shut up. Last winter I stopped my truck in a very rough neighborhood to help a guy stuck in one of those city snowplow ridges…and Judi, riding with me, said, why? I said, because I have to do so…a guy needs help and I can do it. No other reason is needed. Behind that idea is the simple fact that I can defend my self, I have the experience, and hope to never need it again. I may therefore be an idiot.
This has all happened before. There is nothing new under the sun.
It is just on a national scale.
http://media.nj.com/jersey-journal/photo/2014/07/14/15404422-large.jpg
“In Jersey City, a sidewalk memorial honors accused cop killer”
NJ.com July 14, 2014
As Jersey City mourns a police officer, others grieve for an accused cop killer.
On Orient Avenue, just around the block from Lucky #3 Mini-Mart on Martin Luther King Drive, sits a memorial to Lawrence Campbell, the man who fatally shot Officer Melvin Santiago early Sunday morning.
About two dozen candles and an assortment of empty liquor bottles – including two bottles of Petrón tequila – sit on the sidewalk. Above them, two white t-shirts fixed to the red brick wall feature messages to Campbell scrawled with black markers.
“Thug In Peace.”
“Live Life My Bro.”
“SEE U ON THE OTHER SIDE. LUV – DRAMA.”
Campbell shot and killed Santiago early Sunday morning after Santiago responded to the Walgreens store at Communipaw Avenue and Kennedy Boulevard on a report of an armed robbery. Officers on the scene returned fire, killing Campbell.
http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1864910!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/article_970/police-officer-melvin-santiago-killed-walgreen.jpg
New York Daily News, Sunday July 13, 2014
A Jersey City cop with just seven months on the job was shot to death by a gunman who had told a drugstore customer to watch the news because he was “going to be famous.”
Minutes following that boast, Lawrence Campbell was on his way to infamy — executing Officer Melvin Santiago before he himself was killed in a hail of bullets by cops.
The baby-faced Santiago, ambushed while still inside a marked patrol car, was just 23.
The body of suspected cop killer Lawrence Campbell is seen on the ground Sunday as investigators work the scene outside Walgreens in Jersey City. Police shot Campbell after he killed Officer Melvin Santiago.
JULIO CORTEZ/AP
The body of suspected cop killer Lawrence Campbell is seen on the ground Sunday as investigators work the scene outside Walgreens in Jersey City. Police shot Campbell after he killed Officer Melvin Santiago.
The drama began around 4 a.m. Sunday as Campbell, 27, who may have been with a pal, entered a Walgreens on Communipaw Ave. and asked security guard Pierre Monsanto where he could find greeting cards for someone having a baby, officials and a friend of Monsanto said.
The drama began around 4 a.m. Sunday as Campbell, 27, who may have been with a pal, entered a Walgreens on Communipaw Ave. and asked security guard Pierre Monsanto where he could find greeting cards for someone having a baby, officials and a friend of Monsanto said.
Monsanto, 58, pointed to the card aisle, and later Campbell returned and asked Monsanto, “Do you think this is a nice card?” according to neighbor Katherine Calcano, 28, who spoke to Monsanto after the incident.
Suddenly, Campbell — or his possible accomplice — pulled a knife and slashed Monsanto in the left cheek, punching him repeatedly and taking the guard’s gun.
“He heard the gun clicking,” Calcano told the Daily News, recounting what Monsanto told her. “The person was trying to kill him with the gun, but he could not take the safety off.
The shooting happened outside Walgreens on Communipaw Ave. at JFK Blvd.
“Apparently the robbers thought he was dead because one of the guys told the cashier, ‘I killed your security guard,’ and ran out,” added Calcano. She said Monsanto gave the same account to his co-workers on Sunday after he was released from the hospital.
After disabling the guard, Campbell went outside the 24-hour store. A surveillance video showed Campbell talking to “Watch the news later. I’m going to be famous,” he said, according to Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop.
He waited about four minutes for the cops to respond to the report of an armed robbery. Santiago and his partner, Ismael Martinez, were the first on the scene, Fulop said.
Campbell walked up to the passenger side of the squad car and shot Santiago as the officer tried to open the vehicle door, Fulop said. The deranged gunman fired three times at another police car “in an attempt to kill two other police officers,” the mayor said.
Officers fired back, leaving the cop killer dead at the scene. No other officers were hurt.
Fulop was at Jersey City Medical Center when Santiago’s mother came to identify the young officer’s body.
“It’s not possible,” Cathy McBride said, according to Fulop.
A dazed McBride repeated her son’s badge number over and over, he said.
In recent days, Jersey City cops had been searching for Campbell and Daniel Wilson, his alleged accomplice in a previous homicide. Police were also looking for an unnamed third person of interest. Officials didn’t release details about that crime.
Police have yet to confirm Calcano’s account or reveal whether Campbell had an accomplice.
“He’s very shook up right now,” Calcano said of Monsanto. “He feels so bad that this happened to someone with his own weapon. He said, ‘If I was conscious, maybe I could have stopped them.’ ”
Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop (center) speaks at a news conference about the death of Officer Melvin Santiago.
Santiago graduated from the police academy in December and had a promising career ahead of him, relatives said.
“He didn’t even make it a whole year,” said Santiago’s weeping stepfather, Alex McBride, 50. “I can’t believe it.”
These big city problems are just that. Lots of monkeys running around their cages.
What Was Different About the Ferguson Grand Jury?
The grand jury that decided not to indict Police Officer Darren Wilson operated differently from a typical grand jury in Missouri.
Typical
Wilson’s case
Time
A typical case tends to be presented to a grand jury in about one day.
The grand jurors in the Officer Wilson case met for 25 days over three months.
Specific charge
A prosecutor usually provides a charge or range of charges, then asks the grand jury to indict based on those options.
The St. Louis County prosecutor, Robert P. McCulloch, did not recommend a charge or charges against Officer Wilson.
Number of witnesses
A grand jury generally hears testimony from a few people, often the police investigators who have interviewed witnesses and examined the physical evidence.
In Officer Wilson’s case, 60 witnesses were called, and the grand jury heard extensive testimony from investigators, who showed pictures of the scene and described it in detail.
Defendant testimony
The grand jury does not usually hear testimony from the individual who may be charged.
Officer Wilson testified for four hours.
Secrecy
Under Missouri law, grand jury activity is usually secret, although evidence from it can be submitted at a later trial.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/08/13/us/ferguson-missouri-town-under-siege-after-police-shooting.html?_r=0
I wonder if the police and investigators had followed protocol and McCullough had done so as well if the result s would have been different, people feeling that this was not a sham presentation and investigation
leejcaroll – the key word in your post is the word “generally.” Generally does not mean always. Some GJ investigate, some are convened to hear charges all ready to be set for a true bill.
http://www.snopes.com/info/news/wilson.asp
Image depicts injuries suffered by Ferguson, Missouri, police officer Darren Wilson following an altercation with shooting victim Mike Brown.
Snopes rates it as false and shows the pictures and why it is false (including that the photo of man with injured face is not Wilson.
Paul even McCullough said he put people on the stand whom he knew to be lying (and I give you the clicks including McCullough in his own words saying this) but keep your narrative it was a fair presentation.How is it fair, to either side, when witnesses known to be lying are allowed to swear to the aoth and tell their lies with the DA’s permission?
In addition information is and was missing:
Outstanding questions
— Where are all the bullets? (Only three were recovered from Brown’s body.)
— Were other shots fired that missed Brown?
— What evidence is in the police car? Was a shot fired in the car, as law enforcement officials say?
— What evidence is on Brown’s clothes? They were not provided to the family pathologist, but the presence or lack of gunshot residue could indicate from how far away the shots were fired. The clothes could also show evidence of any confrontation between Brown and Wilson.
— What evidence of any confrontation was on Wilson’s body or clothes of any confrontation?
http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2014/08/us/ferguson-brown-timeline/
The investigation was stymied by bad investigation and possible attempts to defeat a good investigation.
I don’t know who is telling the truth but to fall hook line and sinker into one side and ignore that lies were told, investigation curtailed and stymied leads people to believe there was a cover up. Maybe if Wilson and the police had told their tale from day 1 instead of waiting so long people would be so willing to believe there was (is) a cover up.
Of course I know, based on how you post, you will ignore that I said ‘I do not know what happened one way or the other’
TrooperYork “I don’t know if anyone has ever said, here, protestors, news organizations, etc “He was not a young scholar who meekly stood there with his hands up.” but that does not seem to bother you that you seem to as you go along.
Ari
Why did you think I was talking to you? I made sure to mention Trooper in my comment, and previously, I have used you as an example of someone here who may be conservative BUT open-minded?
I was not , even, in the slightest, referring to you, solely to Trooper.
I do remember praising you similarly on another thread previously…the fact that we disagree is just that, a disagreement of perspectives… I value that you are one of the few actively thinking out of the fort of their biases, which is a solution on its own. Anything else is just rehashing the same negativity and pointing fingers, which I am tired of as well.
Merry Christmas to all, and to our Jewish friends, blessed holidays.