Everyone who seeks work in law enforcement should be a warrior in spirit and a shepherd at heart. Despite these sheepdog qualities, tragedies happen and blue lives are shattered when cops die in the line of duty. When it happens, we cry, we mourn, and we do our best to move on without categorizing a particular group of people for the heinous acts that are perpetuated upon America’s gatekeepers.
Yet while we march forward, we do so while absorbing the constant antagonizing assault by vile individuals who could care less about your personal safety as long as their base of power is expanded, and, in many cases involving its leadership and mouthpieces, they are personally enriched.
Thus far in the new year, there have already been 10 cops who’ve died in the line of duty, according to the Officer Down Memorial Page. Of those, five have been killed by gunfire.
When a black man dies at the hands of law enforcement, it will inevitably get blown out of proportion by the Black Lives Matter narrative, no matter how unsettling the circumstances — chronic elements of non-compliance — or how uncommon truly unjustified encounters are, such as the case in Memphis where five former black cops are now being prosecuted for murder. Some lunatics are still calling this a case of white supremacy. If anything, it’s the result of bad apples, poor training, questionable leadership and lowered hiring standards based upon everything that has been discovered to this point.
When a police officer is killed in the line-of-duty, there is barely a whimper of anger beyond the Thin Blue Line, which inappropriately gets desecrated by activist outside our ranks, and some from within who’ve caved to “political arsonists” — individuals who gaslight circumstances for personal and political advantage.
Among the five officers killed by gunfire thus far in 2023 is Deputy Darnell Calhoun of the Riverside Sheriff’s Department in California. He was killed in an ambush attack while responding to a call.
During an emotional press conference, Sheriff Chad Bianco noted that Calhoun was married and his wife is expecting their first child, Law Officer reported.
“He was the most cheerful, the most positive, the most good, wholesome man you could imagine,” Sheriff Bianco said.
Calhoun’s murder occurred just weeks after Deputy Isaiah Cordero with the same department was killed by a convicted felon during a traffic stop.
Cordero’s murder is an example of the mounting crisis facing law enforcement. He was killed by a “bad dude” who should’ve been incarcerated at the time of the homicide. According to Sheriff Bianco, the deputy would still be alive if a San Bernardino County judge had sentenced the accused shooter in 2021 instead of setting him free.
In the small town of Brackenridge, Pennsylvania, Chief Justin McIntire was killed in early January by a career criminal who was wanted for a weapons violation while on probation, Law Officer reported.
Criminals with violent histories plague the public and more often than not, are responsible for the killing of our nation’s cops. In Selma, California, Officer Gonzalo Carrasco Jr. was ambushed and killed by a man who was released early from prison. As we frequently say, nothing is routine in the world of a law enforcement officer, despite a headline reading, “Officer killed during routine call.”
Carrasco was fatally shot while checking on a “suspicious person” who obviously had murder in his heart. He was the first officer to be killed in the line of duty in Selma’s history.
Officer Gonzalo Carrasco Jr. has been identified by the Fresno Co. SO as the Selma Police officer killed in the line of duty yesterday. He was 24 years old.
Ofc. Carrasco leaves behind his parents, siblings & girlfriend, who is pregnant with their child.
EOW: Jan. 31, 2023 🖤💙 pic.twitter.com/QzCOchHiCQ
— Amanda Aguilar ABC30 (@AAguilarTV) February 1, 2023
Officer Sean Sluganski of the McKeesport Police Department in Pennsylvania was murdered and another officer was shot by a man who had threatened his mother (and others) earlier this month, Law Officer reported.
Sean Sluganski (ODMP)
Officer Peter Jerving of the Milwaukee Police Department was shot and killed Feb. 7 by a man who had been sentenced to probation the day before for two hit-and-run crashes.
If you're keeping track, this is the fourth police officer so far this year killed by a criminal who should have been in prison. https://t.co/kHhUbhZUhP
— Lyndsey Fifield (@lyndseyfifield) February 10, 2023
Another part of the story that is often lost on the public following the murder of a police officer is that other cops not only go through the mourning process with fellow officers, but are responsible for catching the killers. In several cases police become involved in fatal shootings with cop-killers, another storyline that anyone outside the business cannot begin to comprehend, largely thanks to Hollywood that depicts these encounters as robotic.
Ask any law enforcement officer who has been involved in a shooting. The aftermath is anything but “auto pilot.”
The Black Lives Matter narrative has been filled with fraud and deceit ever since Officer Darren Wilson fatally shot Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri on Aug. 9, 2014. Wilson was exonerated by everyone who probed the fatal encounter, yet Michael Brown — a strong-armed robbery suspect at the time of his death — died a martyr. Meanwhile, Wilson is living a life in obscurity, unlikely to bring attention to himself for constant fear of retaliation by a rabid mob of “social justice” advocates.
In a recent editorial published by the Washington Examiner, the author, Zachary Faria, wrote, “You hear no media squealing about national trends of violence, as accompanies any incident when a police officer kills a black man. The media will flock to tar any officer as racist, no matter the facts of the case. In both Columbus, Ohio, and Kenosha, Wisconsin, various media outlets portrayed police officers as villains despite the officers responding appropriately in both instances — all of this to continue peddling the narrative of the Black Lives Matter movement that black people were being hunted by police officers.”
Continuing, Faria notes, “And yet, the percentage of unarmed black people killed by police over the last nine years is just 2%, according to the Washington Post’s police shooting database. There have been seven black men killed by police this year, according to the database. All seven were armed with either a gun or a knife. Seven unarmed black men were killed by police in all of 2022, with ‘unarmed’ not necessarily accurately describing whether the men were threatening the lives of officers or not.”
Finally, Faria argues, “We are told this is a trend that is indicative of deep systemic racism in both America and in the profession of policing. What, then, is five police officers being killed in just six weeks of 2023, with four being killed by men with criminal records? If Black Lives Matter is propped up by the media when Jacob Blake turns a knife on officers in Kenosha, where is the media’s concern when police are being ambushed by criminals?
The hypocrisy of the Black Lives Matter movement is frequently exposed as they fail to respond to black on black crime or any black police officer who is dies in the line of duty, such as Officer Clarence “CJ” Williams of the Cairo Police Department in Georgia who died from a medical emergency during a foot pursuit Jan. 28; or the aforementioned murder of Deputy Calhoun.
Indeed BLM activists scream and shout while demanding “social justice.” America should be warned, they are not seekers of justice anymore than Jeffrey Epstein was looking out for the interests of female teens forced to fulfill his perverse sexual fantasies.
Meanwhile, people in the profession of law enforcement would simply like to be treated with dignity and respect as they continue to perform a necessary role in society; a function that few others are able to handle, even those with bullhorns and microphones who claim the cops “screwed up again.”
Editor’s note: The original version of this article included Officer Geoffrey Redd of the Memphis Police Department among those killed in the line of duty in 2023. We deeply regret this was in error on the date of publication, Feb. 14, 2023. Officer Redd suffered a gunshot wound to the head in early February and was in critical condition. We offer our sincere apologies for this terrible error.
Update: The Memphis Police Department sadly announced the passing of Officer Redd on Feb. 18, 2023. Read more.
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