What every cop I know tells me is this: What they worry about most is doing no harm to innocent people and getting home safe each night, and getting their partners home safe, too. And what they tell me over and over is this: What throws everything upside down is when the person being questioned or stopped doesn’t comply with the instructions of police — or, worse, when he or she resists — that’s when bad things happen. It doesn’t matter what the infraction is. When a citizen resists arrest, it is a danger signal. That’s when everything can head south. And here’s something else that any of our leaders could have explained to the nation: Grand juries don’t often indict cops because cops are different. Citizens put cops in harm’s way, and when cops make mistakes or exercise bad judgment, we can’t criminalize those errors, any more than we can criminalize the bad decision of doctors. That’s what civil proceedings are for, and big monetary jury verdicts. Or there would be no cops. And no doctors.

December 29, 2014 

Cops’ Lives Matter
It’s dishonest or paranoid to claim that the greatest danger to young black men is from the police.

By Lee Habeeb

NYPD officers salute at the funeral of Officer Rafael Ramos, December 27, 2014.

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Lee Habeeb 

Cops across the country are mad. Mad as hell. Mad because some of America’s leaders have reinforced for months the dreadful lie that black people in America should fear the police. That cops are dangerous. That cops are racists.
Cops are mad because for all the sympathy shown for the lives of recent victims of police conduct — tragic and exceptional as they are — none was shown for the men and women who go to work each day to protect us from bad and often dangerous people.

None, that is, until two New York City cops were murdered in Brooklyn four days before Christmas. Until then, there was not a word of understanding for the tough situations cops respond to every day. Not a word about the risks they take with their lives, particularly those who work on the streets of our most dangerous neighborhoods.
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