I work as a patrol officer in a suburb of a major U.S. metropolitan area, so I know that no good cop is interested in enforcing tyrannical and unending lockdown orders from state and local executives. Some police departments are openly declaring they won’t enforce these orders, and plenty more of this is happening quietly behind the scenes.
In many localities, law enforcement is doing little to enforce often unconstitutional edicts from governors amid the country seemingly hating cops. Yes, the horror stories make the news, and there are too many of these. A woman was arrested at an outdoor event and tased for not wearing a mask—for being outside in the fresh air. A man was forced off a bus in Philadelphia. Two homeless men were arrested for not wearing masks in Nashville.
Yet of course you never hear about cops slowly going to an alleged mask violation so the person can leave. It doesn’t make the news, but I can tell you it happens—a lot.
While typical calls slowed under lockdowns, with governors’ executive orders came an increase in a different type of call: The executive order violation. The pandemic increased the social and police power of the busybody, and executive power now empowered tattletales and nosy people. As cops dealing with more serious issues daily, we knew complaints about people not wearing masks properly were a complete waste of our time and public resources.
I remember going for a call complaining about six people standing on a suburban street corner talking to each other not “social distancing.” I drove by waving and when I came back the culprits were gone.
While typical calls slowed under lockdowns, with governors’ executive orders came an increase in a different type of call: The executive order violation. The pandemic increased the social and police power of the busybody, and executive power now empowered tattletales and nosy people. As cops dealing with more serious issues daily, we knew complaints about people not wearing masks properly were a complete waste of our time and public resources.
Local playgrounds were closed and skate parks were chained and locked. Skateboarders decided to do something about that. The skateboarders presumably cut a hole in the fence and entered the outdoor skate park.
An older gentleman walked over to me, as I was near this skate park at the time. He politely told me there were people in the skate park and the skate park was closed. I had my required face covering on, but he must have seen half the expression on my face. He paused and said, “I guess I’m being a rat, huh?” My reply: “You said it, sir.”
Good on ya, Officer; no matter how many like you there are out there, we’ll never have near enough. Unsurprisingly, given his obvious common sense and humane perspective, the man knows where the bigger problem lies.
Yes, governors, mayors, and executives give orders. The rank and file police officer is the one tasked with enforcing them. What you have to worry about is the police chief and commanders requiring arrests and statistics. You have to worry about the busybody with connections to someone in power.
And we have to worry about the meddlesome bluenoses among the citizenry even more—people eager to drop a dime on their neighbors, just for the shivery thrill of quasi-carnal ecstasy they get from the ability to exert control over their fellows, if at one remove from real authority. Tapeworms like those are the scourge of life in modern America, as far as I’m concerned. Their total disdain for the basic right to simply be left alone defines them as the most un-American of Americans, the very people the Founders warned their posterity about.
Uprising update! More good cops, in the most unexpected of locales.
Sheriffs in five Southern California counties with a total population of 17.25 million people — equivalent to the fifth most populous state — are defying that state’s governor. They will not arrest people for violating the statewide curfew that Governor Gavin Newsom has imposed starting today, apparently on the belief that the virus wakes up and goes out at 10 P.M.
According to Bill Melugin of Fox 11 in LA, EVERY sheriff in their SoCal viewing area except the LA Sheriff’s Dept itself, has officially refused to enforce Newsom’s draconian and illegal edict, and even the LASD says they will not be making any arrests for noncompliance. Nor is it just the sheriffs who are standing upright to do the right thing; Ontario and Laguna Beach city PDs will not “actively enforce” the Imperial decree as well. And the movement is spreading north as well.
Other sheriffs in Northern California, including Sacramento County, where the governor now lives, are also refusing to enforce the curfew.
As well they oughta be. I mean, come on: We’re seriously discussing a fucking MANDATORY CURFEW now? In what’s ostensibly America?!?
God help us.
I remember as a kid, maybe we were between 8-11 years old, throwing snowballs at cars from a dead end as they drove past. Sure, not the right thing to do and of course we found that kind of thing just ain’t right, as the song goes, but there we were.
Well we were doing this one winter day when we hit an unmarked Police Car and two Officers got out. “Hey kids!!! We’re the Police”.
Dang it if we didn’t high tail it out of there as fast as we could through backyards and climbing fences, anything to avoid getting picked up by the “Law” and getting our parents called in.
Of course I think they could have easily had just chased us, caught one or two, and got one to squeal eventually. Maybe.
I don’t think they even tried. They scared us straight, as the saying goes. We stopped throwing snowballs at cars and went back to hitting each other instead.
Of course, dealing with adults being treated like 10 year olds and not wearing their Face Diapers is way more ugly and UnAmerican, but the wave and drive around the block method seems to be almost the same way those Detectives dealt with us way back then.