Three cops were shot last week in Margarteville, New York, a small town in the western Catskills.
The first shooting took place at a traffic stop. The officer was wearing body armor. It worked. He was uninjured.
The perpetrator ran. A manhunt ensured. He was located in an unoccupied vacation home. The police surrounded it and mounted an assault. During the operation, one officer was shot in the arm, and another was shot and died.
The house went up in flames. The perpetrator died, either before the fire or in it.
As I was driving in my car, I heard John Bonacic, a Republican State Senator, on the news, calling for a reinstatement of the death penalty. For cop killers. And, of course, for terrorists. He wanted it now, right now. He wanted the Senate to go into immediate session.
"The State Senate," he said, trying his level best to make it the familiar partisan, Democrats are soft on crime, issue, "is calling on Governor Spitzer to come back from politicking all over the state on campaign finance reform and call a special session and bring the Assembly to the table to reinstitute the death penalty for cop killers."
The reasoning was, "What we can do is we can send a message, a message of deterrence, a message that when you attack a police officer it's bigger than that police officer. It is us. It is all of us. And you're going to pay the price for that life."
You bet! Kill those cop killers! Send that message! We're under attack! Strike back! Strike first!
That evening, at home, I caught the promo for the local news. Fox News, as it happens. And lo and behold! The dead officer was killed by friendly fire.
It's absolutely true that the whole thing wouldn't have happened if the perpetrator hadn't committed the original crime. And, if he were alive to be tried, he would held responsible for the dead officer and charged with felony murder, a homicide that comes about as a result of the commission of a crime.
Still, who was left to execute?
The cops who shot the other cop by mistake?
Not the perpetrator, he'd already gone up in blazing inferno.
Send a message?
The message had already been sent. Shoot at a cop and – even if his body armor completely saves him – every cop in state will come after you. Resist, and they'll blow you away.
The reality is that the officer was killed by another officer. Will more executions solve that? It wouldn't seem so. What the reality suggests is better training. Training specific to such situations. Perhaps special units, for such situations.
"Zimet never voted to cut police funding in half. Amid discussions over who should pay the police the Village of New Paltz, the Town Board in September 1998 said it would fund the town police force for six months, until the village passed its budget. This represented half the year's police budget."
So, the Republican lied. That's perhaps a more basic disease than hyping fear -- they LIE! I have a rule I've been following for some time: never believe a politician, but *especially* never believe a Republican. A Democrat may well be 'fudging' or spinning, but chances are a Republican is telling an out outright lie and the truth is the opposite of what they say.
This seems to be a "tactic" of Republicans. "Things are getting better in Iraq"; "I'm a uniter not a divider", "Clean Air bill", "working for Middle East Democracy", "criticizing the government is treason" -- the list seems endless -- not spin, but all the complete opposite of the truth. If you don't have time to do the research, just assume the truth is the opposite of what the Republicans say and you will usually be right.
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Blue Pilgrim (0 articles, 3 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 998 comments)
on Sunday, April 29, 2007 at 2:30:24 PM
The Rethuglicans are not delusional. They lie by strategy. The BIG LIE is a political strategy designed to achieve what they want -- complete and total control over our government, with the intention of destroying any federal social services they can (Social Security being the primary one) and transferring as much of the national treasury to the super-rich and multi-national corporations who support them, leaving as much debt as possible for future generations (and eventual Democratic governments) to try to figure out.
Hey, it's a strategy, and as long as it works, they're not about to stop.
As long as they have the corporate-controled, right-wing-dominated media to echo their lies, they won't have to ever tell the truth.
As long as our well-destroyed educational system fails to teach critical thinking, the lies will be easily swallowed.
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Charlie L (2 articles, 2 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 638 comments)
on Sunday, April 29, 2007 at 10:06:16 PM
