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“Can you offer me a better explanation for why you almost never hear about crack busts in this city? Or gang busts?”
“Yes I can, but you’ve obviously made up your mind and I suspect you’ve never walked the sidewalk of the 4th Avenue area you’re discussing to garner this informed opinion,” I said in response to a local imbecile I’ll call “Tracy” who was implying that drugs are still openly sold in this town because cops are bought off and paid to stay out of the “worst areas,” or are just plain scared to make the arrests. And by “implying” I meant she stated it specifically.)
I’m a brilliant sumbitch, but even Einstein would deduce that drugs are openly sold because there are people willing to pay for them, and therefore people will be willing to sell them no matter the consequences. But that doesn’t deter Tracy from her beliefs in the least. No sir (or ma’am). Why?
Because the same desperation to validate her point that if drugs are being sold that it’s the cops fault in one way or another, is the same validation with which she sustains herself image. Since both are anchored in shit, she has a lot to lose if proven wrong.
The first arrest of my professional career was for crack cocaine; my last arrest before leaving patrol was for crack cocaine. I worked 4th Avenue for years on two shifts and arrested the shit out of crack dealers and users. Know why you don’t hear about it, Tracy’s of the world? I’ll give you a reason—how about four?
- The world doesn’t deliver news to your personal doorstep, my precious and unique Snowflake.
- More accurately, it’s not news anymore—it’s the new normal. Daily. Regular.
- And “Gang Busts”? Do you even know what you’re asking? Do you think Kevin Costner and Sean Connery still use a shotgun butt to break in a door at the “speakeasy’ and “round up the gangstas” who all say, “N’yaa, n’yaa, see?”? The dealers we arrest are the “gangsters”. They are a group of lazy criminals who use numbers for protection to prey upon their own communities.
- Why doesn’t this make you happy? Same reason it doesn’t make the cops happy: They are in jail for less time that it takes the cops to process their arrest sheet. There is no punishment.
And best of all? Arresting crack dealers makes us racists and gets us sued. Making “gang busts” makes us racists and gets us sued. Pulling over traffic violators makes us racists and gets us sued. Arresting Momma, Daddy, or Momma and Daddy for a mandatory domestic violence offense makes us racists and gets us sued. Driving through the streets makes us racists and gets us sued.
And when “precious little snowflakes” who have all the answers without even having spent an hour in those neighborhoods gets their panties in a wad? (Brace for it) She calls us cowards, and assumes we are racists who should be sued.
The best part? Despite uninformed nonsense like this—and despite a court system that refuses to punish, but instead sues a society that makes the Criminal the Victim—we still make those crack arrests, we still patrol and we still do a job for people.
Despite you, we still have cops out there doing The Job, even when you criticize cops for not doing their job even when they are getting shot in the course of performing it.
Still feeling brilliant when reading that, Sunshine? What a buffoon. Thank you for making this week’s column an easy one. And thank those of you reading this that are nothing like this self-depreciating, delusional “activist.”
Being a cop is a tough job, but stupid people endeavoring to fabricate facts in the face of what is obvious only serve to make it tougher. Does this opinion make me a “racist?” Sure, somehow. But while I try to figure it out, how about addressing the real problem here instead of manufacturing or perpetuating old ones.
Alex Teach is a police officer of nearly 20 years experience. The opinions expressed are his own. Follow him on Facebook at facebook.com/alex.teach.