Freddie Grey Was No Hero
May 5, 2015 Law Enforcement, Political
Let me start off by saying that Freddie Gray should not have died in custody. Even if he hurt himself in that van he was able to do so because he was not belted in. If he had been belted in then he probably could not have hurt himself (if that is what happened). No matter what, he should still be alive.
However he is no hero. The people in Baltimore and around the nation who are (still happening in some places) rioting, protesting and attacking police officers are acting as if Freddie Gray was some sort of hero. He was a drug dealer/user with a long arrest record. He should not have died but he is no hero.
[note]Baltimore, and likely many other places, will have more civil unrest when some or all of the police officers are found not guilty of the most serious, and maybe all, of the charges.[/note]
The community and its so called leaders from Mayor Blake to the race hustler Al Sharpton are all praising Freddie as if he cured cancer.
The cold hard facts about him are that he was a criminal and he ran afoul of the law a lot. PERIOD.
Once again, that does not mean he should have died while in custody. It is likely that he died as a result of his own actions (unless they can prove the driver deliberately gave him a rough ride) and while the police are complicit in his death (they should have buckled him in) they did not set out to murder the man or to do him lethal harm.
Freddie is the result of liberal policies that suck the soul out of people and drain them of their will to live and thrive. The reactions to his death in the violence (not the legal and peaceful protests) perpetrated by thugs is also a result of those same liberal policies.
While I think the police need to be held accountable (in all of their duties) I do not think that holding Gray as an angelic figure to unite around does anyone any good.
Given his lifestyle of drug dealing and use it is likely he would have ended up as a statistic sometime in the future and you can bet your bottom dollar that the city would not be holding him in high regard in that case.
If people want to change the animosity between them and the police they need to ensure they are in the right and fight the police in the legal system. Police officers who are alleged to have done wrong need to be investigated by independent agencies and if found in the wrong, held accountable.
Allowing them to investigate themselves makes no more sense than allowing the people they arrest to conduct their own trials and determine their own outcomes.
What happened in Baltimore is a shame and reflects the unease people have with an increasingly militarized police force that is often not held accountable for misdeeds particularly when coupled with an environment of failure that has been built by decades of liberal policies of dependence and victim hood.
We need police reform and we need reform in the liberal run cities.
But holding Gray up as the model for that reform makes no sense at all.
Cave canem!
Never surrender, never submit.
Tags: greddie gray, liberal policies, lies, police, riots, thugs, wrong doing