You go, Marilyn Mosby. You stand front and center and call it like you see it.
Cops who do bad things are worse than bad guys who do bad things. The betrayal makes it doubly painful. It destroys trust and the reputations of the vast majority of police officers who do the right things in the right ways.
Mosby, the Baltimore prosecutor who boldly articulated her case and her city's desire for justice in the death of Freddie Gray, announced Friday that the six police officers involved will be charged.
Good. We're all for justice, and believe everyone is.
Now, let's line up the hooligans and the rest of the opportunistic scum who looted and pillaged Baltimore in some self-serving version of protest.
Jay GreesonThat Mosby called them demonstrators seems at best disingenuously short-sighted and at worst derelict of her position. Demonstrators? Demonstrators carry signs and chant. Demonstrators do not carry out crimes and burn down buildings.
Mosby's focus was directed at the six officers who had Gray in custody when he died last month. If they were at fault, and the medical report called it a homicide last week, then go get them, Mosby.
The disconnect between the police and the public is partly a product of a 24/7 news cycle in which crime sells big. It pays for people -- be they politicians, self-help experts or media types like yours truly -- to fan the flames of your fear.
This discussion this morning, however, is not about fear. This discussion is about fair.
If the six Baltimore cops did it, then they deserve the heaviest book thrown at them. Let them have their day in court and let justice prevail. But justice also should be in store for the criminals who occupied the Baltimore streets for the last week.
The police are easy targets for rage. They have the toughest job on our streets, with the highest expectations and the most to lose. They operate behind a badge and with connections among each other that the rest of us can't fathom, and 98 percent of the time, they do the best they can.
We owe them the gratitude we all-too-often ignore, and moments like the mob-rule, crime-filled nights of Baltimore, while in some ways a reflected perception of police malfeasance, also magnify our reliance on the overwhelming numbers of reliable, good and honest cops among us.
Yes, the microscopic percentage of bad cops doing bad things deserves a big headline on newspaper front pages and on TV broadcasts. But how can anyone think the activities of bad cops somehow excuse the acts of criminals? Please. It's tiring and hollow and seems like blaming a football referee in a 63-7 loss.
So when police leaders like Chattanooga Chief Fred Fletcher take bold steps to identify and handle the occasional bad cop, they should be applauded.
In fact, among our city's new leadership in the last couple of years, Fletcher is a star on the rise.
There are people in all walks of life who seem fit for their roles. They have the temperament and the skills and the understanding to handle the moment. In simplest terms, they get it.
Fletcher gets it.
In addition to leading a police force, making arguably the toughest job on our soil doable and maintaining morale -- three monster tasks by themselves -- Fletcher in the last month has landed haymakers in the fight against negative perceptions of police.
His forceful and clear stance against criminal cops that this paper's Shelley Bradbury detailed late last month should be as well-received as it was well-conceived. Add to that Fletcher and Co. working to overhaul the department's promotions apparatus -- a broad attempt to rework the "Good Ol' Boy" system -- and the Chattanooga chief deserves a major tip of the cap.
So let justice be done. Let it be found for the six Baltimore cops and the countless criminals who controlled that city's streets for far too long.
And I, for one, will buy a cop lunch this week, because I know the supremely small number of cops who get the fear-hungry headlines are far outweighed by the majority of officers who prevent Broad Street from looking like the streets of Baltimore.
Jay Greeson's column appears on Page A2 on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays. His sports columns are scheduled for Tuesdays and Fridays. You can read his online column the 5-at-10 Monday through Friday at timesfreepress.com after 10 a.m. Contact him atjgreeson@timesfreepress.com and follow him on Twitter at @ jgreesontfp.
You go, Marilyn Mosby. You stand front and center and call it like you see it.
Cops who do bad things are worse than bad guys who do bad things. The betrayal makes it doubly painful. It destroys trust and the reputations of the vast majority of police officers who do the right things in the right ways.
Mosby, the Baltimore prosecutor who boldly articulated her case and her city's desire for justice in the death of Freddie Gray, announced Friday that the six police officers involved will be charged.
Good. We're all for justice, and believe everyone is.
Now, let's line up the hooligans and the rest of the opportunistic scum who looted and pillaged Baltimore in some
That Mosby called them demonstrators seems at best disingenuously short-sighted and at worst derelict of her position. Demonstrators? Demonstrators carry signs and chant. Demonstrators do not carry out crimes and burn down buildings.
Mosby's focus was directed at the six officers who had Gray in custody when he died last month. If they were at fault, and the medical report called it a homicide last week, then go get them, Mosby.
The disconnect between the police and the public
This discussion this morning, however, is not about fear. This discussion is about fair.
If the six Baltimore cops did it, then they deserve the heaviest book thrown at them. Let them have their day in court and let justice prevail. But justice also should be for the criminals who the Baltimore streets for the last week.
The police are easy targets for rage. They have the toughest job on our streets, with the highest expectations and the most to lose. They operate behind a badge and within a connection
But then Ferguson happens and Baltimore happens, and the numbers and criminal histories get faded by the discussions of color and racism can't we all at least try to appreciate the men and women in blue?graf is muddled - recast, perhaps? Or just lose?>
We owe them the gratitude we all-too-often ignore, and moments like the mob-rule, crime-filled nights of Baltimore, while in some ways a of police malfeasance, also magnifies our dependence
Yes, the microscopic percentages of bad cops doing bad things serves as the world's biggest hat hook for an entire generation of excuse-making social scientists that blame crime on a distrust of police.
So when police leaders like Chattanooga Chief Fred Fletcher take bold steps to identify and handle the occasional bad cop, they should be applauded.
In fact, among our city's new leadership in the last couple of years, Fletcher is a star on the rise.
There are people in all walks of life who seem fit for their roles. They have the temperament and the skills and the understanding to handle the moment. In simplest terms, they get it.
Fletcher gets it.
In addition to leading a police force and making arguably the toughest job on our soil?? doable and maintaining morale -- two
His forceful and clear stance against criminal cops that this paper's Shelley Bradbury detailed late last month was as well-received
So let justice be done. Let it be found for the six Baltimore cops and the countless criminals who controlled that city's streets for far too long.
And I, for one ,will buy a cop lunch this week, because I know the supremely small number of cops that get the fear-hungry headlines are far outweighed by the majority of officers who prevent Broad Street from looking like the streets of Baltimore.
Jay Greeson's column appears on Page A2 on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays. His sports columns are scheduled for Tuesdays and Fridays. You can read his online column the 5-at-10 Monday through Friday at timesfreepress.com after 10 a.m. Contact him at jgreeson@timesfreepress.com and follow him on Twitter at @ jgreesontfp.