Yesterday saw this report from Miami, Florida.
The security footage shows a gang of angry bicyclists going berserk — beating on the motorist, breaking his windshield, jumping on and stomping on his car’s roof and hood, and using a bike to punctuate the beatdown.
Meanwhile, a Miami Police officer sat in her car with a front-row seat to the mayhem.
There's more at the link, including the video. Click over there to watch it.
Yes, there are conscientious officers out there who will do their best to help any member of the public who needs it . . . and then there are those like the officer in the video, who just sat there and watched an assault going on right in front of her and did nothing about it.
Yes, there are police departments that will do their best to respond quickly to calls for assistance . . . and then there are those that are so short-staffed and politically hamstrung (thanks to their city governments) that they take far too long to reach the scene after a call to 911. In some large cities, the average response time to a 911 call is now 12-15 minutes, sometimes even longer. In that time, an attacker (or multiple attackers) can do an awful lot of damage - assault, rape, kidnapping, murder, and more - and then get clean away, with good odds of never being convicted of their crimes. Look up the average 911 response times in your own location (and if you can't find them, ask yourself why not - is it because the police and/or city government find them embarrassing?).
Friends, as if you needed reminding: your safety and security are primarily your own responsibility. Train for that, prepare for that, equip yourself for that. If you don't, you're nothing more than a victim in waiting.
What's more, tell your family and friends to do the same. If they quibble, show them the video linked above, and refer them to crime videos on social media (there are untold thousands of them out there).
No matter where we live in America today, we are within reach of criminals who want what we've got. They travel to find it, too. We had a situation a few weeks ago in our nearby big city where criminals from the DFW metroplex, a couple of hours away, drove up to raid gun stores. Thanks to their ineptness they set off the alarm at the first and had to flee, but tried again at another store a couple of miles away. The cops caught them there. They said they'd come up to our part of the world because security here wasn't as tight as in the "big city", and they figured they could "score" more easily.
Finally, as I've said many times before, if you live in a larger city, try to find a way to leave it. Now. Don't delay, because things are going to get worse, particularly with extremist political violence increasing almost daily. If you stay put, understand the risks involved in doing so, and protect yourself against them as best you can.
Peter
EDITED TO ADD: Go read Lawdog's advice on training, legal representation, etc. I endorse every word.
14 comments:
Any bets IF the Motorist came out with a legally owned weapon that the "Police" would ARREST HIM.
Judgment calls before testicle check folks. My car insurance will replace my car.
What will replace my time in the Legal systems and possible time in jail? That ASSUMES the "Police" don't shoot me as it-she-him felt "Afraid for my life".
Sanity hasn't returned to most blue cities and sadly all of them I treat as blue.
And if the driver had defended himself, he would have been arrested for "violating the biker's civil rights"; as a number of well publicized cases have shown. We have a two-tier system of justice, where how you are treated depends upon how the police, DAs, & courts view you.
Steve
Uh ... bicyclists? Really? I initially thought maybe some scrawny white guy vegans getting all snippy while wearing spandex and bike helmets. Not the case. I guess the term "bicyclists" is now added to the lexicon along with Joggers, Canadians, Mondays, 2G's, Youths, Teens, the Amish, etc. and so on.
Why can't they be honest and at least call it gang violence, even if they want to ignore the racial angle.
In my area, 911 response is 20-30 minutes, and has been ever since the system went into operation in the 1980s. If you can get through to start with; their "call queue" might be five or ten minutes. And after making your call, they might not respond at all; not even with a courtesy "we can't be bothered" call-back.
When 911 went live, all the "emergency services" - fire, ambulance, police - were rolled in, and the only telephone access to any of them was through 911. The old administrative numbers vanished from the phone book, so if you needed to call to check on a burn ban or whatever, you got to sit in the 911 queue and hope you didn't get the auto-disconnect.
After a couple of years of this, the city started paying for "public service announcements" telling people not to call 911 for non-emergency reasons. But the non-emergency phone numbers were still unlisted. "Duh."
Some police departments print "protect and serve" on the sides of their cars.
It's a lie.
They should replace it with "Officer safety is priority #1".
She probably radioed it in and was told by a supervisor "stay in your car, we don't want you to get hurt".
I think that trend started right around the time when the push to "diversify" police departments by adding more women to the ranks became big.
It is human nature to be reluctant to put women in harm's way...especially for men to give the orders that place women in harm's way...and the end result is that policing has morphed from "risking our lives to protect and serve the public" to no knock entries to serve search warrants for non-violent crimes and offenders, shooting family pets out of hand, flash bangs in homes with small children and standing by and watching while a member of the public is assaulted...all for "officer safety".
Oh...also:
I know you've been blogging for a while...you may remember an old gun blog called "Random Nuclear Strikes".
Phil stopped blogging years ago, but back then he put it in the most memorable terms I've ever seen:
"Your safety and protection is your job. The constables are just there to mark where the bodies ended up."
So my understanding is that legalistically one can not sue the Police for not responding (is this common law or due to immunity I don't know). That said the officer screwed up. If she had acted when it was just 2 before the rest showed up maybe it wouldn't have escalated. Once it did escalate it is clear the citizen is in danger of grave bodily harm. If they turn on the officer she is in danger of grave bodily harm. Unless Miami Police's use of force rules are totally idiotic use of lethal force (or perhaps less than lethal if she had a taser) seems authorized. She may not be legally obligated to act but morally as a peace officer she had a duty to wade in. She should at least be reprimanded and likely let go.
Should/could the citizen have defended himself? In the state of Florida I think he'd probably be fine, but given Miami is blue the local prosecutor might be a jerk about it especially seeing this appeared to be "Youths".
If the "bicyclists" were black and the cop was white, the cop may well have remembered what happens to police who get into it with "unarmed black men," and decided it wasn't worth it.
Don’t forget “Hard Rs.”
Around here there isn't much to respond, but there is no problem defending yourself.
I know a guy who won a knife fight... He had to drive himself to the hospital because the guy who lost got the only ambulance in 50+ miles.
Jonathan
The Supreme Court has verified that the Police have "no duty to protect". One wonders exactly what the Police are for.
The Supreme Court has ruled (multiple times) that there is no legal right for the police to protect any particular citizens.
They cannot be fired/removed for ignoring crimes against people. The cops used to make a good effort to stop violent crimes, but that mentality went away, probably in the mid to late 90's due to changes in the hiring practices of Blue enclaves. It started with a push to eliminate the hiring of police that had any prior gun/weapon history. That pretty much ended the possibility of finding student cops that had any sort of personal courage.
This has now led to at least one generation of cops that are willing to stand around and not be proactive. That mentality is now endemic in the police departments nationwide. You, and your family, and your town, are most definitely on your own when it comes to personal safety.
Remember, the police academies are normally located, and controlled, by the big cities in your state, which is how and why this mindset has gotten so entrenched so quickly in the US.
When I see "violent bikers" in print, I usually don't think of bicycle riding hippies.
Nuke Road Warrior
Anarchotyranny needs tyrants.
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