Over the weekend, the latest incident of a police shooting of an African-American male in Milwaukee produced the usual results: accusations of racism against law enforcement and a riot. But as with a number of other previous incidents—most notoriously the one in Ferguson, Missouri that launched the Black Lives Matter movement—the circumstances in Milwaukee seem to point toward a conclusion that contradicts the narrative about the police we’ve been hearing from both the media and the administration in the last two years. In this case, the shooting victim had a stolen loaded gun on him as the body camera worn by the officer showed.
But, much like the mob that took to the streets of Milwaukee to riot, the facts of the case didn’t seem to matter much to the mainstream media’s coverage of the violence. As this piece in the New York Times illustrated, that 23-year-old Sylville K. Smith posed a credible threat to the policeman who shot him was a mere detail. It was certainly no bar to a discussion of Milwaukee’s reputation as a deeply segregated city where African-Americans have long alleged that police misconduct was tolerated. Thus, even though what we know of the incident utterly contradicts negative assumptions about what the police did, the upshot of much of the coverage of Milwaukee seems to treat the violence in that city as understandable if not justified.
But if the facts are irrelevant and violence is to be tolerated for the sake of a demonstrably false Black Lives Matter narrative that insists that police are conducting a campaign of indiscriminate murders of black men, then perhaps it is time to ask who is really responsible for the riots like the one we’ve just witnessed in Milwaukee. Is it a history of prejudice or are individuals or groups whose goal is to attack the police regardless of the truth rather than the redress of justified grievances?
The debate about police conduct has generated a necessary recognition that African-Americans face discrimination in ways their white compatriots do not experience. But, as statistics have begun to prove, the routine harassment that has been documented doesn’t necessarily back up the Black Lives Matter claims about shootings or deaths. That doesn’t justify police misconduct that stops short of murder. Yet we also have to recognize that the predominant narrative about cops conducting a racist murder spree is essentially wrong. And it is that story of willful murder that has driven the discussion about police misconduct more than treatises about historic patterns of discrimination or segregation such as those we are hearing now about Milwaukee, now that it can no longer be reasonably alleged that the shooting that served as the spark for the recent riot was unjustified.
But amid the recriminations about what we are told is Milwaukee’s long and bad record on race relations, it must still be said that it is the police who remain in as least as much danger as their supposed habitual victims. The four cops who were injured in the Milwaukee riot must be added to the rising toll of violence against police that has been growing since Ferguson. It should be recalled that the Black Lives Matter narrative began with the “hands up, don’t shoot” mantra, which proved to be as much of a lie as the initial rumors about the Milwaukee shooting that led to the violence in the streets there.
As sensible people have long understood one doesn’t have to be a police critic to understand that, like all government officials, cops can abuse the power they have been given. Nor must one be counted among the Black Lives Matter chorus that libels law enforcement officers to agree that this country still has a long way to go when it comes to race and that an essential element to dealing with the problem must start with smarter police work and a crackdown on discriminatory practices.
Yet even as all Americans of goodwill should acknowledge that truth, they must also come to grips with the incredibly destructive role being played in society by those who are manufacturing lies about cops that are leading to violence and destruction. The Black Lives Matter war on cops that has been validated by the Obama administration is hurting African-American communities that need police. Those who have, either wittingly or unwittingly, incited riots or direct violence against police are driving dangerous wedges between law enforcement and minorities that threaten the safety of both groups. The people of Milwaukee do well to consider their history of race problems. But it is the Black Lives Matter race baiters and their enablers in the media and the government who have exploited the situation that bear a heavy burden of responsibility for the unnecessary and entirely counter-productive violence they have helped foment.
