Donald Trump Presidency - the criminal justice system doesn't need fixing?

Donald Trump Presidency - the criminal justice system doesn't need fixing?

https://crimeshop.org/2016/12/28/donald-trump-presidency-the-criminal-justice-system-doesnt-need-fixing/

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Black Lives Matter Movement - Gaining support from an unlikely source

Black Lives Matter Movement - Gaining support from an unlikely source 

Young white American adults support The Black Lives Matter Movement and because of that, the movement is growing a recent poll showed.

In fact, the poll showed that not only are young white Americans supporting the movement so are young Hispanics who showed that 62% support the movement and young Asian’s who showed that 67% support the movement.  

Some of you may scoff at that and think that it simply does not matter, or that it’s a fad and will pass as all fads do..the fact is, it does matter as confusing at may seem.

According to the poll that was conducted by GenForward, 51% of young white adults that are between 18-30 said they strongly or somewhat support The Black Lives Matter Movement.

That said, most young whites also tend to believe that the movement does in fact encourage violence against police while the young black Americans who support the movement disagree with that…

Here’s what it boils down to, many Americans not just the youth feel that police do in fact target black’s more often than not and cover for each other when things were not conducted let’s say, exactly by the book.

While conducting the poll, many that participated did feel rather strongly that the recent police shootings were part of a bigger problem with police in this country, that the shootings are part of a patterned behavior police have towards anyone who isn’t a cop.

Impressionable minds are easily shaped...

What many see on TV with regards to police targeting of young Black American’s is truly just a handful of incidents when compared to the number of police departments and police in this country.

Bias does exist however, yet it does also depend on where you are. Police in communities that are predominantly African American do tend to have some degree of bias because the criminals they typically encounter are from the very communities they police.

Police have also been known to be bias when dealing with poor white Americans as well. If you are dirty and appear to be poor and just hanging out, you are more likely to have a run in with a cop.

The perceived problem with police is exactly that, it is a perceived problem. It does not exist in every state, in every city or community in this country. The truth about every news story you see is that you truly do only get one side of it and it’s usually the side that will sell the most advertising.

It doesn’t make it the full truth of the matter.

In fact, the media has done a rather fine job of making cops look like a militant group of guerrillas waiting to wage war on us, when that really isn’t what police want to look like not to mention the vast majority are not like that at all.

Does something need to be done with police and departments that are running wild? Yes absolutely. When police are caught targeting more blacks than whites in communities that are pretty evenly mixed, then we need to address that and put an end to that. 

Still the same, making it sound like all police and all police departments are a problem, that is not exactly honest, let alone the truth. 

Part of the reason police are given things like tanks and are outfitted with things that are from the military is because they are our front line when shit goes down in this country like Mass Shootings and Bombings.

Love them or hate them, they are here to protect and serve and to ensure that we abide by the laws of our country.

The police don’t make the laws, they take an oath to enforce them

I am not so sure that I believe that police are entirely the reason movements like Black Lives Matter and their supporters are unhappy.

Overall Angst plays a large role in all of the unhappiness. 

In the private industry, businesses have this saying about bad customer reviews, well they actually have more than just the one but, just one bad customer review will reach twice as many potential customers than customers who praise the business.

In today’s world of policing that is exactly what is happening.

Bias, oppression, abuse and discrimination all happen to many individuals regardless of race, everywhere, at shops, restaurants, gas stations, everywhere.

Women encounter oppression and targeted bias, abusive behaviors regardless of race, as do the poor, anyone who is LGBTQ, handicapped, anyone suffering a mental or physical illness, even the way you dress or the color of your hair can make one a target for targeted bias and oppressive, abusive behavior.

You do not have to be black to experience it. Yet this is one of the many reasons people are beginning to get on board with The Black Lives Matter Movement.

The movement means something to people who are tired of being treated with bias because of who they are on all fronts. Black Lives Matter helped shape Campaign Zero and speaks volumes to young impressionable minds, because campaign zero, didn't make it's list of demands an entirely black or white thing.

They made is more of a this makes sense to end type of thing. 

It’s called conquering, you win one battle then you move on to the next.  

The movement has potential and people are starting to see that and until our Government can find a bridge for the gap, they stand to be on the losing end because it is only a small matter of time before the citizens realize that asking for the DOJ's help ended up costing them millions. 

Cristal M Clark

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@thecrimeshop

Just Released - the Top 100 Police Departments in the United States

Just Released the Top 100 Police Departments in the United States

We have a top 10 or 50, or 100 list for just about everything, lists that rank everything from hospitals to best restaurants, pet adoption, day care, grocery stores, retail shops, salons, bars, local TV newscast, news anchor, the products we use daily, cities or states we plan to move to or visit, everything has a top list.   

I searched high and low and couldn’t seem to find an all inclusive list of top rated police departments throughout the United States.

I even checked CALEA, where police departments can obtain accreditation and awards for excellence and could not find a list of the top 100 let alone top 50 police departments within the United States.

I started to wonder why?

I really want to know which police departments within the United States are ranked the highest to the lowest and why. What parameters were used to rank them and where they are. 

So that I could better determine if we really have a cop issue or a citizen issue in the US or are these issues a lot more isolated than the media, the Black Lives Matter Movement and other groups make them out to be. 

As I searched, I started seeing lists that were geared towards police work. They offered, helpful information such as, where I could find the best police department to work for, those that paid the highest wages, best cities to be a cop in and a top 10 of the most stable departments to work for.

To put it into perspective...

We are inundated daily with stories of police bias and brutality, officer involved shootings that were perceived as wrongful, stories about police misconduct and abuse at the hands of police.  

When you take a step back and think about it, we do not take the time to appropriately or fairly praise or appreciate departments and the police who work in them for doing an outstanding job of serving the communities they work in.

We ignore the sacrifices these men and women make every working day and focus on the bad. It’s amazing how a handful of cops or departments can take the limelight from those that truly do shine brighter.

We tend to only see the the best of the best, the brightest lights once we are wearing the darkest pair of shades so do not truly see how bright the light is.

The only list I could find easily was a list that ranked the top 10 police forces in the world.

The police forces were ranked by things like resources and efficiency, public protection, how well they did at protecting vulnerable people, ability to tackle crime, implementation of neighborhood policing, fewest citizens beaten and/or shot, fairness, shots fired by the police on the force per year, and local priorities.

I’m sure I missed a few on the list that was used to rank Police Forces, but only two in the United States made the list made by infotainworld.

The California Highway Patrol and the NYPD were on the list, they were the only two departments from the US that made the list. 

It is fair to say the those who created the list did not look nationwide here in the US at all of the departments within our country. 

If they had, the list could have been a comprehensive study and a true comparative analysis of all police forces in the US the picture would have been different.

Sadly it still did very little to explain why no such list truly exists in the US. If it did, we’d get a much more clear idea of how widespread police misconduct really is.

The ability to have a list of top police departments in each county and state within the United States would show us that comparatively, all of the news stories about police misconduct really are just a handful of police and departments once you see the bigger picture.

The bigger picture being all of the departments, all of the police that we are not seeing splashed all over the news for getting it right.

That list would be crucial for those that are both for or against police reform. If you look at departments who do well, don't have issues, wouldn't you want to model your problem department after those that are being ranked much higher than yours?

Would it not help the Justice Department when it makes a recommendation that may or may not work for instance like in Oakland?

The issue that you have with the DOJ overseeing police reform is that they are not the cops on the street, they are not the departments that have a stellar track record within the communities they serve.

They simply cannot know how to tackle some of the problem departments and when they try, it costs the taxpayers way too much and the recommendations more often than not, end up failing in the long run.  

In truth, at the end of the day instead of the DOJ running oversight and starting new programs so they can go in and help departments who feel they need help, these departments should be looking at the one’s who are doing it right.

The police and departments who are doing it right have already set the standard for how it should be done and the DOJ can’t top that let alone replicate it.

Cristal M Clark

IOS users can find The Crime Shop on Apple News

@thecrimeshop

Police unions holding police reform hostage

Police unions holding police reform hostage 

At least that’s how it’s being sold

While they say they support reform, in many cities the police unions which represent the officers in those cities are holding reform hostage until they can gain monetarily from the reform.

This this month in Cincinnati, a local Police Union attorney sent a “cease and desist” letter to the city that said that officers should only use body cameras if the city was willing to pay them more.

Basically, unions are using the reform as a bargaining chip and are holding it hostage which is so very wrong. I can see something like, well the department needs more funds in order to purchase the body camera’s but, the unions are blatantly using reform as a way to increase police paychecks.

They are asking for money for officers from taxpayers to ensure officers are doing an effective and fair job.

According to a report at the Huffington Post, Daniel Hils, who is the president of one of Cincinnati’s Fraternal Order of Police lodges had this to say with regards to suggesting that police be paid more for the reforms:

“We recognize [body cameras are] the direction we’re going, but I believe this is a game changer, as far as complexity of the job. And this level of monitoring will result in positives and negatives about what it’s like to be a policeman. Because of that, I think it does require some additional compensation or at least bargaining for that.”

The argument is being presented in such a way by the unions that they are suggesting that adding the camera’s adds additional expectations, responsibilities and/or enhances the job of the officers.

Those have to be some of the weakest reason’s to be asking for an increase in police pay that I have ever seen.

Many police departments, not the unions that represent them are for the camera’s, from the top brass to the rookies. They want them, they support them and are willing to wear them. It’s the unions who are pushing back.

Boston just went down this road when the Patrolman's Association fought the use of body cameras on a voluntary basis. The police in Boston are not being forced to wear them, so now the volunteers were selected by some third party, and the now forced volunteers are wearing the cameras for some time then an evaluation will be done by said third party who I assume is not associated with the department itself or the Patrolman's Association.

Understanding

Who wants to be under constant surveillance while at work, anyone? The answer is that none of us want that, you may say you don’t care but when push comes to shove, no one really wants that. The idea is uncomfortable for most us, we don’t want it and don’t like the idea of it.  

Some think that police have been granted this enormous, great power to be above and over us, they have authority over us, they can abuse us, use unnecessary force against us, be unfair, racist, biased, kill us without reason etc.

The assumption is that police have been give this great power over all of us little people and it needs to be monitored, seen and it has to have this check and balance process.

I agree with that to an extent however...

I personally do not believe that all police departments or police believe that they have been granted this great power over us.

Sure, the ones for instance that we see splashed all over the news have this power and control issue. Except for the Commerce City, Colorado Police Department, those guys are just playing Pokémon Go while on the job. By the way does anyone know how many Pokémon they captured before they were busted?

I do know several police departments who don’t feel that way at all.

Both the Denver, Colorado Police Department and the Arvada, Colorado Police Department just to name a couple feel a sense of responsibility to the communities they serve and protect.

Sure they may have had at one time or another a bad apple or two, many of the officers that work for those departments do not truly feel that they have been handed this enormous power over the people.

I’ve had the privilege to work with many of them and to also know some on a personal level. They don’t feel over us in anyway, they feel a greater sense of responsibility the each citizen and the communities that they serve.

The sense of power over someone and the sense of responsibility to someone are two vastly different things.

All people are asking for are transparency and accountability, this requires nothing more out of police than what they should already be doing today.

Until the Fed’s can think of a way to prevent unions from holding reform hostage, this will continue to be a problem. I don’t know it feels like the unions are now pimping out the police.

The unions need to carefully consider that having the ability to see what it’s like being a cop just might clear up a lot of misconceptions the general public has about police and what they do while on duty... not all of them are playing Pokémon Go while on the clock.

Cristal M Clark

IOS users can find The Crime Shop on Apple News

@thecrimeshop

Department of Justice enacting national policing reforms

Department of Justice enacting national policing reforms

Is that the answer we need?

Some are asking for it, some say we don’t need and somewhere in the middle of the argument is the DOJ.

It is not as easy or timely as one might think. We live in an age where we want instant gratification and when we sit back and look at cases of police misconduct we tend to become frustrated that the process is taking too long.

In the wake of officer Brendan O’Brien’s suicide, the Oakland, CA Police Bureau has been rocked by a scandal involving Brendan and several of its officers as well as neighboring police agencies.

Oakland by the way is currently and has been under a consent to decree for 13 years which is costly, but it imposes court oversight of reforms. Oakland was once considered one of the most corrupt police departments in the country.

The city of Oakland, CA has spent more than $13 million to pay for officer monitoring, equipment like body cameras, court fee’s, auditors and training.

Yes you read that right the city paid for it, meaning it was paid for by taxpayer dollars.

It works and then it doesn’t work as Oakland has shown us with it’s most recent scandal. While policing in the city has improved, for instance use of force has dropped significantly, clearly sexual misconduct somehow slipped through the cracks. Still however, according to some the reforms flopped.

According to the Guardian as I type this 586 individuals have been shot and killed by police in 2016 in the United States. Not all of them are black.

If we look at Chicago, over 100 people showed up at Truman College on Tuesday to share stories of shootings, beatings and even robberies by officers of the Chicago Police Department. The are begging the Justice Department to do something about the abuse by the Chicago Police.

Some of the people asking for help would describe the police in Chicago as ruthless killers, mobsters and predators.

Yet when we look at Chicago as a whole, it is riddled with crime that seems to run out of control at times. In some cases it is easy to understand why the police might overreact and shoot someone, however when you hear stories like Theodore Daffin’s you wonder.

Theodore's run in with police left him with a deep scar in the shape of a vagina that was cut into his belly, by police.

Other stories reveal that people were shot and killed simply for opening the door to police.

But investigations like these that are conducted by the DOJ could take months if not years to conclude, then if the DOJ has enough evidence to prove systematic civil rights violations to take the Chicago Police Department to court, well it would take even more time in terms of years before anyone saw any type of reform within the police department.

Again, it would be costly as well.

So that begs the question, should the DOJ enact national police reforms which would affect all of our nation’s police departments?

IF you said yes, riddle me this, is the DOJ even capable of doing that?

Right now it takes years just for the DOJ to do it’s job and that is simply just not good enough.

The other part of that when I look at places like Chicago, I have to stop and wonder, why did it take the DOJ this long to get involved? Seeing over 100 people who managed to travel in sweltering heat to show up and tell stories of abuse at the hands of Chicago police, it amazes me that these individuals were not heard sooner.

Then, I wonder why they weren’t heard before Tuesday. Why did it take so long for anyone to hear these people?

National reforms are a good idea but not a well thought out idea because not all police agencies are a problem. Not all police within a department are a problem. Not even racial bias is always a problem with departments, but other issues of police misconduct are.

Then we have departments that seem to be able to walk on water, they may not always be able to solve the case but they try, they are not abusing criminals or law abiding citizens.

One place to start would be getting the DOJ involved sooner. The big question is, does the DOJ have the staff or time to handle getting on board sooner rather than waiting until over 100 people show up after years of systematic abuse at the hands of a police department?

Another really good place to start, begin isolating departments that tend to show racial bias more than other departments, which is really quite simple when it comes down to it.

Besides, most legal experts agree that a national reform plan is highly unlikely because it would have no political will.

One thing a lot of people may not know or understand is that a large part of the DOJ’s budget goes to the War on Drugs through the Bureau of Prisons and the FBI. That means only a small fraction of it goes to investigations of police misconduct.

Changing the budget for the DOJ requires action from Congress to re-appropriate funds. Congress isn’t doing a lot in terms of action right now in case anyone hasn’t noticed.

Some would argue that the bigger issues are:

Politics, in that our nation's politics do not have a strong enough commitment to its public as of today. And we unfortunately need them in order to make changes with things like police reform.

And the biggest issue of all, many would argue is that large amounts of money designated to fight the war on drugs have allowed police departments to militarize and become more aggressive in their approach.

Ahh but another solution does exist and it's one that a lot of people are eyeing as a possible solution .

The DOJ could make some of the grants offered to police departments contingent upon departments being in compliance with the Civil Rights Act as well as other Federal laws…

Here is a small break down of what some of that looks like:

Since around 94 the DOJ has allotted something like $15 Billion to police departments around the country in community oriented policing service grants. And that my friends, well it’s just one of the types of grants the DOJ offers to police departments.

The DOJ says that in 2015 the Chicago police department received over $3.1 million just to hire 25 new officers.

The Chicago police department has received at least, a cool $5 million in grants from 2007-2013.

No one likes to talk about it but the threat to take that kind of money away from police departments might just help resolve a lot of issues with police misconduct.

That would certainly entice Chicago to clean up much faster than the DOJ’s ongoing investigation will.

In Oakland even with the consent to decree, the department was able to keep its internal investigation of sexual misconduct from the court ordered auditor for months. I wrote about it before if you missed it.

By withholding Federal funds from police agencies and departments rife with problems, it would bring about the much needed change many are calling for in certain communities.

Taking that money or the possibility of the ability to even qualify for a grant would hurt police departments and it would in turn force them to act much more quickly to reform than the DOJ’s investigation and possible outcome.

In order to do even that however, well we’d need politics, and right now the political will to change things is pretty much stalled out somewhere.

Maybe someone playing Pokémon Go can manage to find our political leaders political will somewhere along the way???

Our answer is that we need our nation’s political leaders to find the political will it needs to make the right kinds of changes instead of just play around and not give a shit.

We can go about this the long way or the short way. It’s taking money away from departments who are problems or letting the DOJ have years to investigate then wait even more years and years to see change.

As much as I hate to admit this again, but this is yet another reason voters are swinging towards Trump. In business if you don’t take swift action it can be costly, business leaders don’t wait they act.

Political leaders, they tend not to act quickly enough. They have the wait and see approach when instead they should be reciting “Founded on the Principles of Right,” until it sinks in and they get it.

Sadly, this is another time where we have to ask our leaders if they are even listening and then if they hear the words we are speaking?

Cristal M Clark

@thecrimeshop

https://crimeshop.wordpress.com

IOS users can find The Crime Shop on Apple News

Black Lives Matter Movement is out of control

Black Lives Matter Movement is out of control

Was it ever in control?

This past weekend several media outlets reported on the Black Lives Matter protesters getting out of control during protests across the US. I just saw a news clip out of St, Paul telling viewers that an officer has suffered serious spinal injuries because protesters dropped a cinder block on the officer's head?!?!?  

Are you kidding me? Not even a week after 5 officers were gunned down and killed in Dallas, TX some folks thought it would be a good idea to drop a cinder block on an officer’s head?

The leaders of this movement need to reign it in before the message gets lost.

To be fair however, the day after the shooting in Dallas, I had the TV on while getting ready for work and sneaking in an 3 AM workout, 4 hours of nonstop news coverage was dedicated to the shooting in Dallas. 4 hours of no other news but the shooting in Dallas, I think even the weather was cut short that morning to continue live coverage about the shooting in Dallas.  

The media was camped out at the hospital while hospital workers made a line blocking the media from actually filming the bodies of the officers being removed from the hospital.

The media is so goddamned classless they can’t even give the fellow officers, families, loved one’s or hospital any breathing room, while they try to broadcast live on TV the dead, lifeless bodies of the officers being wheeled out on a gurney and loaded up for the morgue.

Is that what we American viewers want to see broadcast whilst eating breakfast? The bodies of dead police being wheeled out to an awaiting vehicle?

Wouldn’t mainstream media be happier if they were allowed into the morgue to film the autopsy for all of us to see on live TV?

I was horrified to see the news about Dallas, my heart sank.  I was also horrified by the coverage by our media industry and I was disgusted by the lack of decency. They reminded me rabid dogs in the wild.

That’s classy!

Two men were shot and killed by police last week, two African American men which is why the Black Lives Matter movement was protesting at the time of the shooting in Dallas.

So getting back to being fair, I did not see 4 hours of solid coverage of either of those two shootings and quite frankly that is part of the problem.

The movement feels unheard so in order to get heard, they become destructive and out of control in some cases. It matters not that the movements leaders ask that protesters remain peaceful, the followers want to be heard and when they feel unheard, they get out of control.

Some members of the movement see that a black man just shot 5 officers as everyone saw on TV nonstop for 24 hours the day after. That member then gets an idea.. If we want to bring attention to our cause, I have to do something risky in order to get it otherwise the media is not going to cover it.

As we have seen with every mass shooting in this country, they get bigger, bolder and dirtier. The reason’s get crazier, the shooters get crazier, and the reason why they did it get’s lost thanks to every live news broadcast on TV.

The media is as equally out of control and out of hand with its thirst for violence. I mean nonstop man, 24/7 the Dallas shooter is in the news, his picture, his name, this headline from Business Insider “The Dallas shooter was 'ostracized' by black power groups before he opened fire on police officers in Dallas.”

“Black” power groups. Again, I’ve said this before too, why do we always feel the need to highlight “black”  rather than just “power” group? By using words that lean towards racial division, we instill it into the reader's mind.

The media released details about his military service, an image of a social media account he had was online the day after the shooting as the media was so thirsty for anything they could find out about the guy.

I’ve said this before as well, it is not the media’s job to investigate these types of situations and bring us the details until law enforcement is ready to release it.

I’ve hinted at this in my past pieces about the Ferguson Effect, the media should be held accountable for some of this violence because of the way they report it.

Countless headlines keep popping up about why the guy did it and the media is bringing in experts, blaming the cops, blaming things like radicalization, the Black Lives Matter Movement...let’s be honest and call it like it is.

Maybe the man felt alone, he wanted to be part of something, he felt held down, held back, he wasn’t getting anywhere with his life, finding a job that’ll cover the bills is not easy these days for anyone.

Maybe he was discriminated against not only for being black but because maybe being in the military messed with him mentally a little bit and no one would hire him. Yes employers do that, they just choose not to report that they do. Maybe he had a run in with police and he was angry about that, maybe he had a fine that he was upset about…

Maybe he did try to join some type of group that had a propensity for violence...

The point is, the media should stop trying to suggest reasons why he did it and let law enforcement tell us when they finish with the investigation. The media should stop trying to “help” us understand the shooter, they are hindering the outcome.

A lot of times when someone get’s to a breaking point, they will try to be part of a group that will help provide basic necessities for them, or bring them much needed resources, such as living expenses, food, even if that group is a radical one. When even that doesn’t work, well this is exactly how it turns out.

The goal of law enforcement is always to understand why, to get to that goal investigators go through the person’s life very carefully not in the course of a newscast or two or just a quick look at his social media. Investigations take so long because investigators actually investigate not grasp at any meat on the bone they can get to.

At least investigators make the effort to the understand the person and the why so they can better prevent shootings like this in the future. I am not even sure what in the hell the media is trying to do. All I know is that by the time investigators usually release the details as to why no one is listening any longer because the media painted the picture for us, the way they wanted to.

Someone should reign those guys in...while we are at it.

I have also seen countless headlines that are really divided about whether or not our country is divided by racism or even if we have a problem with racism.  Even social media is deeply divided.

Well, we do have a problem with racism, we also have a problem with sexism, we are divided over whether or not to treat those in the LGBT community as equal, women have to fight for the same pay a man gets for doing the same job…

So should BLM just get over it then?

The Black Lives Matter Movement provides a venue for those that are fed up, but because of the movements lack of control over its own protests, the movement provides a venue to those who are willing to behave violently just to get the point across. They are providing the perfect storm for those seeking to cause violence, kill or harm police and in general aren’t at the protest in an effort to make things better or so that they can be part of making sure the world hears the movements cause.

Things like blocking traffic on major roadways, impeding the passage of pedestrians trying to get somewhere safely, bringing guns to protests, dropping cinder blocks on the heads of our police, shooting our police, do not fall under the category of a peaceful protests.

Protesters are better served if they direct the protests to the appropriate parties, not interfering with the public's right or ability to get to and from on major roadways or walkways.

By that I mean, a protest held at that cities capital, state building and the like, instead of interfering with the general public's ability to travel by car or foot. That just makes the public decline to support your cause because you are causing problems.

So is the Black Lives Matter Movement out of control?

I’m not sure it ever was in control, it’s always been riddled with rioting and violent behavior. They seem to think that the general public has to hear their message and the message isn’t even clear.

Saying things like “Stop Shooting Unarmed African American Men” while some of those of those men were shot while committing a crime and failing to do as police instructed, well most people feel the shooting was justified and not racially motivated. That is because BLM has not provided any facts to say that it was.

So the message becomes lost because while BLM and it’s supporters want you to believe most police shootings of African American males are racially motivated, the statistics simply and undeniably never have supported that. To be honest, when you are asked to comply with orders from a police officer and fail to do that, you could potentially escalate the situation to the point where someone gets shot. Black, white, whatever race.

Before anyone starts, we could argue that all day long because anyone can get google gun stats and police shooting stats all day until they find the one they want to use.

I get mine from the FBI because I enjoy things like drinking coffee, if I google searched the stats on officer involved shootings I’d have less time to make (I use a press) and then enjoy a delicious cup or two or more of coffee.

So in short no I do not believe that BLM ever had control, it’s message was never clear. They tried to raise awareness about officers shooting unarmed individuals and went about it by saying race had something to do with it. It didn’t. Cops shoot unarmed individuals of every race.

The leaders of BLM went about this whole idea the wrong way and lost complete control of it, which is exactly why no one listens to it. The point that they tried to get across is that black's are more likely to get arrested, pulled over, serve longer sentences than whites. But clearly from the protests I have seen they centered the efforts around black males who were shot, some of which were shot while breaking the law, not complying with police orders, reaching for a gun or what appeared to be a gun after the situation had escalated. 

The point is, the reason people don't respect or believe in BLM is because they have centered around individuals who were caught behaving badly. IF the individuals had not been, well the outcome would have been different. 

All save for the media, they love reporting on the violence so that keeps the movement alive at least.

If it were me and thankfully it’s not, I’d scrap the movement or get my ass in gear and save it. Until then the police are now leary and untrusting of these large scale protests, who could blame them if they overreact then and whatever message, well it will get further lost.  

Again, I’ve said this before in my Ferguson pieces, cops are less racist than BLM makes them out to be. Racism in this country is being perpetuated by it’s citizens, the media and movements like Black Lives Matter.

While it racism is alive and well, so are other discrimination's against others and they all deserve attention.

I see this all over social media, “All Lives Matter.” Until we decide to understand that we will always be divided.

Cristal M Clark

@thecrimeshop

https:/crimeshop.wordpress.com

IOS users can find The Crime Shop on Apple News