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| There’s a lot to be said about the turn of events in this situation including issues of race, #blacklivesmatter, police misconduct, conspiracies and suicide, just to name a few. But, for now, media misconduct and sloppy opinion forming are at the top of my list.
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This undated file photo provided by the Fox Lake Police Department shows Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz. Authorities will announce Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2015, that the northern Illinois police officer whose shooting death led to a massive manhunt in September killed himself, an official briefed on the crime investigation says. (Fox Lake Police Department photo via AP, File)
We now know that Fox Lake, Illinois police Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz killed himself in what local officials are calling a “carefully staged suicide,” likely to cover up the fact that he had been embezzling public funds for years. But in the days following Gliniewicz’s death, pundits, new outlets, and advocates quickly lumped his death in with that of Houston Dep. Darren Goforth to blame police critics, Black Lives Matter, Eric Holder, Barack Obama, and just about anyone else who was worried about police brutality for fostering and encouraging a “war on cops.”
We now know that not only was Gliniewicz’s death a suicide, but the man who killed Goforth, Shannon J. Miles, has a history of mentally illness, and once nearly killed a man over an argument over what TV show to watch, but no connection to Black Lives Matter or any other anti-police brutality activist group.
Here’s a partial list of people and outlets who used Gliniewicz’s death to push a “war on cops” narrative:
Lloyd Green, at The Daily Beast:
As in 1968, crime again stands to dislodge the Democrats from the White House, in the same way that in 1988 crime helped propel George H.W. Bush to Ronald Reagan’s third term.
Look around—history can repeat itself. This past week, three men gunned down police Lt. Joe Gliniewicz in the President’s adopted home state of Illinois, even as people were mourning the execution-style killing of Darren Goforth, a Harris County Texas Sheriff’s Deputy.
Yet Obama and his party appear helpless, hostages to the same demographic forces they courted, and then rode to power.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, at Hot Air:
Over the last week, we’ve seen a disturbing trend of police officers being murdered on the job. Texas Sheriff’s Deputy Darren Goforth was killed Friday, gunned down while pumping gas for no apparent reason other than the uniform on his back. And just yesterday, in my neighboring state of Illinois, police Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz was assassinated by three men, who are still on the run.
Barack Obama, as chief law enforcement officer of the United States, is going to have to stop acting like a conscientious objector in this war on cops.
Wednesday, another officer, in Fox Lake, Illinois, Lt. Charles “GI Joe” Gliniewicz, was gunned down. Last Friday, Darren Goforth, a Houston deputy sheriff, was shot 15 times by an alleged black racist.
President Obama called the widow of Deputy Goforth, but he has yet to show the same indignation and outrage he exhibited at what happened to Trayvon Martin in Florida and Michael Brown in Ferguson.
Note that the man who killed Goforth was mentally ill, and not connected to Black Lives Matter. Moving on, here’s Ron Hosko, president of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund, writing in USA Today:
In the wake of the execution-style murder of another law enforcement officer last Friday and with a manhunt underway near Chicago after the murder of yet another officer, renewed finger-pointing and incendiary actions threaten to widen the divide between the police and some in the communities they serve.
Police Chief Rodney Jones, in the San Bernadino County Sun:
Garcia’s arrest in Fontana underscored what Fontana Police Chief Rodney Jones said was an uptick this year in people resisting arrest and fleeing from officers. Whether that was related to the increased scrutiny and fear of police was not clear, but Jones suspects there’s a connection.
“You can’t ignore the fact that the timing is consistent with the media coverage of what has occurred in Ferguson and in New York and in other cases. The timing is fairly consistent,” Jones said.
In the past month alone, four police officers or sheriff’s deputies were killed in the line of duty across the country, and at least one of the killings was a suspected execution.
On Sept. 1, Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz, a 30-year veteran of the Lake County Sheriff’s Department in Illinois, was fatally shot in a marsh while chasing three people.
From NBC 5 Chicago:
Residents lined streets in Fox Lake, Illinois, Tuesday holding signs of support for police following the fatal shooting of a veteran officer in the area.
Signs that read “Police Lives Matter” and “We Stand with Blue” were held by supporters along area roadways as officials continued a manhunt for three armed suspects in the shooting of Lt. Joe Gliniewicz . . .
Fox Lake residents say the incident highlights the need to show support for law enforcement officers who risk their lives to protect others.
“The suport is there and we need to let our law enforcement know that we do still believe in them and we support them,” Maria said.
Around Fox Lake, residents expressed their own sorrow over the death of the immensely popular Gliniewicz.
‘This particular officer is a pillar in my community and definitely going to be missed, and (he) touched so many lives,’ said Gina Maria, a 40-year-old teacher who lives in the community.
Dozens gathered for hours along a street in the village to show their support for law enforcement officers.
Thirty-year-old Dan Raminick held a sign that said ‘Police Lives Matter.’ He lives a couple miles away and said officers came by Tuesday evening and thanked the crowd.
Caitlyn Kelly, a 22-year-old student, said she felt compelled to come out after other recent police shootings. She held a sign that said ‘Blue and Brave . . .
It Gliniewicz’s death comes just four days after Texas sheriff’s Deputy Darren H. Goforth was shot and killed while filling up gas in Harris County.
Sheriff Ron Hickman blamed the Black Lives Matter movement for the cold-blooded killing.
A motivation for the shooting in Illinois is not yet known.
Late last week, Texas Sheriff’s Deputy Darren Goforth was gunned down at a Houston-area gas station. And then yesterday in northern Illinois, Lt. Joseph Gliniewicz was killed, sparking a manhunt for three suspects.
It’s against this backdrop that Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz (R-Texas) apparently sees an opportunity: the far-right senator wants Americans to blame President Obama, among others, for the brutal gun violence.
“Cops across this country are feeling the assault,” Cruz told reporters after a town hall meeting in Milford, New Hampshire. “They’re feeling the assault from the president, from the top on down as we see, whether it’s in Ferguson or Baltimore, the response of senior officials of the president, of the attorney general, is to vilify law enforcement. That is fundamentally wrong, and it is endangering the safety and security of us all.”
Yesterday, Cruz went further, accusing the president of “silence” on the issue, which the senator described as “completely wrong” and a “manifestation of the divisiveness, the partisanship and of the hostility to law enforcement that has characterized the entire Obama administration.”
It has been more than 36 hours since the mysterious death of a police officer in Illinois. And despite having at least 100 investigators surging for Lieutenant Joe Gliniewicz, and his killers, that is. Authorities appear to be nowhere close to catching them, multiple vigils for the man known as G.I. Joe, springing up, with the search for his killers now expanding. Investigators are going door to door, near the crime scene searching for suspects who were only described as two white males and one black male. Gliniewicz was shot early yesterday morning at their spotting, what he described as suspicious activity. Well Gliniewicz’s death comes just days after a Texas sheriff’s deputy was killed, execution style while pumping gasoline into his patrol car. A crime that is led to new complaints about the anti-police rhetoric, we have been hearing, in particular from some of the Black Lives Matter protests, but law enforcement officials are not the only ones questioning the movement now.
Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, on Fox News:
Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke said on “The Kelly File” tonight that President Obama has an obligation to speak out against the anti-police rhetoric that is coming from groups like Black Lives Matter.
Clarke pointed out that Obama’s comments following the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson breathed life into the Black Lives Matter movement.
“He’s got an obligation to come out now and walk some of this back, remind people of the important role that law enforcement officers play, and no longer will this anti-cop madness, this anti-cop slime, be tolerated,” Clarke said.
“We know the political class, including the president, have turned their back on us, and we’re kind of out here alone now,” Clarke added.
He said that even though many law enforcement officers don’t feel supported by the president or the attorney general, they are still going to serve their communities.
Clarke pointed to the tragic death of Fox Lake Police Department Lt. Joe Gliniewicz, who was shot in the line of duty just 30 days before his retirement.
And another police officer, Lt. Joe Gliniewicz of Fox Lake, Illinois, was found shot to death Tuesday morning, the latest law enforcement officer to become a murder victim this year.
A recent poll finds a majority of voters believe there is a “war” on police officers and that comments by politicians critical of law enforcement are making it more difficult for cops to do their job.
Peterson blames much of the violence on Black Lives Matter itself. And he has harsh words for Democratic politicians who have been looking to appeal to the group.
“Black Lives Matter is not a mainstream group, and no legitimate political party should be associated with them,” he said. “If a party is known to be affiliated with Black Lives Matter, that group should be shunned for associating with a group that is akin to the KKK and the skinheads.”
“Tell me again it isn’t open season on cops #BlueLivesMatter #AllLivesMatter,” tweeted author and Fox News contributor Katie Pavlich hours after Gliniewicz was found, stripped of his gun and pepper spray, in a marshy area of Fox Lake early Tuesday.
John Kass, Town Hall:
The killing of Fox Lake, Illinois, police Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz had nothing to do with our hashtag politics about which lives matter.
Gliniewicz, whose body was found in a marshy area near Fox Lake, was just a cop who’d been doing his job.
And there isn’t a police family in America that didn’t take note of what happened in Fox Lake, just as they took notice last week when Harris County, Texas, Deputy Sheriff Darren Goforth was shot and killed in an ambush while pumping gas into his patrol car.
“You want to consider the facts and take the politics out of it, but if you’re police or from a police family, you can’t help but thinking that it’s open season on us,” said longtime Chicago police Lt. Joseph Schmit, who has two sons on the job.
Richard Beary, president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, to Reuters:
The officers’ deaths came within a span of less than a week, but more than 1,000 miles apart: One was fatally shot while filling his police cruiser’s gas tank outside Houston, Texas, the other was killed in pursuit of three suspects in rural Illinois.
Their deaths marked the 23rd and 24th fatal shootings of officers in the United States this year, and come at a time when relations between the public and police departments have been strained by cases in which officers used excessive force, sometimes fatally, in arresting suspects.
It is an atmosphere that some rank-and-file officers say has made them more fearful for their safety on the job.
Experts caution that the number of police killed on duty this year is not out of the ordinary, and the reasons behind the deaths are a complicated mix of factors that go well beyond the current climate.
But, heightened attention given to police deaths, and a perception amongst police of growing hostility towards them, is taking a psychological toll on officers, law enforcement leaders and police advocates say.
“We’re telling our people from the time you put that uniform on to the time you walk in your house your head needs to be on a swivel and there is no downtime anymore, no getting lunch and relaxing for a few minutes,” said Richard Beary, chief of the University of Central Florida Police, who also serves as president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie:
“This is the president’s problem, because he has not allowed law and order to be the rule of the day in the United States. Lawlessness has been the rule of the day,” Christie said in an interview on “Fox and Friends” after the hosts recounted recent killings of police officers in Illinois and Texas, and another shooting in Nevada over the weekend. “And now the president says little or nothing about these police officers that are being hunted.”
WAR ON COPS: OFFICER SHOT AND KILLED IN CHICAGO SUBURB
Is the murder of the Illinois police officer another violent result of the Black Lives Matter movement which promotes the killing of cops and encourages more racial division across the country?
Jim Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police:
The death of Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz, a father of four and an Army veteran known as “G.I. Joe,” here Tuesday marked the fourth fatal shooting of a law enforcement officer nationwide in the past two weeks. Although the overall number of on-duty deaths is down from last year, the rash of killings is fueling a new debate over the risks of being a police officer in the post-Ferguson era of anti-police protests.
“It’s a trifecta” that officers are facing, said Jim Pasco, executive director of the national Fraternal Order of Police. “There’s a hostile element within the community at large. There’s in many incidences a lack of support on the part of elected officials and police management. And there’s this ubiquitous social-media effort to discredit all police officers because of the extraordinarily rare misconduct by a very few.”
More from a half-dozen Fox News personalities:
While the news of GI Joe’s death broke nationwide on Tuesday, Sept. 1, Fox’s resident quack doctor Keith Ablow sat on the set of the network’s “Outnumbered”show and lamented how the president has “inflamed racial discord in this country and put a target on the backs of American police officers,” using the recent murder of a Texas deputy at a gas station as a jumping-off point.
“This is not the only incident of this,” conservative firebrand Andrea Tantaros interrupted, teeing up co-host Sandra Smith to introduce the Fox Lake incident. “This is happening time and time again,” Fox & Friends First’s Ainsley Earhardt chimed in. “This is a dangerous place for the country to be,” Liz MacDonald fretted before Tantaros pivoted back to the role of Black Lives Matter rhetoric in cop slayings.
Hours later, primetime star anchor Megyn Kelly interviewed Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke — an all-too-frequent Fox guest who seems to spend more time bashing black activists on TV than actually, you know…sheriffing. Clarke willfully linked Gliniewicz’s death to how President Obama has “breathed life into this anti-cop sentiment” with his “inflammatory rhetoric.”
That same evening, a cocksure Clarke told Fox Business Network host Lou Dobbs that he has been to Fox Lake and knows that Gliniewicz is one of the town’s “finest,” gunned down while “engaged in self-initiative policing, the best policing there is.” He added: “War has been declared on the American police officer.” On Twitter, the lawman continued: “Time to take to the streets to counter Black LIES Matter. Fox Lake, Illinois.”
And on the morning of Saturday, Sept. 5, Eric Bolling used his weekly “Cashin’ In” monologue (titled “Wake Up, America!”) to connect Gliniewicz being “blown away in cold blood” to a “crisis” of law enforcement officers being killed, in part because President Obama has failed to publicly state that “Blue Lives Matter.”
So far, 33 police officers have been killed by gunfire this year, a 23 percent decrease from last year, and still on a pace to make 2015 the second safest year for police in at least half a century. And even that 33 figure includes Gliniewicz, and two officers who were accidentally shot, either by themselves or by another officer.
