Dreamy mayor’s stock defense of besieged Chicago police officers wholly insufficient.
In a fleeting moment on Wednesday June 7, 2017, Mayor Rahm Emanuel issued a joint statement with Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson responding to a series of attacks on Chicago police officers which occurred over a four-day period between Friday June 2 and late Monday June 5. An early fusillade in Chicago’s criminal underclass annual summer crime wave, all four incidents witnessed police officers attacked by assailants with firearms. Moreover, one incident saw a 12-year-old taken into custody, a second involving a chase on I-55, and a third saw a police officer shot in the hand.
Emanuel’s statement read:
“For the fourth time in four days, Chicago police officers have been the target of gunfire. There is never a justification for any attack against law enforcement. These senseless shootings are a powerful reminder of the duty and danger the men and women of CPD accept as a part of their service to our city. As we all pray for the speedy recovery of our officers, let us always remember their sacrifices and honor their selfless commitment to the city of Chicago.”
It is very difficult to determine which is more alarming: Mayor Emanuel’s perfunctory issuance of a hollow, four-sentence statement purportedly defending members of the Chicago Police Department or his baffling choice of “senseless” to describe a succession of attacks on police officers. This meek statement, which the mayor chose to release to the public in preference to holding a full-fledged press conference, demonstrates why a considerable portion of responsibility for attacks on Chicago police officers are to be laid at Mr. Emanuel’s doorstep.
Mayor Emanuel’s spurning a public appearance to defend the department following four armed attacks on police officers betrays his loathing for the Chicago Police Department.
A lazy departure from the mayor’s habitual “blame-the-police” refrain, this tonally-grating press release is painful to read and lacks effectiveness, elegance, and emotion. Equally, it superbly captures how hopelessly out of touch Mr. Emanuel is regarding the calamity unfolding before his very eyes. Perhaps Chicago’s layabout mayor is in need of a remedial seminar themed on the qualities of leadership: An attack on a police officer is never senseless. Quite the opposite, it is intolerable and a matter of grave significance which should be met with uninterrupted, fist-pounding denunciations. Tethered to these firm condemnations should be blunt and unsparing warnings against such attacks and forbidding reminders of grim legal consequences from Mayor Emanuel and members of the Chicago City Council.
That a 12-year-old was arrested for involvement in an attack on police officers should awaken Mr. Emanuel to the animus police face day to day. So damaging is Mr. Emanuel’s scarcity of support for the Chicago Police Department, it has contributed immeasurably to a current climate in which it is conceivable to say and do anything to Chicago police officers. By failing to back police in the public square, incivility toward officers in Chicago’s neighborhoods has become commonplace, police authority is challenged daily, often with aggressive behavior, and police leverage over lawlessness is on the verge of collapse. Furthermore, it has directly led to police officers falling among the violence and mayhem for which Chicago has become notorious.
Even in the absence of an assault on a police officer, Mr. Emanuel’s refusal to embrace the regular practice of defending the Chicago Police Department has reaped devastating ramifications: The mayor’s declining to speak in defense of police is a refusal to inspire public confidence in police. Mayor Emanuel’s rejecting the all-important custom of routinely endorsing police officers delegitimizes police authority on the street, lessens the obligation of citizens to obey lawful commands from police, and discourages the public from cooperation with police officers in thwarting crime. More to the point, the mayor’s inaction on this crucial matter has encouraged an increase in crime in neighborhoods which previously boasted low crime rates and lent a helping hand to the enlargement of areas in the city which have essentially become law-free zones.
Reasoning for Mr. Emanuel’s willful failure to support police requires virtually no effort to expose: Emanuel prefers condemning police. Practically a rule, the mayor’s pattern of rebuking police involves no political cost and earns him a chest full of medals from a segment of the population with a deep antipathy toward police. In contrast, Emanuel’s supporting police invites more howling from anti-police groups and repercussions in the voting booth.
Cowed by a wave of anger and impatient to seek a permanent solution to muzzle critics of police, a toxic bond bloomed between Mr. Emanuel and rivals to law and order. Included in the mob of noisy anti-police cheerleaders are community activists, civic groups, and, regrettably, some elected officials and clergy. Saboteurs masquerading as romantic defenders of justice, their crackpot cause revolves around accusing, demanding and threatening: Individuals and groups with no sense of proportion, they seize on a small number of incidents in which police officers commit honest error or engage in misconduct, advance angry disfigurements of the truth, and paint police officers as armed lunatics who plunder and lay waste to Chicago neighborhoods. A poisonous distillation of dishonesty and mayhem, these individuals and groups are willing to wreck anything which lay before them to attain their sordid goal of grinding the Chicago Police Department into the dust.
For Mr. Emanuel to find common cause with anti-police groups and to lend prestige to their purpose is a discredit to him personally and a lasting blemish on his legacy as mayor of Chicago. Their proximity to the mayor is absolutely chilling and their influence so potent it forbids speaking in defense of the police department.
Despite glaring dangers to public safety, the kinship between these groups and City Hall flourishes because Emanuel places a high premium on their silence to lengthen his term in office. Voluntarily a hostage to anti-police groups, Emanuel normalizes their destructive message with police “reform” measures which robs the police force of its reputation, renders police ineffective on the streets, and invites criminals to trespass over once-sacrosanct lines.
Mr. Emanuel sought and welcomed the duties which come with the office of mayor in 2011. Since his election, he has demonstrated he lacks vision, insight and the human quality to guide on a vital charge within his portfolio of responsibilities as mayor. Instead of remaining firmly on the side of police with robust words of defense and emphasizing the innumerable acts of kindness, decency and bravery members of the Chicago Police Department perform every day, Emanuel’s solicitous and delicate treatment of groups which are implacably hostile to police is turning the Windy City into a decrepit, crime-ridden wasteland.
[Photo courtesy Chicago Sun Times] [WGNTV] [Chicago Tribune] [dnainfo]
