Sheriff David Clarke Rejects the Term “Police Brutality”

Police officers fear being prosecuted for performing their duties Sheriff David Clarke explained saying, “…they’re not afraid to do their job, but they’re afraid of … the United States Department of Justice and their jack-booted goon lawyers at the civil rights division who have the American police officer in their crosshairs.”

While the Black Lives Matter movement advances a “police brutality” narrative, Sheriff Clarke states that “ … the US DOJ civil rights division sees the American police officer as the enemy and they just see the criminals as victims.”

Officers now risk their reputation, livelihood, and liberty for doing their job, and this hostile environment discourages law enforcement professionals from practicing the “assertive policing” that Sheriff Clarke describes as “ … the best tactic you can use to keep the criminals on their heels. Stuff like stop, question, and frisk is assertive policing.”

Noting the fact that the police have historically faced similar hostilities, he said “ … the difference between now and in the 60s is the political class supported the police during that time that this anarchist movement declared war on the police. This time you fast forward to now and the political class has sided with this disgusting movement … ”

Sheriff Clarke links this anti-cop narrative to the growth of crime. “Look at how the crime rates have skyrocketed in Baltimore, in Milwaukee, in Chicago, in LA, in other large major urban areas where you have high concentrations of black population the violence has spiked, it is not a little uptick, it is a spike…”

Repudiating the phrase “police brutality” as a mischaracterization “ … used … to enrage and to excite people … ” Sheriff Clarke discussed his objection to using this term.

“I looked up the definition of brutality so I could get a working definition … and the definition that I found in dictionary.com, it says ‘savage physical violence.’ Let me give you some examples of savage physical violence: ISIS engages in savage physical violence by cutting off the heads of live human beings and video taping it and putting it out on the internet — that is savage physical violence. Putting somebody in a cage, like ISIS has done, pouring gasoline around it and setting it on fire is savage physical violence. What Planned Parenthood was accused of doing late last year or earlier this year, cutting up fetuses into parts and selling them on the open market to the highest bidder is savage physical violence. What we’re talking about with the police is not savage physical violence, it’s police use of force.”

Sheriff Clarke explained that this force represents “a very awesome power” that “ … should be scrutinized. But it is an option that police officers can use in the rarest of situations to defend their life or the life of somebody else.”

Alex Nitzberg is an intern at the American Journalism Center at Accuracy in Media and Accuracy in Academia. Follow him on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Photo by Gage Skidmore

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