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the police officer and general public. It states somewhat conde- scendingly that “foot pursuits carry inherent risk to Department members.” Stop the presses. Are you telling us that police work is dangerous? Next thing they will tell us is water is wet and circles are round. Such profound insight from a tone-deaf mayor.
We all know that police work is dangerous, but we also know that we need to place most of these offenders in custody because letting these miscreants get away is much more dangerous to all who live and work in this City. How about we teach the general public that they need to engage in a balancing test when fleeing a police officer while tugging at their pants and flailing their arms? Is the risk of keeping that gun, pointing it at a police officer, worth forcing a deadly-force encounter with a trained professional? My advice would be that if you don’t want to get injured in a foot pursuit, then simply follow the lawful orders of a police officer and don’t, under any circumstances, point a gun at them. How’s that for a balancing test?
The doublespeak is even more apparent when you listen to our superintendent and mayor after every tragic shooting. They scream about the violence, yet never blame the perpetrator of the violence. Superintendent Brown recently said, “Every gun re- covered is a potential deadly-force encounter. It is potential for reducing violence. If we can recover the gun, the gun can now not be used in a violent incident.” How is it that we recover guns? We police.
You simply can’t rail against the violence then place as many obstacles in the way to stop the police from policing. Unfortu- nately, every working police officer now needs to read the foot pursuit policy and understand the requirements. Read it, under- stand it and be able to articulate it in every report you compose. It should sound vaguely familiar.
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