Page 7 - TPA Journal January - February 2018

MEMORANDUM

DATE: January 3, 2018

TO: PJ Hermosa, Emily Taylor, Richard Carter

FROM: Cris Andersen

SUBJECT: From the Director – Newsletter Article on The Myth of the Trigger-Happy Cop

Brothers and sisters in law enforcement, The medias false narrative fueled speculation that a
surge of fatal shootings by police officers has occurred
As we close out 2017 and begin a new year protecting during and since 2015, becoming Americas most
and serving our communities, Id like to look back at divisive issue in decades. From Ferguson to Baton
the subject of deadly force, particularly officer- Rouge, from North Carolina to Minneapolis, from
involved shootings, and offer some statistical data in
Charlotte to Chicago, communities have been rocked
support of the men and women laying their lives on the
by demonstrations after local police officers shot and
line every day. Since my retirement from active duty killed people, many of them minorities, some unarmed,
Ive had many opportunities to travel the state, and most completely justifiable. However, no one from
speaking to civilians attending Texas Law Shield gun Barrack Obama to Beyoncé Knowles has bothered to
law workshops. I can relay two things they consistently
apologize for spreading what we now call The Myth
tell me without reservation; they love and appreciate
of the Trigger-Happy Cop, though they know
you for your sacrifices, and they have no idea how everything they said was rebuffed as false. In reality,
infrequently you use force/deadly force in relation to officer involved deadly force incidents are on a sharp
the number of incidents where such force was justified. decline since 2015 in most major cities, but these stats
The primary reason the publics perception of police
never make the news. Because there is no complete
use-of-force is skewed is the intentional and knowing
official database on police shootings it is impossible to
false narrative facilitated by local and national media obtain truly accurate historical data on trends in police
sources, aka fake news. Lets face it; if you use force shooting incidents; however, enough empirical data
it makes headlines but, what escapes scrutiny is was collected to support a claim that fatal officer-
information intentionally kept from the public in the
involved shootings are statistically rare and unjustified
form of statistics on the number of violent encounters
shootings are rarer still. According to a database
where the legitimate use of force was justified, you maintained by the Washington Post Newspaper, one of
found another alternative, and no one was injured. It the most liberal media sources in America, law
defies logic that law enforcement agencies dont hold enforcement officers shot and killed 963 people in the
press conferences to applaud these statistics, yet theyll
U.S. in 2016. In contrast to what the public was told
jump through every political hoop to get in front of
via the medias false narrative, police shot and killed
a use of force/deadly force which results in the publics twice as many whites as blacks (465 vs. 233), yet
inconvenience. theyve been misled in the belief that police have

Jan./Feb. 2018 www.texaspoliceassociation.com • 866-997-8282 3