Once free speech champions, now ‘paper warriors’

Police Commissioner William Gross understands well why the ALCU doesn’t command the respect it once did as a champion of free speech.

In his response to the organization's lawsuit, Gross slammed the ACLU in an angry missive on his Facebook page. “I sure as hell didn't see the ACLU in El Salvador working to find a solution to our youth being inducted into the MS13 Gang ...”

The commissioner called the ACLU “paper warriors,” noting they don’t ever show up when people are killed by gang violence.

“Paper warriors” is polite. The ACLU should be called the “Pro-Violence Party,” or the American Criminals Liberties Union, because they spend an awful lot of resources helping criminals have more “liberty” to commit more crime.

What about the liberty interests of victims? Who’s fighting for mothers and children who have to stay indoors day and night to avoid bullets? What about the permanently lost liberty of murder victims?

Fatal shootings in Boston are up this year. Commissioner Gross wants to do something to stop the bloodshed. That means gathering information about who’s doing the killing, where they’re coming from and who they’re talking to.

The ACLU says the database causes racial profiling.

Gross scoffs and says the induction of young people into gangs, mostly people of color, is his key concern. The ACLU says it wants to prevent racism, but dozens of mostly black and brown people are murdered on Boston’s streets every year without so much as a whimper from the ACLU.

Why does the ACLU care more about the skin color of living people in a database than dead people in morgues?

No doubt the ACLU would say the gathering of information by police in a database is worse than people killing each other because cops are the government, and we should always be more wary of what the government is doing. Not so. Private violence can sometimes be more harmful to society. Just ask Chicago. When communities are devastated, and lives are destroyed, it is not only acceptable but mandatory that government intervene. In this case, that means collecting and analyzing gang-related information.

Most people would gladly accept a police-run database in exchange for fewer murders, but the ACLU doesn’t seem to care. Why would they?

Paper warriors don’t bleed.