Police reform talks require law enforcement at the table
Currently lawmakers on Beacon Hill are trying to hammer out a new police reform bill into law.
One subject that almost everyone agrees on is the banning of the so-called chokeholds while restraining a prisoner.
While I agree chokeholds should not be used routinely, imagine this scenario: You are a police officer engaged in a very violent hand-to-hand confrontation with a much larger and stronger person who has committed a murder and is trying to escape and kill you without blinking an eye.
Your only hope to subdue this person and save your life is
New York Police officers arrest a man on a boardwalk, Sunday, June 21 in New York. The man whose takedown by police, as shown in this photo, led to an officer being charged for using what officials said was an illegal chokehold.
to apply a chokehold onto this subject.
Now, would you penalize that officer for using the chokehold in that very-limited emergency situation? Of course not, and if anyone says they would, I can characterize them in three letters: DOA.
So, the chokehold section of the police reform bill does need an amendment to fit a similar emergency scenario and that is why police officers must have a seat at the legislation table when lawmakers are trying to hammer out a fair and effective reform bill.
An ounce of common sense is worth more than a ton of rush to judgment. Members of the great and General Court of Massachusetts are you listening?
— George E. RyAn (Retired) Deputy Superintendent of the Lowell
Police DepArtment
Reform needed all around
Much has been made recently about the lunacy of the radical leftists calls for “defunding the police.
In order for a civil society to survive, law and order is needed, otherwise anarchy is the result, as seen in cities like Chicago, New York, Seattle and Portland, Ore. What is needed is reform, better training, certification and accountability, especially in the upper ranks of law enforcement.
While we are at it, we should also demand reforms from our hapless politicians who lack morality and ethics. The longer a politician is in office, the harder it is to remove them due to their lust for power and the lure of big money. They should be held accountable for their actions that negatively impact the citizens they “serve.”
Finally, it is time that the “journalists and news reporters,” especially the corrupt mainstream media, begin to act as such. Today’s mainstream media has become so corrupt, biased and unable to report the news as it happens, instead bending it to fit their own agendas, even omitting pertinent facts and tossing around blatant lies. The mainstream media has become the propaganda lapdogs of the Democratic Party and the radical left. Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin would be proud of what they have become. Sadly, what they truly are is a disgrace to a once proud profession.
— Bob LAjoie
Lowell