Anti-police madness metastasizes as SF mayor plans to send in social workers in their place
San Francisco's Mayor London Breed is setting up her city's social workers for potential bloodshed, offering a series of "reforms" that even her former police commissioner calls "pure political pandering." Social workers, people she thinks are her allies in her need to politically punish cops, may pay a horrendous price in blood for her panicky P.R.
Joe Vazquez of CBS San Francisco reports:
San Francisco police will no longer be called to settle disputes between neighbors, or to handle homeless people, or any non-criminal cases, according to a new plan announced by Mayor London Breed.
But not everybody thinks it's a good idea.
"This is pure political pandering," said Joe Alioto-Veronese, a former San Francisco Police Commissioner.
Alioto-Veronese said the SFPD is already underfunded and understaffed and that the concept of contracting social workers has its limits, as evidenced by the homeless crisis.
S.F. mayor London Breed in 2018.
Photo credit: Pax Ahimsa Gethen.
Jazz Shaw of Hot Air points out what is obvious to anyone who has watched the now canceled TV series Cops:
When it comes to "disputes between neighbors," there are far too many situations where even the most capable social worker is going to be completely out of their depth. By the time somebody feels the need to dial 911, matters have generally gone far beyond the point of Bill and Hank arguing over which weedkiller works best on dandelions.
If an argument has come to blows and shows the possibility of escalating to weapons of any sort, you need someone in uniform on the scene who is trained in how to properly and physically break up the altercation and deescalate the situation until cooler heads prevail. Very often, just the sight of a police car and some uniformed officers will be enough to end the disturbance. But if some civilian in normal street clothes shows up and tries to interfere, they may very well wind up with a punch in the nose themselves.
When it comes to the city's homeless encampments, there are already social workers out there on a regular basis trying to help those who are willing to accept assistance. You generally only see the police getting involved when some of them are breaking the law and/or becoming violent. Some of them are also dealing with mental health or addiction problems, making the potential for violence an ever-present concern. Social workers are wonderful for certain situations, but sometimes you simply need the strong arm of the law.
A reader who has experience as a social worker writes:
Situations are far more uncertain and complex than the left would have us believe. You can't isolate various kinds of calls for police help into neat and tidy boxes. And a social worker will only become another burden for the police when some homeless person or dispute between neighbors gets complicated because of mental illness, drugs, craziness, weapons, etc., so now the cop will not only have to deal with the person in question, but will have to take care of the social worker or whatever other person that gets sent out with them. And if they don't go in teams (which would be a logistical nightmare to schedule), and the non-cop goes out alone, good luck to them.
San Francisco's Mayor London Breed is setting up her city's social workers for potential bloodshed, offering a series of "reforms" that even her former police commissioner calls "pure political pandering." Social workers, people she thinks are her allies in her need to politically punish cops, may pay a horrendous price in blood for her panicky P.R.
Joe Vazquez of CBS San Francisco reports:
San Francisco police will no longer be called to settle disputes between neighbors, or to handle homeless people, or any non-criminal cases, according to a new plan announced by Mayor London Breed.But not everybody thinks it's a good idea."This is pure political pandering," said Joe Alioto-Veronese, a former San Francisco Police Commissioner.Alioto-Veronese said the SFPD is already underfunded and understaffed and that the concept of contracting social workers has its limits, as evidenced by the homeless crisis.
S.F. mayor London Breed in 2018.
Photo credit: Pax Ahimsa Gethen.
Jazz Shaw of Hot Air points out what is obvious to anyone who has watched the now canceled TV series Cops:
When it comes to "disputes between neighbors," there are far too many situations where even the most capable social worker is going to be completely out of their depth. By the time somebody feels the need to dial 911, matters have generally gone far beyond the point of Bill and Hank arguing over which weedkiller works best on dandelions.If an argument has come to blows and shows the possibility of escalating to weapons of any sort, you need someone in uniform on the scene who is trained in how to properly and physically break up the altercation and deescalate the situation until cooler heads prevail. Very often, just the sight of a police car and some uniformed officers will be enough to end the disturbance. But if some civilian in normal street clothes shows up and tries to interfere, they may very well wind up with a punch in the nose themselves.When it comes to the city's homeless encampments, there are already social workers out there on a regular basis trying to help those who are willing to accept assistance. You generally only see the police getting involved when some of them are breaking the law and/or becoming violent. Some of them are also dealing with mental health or addiction problems, making the potential for violence an ever-present concern. Social workers are wonderful for certain situations, but sometimes you simply need the strong arm of the law.
A reader who has experience as a social worker writes:
Situations are far more uncertain and complex than the left would have us believe. You can't isolate various kinds of calls for police help into neat and tidy boxes. And a social worker will only become another burden for the police when some homeless person or dispute between neighbors gets complicated because of mental illness, drugs, craziness, weapons, etc., so now the cop will not only have to deal with the person in question, but will have to take care of the social worker or whatever other person that gets sent out with them. And if they don't go in teams (which would be a logistical nightmare to schedule), and the non-cop goes out alone, good luck to them.
Black Lives Matter protesters shut down a major artery in the SF Bay Area
The San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge is one of the major arteries in the San Francisco Bay Area. That's why it's a big deal when protesters walk onto the bridge and stop traffic, especially because the bridge has...well, let's just call them issues. It remains to be seen whether, over the long run, this protest helped or hurt the cause in the eyes of the people trapped in their cars. After all, Bay Area virtue-signalers will put up with a lot to see Trump gone.
It took almost three and a half years to build the Bay Bridge, from 1933 through 1936. When finished, those men who worked on the bridge, 24 of whom died during construction, had built a two-tiered, two-part span covering four and half miles of the San Francisco Bay. The span has something of a pause on Angel Island, when it no longer crosses the Bay but, instead, travels through the Yerba Buena Tunnel.
Originally, the lower level was for train travel. When the train was decommissioned, people driving to Oakland were on the lower level, and those driving to San Francisco were on the upper level. One of the things that always rankled San Franciscans when watching Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate was that he ostensibly traveled from San Francisco to Oakland on the upper deck.
In October 1989, when the Loma Prieta earthquake hit, one segment of the upper deck on the eastern span collapsed, killing a driver. Because the bridge is such a vital artery, CalTrans quickly reopened it, but it was clear that the bridge needed upgrading. Ultimately, CalTrans retrofitted the western (San Francisco) end and completely rebuilt the eastern (Oakland) end, a process that took two decades and had a 2,500% cost overrun (not a typo). The eastern span is now a single-deck bridge.
In 2015, the local paper reported that the newly built eastern portion was still a seismic threat:
Californians spent $6.4 billion to replace the old Bay Bridge eastern span because it was unlikely to survive a major earthquake. Now, mounting revelations of construction problems are calling into question whether the new bridge can withstand the Big One.Tests showing signs of saltwater intrusion into the bridge tower's foundation and damage to its anchor rods could be the most serious seismic issues for the project. But they aren't the only ones. Substandard welds on the suspension span's decks and water leaks near rods that secure the main cable also trouble engineers outside Caltrans who are experts in bridge construction and integrity.
None of this, incidentally, surprised me, because I'd heard from one of the construction workers that CalTrans originally bought materials from Japan but, when they proved too expensive, switched to Chinese-manufactured components. The Chinese-made pieces, said the construction worker, were garbage.
The same article details a myriad of other problems with the bridge. For someone like me, a worrier, driving across the bridge was always something that made me worry.
Safe or not, about 260,000 vehicles per day cross the bridge. Traffic is heaviest during peak commutes, but it's a busy bridge at all times, except for the wee hours of the morning. For those sitting on the span in traffic, there's always the slight worry that, if another big earthquake hits, they're in a bad place.
This long history is not just blather. It matters because of what happened Sunday afternoon on the Bay Bridge: Black Lives Matter activists decided to shut the bridge down. It's hard to tell if the cars honking are in sympathy with the protesters or really hacked off and worried by an unnecessary traffic jam trapping them on a theoretically unstable bridge in the middle of a bay in earthquake country.
Mandeep, who posted the videos immediately above, decided that the whole thing was an intersectional moment, tying together Black Lives Matter and transgender lives (because who could forget that, in years past, June was dedicated to gay lives mattering):
Do what you can to support Black organizations and movements all lives only matter when #BlackLivesMattters
It must be so exhausting being an intersectional, virtue-signaling, victim-group person in today's ever-changing activist world.
If you're a mom with a baby and toddler screaming in the back seat of a car while you're trapped in a two-hour activist-created traffic jam, maybe now is a good time to revisit some of your leftist political beliefs. But then again, given that this is the Bay Area, maybe not:
Been stuck on Bay Bridge for 1.5 hrs (at the end of our 8 hour drive) but we support this traffic #blacklivesmatter #baybridgeprotest
The media went in search of white incitement to make a case against Republicans but found instead, white inciters were members of the far-left nihilist group, Antifa. They support and vote Democrat and that imported agitators, looters and arsonists were predominantly black.
The Protests May Have Started Out Legitimate, but They've Been Hijacked
For two days, November 9–10, 1938, the Jewish people underwent a seminal moment in their glorious but often tragic history. During these two nights, unaffectionately dubbed Kristallnacht or "Night of Broken Glass," Nazis in Germany torched synagogues; vandalized Jewish homes, schools, and businesses; and killed close to 100 Jews.
Two days prior, a 17-year-old Polish Jew named Herschel Grynszpan heard that his parents had been deported by the Nazis to Poland. Seeking retribution, Grynszpan tracked down Ernst vom Rath, a German diplomat in Paris and assassinated him. It turned out to be just the pretense Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels was seeking to incite anti-Semitic riots throughout Germany. Nazi officials ordered German police officers and firemen to do nothing as the riots raged and buildings burned. Sound familiar?
Fast-forward 82 years to the murder of George Floyd.
What started out as a peaceful protest against the death of this unfortunate man has likewise spawned unprecedented, widespread violence and destruction throughout the United States. This mayhem has thus far taken the lives of at least 11 people, many of whom are black Americans. Hundreds of others have been injured in the chaos, with police officers getting shot and protesters struck with rubber bullets.
As the carnage, looting, arson, and assaults have been allowed to continue in Democrat-controlled states and municipalities, it has become undeniably evident that the wrongful death of George Floyd has morphed into anarchism. As lives, businesses, and personal property have been driven asunder, the criminal perpetrators are buoyed by pusillanimous Democrat politicians too timid to take back their own streets. Whether it be Crown Heights, August 1991; Rodney King, May 1992; Ferguson Missouri, August 2014; Baltimore, April 2015; or one of many others, the script has remained the same. In concordance with fawning state and local officials, a legitimate protest is hijacked by a throng of anarchists.
In doing so, the Republican Party, the party of Abraham Lincoln, is branded by Democrats as the party of racist policies. Barry Shaw, the international public diplomacy director at the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies, had this to say in an article entitled "America's Race Problems: An Outsider's Perspective":
The media went in search of white incitement to make a case against Republicans but found instead, white inciters were members of the far-left nihilist group, Antifa. They support and vote Democrat and that imported agitators, looters and arsonists were predominantly black.
According to Wikipedia, Antifa, which ironically stands for "anti-fascist," comprises autonomous groups "that aim to achieve their objectives through the use of both non-violent and violent action rather than through policy reform." No hidden agenda there. The article goes on to state: "Antifa's political activists engage in protest tactics involving property damage, physical violence, and harassment," ostensibly against fascists, racists, and those on the far right. Tell that to black and other business-owners whose life's work has gone up in flames.
Poignantly, the article concludes: "Individuals involved in the movement tend to hold anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist views, subscribing to a range of left wing ideologies such as anarchism, communism, Marxism, social democracy and socialism." Irrespective of color, creed, or origin, these are not exactly ideologies most Americans have grown up following.
Seemingly forgotten in all this turmoil are the advances black Americans have witnessed during the Trump years. Since taking office, the president has created over a million jobs for that constituency. Prior to the recent pandemic, national black unemployment hit an all-time low of 5.5 percent — even lower for black women at 4.4 percent.
Several months ago, Pastor Darrell Scott, a member of President Donald Trump's executive transition team, and co-founder of the New Spirit Revival Center in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, penned an article entitled "Black Communities Thriving Thanks to President Trump."
The pastor states: "That focus on expanding economic opportunity for minorities has been a major priority for the Trump Administration and by eliminating the sentencing disparities caused by the horrendous Clinton-era crime bill, African American inmates, sentenced unfairly were given a second chance at the American Dream." He concludes: "After all the progress African-Americans have made under Mr. Trump, it's difficult to even imagine going back to the Democrats' failed, big-government policies that have held us back for so long."
Words such as these are anathema to the race-baiters and insurrectionist elements in the aforementioned states whose sole goals are discord, dissolution, and anarchy, not social justice. As they burn police precincts, pillage property, and illegally occupy large swathes of cities, they are emboldened by state, local, and federal Democrats who acquiesce to their every wish and whim, no matter how absurd — the latest being to defund the police.
Rep. Ilhan Omar, representing Minnesota's 5th Congressional District, is in the vanguard of this movement. She's quoted saying: "The Minneapolis Police Department is rotten to the root and so when we dismantle it, we get rid of that cancer and we allow for something beautiful to rise." The only beautiful thing to rise without a viable police force can be seen occurring today in Seattle.
In an interview on FOX News, Omar's opponent in November, Republican Lacy Lee Johnson, recognizing the imbecility of dismantling the police department, had this to say about Omar and the Minneapolis City Council. "We have a reckless city council making reckless decisions about the safety and health of our community by passing this law to disband and stop funding the police. They are putting our community at risk." Admonitions such as this have so far fallen upon deaf ears in other Democrat-run states such as Washington, particularly in the once beautiful city of Seattle.
This past week, going by the acronym CHAZ (Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone), a cabal of far-left adolescents directed by Antifa and Black Lives Matter affiliates occupied a seven-square-block portion of that city. Breaking through police barricades, protesters attacked police with bricks, bottles, rocks, and improvised explosive devices, sending some officers to the hospital. Abandoned by a feckless mayor, Jenny Durkan; a city council of equal irrelevance; and an ineffectual governor, Jay Inslee, police withdrew from the area, in effect relinquishing control of an American city to mob rule.
In a matter of days, unelected, self-proclaimed "warlords" created a hardened border, and a rudimentary form of government based on principles of intersectional representation. "Rather than enforce the law, Seattle's progressive political class capitulated to the mob and will likely make massive concessions over the next few months. This will embolden the Antifa coalition, and further undermine the rule of law in American cities."
Witnessing their success in Seattle, there can be little doubt that other U.S. cities under Democrat administration will soon follow suit and fall sway to instigation and violence by the likes of Antifa; Black Lives Matter; and other insurrectionist, anti-American organizations.
Poll: 79 Percent of Truckers Say They Won’t Deliver to Cities with Defunded Police Departments
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A majority of truckers are vowing to halt deliveries to cities that defund or disband their police departments, according to a recent poll.
Seventy-nine percent of truck drivers said they felt their safety would be at risk if they had to deliver to a city with a disbanded police department, according to CDL News, a website for the commercial trucking industry.
Long-haul truck drivers have been on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic for the past year due to stay-at-home orders requiring most Americans to buy their goods online, and have had to deal with protests.
Now many truckers are worried about going to places such as Minneapolis, Minnesota, where their city council president reportedly planned to dismantle their police department following the death of George Floyd.
CDL News asked drivers on its app to explain their reasoning for not delivering to these cities.
“I will not deliver to an area with a disbanded police department. My life matter and I do this for my family. We are already at the mercy of these towns and cities with laws and hate against us for parking, getting a meal or even using a restroom,” one driver responded.
“Simple. We may not like it all the time, but laws and order is necessary,” another driver said.
Truck driving has historically been ranked as one of the most dangerous jobs in the U.S.
In 2018, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics ranked it as the most dangerous job in the country with construction workers coming in second, farmers and ranchers taking third, groundskeepers taking the fourth slot, and miscellaneous agricultural employees rounding out the list as the fifth most dangerous job.
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