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Cincinnati Reds
FrontPageMagazine.com | April 25, 2001
by Michael Tremoglie
URL: http://www.frontpagemag.com/columnists/tremoglie/2001/trem04-25-01p.htm

"IT’S BETTER TO BE TRIED by twelve than carried by six."

This aphorism was the unofficial corollary to the official policy of the Philadelphia Police Department regarding the use of deadly force.

While the official policy is apparently unambiguous, things rarely are in reality. I wrote a column in February of last year recounting how I almost shot a little African-American boy, while investigating a call for " man with a gun." Had I shot the little boy, I am quite certain that I would have been vilified and excoriated by – in no particular order – the news media, civil rights leaders, community leaders, legal experts, and whoever else could profit by exploiting the incident.

This is what is so tragic about the shooting of Timothy Thomas by police officer Steven Roach. Everyone who could exploit this incident is doing so.

The local and national media, electronic and print, quote the misleading data that " 15 young black males have been shot by police since 1995. They do so with conviction – especially the Cincinnati press which has a long history of anti-police reporting. The sensationalism helps ratings and circulation. It also helps leftist agitators, by only telling one side of the story.

What the media didn’t say was that six of the fifteen shootings involved black officers – and among the "15 deaths since 1995" is Daniel Williams, who was killed after he shot Officer Kathleen Conway Hood three times after attacking her in her cruiser, or Jermaine Lowe, 21, who was shot after firing 6 times at police during a low-speed chase in 1998. They don’t mention that 75% of those shootings occurred in self-defense. They don’t mention that nearly all of the Cincinnati police recently killed in the line of duty were killed by blacks.

Leftist provocateurs, such as former Black Panther Charles Barron have been quoting those data on television ad nauseum. (Barron remarked about Bill Clinton’s Harlem Adventure, "There goes the neighborhood ") Barron’s media appearances only enhance his political and economic status. Similarly, when New Black Panther Party "representative" Robert Pace, proclaimed the events in Cincinnati as an uprising, he too received publicity. Until then, I never knew there was a New Black Panther Party. Nevertheless, others are now quoting Mr. Pace:

" The community is revolting against this extermination. This is not a riot; it is an uprising. What happened in Seattle, Philadelphia, and Austin during Mardi Gras was a riot, "proclaimed a caller to the Rush Limbaugh show. " In Cincinnati, the people are rebelling against the injustice. "

Attorney Kenneth Lawson represents Thomas’ mother in a lawsuit against the city of Cincinnati. A few months ago, Lawson organized an effort to get blacks in Cincinnati to testify that they have been harassed and profiled by police. The Black United Front (BUF) is assisting Lawson in this effort. The BUF is the same group that is urging blacks to sign a petition which states that the United States of America is actively engaged in the genocide of black Americans.

After the Rodney King mayhem, there was a one-paragraph, stultifying news report, that Communists were inciting people to riot. An LAPD official had evidence that Communist organizations were coordinating the chaos. The story never made the first page. The mainstream media didn’t believe it. Why was it so impossible to believe? The Black United Front, New Black Panthers, and similar groups are socialist. All one need to do is examine their websites.

Why is this important? It is important because the left isn’t attempting to cure social ills. The left wants power. One way to obtain power is to discredit the existing government and call for revolution. The social ills are used as a pretext. The people are, as Lenin once said, "useful idiots."

Cincinnati will continue to suffer because of the shooting of Timothy Thomas. The police will suffer. Law abiding citizens of all races will suffer. But the left will benefit, because the shooting and the "uprising" that followed has given them more control.

Michael P. Tremoglie is a freelance writer currently working on his first novel, and an ex-Philadelphia cop. E-mail him at elfegobaca2@earthlink.net.

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