Pittsburgh area police FB forum spews hostility and intimidation

In a private Facebook group called the Pittsburgh Area Police Breakroom, many current and retired officers spent the year criticizing chiefs who took a knee or officers who marched with Black Lives Matter protesters, whom they called “terrorists” or “thugs,” reported The Associated Press. They made transphobic posts and bullied members who supported anti-police brutality protesters or Joe Biden in a forum billed as a place officers can “decompress, rant, share ideas.”

Many of the deluge of daily posts were jokes about the hardships of being officers, memorials to deceased colleagues or conversations about training and equipment. But over the group’s almost four-year existence, a few dozen members became more vocal with posts that shifted toward pro-Donald Trump memes and harsh criticism of anyone perceived to support so-called “demoncrats,” Black Lives Matter or coronavirus safety measures.

In June, Tim Huschak, a corporal at the Borough of Lincoln Police Department, posted a screenshot of an Allegheny County 911 dispatcher’s Facebook page indicating that the phrase “Blue Lives Matter” used by law enforcement supporters is not equivalent to the slogan “Black Lives Matter” because policing is a choice, not a fact of birth. He wrote:

“Many negative posts on police. And we should trust her with our lives???”

Some angry members rallied quickly and organized phone calls to her supervisor demanding she be fired.

“Multiple officers should call and report it. Remember NO JUSTICE NO PEACE LOL,” West Mifflin Borough Police Department officer Tommy Trieu responded under his Facebook name, Tommy Bear.

Trieu was one of two West Mifflin officers seen in a video last year restraining a 15-year-old Black girl after responding to a call about a fight on a school bus. Activists called for firing the officers, but borough officials said the recording started after a student hit an officer and that they “did nothing wrong.”

A few members of the group also were bullied or left the page, including an officer who said the Fraternal Order of Police’s Trump endorsement did not represent her and a Black officer who was accused of creating a fake Facebook account to complain about the lack of diversity in local departments.

The Associated Press was able to view posts and comments from the group, which has 2,200 members, including about a dozen current and former police chiefs -- from mainly Allegheny County and some surrounding areas stretching into Ohio -- and at least one judge and one councilman. After the AP began asking about posts last week, the group appeared to have been deleted or suspended from view.

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GateHouse: Police officer deaths down, homicide up

Matthew T. Mangino

GateHouse Media

January 5, 2018

There was a sharp decline in police officers killed in the line of duty last year. In 2017 there were 129 officers killed in the line of duty — 14 fewer than the year before. In 2016 there were 66 police officers killed by gunfire, that number dropped by more than 30 percent in 2017.

The number of officers killed last year marks the second lowest death toll in more than a half-a-century.

However, those numbers reflect only the officers killed. The National Fraternal Order of Police recorded more than 270 officers who were shot in the line of duty last year. The death toll may have been higher but for tactical gear, better training or as Randy Sutton, a former police lieutenant and spokesman for Blue Lives Matter told the USA Today, police officers don’t put themselves in dangerous situations as often, “There’s a saying in law enforcement: You can’t get in trouble for the car stop you don’t make.”

The Blue Lives Matter website provides that the organization was founded following the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, that followed the shooting of Michael Brown by Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson. The website declares, “The media catered to movements such as Black Lives Matter, whose goal was the vilification of law enforcement. Criminals who rioted and victimized innocent citizens were further given legitimacy by the media as ‘protesters.’”

Some criminal justice experts suggest there is a causal link between the unrest and the increase in homicides nationwide. According to the New York Times, homicides rose by 8.6 percent in 2016, one year after homicides jumped by 10.8 percent. A total of 17,250 people were murdered in the U.S. in 2016.

Heather MacDonald, of the Manhattan Institute, has dubbed it the “Ferguson Effect,” a reference to the rise in violent crime following the unrest in Ferguson in 2014.

As McDonald sees it, according to The Daily Caller, police officers are so worried about being vilified by city leaders and the press that they are avoiding contact with the criminal element.

“Cops are backing off of proactive policing in high-crime minority neighborhoods, and criminals are becoming emboldened,” MacDonald wrote in the City Journal. “Having been told incessantly by politicians, the media, and Black Lives Matter activists that they are bigoted for getting out of their cars and questioning someone loitering on a known drug corner at 2 a.m., many officers are instead just driving by.”

The combination of the Ferguson Effect and Blue Lives Matter is creating an interesting phenomenon. While the last two years have been two of the safest years in the last 50 years for police officers, a growing number of communities are coming off of some of the most deadly years in history.

Blue Live Matter is gaining momentum. In the last year, lawmakers in 17 states have introduced bills proposing that members of law enforcement be included in hate crime protections ― the same protections provided to people of color, religious minorities and members of the LGBTQ community ― according to an analysis by The Huffington Post.

At least four states have enacted Blue Lives Matter laws. In 2016, Louisiana became the first state to enact legislation. Last March, the governors of Kentucky and Mississippi signed versions of the law and the Texas law went into effect on Sept. 1.

According to Newsweek, California, Florida, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin have considered similar legislation.

How much can the increase in community violence and the decrease in violence against police officers be traced to a slowdown in policing as described by Blues Lives Matter’s Randy Sutton and the Manhattan Institute’s Heather McDonald?

More importantly, how much will beleaguered cities and neighborhoods tolerate?

Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & George P.C. His book The Executioner’s Toll, 2010 was released by McFarland Publishing. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him on Twitter @MatthewTMangino.

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