Shaun King (courtesy csmonitor.com)

Over at nydailynews.com, Black Lives Matter activist Shaun King continues to search for “solutions for police brutality in America.” In part 18 of his 25-part series (I know, right?), Mr. King vilifies William J. Lewinsky.

Are you familiar with the work of William J. Lewinski? Unless you are a police officer, that name probably doesn’t ring a bell. It didn’t for me, either, until I learned that in many ways he is father, architect and chief defender of the modern police brutality epidemic. As founder and director of the Force Science Institute, he has trained tens of thousands of police officers to shoot first and ask questions later.

Hang on. As loathsome as it is, today’s “police brutality” pales in comparison to the violence unleashed by Sheriff “Bull” Connor or the first Chicago Mayor Daley. Or other police departments of their time. Would that be “classical period police brutality” or does Mr. King wish us to go back further in time to pinpoint the beginning of this “modern police brutality epidemic” era?

Anyway, Mr. King is hardly the first person to question Mr. Lewinski’s scientific rigor, or point out that Mr. Lewinski reps the boys in blue. Mr. King’s anti-police polemic relies on the New York Times’ “expose” Training Officers to Shoot First, and He Will Answer Questions Later. But unlike the Gray Lady’s hit piece, Mr. King offers a solution to the brutality allegedly “fathered” by Mr. Lewinski.

All over the world, people without firearms are arrested without unnecessary violence. Police in some nations haven’t fired their guns in years. Police in some nations haven’t fired their guns in years. It’s been over 10 years since police in Norway shot and killed someone. In 2013, Iceland police shot and killed someone for the very first time since the nation’s founding in 1944. The man was armed and firing his weapon. The nation still grieved over it.

In those countries, when unarmed men, women or children are confronted by police, first-resort firearm use not only violates policy and goes against training — but these officers have less lethal weapons on them. And they have been trained to use these weapons first, if de-escalation is truly not an option.

Even when knives or hammers or house tools are present on suspects in other countries, police are taught to take their time — and figure out how to avoid using lethal force.

I’m all about training police to de-escalate potentially violent situations. But comparing policing in Norway and Iceland to law enforcement in urban America is like comparing high school wrestling to an MMA match. Chicago gang bangers, for example, aren’t known for being “unarmed men, women or children.”

American police officers must move in this direction. The training they receive is violent and unethical. One step in the right direction would be to guarantee that every police officer in America has at least three other weapons on their person at all times — including some type of Taser, some type of spray and even a baton.

Well wouldn’t you know it, they do! We can only conclude that either Mr. King is obfuscating to promote his anti-police agenda or he’s a lazy-ass journalist who remains profoundly uniformed about American police training, equipment and procedures. Both?

It’s doubtful what happened to Tamir Rice would’ve happened in any other developed country. That is true for hundreds of unarmed African-Americans shot and killed by American police who chose lethal force as an option before considering a nonfatal alternative.

It must never be the case that if an officer shoots someone, it was only because they didn’t have a less deadly alternative on their person. Furthermore, reviews of body camera footage must show that other options were used, or at least seriously considered, before police came out with guns blazing.

America can do better. We see it being done better all over the world.

How can body camera footage — which I support — reveal whether or not an officer considered a non-lethal option before he or she “came out with guns blazing”? A term which highlights both Mr. King’s bias and his ignorance.

If Mr. King wants to find ways to help end the “modern epidemic of police brutality” he needs to sample some of that “violent and unethical” police training and do a dozen of so police ride-alongs in crime-infested neighborhoods. While he’s at it, Mr. King should do some force-on-force simulations.

As they say, before you criticize a man, walk a mile in his shoes.

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52 COMMENTS

  2. Hell, it’s not even “shoot first and ask questions later”, it’s “shoot first and ask questions only if a video goes viral”.

  3. Why is TTAG even running this guy’s crap? This is a guy who lied about his racial makeup (as if 95% of people cared in the first place) so that he could be part of BLM and then got booted from the organization for not being black, lying about it, and stealing money from people who gave donations.

    He’s a snake oil salesman desperately trying to stay relevant and likely trying just as hard to avoid bankruptcy court.

    An honest story to this guy is what a set of stairs is to HRC. Impossible to tackle on his own and difficult even with help from others.

    • Shaun King is the token black columnist at the Daily News. He showed up after the DN let go of all their goof columnists gor monetary reasons. His articles are nothing but race baiting, “poor me” garbage that furthers the agenda that white people are bad. There are many factual errors and constant rush to judgement conclusions. He’s just a poor writer trying to get famous by creating controversy where this isn’t any.

      • Did you miss the part where he’s just a honky trying to be cool and hip? He’s the Al Jolson of modern politics, only much less famous and influential (but still pretty annoying).

    • “An honest story to this guy is what a set of stairs is to HRC.”

      I see someone has been keeping up with the ‘trending’ news and hashtags.

      {Big Smile}

  4. The first solution to the ‘epidemic’ of so-called police brutality is for blacks to admit that we are part of the problem. Stop glorifying violence and willful disobedience. Stop being rebels without a cause. If you are flying down the street and get pulled over, accept the consequences of your actions and quit trying to game the system.

    Nearly every case of so-called police brutality that this imbecile points to was a case of a violent black offender with a pages-long rap sheet violently resisting arrest. To be quite frank, I would have shot these savages sooner. I’m tired of being profiled because people who look like me are often violent. I’m tired of fearing for my life when I visit my mom because the black code of silence outweighs civility and decency and insures that criminals get off scott-free in black neighborhoods for even the most violent crimes.

  5. I don’t give any credence to anything said by a white guy pretending to be a black guy (while receiving cover for the charade in the media).

    Also agree that the comparisons with Norway and Iceland are ludicrous. But saddle them with a couple million more Muslim immigrants and we’ll talk.

  6. I won’t comment on the accuracy or inaccuracy of Mr. King’s assertions. What I will say is that many police officers today seem to go from zero to kill in the blink of an eye. Saying it another way, they seem to have zero patience and move all the way up to the top of the force continuum in about 10 seconds in situations where there is no imminent threat of death or grievous bodily harm. That has to stop.

    If a violent criminal just applied deadly force to a victim and is approaching their next victim to apply more deadly force, I have no problem with a police officer immediately applying deadly force to the violent criminal. If a suspect has a hammer in hand, is standing still, is 50 feet away from the closest person, and is ignoring police commands to drop their hammer and put their hands on their head, that is not justification to use deadly force. I don’t care if the guy with the hammer stands there for 20 minutes ignoring police commands. As long as he is standing there, he is not a threat of imminent death or great bodily harm and no one (police or otherwise) is justified to use deadly force. Rather, a suspect with a hammer who stands there for 20 minutes gives police ample time to load up shotguns with beanbag shells, get riot shields ready, get a firetruck and fire hose ready, or whatever else enables police to safely take down the suspect without shooting him/her with bullets.

    • You, sir have no idea of what you speak of. May I suggest you walk a mile in a police officers shoes before you arm chair quarterback when an officer should use deadly force. Go to a force on force training class, go ride out with an officer, see what goes on in a ‘hood before you come up with Utopian ideas about how an officer should conduct himself.

      • Oh look, it’s the “walk in a mile in their shoes” line again, bad enough that the article concluded with that non-argument.

        Do the bootlickers ever consider that police conduct and the laws which they get paid to enforce with violence might be a big part of the problem with “the ‘hood”?

      • As long as I pay their bloated salaries, I have every right to armchair quarterback their actions. If they don’t like citizen oversight, they are more than welcome to quit and find honest work.

        If a government employee is armed and pointing a weapon at a citizen, then the citizen should have every right to respond in kind. The safety and rights of a citizen are more important than the lives of armed government employees.

      • Charlie King,

        Rather than lobbing an indiscriminate “you’re dumb” comment, how about replying with substance?

        I stated that police should not use deadly force when a suspect (who is not an imminent threat to anyone) does nothing more than ignore commands. How am I wrong on that statement?

        I stated that police should use non-lethal methods (such as beanbag shotgun shells, riot shields, and/or water cannons) to take down non-violent suspects who are ignoring commands. How am I wrong on that statement?

        I stated that impatience and incense for “contempt of cop” is not sufficient cause to use deadly force. How am I wrong on that statement?

  7. “Shaun King…”

    Stopped reading there.

    Why would TTAG give a man with zero credibility any recognition at all?

  8. Yeah Dr. Lewinski thrives, and wins, and kicks all kinds of general ass in the courtroom, because THIS is the ultimate quality of his detractors. You can smear him all you want, the guy gets it done, and mostly with grand juries, which everybody knows can “indict a ham sandwhich,” if they wanted to. At some point, it would make sense to accept that this stuff is REAL, and that juries are accepting it as the science it is. Otherwise you are just a “force science denier,” aren’t you?

    BTW, the Alton Sterling shooting is the worst example of BLM hype yet;

    https://youtu.be/5Um6IQtpTm0

    • Why, oh why, would you hire a cop apologist to testify before a grand jury if you weren’t using the GJ to whitewash your decision not to prosecute? Grand Juries are an ex-parte affair, with no defense, only seeing what the prosecutor wants them to see.

      Yes, a grand jury can be pushed into indicting a ham sandwich, if that’s the prosecutor’s desire. Or, if he chooses, they can be forced to no-bill Jack the Ripper for lack of evidence showing probable cause.

    • “with no defense”

      That is the entire point, Lewinski would get torn apart during cross-examination.

      I find it amusing that the ruester cite jurors as proof of Lewinski’s academic veracity, even when actually credentialed and published academics have discredited his “work” as totally worthless.

      Of course there is the issue of actual cause and effect: even before this quack came along, it was exceedingly rare for cops to be convicted for misuse of force while on duty, in fact, it was even more rare before than the last few years. So really, he didn’t do anything special with the pseudo-intellectual BS.

      • Plenty have tried, most have failed. Good cops have been getting thrown under the bus for decades, it’s true. And slobbering cop bashers have been getting laughed out of court for just as long, over and over and over and over, with their ridiculous superstitions and appeals to emotion. If it was not for the civil courts they would have an even worse record, think about that.

      • “Plenty have tried”

        Right, DA’s whose re-election prospects depend on police union support, and whose caseload depend on the support of the police, have “tried” to put away cops. Sure thing, brah.

        There is no “laughing out of “court” when it is a grand jury being told not to do anything, all to put an official stamp on the quid pro quo system between prosecutors and cops.

  9. Anyone that tries to compare Iceland, Norway, the U.K. or just about any individual European or Scandinavian country to the US is either deliberately trying to deceive or is a complete idiot.

    The demographics, population size and history cannot be more different. The US pop is 325,000,000. Iceland pop is just 333,000. Norway pop is 5,215,000. The U.K. is 65,000,000. You can put all three together and still not be even close.

    The demographic breakdown is just as different as the population sizes. With the Scandinavian countries pretty much the same ethic group. Only 3% of the U.K’s population is Black British. The US has 13% Black Americans and the Whites aren’t even the same ethnic groups, but from all over.

    History’s are different even GDPs are different. Mexico or Brazil is a closer comparison. But the racist left won’t compare the US to those countries.

  10. Why do so many police seem to have zero patience these days? Why is “contempt of cop” cause for immediate serious brutality and/or execution?

    Imagine if police were that impatient with a suicidal person standing on a ledge. The first cop who shows up goes to the ledge and asks the person to come away. The person refuses. After 30 seconds or so, the cops gets mad and demands that the potential jumper come away. The person refuses again. Finally, after another 30 seconds, the enraged cop finally yells at the distraught person and shoves them off the ledge.

    We would demand that cop’s head on a pike. Why is it any different when a non-violent person is non-compliant?

    • People nonviolently, but sometimes frustratingly non comply with lawful commands quite often. The only ones you see are the ones that end badly. Sure, those officers need to be punished, but when all the public sees is one side of the spectrum, police flipping out and abusing their authority looks like some sort of epidemic, not the relatively isolated event that it is.

      Do a couple ride alongs and see if that changes your perspective at all. Patience is one of the most commonly displayed traits among officers I know. The ones that lack it do need to be fired, but don’t assume that all are of like mind.

      • Not all are like that, but 99% of those who are like that are held blameless for violent acts up to and including homicide.
        That is what has to change.

      • I am a free white man over the age of 21, no one has any right, privilege or authority to give me any kind of order, lawful or not. Ask me politely and I might comply. Give an order and you can go perform an unnatural sex act upon yourself.

        • Chris Mallory

          I don’t know what planet you think you are living on, but yes there are such things as lawful commands in certain situations and you are lawfully bound to comply. Just because you have concocted this notion that laws don’t apply to you does not make it so.

        • Let’s say you, Chris Mallory, are wearing a black hoodie and tight white jeans (as one does) while quickly walking down 3rd street- because you’re late for the bingo party down the block. Unbeknownst to you, someone wearing a dark blue hoodie and white jeans has just committed an armed robbery on 4th street and the police are just arriving in the area now (they were at the donut store on 10th). The store owner said the guy had a pistol (and mistakenly thought his hoodie was black).

          The fuzz pull up and tell you to get down on the ground. You start your pretentious little-man spiel “I am a free white man over the age of 21, no one has any right, privilege or authority to give me any kind of order, lawful or…” and that’s when you get your ass tackled and tased.

          Not only was it lawful, but hopefully you learn a lesson out of it. No man is an island in society.

  11. Another armchair idiot speaking out his arse. My biggest issue with people like him is that they want to take a “one size fits all” approach to fixing issues in policing. While we can all agree that officers need to abide by basic right and wrong, in terms of fixing issues each locality would have to be examined to see what, if any issues exist and how to address them.

    Mine for example had a pretty good relationship with the black community. I worked in a 90 percent poor black area last year and it went about as smoothly as it could have. Yet I still get racial sensitivity training shoved down my throat like I’m a member of the KKK. Unless they are clamoring for only using a federal police force, which I feel would be horrible.

    As for use of force, he needs to do a couple ride alongs in a relatively rough area and do a couple of UOF scenarios. IRL situations tend to develop very quickly and I would love to see how he does

  12. If black lives mattered to #blacklivesmatter they would be out protesting gangs not the police.

    Slyville Smith is the typical example of police-gangbanger interaction. Why might Mr. Smith take off and run when stopped by the cops? Getting caught with a stolen him wouldn’t have netted much jail time in Milwaukee’s revolving door justice system. Could it be that Smith was the triggerman in one of the four murders that took place in the immediate vicinity of his demise?

  13. Tens of thousands of police interactions with citizens on a daily basis don’t turn violent. Those we never hear about. Let one cop cross the line and they’re all evil. Same line of logic applies to adam lanza. He represents all gun owners, right?

    Iceland is interesting. Correct me if I’m wrong. But don’t they have a huge problem with alcohol in Iceland? How do the Icelandic cops deal with violent out of control drunks? Or, are we not hearing the whole story?

    • “Tens of thousands of police interactions with citizens on a daily basis don’t turn violent. Those we never hear about. Let one cop cross the line and they’re all evil. Same line of logic applies to adam lanza. He represents all gun owners, right?”

      Well said.

      BLM’s entire thesis is premised on one gigantic monster of a Base Rate Fallacy.

      But given that it’s fueled by Proggie/Marxist agitators, that should come as no surprise.

  14. Me. King is no Martin Luther and ignores facts. His premise is black folk are law abiding and must be afforded grace by LEO’s. He overlooks the majority of inner city crime is black on black. When a man has trouble identifying what race he is, its no qualification to speak on police procedure. His efforts are better suited leveraging his fame to lead his people to creating better families, ending abortion for black women, and creating s’mores by the campfire, and teaching his legislators the second amendment.

  15. Hmm, here is another idiot who has never gone through force-on-force training or a shoot/dont shoot course. Comparing countries without a gang problem to the US is plain irresponsible. Sure, I would like our police to be less aggressive during some confrontations, but when someone is wielding a deadly weapon such as a hammer, knife, or whatever, the time for less than lethal weapons is pretty much over. And if this guy likes these countries better than mine, it is time for him to renounce his citizenship and leave.

  17. Cops are trained when to shoot and when not to shoot, and many do that well. The issue with using their firearms is that many other effective tools have been taken away by waffling politicians and the hysterical media.

    Cops used to patrol in pairs and use batons. The media whined about hippies getting their skulls cracked. Overnight, batons were out and chokeholds were in. Then, some people were asphyxiated because you can’t put hundreds of thousands of people in chokeholds without one or two going wrong. So those were out. When that happened, the police chief of LA said that bringing back the baton would lead to trouble, and it did in Rodney King. The visual of cops beating a guy with batons started the LA riots. Then they tried mace, which wasn’t always effective and some people died from allergic reactions. Then tasers, which was more of the same. New York went back to chokeholds, and when a fat criminal with heart problems died, more riots. Cops have tried rolling around on the ground with suspects only to have the perp go for their gun.

    Cops are in a no-win situation with the media and politicians. Like a guy dating a hot woman who is crazy, there’s no way out.

    • The way out is to let the bad guys go. Sooner or later, in places like chicago and baltimore, they’ll all either kill each other eventually.

  18. I love how other countries are always compared to the US for one specific point instead of taking the full context of many points.

  19. Policing needs to be fixed. It does. But a racemonger like Shaun King can’t fix anything and tries to make things worse, because that’s what racemongers do. There’s no money in making things better, is there?

    Give him credit for this much — the comparison between Icelanders and Chicago gangsters is Monty Python-worthy. King should be writing for SNL.

  20. Don’t have to like the guy to admit that he got one thing right. Too many cops skip over their less lethal options and go right to killing people for questioning them.

  21. We can say he’s anti cop or whatever , it doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a valid point. Even if you just study “blue on blue ” shootings, you start to see a problem with training for police and dispatchers. This issue needs to be addressed. Most of the leadership of BLM are total assholes and peogressive hacks. They are kind of right on this issue though.

  22. “One step in the right direction would be to guarantee that every police officer in America has at least three other weapons on their person at all time”

    Because nobody ever cries fall when cops use tasers, pepper spray, batons, bare hands, etc. U.S. cops are some of the best trained in the world nd are far less violent then cops in other parts of the world. How many times have ops in Brazil used their weapons in the line of duty?

    Location matters because cops are not alien overloads. They come from the population they are supposed to protect; they are human beings. This is part of the problem. As humans they do what other humans around them do – including the criminals they are trying to apprehend. You spend enough time on the streets and you start to think like others on the street.

  23. Ever notice that police unions are “fraternal”? This should tell you something. The “thin-blue-line” is a gang, little different than street gangs–at least when it comes to “covering-up” their questionable and quite often, illegal and criminal behavior.
    In today’s day and age, “officer safety” trumps de-escalation of force. This, in part, is due to the militarization of the police along with training in Israeli police tactics. This becomes a problem, with the “us vs. them” attitude that is fosters, along with the fact that Israel is a very different place, being on a constant “war footing”, and by necessity, its police tactics are very different.
    There are too many instances of police being “given a pass”, even when incontrovertible video and audio evidence is presented. Grand juries, guided by police-friendly prosecutors, quite often refuse to charge those police officers who abuse their authority.
    Police officers, who want to do the right thing, are quite often marginalized and put into harms way, by their own brethren…When a police officer is beating on someone that is already restrained while yelling, “stop resisting” THAT is but one reason police have a “bad name” in many instances…this makes the “good cops” who are standing around, witnessing their “brethren in blue” beating on a restrained suspect, culpable as well…
    Here are changes that can help reduce police-induced violence:
    1. Get rid of police unions. Police unions (fraternities) protect the guilty, and are responsible for the massive whitewashing of questionable police behavior that is presently being committed.
    2. Eliminate both “absolute” and “qualified” immunity for all public officials. This includes, prosecutors and judges, police and firefighters, code enforcement and child protective services officials, and others who deal with the citizenry. The threat of being sued personally would encourage them to behave themselves. Require police officers to be “bonded” by an insurance company, with their own funds. No bond= no job.
    3. Any public funds disbursed to citizens as a result of police misconduct should come out of police pension funds–NOT from the taxpayers.
    4. Regular drug-testing of police officers as well as incident-based drug testing should take place whenever an officer is involved in a violent situation with a citizen–no exceptions.
    5. Testing for steroid use should be a part of the drug testing program. You know damn well, many police officers “bulk up” with the “help” of steroids. Steroids also affect users mentally as well, making them more aggressive. The potential for abuse of citizens increases greatly with steroid use.
    6. Internal affairs should only be used for disagreements between individual officers–NOT for investigations involving citizen abuse. State-level investigations should be mandatory for all suspected abuses involving citizens.
    7. Prosecutors should be charged with malfeasance IF any evidence implicating police officer misconduct is not presented to the grand jury.
    8. A national or state-by-state database of abusive individuals who should NEVER be allowed to perform police work should be established–a “blacklist” of abusive (former) police officers.
    9. Most people are unaware that police have special “rules” that prohibit them from being questioned for 48 hours. This allows them to “get their stories straight” and makes it easier to “cover up” bad police behavior. Police must be subject to the same laws as civilians.
    10. All police should be required to wear bodycams and utilize dashcams that cannot be turned off. Any police officers who causes a dash or body cam to be turned off should be summarily fired–no excuses. Today’s body and dash cams are reliable enough to withstand harsh treatment. Body and dashcam footage should be uploaded to a public channel “on the cloud” for public perusal.
    11. All interrogations must be video and audio recorded. Police should be prohibited from lying or fabricating stories in order to get suspects to confess. False confessions ARE a problem in many departments. Unknown to most people, police can lie with impunity while civilians can be charged with lying to police…fair? I think not…
    12. Any legislation passed that restricts the rights of ordinary citizens, such as firearms magazine capacity limits, types of weapons allowed, or restrictive concealed-carry laws should apply equally to police. No special exemptions to be given to police. Laws must be equally applied.
    Police work is not inherently dangerous…there are many other professions that are much more dangerous.
    A little “Andy Taylor” could go a long way in allaying fears that citizens have of police.
    That being said, I have no problem with police officers who do their job in a fair, conscientious manner…however, it is time to call to task those police officers who only “protect and serve” themselves.

  24. Shaun King the pseudo negro is a deeply troubled white boy who’s pathetic existence is that of a drama queen desperately seeking attention because he’s afflicted with some sort of severe mental illness that has produced a delusional identity crisis which compels him to continue pretending to be black even after the outing of his unquestionably white mother and father proved beyond all doubt that Shaun’s lilly white Caucasian @$$ is lying.

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