Episode 75

The “Defund the Police” movement was not new when the circumstances surrounding George Floyd’s death set it ablaze and transformed it into national sentiment. Definitions range from reallocating police funds to other social services to abolishment of the police altogether. The slogan evokes strong reactions from both sides of the aisle and has had tangible effects on society; whether for good or bad is up for debate. In this episode of the Removing Barriers podcast, we revisit the movement and evaluate its effect upon whom it centers: the police. Recurring guest Officer CigarBro (obviously not his name) joins us for the discussion with DW joining later to evaluate the spiritual implications of the movement.

And we’re like those who want to defund the police, we really want to dethrone God. It’s not that we don’t want a peaceful life or that we never do anything nice for anybody. It’s really just that we don’t want God to rule over us and God is the ruler and he’s the maker of the law.

Thank you for tuning in to the Removing Barriers podcast. I’m Jay and I’m MCG, and we’re attempting to remove barriers so we can all have a clear view of the cross.

This is episode 75 of the Removing Barriers podcast, and in this episode, we will be sitting down with Officer CigarBro to discuss the consequences of defunding the police and the human sinful nature. Later in this episode, DW will also join in the discussion.

In the past year or more, we have seen an increase in crime in major cities, an increase in attacks on law enforcement officers that can be linked directly to the defunded police movement. But before that, Jay, what is the origin and background of the defund police movement? The defendant police slogan gained traction at the death of George Floyd. And it was a slogan that many people on the left, racial activists and of course, left wing radicalists used to describe something that they want to bring to pass that is either completely dismantling police forces across the country disbanding the police force altogether, or in some cases, it could mean allocating money away from the police departments and putting them toward other social services. It could be access to food banks, access to abortion, access to housing, all of these different social programs that the local governments and the federal governments might have their fingers in. And so when you say to fund the police, I think it’s important to make sure that we’re defining the entire spectrum, because not everyone who would say defund the police are literally meaning to dismantle the police force and do away with police altogether. They’re not coming at it from an anarchist type point of view. Some of them just think, well, the police have way too much money, their budgets are way too big, and they’re not doing what we want them to do in the neighborhood. And so let’s take some money away from them and allocate them to other resources. Many people on the Democratic left side of the spectrum of the political spectrum in the United States have kind of taken up this slogan back in 2020, that is, and they began publicly calling for defunding the police. And as of the summer of 2020, 13 cities in different States in the country have actually made good on that slogan and slashed their police budgets by a third or by several million. Austin, Texas, was the most drastic in their cut 33.3%. I think it was slashed from their police budget for Austin, Texas.

But what’s happening now is that because of the rising crime and the emboldening of criminals, many of these States or the cities that have their police funding are working to refund the police because they’re beginning to realize, oh, we can’t run a city with criminals running amok. We need police. And so they’re actively trying to get police back on the forest. They’re actively trying to put money back into the budget for policing. But they’re finding that many of the police officers are fed up. We’ve seen many police officers either take their early retirement or they’ve decided to leave altogether. Many of them in protests have called out sick in a form of protest, like a mass call out sick or mass not showing up in order to protest how they’re being treated by their own local governments. They’re saying that you can’t expect the police to do their jobs while you give criminals a free pass. So there’s this back and forth in addition to that. What we need to understand is that defund the police is more of a political thing than it is an actual thing that people want in the country. It’s very unpopular among the American people. I would say perhaps only 34% of the American population agrees with the notion of defunding the police in any form, whether it’s dismantling the police or removing funds from the police budget. Only 34% of the country agrees with that, and the overwhelming majority of that 34% are on the political left. And so this is purely a left thing. And I think that in 2021, many people on the left have begun to realize how big of a mistake it was to champion the defund the police slogan. Because many of them are beginning to backtrack. Many of them are begin to kind of toughen up on crime now that they’ve seen the result of defund the police. Now, I should say that there is room for debate about what is causing the spike in crime in the United States that we’re seeing right now over the past two, three years or so because the fund the police is concurrent with many of these high profile police shootings that have been happening. It’s concurrent with the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s concurrent with these things. All of these things can have a role to play with a spike in crime. But I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that because of the defunded police position or ideology or posture of politicians in these cities that criminals feel very much emboldened to do whatever they want. It’s actually a new thing for us to see. The types of crimes, the types of you call it barefacedness in a former podcast where they would just walk into a store and just fill trash bags with stuff and walk out. This has happened in California, particularly in corner stores like CBS, Walgreens, these type of places where they’ve decriminalized larceny, theft and these kind of things where if it’s not more than $1,000 and we don’t have to prosecute it, you don’t have to worry about it. So people are just walking in with garbage bags and filling up their bags with stuff and walking out. We’ve seen many people do these flash smash and grab type operations where a bunch of people just roll up to a store, smash the windows, grab stuff and leave. We have cargo trains that are being looted and completely eviscerated of all of their goods when they pull into the station for a stop. Criminals are just kind of jumping out of the woodworks, smashing stuff, taking boxes. And we can say that defund the police definitely has a role to play in emboldening criminals and emboldened petty theft criminals in these kinds of things. We just don’t know to what degree, but that’s what the results of the defund the police movement is. Again, we can make arguments here and there about how much of it is based on what’s causing it, but certainly it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that it has been opening criminals across the country. And now that the politicians are seeing the negative backlash, they’re beginning to back away from it.

Yeah. Let’s bring in Officer CigarBro because he’s the resident expert here, police officer in the United States. Officer, thank you for joining us again. Yes, thank you so much for having me again. Great. What do you think this movement is trying to accomplish? The defunded police movement? Jay said a lot there, so we’re going to unpack some of that. But what do you think this movement is trying to accomplish? The defund the police movement? I think it’s like anything they’re trying to, I guess, present the problem that needs to be solved. Like, yes, there is like, the mental health aspect, there is dealing with the homeless aspect and everything like that. But it got so out of control to where you’re literally having police departments being pretty much almost abolished in terms of being slashed and being cut. And what’s very strange about this on the police thing is that everyone so far that is touting that or has been sharing and has been posting and has been dealing with that. I’ve noticed that once the crime and everything started taking up, they didn’t really say, oh, this is a bad idea. Most of them have just kind of silently gone away and just silently disappeared. They’re omitting that. They said that in the past. Like, there are for this. A lot of people that I have met, they’re willing to talk to me, at least on the job and family members and friends and stuff like that. They all said this is not a good idea. Like, yeah, sure, we should fix these problems, that maybe the police are kind of handling too much on top of real serious crimes. But just straight up taking money away or cutting budgets or cutting staff members and patrol officers is not the way to go about it. And we’re clearly seeing that now with the spike in crime. And if your point, Jay, about the recent police involved shootings and everything, 2021 was the highest year that law enforcement has been phenoniusly killed. So there’s about 73 officers that have been killed unprovoked, most of them. And it’s been since, like, 911. Now, not including 911. It’s been 1995 since we had the highest number like that. Wow. But it’s a 20 year high if you include 911. And that’s the result of that because a lot of criminals are being embodied on that. They know that we’re kind of disempowered. But you also kind of have to think about it in terms of, like, it’s not just the defund the police movement. It’s pushing the politicians to do these things. And it’s also pushing the state’s attorney to drop charges and let these people go or kind of modify things to our criminals. And bad actors know that we can only do so much and it doesn’t encourage us. So I know this is like a huge thing. We can keep on going about it. There may have been some good. I’m not going to say it was all bad. There may have been some good, but it’s been overruled. It’s been overtaken by this toxicity and this negativity of just bad decisions and malicious decisions to do these kinds of things.

When you say that there’s been some good, could you elaborate? What good have you seen from the movement that has been overshadowed by the obvious negative effects of the movement? What I think is saying that police officers are taking too much and they’re handling too much, if that makes sense. We’re doing all these things like the mental health stuff, which I’m not saying that we shouldn’t go. We absolutely do need to go. I’ve been to a lot of mental health calls and, like, mental health crisis at least needed to be there because the guy, unfortunately, was being very violent in a social worker would not calm the situation down. I’m not saying replace police officers or social workers were clearly the police can be able to handle. But in terms of really the only thing I can really kind of see about it is that with the statement of like, hey, they’re handing a lot of stuff, maybe we could help them out. But what ended up happening is that they’re just taking money away from us. So instead of defunding the cops, maybe we should just give them more classes or maybe help them out, give them a supplement. In terms of like, actually, in my Department, we have something called Mobile crisis, where we have an actual specialized unit that has an actual clinician that does want to go out there into the field and talk to you, some mentally ill folks, but they have a cop with them as well, too. And that’s only after a patrol officer such as myself request them to come down and say, hey, this person is willing to talk. It’s calm right now, the situation is safe. He’s not like running around with a knife and trying to stab. So that’s not going to help. I’m not going to call them for that. But if it’s a calm situation to where we can calm them down, then that specialized unit can come out there. And that’s kind of what I see what they’re doing. But again, that’s not even in the equation now. They just completely took that out or it’s been overtaken. Like I said before.

Yeah. What do you think they’re seeking to accomplish, Jay? Because officers to go in some stuff there. But it seems that there’s also maybe a political motivation behind the desk and also maybe even a racial equity thing kind of behind this. Do you think that they may be trying to accomplish some of that falsely flow? Maybe. Okay, so this is where I sound like I have a tinfoil hat on and I may or may not have it on right now as we do this particular podcast. But here’s what I think is actually happening. This is at its highest level an attempt to subvert and undermine law, order and authority in order to corrupt the minds of not just the people that are living, but the youth in particular. If you create a society of people who are just run by their emotions and they’re not thinking clearly about the particular situation, they’re not gathering facts, they’re not trying to understand the situation. They’re just reacting to what they happen to see on their streets. You can easily control those people, people that are not thinking clearly about it, they’re just reacting. You can easily control those people. And I do think that there is an element of perhaps they are politicians, perhaps they are business owners, I’m not sure very high level, high strata, high class society, people who benefit from this kind of upheaval, from this kind of anarchy, from this kind of antiautoritarian sentiment, and they’re encouraging it, they’re fostering it. Okay, that’s my tinfoil hat side.

Okay, so here’s my non tinfoil hat answer. There are people in the defunded police movement that are seeking to highlight what they feel is a problem within their police forces. The issue of police brutality, perhaps of racial profiling, perhaps of what they perceive to be a low number or low percentage of cases that are actually solved, that are actually resolved. And so they’re trying to put a spotlight on these things. But because they don’t have the media pull on their own, they have to attach themselves to something more radical in order to get that media spotlight. We were talking about the race baiters like Al Sharpton, Reverend. I’m not even going to call him Reverend Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Benjamin Crump, these types. There are many families who have experienced questionable dealings with the police that may or may not have something to do with race and they wouldn’t normally pair up with these people. But because these people have the ability to draw media spotlight. They feel like they have to. It’s like choosing the list of two evils. Do you kind of fight the battle on the ground on your own, without resources because you’re trying to do this by yourself, or do you attach yourself to the Leech that Benjamin Crump is and gets immediate spotlight, but you may get results for your particular case? I think perhaps on the police has that same element where people want to highlight issues that they see in the policing of their communities, but they don’t know how else to do it except to latch on to people who have press. They say that any press is good press, particularly in entertainment. Any press is good press, whether it’s good or bad press. Any press is good press. And so they might have a particular idea. There could be some of that happening in the defendant police movement too. So those people who are seeking to enact change and how their neighborhoods are policed may attach themselves to the defund the police movement in order to execute or find a way to bring that change about. The problem is that you receive whatever change you feel like you might want, but you also get £100 of baggage, of negative consequences that now you have to deal with as well. Which is unfortunate from the political viewpoint. I can’t fathom any other reason why anyone would support defund the police, except that they perceive that that’s what the people want. And so they’re just going with what they think. The people want to see people marching in the streets. And so visually, it’s jarring to see so many citizens in the street. Oh, my goodness, this must be what they want. Okay, defund the police. Everybody, let’s go defund the police. And then they project this rhetoric. But they don’t really personally believe it. As politicians, they just will tell you what you want to hear in order to be reelected. They want power. Exactly. They want those points. Exactly. So it could be all of those things rolled up into one sausage.

Yeah, well, who’s to be blamed here, though? It seems to me like the chicken have come home to roost because the defunded police movement gained some traction. Then we see crimes explode all around the country. As Jay mentioned, 13 different cities around this country have seen a major increase in violent crimes. So who’s to blame for this movement? Let me bring you in on this, officer. The movement. I think, honestly, the protests and everything, the only way I can really describe them as kind of like useful idiots, but the ones I really do blame is the politicians kind of either using this because they’re scared or using this for brownie points for political gain. Therefore, they’re just doing it just to not only appease the mob because the mob will burn down the town. And it’s very strange. I don’t know if this anecdote will be comparable, but for example, when I was down there for the protest, this was maybe like nearby 4 July where riding was still happening, and Tiffany was actually down nearby where I actually patrolled at. There’s about maybe 200 of them. They tried storming the headquarters. We told them to stop. We pretty much told them to stop. But then they went down towards a Christopher Columbus statue, one of the officers who was just doing patrol because we still need to answer the calls for service. Eastern keying up. Hey, they’re going to head towards the Crystal Columbus statue and they’re going to tear it down. And we actually had a mobile field for us, which pretty much is their riot team, for lack of a better term, for short. And they’re like, hey, we’re standing by, what do you want us to do? 20 minutes go by? And then the same officer who was witnessing this whole thing, he said, hey, they just tore down the statue of food in the water into the harbor. And after that, we’re all just like, they’re going to stop them, they’re going to arrest them. What’s going on here? They ended up just letting them leave at that point in time. And the Commissioner at this point in time said he didn’t want to cause a scene or want to cause a problem or anything. And a lot of us are just like, but you’re just pretty much telling them that they can pretty much do this and everything. Like, you can say whatever you want about Christopher Columbus. That’s neither here nor there. It’s not even on public property. The statue was part of a group of a community group that owns that part of where the statue was.

Honestly, I always kind of point towards the leaders. Like, I used to be in the Marine Corps myself. Like, I used to be like a fire team leader as a Corporal. And they always emphasize, at least in the military, that you own the leadership. You try to do what you can. There’s certain things that you can’t control, but you can at least try to make things the best that you can at that time. And they kind of just let them do that because I think they were honestly just scared of getting on the news for riots and the whole controversy of Columbus. And they’re like, oh, you should just let them eat the statue in the harbor or whatever. And the politics is really just the hard part where in reality, we should have just stopped them, honestly just set up just stopped them to prevent that from happening in the first place and everything.

But do you feel like your hands are tied as a police officer? Because I could be wrong on this, but it seems to me that police officers have been a little bit hesitant in making certain arrests, especially arrests that involve black folks. And if the police officer say is white. Do you feel any way that the arrests that you don’t want to make just because of the racial or political situation that’s going on? That’s a sad thing because that’s unfortunately like a reality. It shouldn’t even be that it’s turned into a point where, like, the shootings and stuff like that, where it’s like it should be, hey, did this officer do the right thing in this scenario or not? And that’s what it should be. But the problem is now it’s the racial part and really, it should not be a factor. It should be whether or not it’s a good shooting or not or it’s a good arrest or not or whatever that scenario may be. But unfortunately now, especially when we have these situations where I’m in a different Department now to where a lot of people will start using that. And I’m like half white, half Filipino. So for me, it’s a little bit different. But I noticed, like, a lot of the other officers who are white and they do get into an interaction where they do have the legal justification to make an arrest on somebody. The crowd starts to amp up and the officers like, he’s right. But he’s also kind of getting more angry because they’re putting these accusations towards them when it’s really not true, you know what I mean? So it does feel like we are tying how do I say this? They are tying our hands, but we’re kind of like, I don’t want to be called a racist. So sure, I’ll put my bank almost. So it’s very hard right now to do this stuff like,

yes, you can still do your job. And at the same time, like, social media will blow it up and make it seem like something completely. And we’ve seen that so many times before where there was one scenario where a dude was getting arrested. They did a traffic stop. Gentleman was getting arrested. Like, both of the occupants, driver and passenger were black. The officer was white. He actually pulls out a bag full of drugs. One of them was a small bag. He didn’t have anything. He threw it into the car. And the person was like, hey, I got you recording. You threw that in there. And then this ten second clip from that passenger made it seem like he was planting evidence. And they’re like, all right, that look really terrible. It looks really bad. But come to find out on the body Cam footage is that he just had a trash bag and he was just throwing it back into the car. And so even then, some people are like, oh, I would just put it in my pocket. I’m like, well, that shouldn’t really be the case. Like, this trash that came from the car, he’s going to put it back in the car. That’s neither here nor there. The trash thing. But regardless of ten second video, it blew up immediately. And luckily at that Department, I can’t remember it was from that Department actually covered the house. It’s like, look, we’re going to wait. We’re going to see the full investigation, and then they release the bodycare footage of what was actually happening. Yes.

But the problem there, the damage was already done. Yes. That’s what this social media and this quick run to judgment without contact can create. Because a lot of times, if we don’t wait for at least a better video, different angle, more evidence to come out, we jump to judgment and stop blaming the police officers when we don’t have enough information to come to a conclusion. Do you feel like as a police officer, that your hands have been tied by higher rush, maybe the person above you or the person above the person that’s above you? Because this seems to me like it’s coming from not police officers that you’re going to encounter on the street, but it’s coming from people way above them. Do you feel that’s the case? I do feel like that’s the case because it’s very strange because I see it mainly. And you guys see it as well, too, mainly for those who stay on top of, like, the more, I guess, controversial videos or whatever. And you start to see that the chief is like, I think of Washington, DC. These three police officers were like, wrestling this guy on the fence. And then this one officer was punching this dude in the face. I’m like, it looks kind of bad. But come to find out, the dude actually had a gun in his waistband. So the officer punching him in the face was actually kind of justified because the two officers were struggling to get his hands behind his back and he was pulling it as if he was trying to reach for the waistband. And so he kind of put two and two together. And like, all right, he’s trying to reach for the gun, and they’re trying to prevent that from happening to where it will bind up into shooting. But the chief, I think it was the chief in Washington, DC, actually condemned it without even waiting on it without even saying, hey, it’s an investigation. We’re going to see what’s going to happen or whatever. The video looks bad, but we’re going to see we’ll find out what’s going to happen. But instead, the chief straight up on Twitter, posted a saying, this is bad. The officer shouldn’t have done that. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, even though he had a gun or whatever. I can’t remember exactly. I remember reading I was like, what? Yeah, he showed up punching in the face even though he was trying to reach for a gun in his waistband. I’m like, at least they weren’t going to shoot him. And I kind of show you the restraint that we’re kind of in right now. We’re in a rock and a hard place, but for higher ups. It’s like I would not say it’s the Lieutenant, I would not say it’s even the captain in terms of precinct, kind of stuff like this is your precinct. If a precinct usually has like a captain at most, maybe a major. But the higher ups in terms of admin, where a lot of times a lot of those they have like people politicians or whatever calling that police Department. And usually it’s only the higher ups, like I’m just throwing a rake out here like Colonel to Commissioner, Colonel the chief or something like that, where they get those phone calls and someone yelling at them. So they kind of get like they’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. I wouldn’t say it’s like lieutenants where they’re interacting with the regular patrol officer like myself or something like that. But it is a lot of times the higher ups they seem to forgot where they came from because everyone starts in policing as a regular patrol officer, interacting with the community, interacting with the public and doing the regular stuff just like anybody else. And now that they’re up there, it seems like they forget. I always try to be nice and assume that they just seem to forget instead of them being like I’m just doing this to cover my butt and forget these guys or maybe might be the politics of it because once you get out there, it’s a lot more than just policing.

I guess it’s the politics of it because to me it seems like now because we’re talking about who to be blame here, we have to go further up and say what about the government? What about the Mayor of these cities, the governor of the state, and also the people that make the laws and tie the police in? How much blame do we put on that front? Because even the DA, because a lot of these Das are not charging people and a lot of these judges are not installing, what do you call it? No, there are no price in them or they’re suspending all about bill, there’s no bills. So who do we blame? It seems like you go all the way up to the courts, the DA, the legislature, the people that make the laws and the people that support enforced, enforce the laws. But then me as a normal citizen will see firstly as the police officer, but it doesn’t seem like a lot of blame can be placed at the police officer feet. I think also the work culture has a lot of blame to put because the culture or the people are pushing the legislature in one direction. And as we said earlier, it seemed like the politicians are doing this just to gain power. But I also think we’re looking over one thing. I think the major thing to blame is the human sinful nature. As we talk about the Bible saying Psalm 51 and verse five, behold, I was shaping in, iniquity, and instead did my mother conceived me. And Jeremiah 17, verse nine, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? So when they combine all those things, if we don’t overlook that men are sinful inherited bad, and then we have all these people pushing racial stuff in this country. And all these people say, oh, I think they did fund the police movement. As I said earlier, Chicken has come home to roost because now we have seen the true depravity of man because we have removed the restraint that the police have offered. That’s what police are, therefore, to offer some restraint to people. There’s a reason why there is not more crime, because the person know that if they do commit this crime, somebody is going to come and take them away. When you remove that, then I can do whatever I want. That’s why you’re seeing the rise in shoplifting and all these things across shooting in colorful time. And then when you tell a certain race of people and I’m black, when you tell a certain race of people that you don’t blame them for their decisions, and then at the same time you make them feel like the police against them, why do you think you see, we have shooting in New York and I’m going around all the country police officers have been attacked and then these people being slapped on the wrist. Even in New York, there was this rapper, I think he was 16 or whatever, shot at a police officer with an illegal gun, that he was actually on bail because he was in possession of a legal gun. And they let him go. He shot a police officer. What are they going to do again? Well, he has enough money to burn out. So what do you think going to happen? You’re going to go back and be all nice and no enforce the law that we have. And I just feel like those are not being enforced.

Yeah. It’s very unfortunate how that thing that you stated, I have to look that up, but that’s not a surprise. A lot of times in my former police Department where I would arrest somebody and they would pretty much be out the same day as soon as I’m done all the charging and everything like that. Now for things like he has an illegal handgun, like we call it handgun violations. In my state, where the Second Amendment is a little bit stricter, it’s like they will get handling violation and usually not in the police Department that I’m in, they will depending on a certain amount of crime, the code Commissioner will determine whether or not they can be released on their own Congo since meaning that they understand you’re not supposed to be doing this, you’re supposed to go to this trial date, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah and all that kind of stuff. They can add other things like an on section bond where if you don’t come to court, not only will you be held in the detention center until your trial date, but you also have to pay like a couple thousand dollars depending on what that is. Speaking of which, I know is a sign up, but they really do need to teach the general public. I don’t know how they’re going to do it, but they need to teach the general public on what happens when you get arrested. How do you press charges? How does this work? What does the court Commissioner do? What does the judge do? What are the police legally obligated to do or have to do in that state? And then you have to Whittle it down to that jurisdiction because there are so many things that people like, I arrested people. You haven’t randomized me. I said, well, I’m not questioning you. I’m not questioning you. There’s no need to Miranda ice you. If I wanted to question you, they don’t advise you to write, but I don’t need to question you and everything. But regardless, I really do think like a class or maybe not even a class. It just needs to be presented on what needs to happen. But there’s so much confusion. And unfortunately, us as the police in general need to also keep up on case law and make sure that we’re telling people the right things and everything like that too. So I do think that us as a place, we also need to improve as well too, in telling people the right things in terms of jurisdiction.

Yeah, you’re listening to the Removing Barriers podcasts. We are sitting down with Officer Sigarbo and we are talking about the funded police movement and the human sense of nature. We’ll be right back.

Hi, this is Jay MCG and I would like for you to help us remove barriers by going to Removingbarriers. Net and subscribing to receive all things removing barriers. If you’d like to take your efforts a bit further and help us keep the mics on, consider donating@removingbarriers.net. Donate hey, thanks so much for listening to the Removing Barriers podcast. Did you know that you could find us on Twitter, Gab Parlor, Facebook and Reddit? Go to Removingbarriers.Net/contact and like and follow us on social media. Removing Barriers a clear view of the Cross

all right, so police swear to uphold the Constitution like military folk. They swear to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. They must obey their higher ups, the captain, lieutenants, etc. And they have to answer to the politicians that run their particular city and they’ve sworn to serve and protect the people. So at times all those things clash because they just do. So how do police officers balance those requirements? How do they serve the people and protect them but still obey all of the people that they have to obey above them, from politician down to the Lieutenant, upholding the Constitution how do police officers balance that? So for this question, it’s a pretty good one. They have to all law enforcement, everyone up for to the chief. They pretty much swear enough saying that they have to uphold it now, of course, especially now with all these mandates and everything like that. And a lot of people are saying why the police are forced to this. And I agree. I don’t like it as well, too. That’s probably the hardest thing I had about that. I’ve always kind of questioned, especially during the start of this pandemic. It’s like I don’t really like this kind of stuff. You can kind of see how they’re like bending it, if that makes any sense. But for us in general, all the law enforcement officers have to be certified to be up to date in terms of what we call case law. So how do you stop a car? What do you have to do in order to stop a car? What can you remove a person, a driver or the occupants from the vehicle? And you have to be able to determine all of that. And the higher ups need to know that, too. Now, again, like somebody who’s been a Lieutenant, not a Lieutenant, someone who’s been like a Colonel, one of those more senior officers when they haven’t been on the street, that mindset kind of like goes to the wayside because they’re more focusing on the politics and the admin position and everything. And I think that might be a result of that. But the police Department also works hand in hand with the state’s Attorney’s office as well, too, in terms of charging, in terms of like, hey, can you do this? How can you do that? Because I always ask the state’s attorney as well, too. I try to be good friends with them and say, hey, what can I do here? Can I actually charge this person here with this language based off of the charging language in the charging language for my state and everything like that?

And then, of course, you have defense attorneys, which as much as people don’t like them, they think that they’re, I guess, slimy for a better term. They keep us in check, too, to make sure that we’re doing the right things. And sometimes they make us look like fools. We’re on the court stand, and it’s a rule of police that you have to get burned in court because you need to be able to know what you’re doing in court in order for you to look competent in front of a jury. So there’s all these things and of course, they’re not perfect. And there’s unfortunately been a lot of cases of officers like violating constitutional rights or it’s so Gray and certain things that I think there was a podcast or very popular one who somebody called their house and they got swatted and the police went up there and there’s something called exes in circumstances meaning that if an officer, depending on what the nature is, if an officer thinks that there’s something going on inside of a house, excuse me, let me rephrase this. Excellent circumstances would be like, say, for example, you hear someone screaming for help inside the house. That gives the officer authority to make the forced entry into a house. If it’s just a regular call for, like, hey, here arguing, like, I can’t force myself inside or I can’t force myself inside unless I hear that yell for help. In this case, they’re getting squatted. So the officers kind of like they made entry inside and they started searching part of the house. The podcaster did it like that and said, hey, there’s nothing going on here. You guys need to get a search warrant. You guys can leave. And so they left. And based on what I know what was going off of that, they were kind of like bending it a little bit. It was a little bit of Gray. The call for service was that somebody shot two people and he was going to commit suicide using the same gun. And so that gave him a reason to go inside. But that’s a very Gray area. And that’s why we always try to catch up on cases. Was that the right idea? Was this the best idea? Was this like the good idea? And if you stop doing that, that’s when you start making mistakes, is what I noticed.

What role does technology play in help keeping police officers in chat? Because it seems like we have a lot more body cams and police and stuff like that. And then, well, the advancement of telephones, everybody has a camera now and all these things. And it seems like those are the things that kind of push a lot of these movements as well, because folks have seen a lot more of what police are doing and social media, of course. So does that help keep in check, help you obey the Constitution more? When I say you are not you particularly, but police officers in general, do you think that helps, or does it cause a bigger problem than it fixed? I think it can help. I don’t know if it’s like more than 50% helps than hurts. I don’t know what that percentage is. I think what’s very interesting about what you said about body cameras, what’s very interesting is once body cameras have been implemented, I can’t exactly remember the study, but complaints on officers actually went down a significant portion. I think it was maybe more than 50%. Now, it may be true because officers know that they’re being recorded, but that may also be the case that citizens know that there are cameras watching them, if that makes sense. Like, as this officer is doing his job, we half as the years have gone on, we’ve always said, hey, everything’s been auditedly and visually recorded. That’s always a mouthful. I never say that right? But I always say, hey, everything’s being recorded right now. And I point towards the camera. I point wherever the camera may be. It’s like, okay, and a lot of people, they can’t make those complaints anymore. Now, again, when there is a complaint, can you fully rely on that camera? No, you can’t always fully rely on the camera because it only shows a certain amount. Things can be blocked. Like we have to turn it off because of battery power and that kind of stuff. It’s not a storage issue. It’s just battery power because it will run out if it runs all the time. But a lot of times people kind of know, well, they got cameras. So I can’t really make this complaint. And we’ll probably be unsustained or unfounded knowing that.

Also with the phones and with the emails now they don’t have an excuse to say like, oh, I didn’t go to a class. Now you get the email and see, hey, this is our updated legislation. This is our updated based off of the First Circuit Court, for example, whatever. This is our case law, this is how we operate off of, hey, if you forget it, you can go to the manual. You can go to the manual online. You don’t have to go back to the precinct. If you can’t do it because you’re super busy, you can just look it up on the computer or look it up on your phone and say, hey, this is what you have to do. This is what you have to do. And then you got your shoot providers. So like the check on police officers. I mean, I’ve only been a police officer for three years. I have to ask other people back then, back then for those who have been on the job for maybe 20 plus years to see how they’re keeping the police in check in terms of Constitution. But I say it’s a lot. If you initial everyone sounds like the terms and agreements and nobody reads it, everyone kind of does the same thing. But I always check as much as I can on what we have to do for the policy. And so if you sign it, guess what, hey, you signed it. That means you should have read it. And if you say, oh, I did it, well, you signed it. So you’re going to be in the jackpot. And so the accountability is it was already like going up even before George Floyd, if that makes sense, right? So it was already getting to that point where it’s not like this wagging the fingers like, oh, you better not do this. It’s like, hey, there’s all this stuff. I know it’s a lot, but hey, look, here’s the case law. Here’s this, look here at the manual where you can read it in case you need it. Hey, if you got any questions, if you hung up on something, whether you can do this or not just call me that’s what it needs to be, but unfortunately, the protest side, they want to wag the finger for a better term. Does that make sense?

Yes. It seems like policing and software engineering have a lot in common. You have to always stay on top of whatever is the latest and greatest out there. Police officers have to stay on top of the law and the new policies and all these things coming out. So, yeah, definitely sound like ever learning job. And it certainly doesn’t help that the defund the police movement as a whole, in my opinion, I could be wrong as a whole. It’s like having a problem that requires a scalpel, but they’re using a sledgehammer to address the issue. That’s really what the police movement seems to be like. Well, let me ask you this. What damage in light of the fact that they’re using a sledgehammer to deal with a very delicate, very complicated, very intricate problem? What damage do you see the movement doing to society or what damage has the movement already done to society or to the police force that you’ve seen since you’re actively serving in that role? What damage has the movement caused? I think that I’ll start with the police in general, even though they’re trying to put the money back, the damage has already been done. So now we have to even pour more money out. I even argue you have to pour even more money into the police Department or whatever to actually get back to where we were before. And the reason why I say that is because now you have to deal with attrition rates, especially where my department’s, attrition rate, was always high. And even though they hired 249 officers, they lost 239. So it was only a net plus ten. And then you have to also realize you’re paying these officers in the Academy, you’re giving them the equipment, you’re given all these training and everything, and you have a lot of these officers that are very new and at least what it seems like, at least what I’m being told back then, let’s say 20 years ago, you had those senior officers who’ve been on the job for 15 plus years, 20 plus years, and they’re regular patrol officers or their supervisors, and they’re like, hey, they’ll help and guide this new officer who’s off of probation or who’s still on probation just got off of field training, and they’ll guide him to make sure he’s doing the right track. He’s not doing this wrong and all that. If they do that makes mistakes. I mean, that’s expected. That’s what the senior officers there for. But now you have a lot of newer people, and the senior people are like, they only got like five years on. They only got like six years on. They only got like eight years on. So it’s the by leading the blind, unfortunately, to where we’re trying to keep this together, we’re trying to solve this. But unfortunately, because a lot of the senior officers or people who can take early retirement, they leave or they find a better Department that backs them. So they’ll go to Texas or go to Florida and get that $5,000 bonus or whatever. And then you’re left with places like New York or Chicago where a lot of officers are like, they’re kind of trying to they want to violate somebody’s, right? But they don’t want to get in trouble, but they’re trying to do it’s very difficult, and it tremendously helps when you have somebody who’s incredibly experienced, who knows what they’re doing, and just to have that as a backup is great.

Before I left, I had a guy who was about to retire and said, I’m not doing this anymore, but he will help me, and he knows he’ll show me the ropes and show me some tips and tricks. I’m pretty much on policing what to do, but where I’m at right now, even though I would argue it’s a much better police Department with benefits and everything, a lot of the people around me are, like, very young and very new. So it’s kind of like we don’t really have a senior guy around here where it’s like we don’t want to rush into things and cause mistakes, and so we’re going a lot slower, if that makes sense. Like, we have to go. So you should go slow in a lot of these scenarios, but we have to go solar because if we rush this, like a lot of new people do, then that’s where mistakes are caused. How about with the society, though, and stuff like that? Do you see any damages that happened in there? The society thing is a lot of the stuff before I left my old Department, a lot of them were like, this is stupid. I don’t understand why they’re saying default to police. And again, when I was in the projects and I’m in section A as well, too, I never saw a single default the police sign. You may have seen Black Lives Matter. Okay, let’s go. Whatever. I don’t care. You may see a cab. I don’t really care. That’s just background noise. I’m so dumb to that now. I don’t even care about that. But I never saw deep on the police sign, which is what I noticed in terms of crime and everything. A lot of people, they seem like burnt out, at least from an anecdotal point of view. They seem burnt out. What are these people doing? This guy wasn’t just here. Didn’t you send him to jail or something like that? Yeah, but he got out and they just like, what are you going to do? And they just start shaking their head. And what was really sad about it is that they kind of just accepted the fact that this was just going to happen. This is just going to keep on happening and stuff. And we always talk about the hospital high crime, the shootings and the robberies and everything, but that statistically affect and it’s bad and it’s showing. But at least in terms of the attitude, people are just like, they’re getting burnt, and they’re also just starting to accept the fact that it’s like, happening. And it’s like, what are you going to do?

Yeah, they’re demoralized. They see what’s happening, and they just kind of, what can we do? Kind of just throw up your hands situation? Yeah, it’s pretty sad. We don’t want to get to that point. Right. So we don’t want to keep going with that, too. Now, speaking of demoralization, what we’ve done as a society is that we’ve asked the police to do the job that we don’t want to do. If there were no police, we would have to be the ones policing our own subdivisions, our own neighborhoods, and responding to breaking or any kind of crime or whatever. But what we’ve done is that we’ve asked the police to do these things. We’ve empowered them. We’ve vetted public trust in them to do these things. And it always blows my mind that we would ask people to do these dangerous things and then yell at them when they do them and then say things like defund the police. It’s never made any sense to me. And I imagine that within the police force, one of the things that keeps you all going would be camaraderie realizing that, hey, we’re all in this together sort of thing. How is that, Camaraderie, that morale doing on the police force? Now, I remember we asked you this question perhaps last year in one of the podcasts that we had with you and you mentioned that the morale is beginning to dip. It’s beginning to go down. Do you still see that as the case in your neck of the woods or in general across the country? I would say it’s still low, but I would pretty much say, yes, it’s pretty low. I don’t want to say like, oh, it’s going up now. We are kind of just we’re at the bottom now. And until we kind of see things getting a little bit better for us, that’s when the morale is going to go back up. It’s still bad for me. Yeah, the morale still sucks, but I’ve gotten kind of used to that, if that makes sense. It’s not really a good thing. It’s kind of like the dog and the cartoons. Like, this is fine and you’re just dealing with it. But until we see at least our leadership or at least the leadership and the judges and everything start doing their part and everything like that, I think that’s when the morale will actually go up. A lot of times, however, I will say this, which kind of maybe changed my attitude, is that I am seeing a lot of people, even black people from the hood and everything like that, saying, hey, we appreciate you and everything like that, because they know they’re starting to realize now, especially in 2021, they’re starting to see like, man, these guys are going through a lot. So let me just say a thank you and everything like that, that if anything, has given me a little bit of hope. But in terms of relationship with the command, it’s so low. But at least we’re seeing out in the streets. Like, people are saying, hey, they appreciate it. I’m starting to see it a little bit more often than not compared to like 2020. Cool. How do you think this movement would end up? We have seen a drastic change in the culture and the attitude towards it. And you just mentioned that, hey, some of that is coming back. People are realizing that, hey, police are here to serve and we need them in our communities.

So how do you see this movement? And I don’t really know. I know that with the crime and everything going in reverse, it looks like it’s kind of ending now. It’s kind of like the beginning of the end right now. Do you think we have maybe hit a peak and now we’re going to decide to reverse all of that? I think so. I think we’ve seen a peak. Unfortunately, it’s still going to be bad for a little bit. It’s going to get worse before it gets better. But at least we’ve reached that peak of where like, yeah, this defunding stuff is not really working. And a lot of those people who have been touting it, like I said before, in the beginning of this podcast, they’re touting it and now they’re just like Homer Simpson into the Bush. They’re going back right into it and they’re not saying anything and they’re not apologies. Like, yeah, this is a bad idea. We didn’t think this would happen. We’re all like, yeah, sure. And I don’t think we’re going to have that conversation with them. You know what it is, what it is like, they’re not going to do that. All right, that’s cool. I’m just going to go ahead and continue to improve. We got to do as policing because I do personally think that we should be held to a higher standard, a reasonable one, of course. But we also need to give us the training, give us the tools that are necessary for your standard that you want us to be at. But I think the defund the police is like, I guess on a good note, it’s at its peak, it’s ending. It’s kind of going to decline, but we’re still going to see the effects of this stuff. I don’t know how long, maybe a couple of years, maybe it’ll be another year, maybe it will be six months. But it doesn’t look like the homicide rates or the crime is going to go down anytime soon at least. The very good thing is that the defund the police movement is we all know for a fact, maybe the people who’ve been town it, they realize it’s the problem. So at least that’s a good thing ended on a positive note. They know this was a terrible decision and everything.

Yeah. Garba, thank you for your service. And it’s always a pleasure to have you on the Removing Barriers Podcast. Of course. Thank you so much for having me.

You’re listening to the Removing Barriers Podcast. You have just heard from Officer CigarBro with his professional opinion on the Defender police movement. When we return, we will have DW come in and tell us what are we missing with the defender police movement and the human sinful nature. We’ll be right back. This is the Removing Barriers Podcast. If the podcast or the blog were a blessing to you, leave us a rating and a review on your favorite podcast platform. And don’t forget to share the podcast with your friends. Removing Barriers a clear view of the cross.

All right, DW, welcome to the Removing Barriers Podcast. Thanks for having me again.

Yes. So we have seen police officers being ambushed and charged in cities like New York, Houston, Texas, and practically all around the US. And I believe these are directly tied to the fact that many of these cities have defunct the police and many of them have bailed reform where they release criminals back into society. What do you think the defender police movement is missing when it comes to the human sinful nature? Well, an article that I was reading recently stated this. It says for a term that has become so well known to fund the police doesn’t have a single definition. It covers a spectrum of ideas, redistributing a portion of police funds towards social services to abolishing the institution altogether. And so the writers of that article asked a lawyer, a criminologist political science major, as well as a police Constable, and they asked them for their thoughts on defund the police. And the consensus that I drew from their responses was that instead of promoting safety and security, defunded police tends to promote fear and anxiety, confusion and uncertainty. And those things that fear and anxiety, the confusion and uncertainty are really the opposites of the gospel in so many ways. In John 1010, the Lord Jesus Christ said that the thief cometh not but for to steal and to kill and to destroy. And then he contrasted that with himself. And he said, I am come, that they might have life. In Isaiah nine six, the Bible reads and says, for unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulders. And his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. So the unsaved, unfortunately, are the enemies of God, and they’re the objects of his wrath. And we’re like those who want to defund the police, we really want to dethrone God. It’s not that we don’t want a peaceful life or that we never do anything nice for anybody. It’s really just that we don’t want God to rule over us. And God is the ruler and he’s the maker of the law. We want to go our own way. We don’t want to obey his law. And because of that, we break his law. And the Bible calls breaking God’s law sin. We sin when we lie. And because God has said, Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor, exodus 20, verse 16. And bearing false witness is lying. We sin when we commit adultery. Jesus said, you have heard that it has been said of them of old time, you shall not commit adultery. But I say unto you that whosoever looked at on a woman so as to lust after her have committed adultery already with her in his heart. So Jesus said that you could even commit adultery in your heart and coving after something that somebody owns that you don’t have is really stealing from them in your heart. So sin is not just a matter of what we do, it’s also a matter of the heart. And when we sin, we break God’s law.

The real question isn’t, do each of us deserve to be judged? If we were judged by God’s just and righteous law, we would get exactly what we do deserve. And the real question, though, is, why would God save any of us? And the amazing answer is that he wants to save all of us. He wants to save anyone who call upon him and trust him as their savior. The moment of Salvation. When someone does get saved, it’s like being in a burning building and the fireman comes running in to save you. It’s dark in there. There’s heat, there’s smoke. You can’t really see your way out. And that’s the way it is with sin. We get so deep in sin that even if we wanted to get out, sometimes we don’t know how. And this fireman comes into the building and he leads us out of the fire or carries us out. And we would never stop to that fireman and say, we did a good job saving me. We’re sort of like a drowning man in a Lake. And Jesus comes alongside us with a boat and throws the rope out and pulls us up. And we would never say to him, we did a good job saving me. And so God literally came to Earth and did something for us that we could never do for ourselves. He came here to save us. Romans five eight says, But God commended his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Someone out there may be asking themselves, but who is Christ? And why would he save me? And the Lord Jesus Christ is God incarnate. He’s that one in Isaiah nine six. It’s called the Prince of Peace, and he came to Earth some 2000 years ago and took on upon him the form of a servant and he was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. And someone might ask, why did he have to become a man? And Hebrews two, eight and nine tells us that he became a man So that he could taste death for every man. Someone else may ask, why did he have to be God? And the Bible tells us that he had to be God so that he could pay for the sins of the whole world. First, John 22 says that he is the propitiation or the substitutional sacrifice, not for our sins only, but for the sins of the whole world. So he had to be of infinite value and that means he had to be God, but he had to die as a man so that he could pay for the sins of men. So why would God do this? First, John four eight tells us that God is love. There’s a very familiar verse, John 316, that says, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. And that believeth part is sort of like when that fireman comes into the building and you trust him to take you out of the building safely or when that man comes upon the boat and comes to pull you out and rescue you, you trust him to pull you to safety. And the Lord Jesus Christ came to Earth and died on a cross to pay the price for our sins so that he could save us. But he also didn’t just die on a cross. He was raised the third day. In fact, Paul says in one Corinthians 521 that if he was not raised, we would still be dead in our trespasses and sins. So his resurrection proves that he’s God and it is just as necessary as his death. And because of his death, his burial and his resurrection, God in Jesus Christ came to save us. And the way that we receive him is just by calling out to him and trusting him that he will do exactly what he came to do and to save us from our sins.

Dw thank you for joining us on the Removing Barriers podcast. Thanks for having me.

Thank you for listening. To get a hold of us to support this podcast or to learn more about removing barriers, go to removingbarriers.Net. This has been the Removing Barriers podcast. We attempted to remove barriers so that we all can have a clay view of the cross.