O.J's Revenge
by Larry Elder

O. J. Simpson, the only man in America more accessible to the press than John McCain, claims vindication. 

Simpson told Newsweek, "I feel vindicated. It is now loud and clear that these guys are capable of planting evidence and framing people. This is not something new. It's been going on for a long time...".
Simpson exonerated? That's sort of like Al Capone claiming vindication because some dude won a tax refund. Give me a break!

The Los Angeles Police Department faces its biggest crisis in history. Nearly seventy officers are under investigation for corruption. Officers face accusations of planting evidence, lying under oath, and cover-ups. The controversy revolves around the so-called CRASH (Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums) unit, a team established to combat gang-related violence.

Simpson blames the media, whom he accuses of failing to properly oversee the police. Yes, the media bears responsibility. But not the way Simpson thinks. On television, cops will fire revolvers all the time. In reality, well over 95% of officers never fire their guns.

But according to Simpson, the ACLU is right. Cops routinely engage in racial profiling, a k a Driving While Black! And flame-throwing activist Al Sharpton must be right. The Reverend once announced that he wouldn't rest until "all our brothers are free from an awkward and unjust criminal justice system." And a white bleeding-heart liberal "victicrat" columnist must also be right when he writes that the "O. J. jury knew the score."

Never mind that, so far, the LAPD scandal implicates some seventy officers, or less than 1 percent of the nearly 9,500 sworn officers. Or that, in Los Angeles, nearly 50% of the street cops--the cop with whom a person in the street is likely to interact--are women and/or minorities. Or that the LAPD's current chief, Bernard Parks, is the city's second consecutive black chief, and that a Hispanic runs the L. A. County Sheriff's Department. 

Never mind that that L. A. County contains 250,000 gang members, and nearly 1,200 gangs. Experts attribute half of the murders in L. A. County to gangs, with a growing number of these murders unresolved. Gang members intimidate witnesses who refuse to testify, resulting in numerous cases being dismissed.

No one condones police brutality or corrupt and illegal police tactics. The minority officers so engaged can and must be rooted out. But anti-police hysteria does not go without consequences. Nationwide, all felony criminal trials result in a 15% acquittal rate. No so with communities where minority juries predominate. For example, in the Bronx, juries acquit mostly minority criminal defendants at a rate of nearly 50%, or over three times the national average! And, in Washington, D.C. and in Detroit, juries acquit predominantly black defendants at a rate of twice the national average. A whole lot of guys whom police think bad are walking around.

The government compiles surveys on victims of crime. About 40% of the time, victims claim that blacks committed the crimes against them. This tracks the roughly 40% of blacks arrested for these crimes. Furthermore, for all but the least serious categories of major crimes, blacks defendants find their cases resulting in dismissals or acquittals, more often than whites!

But, some say, given the unfair criminal justice system, surely many police falsely arrested blacks, justifying the high acquittal rates.

Really? In his 1983 book, famed criminal appellate defense attorney Alan Dershowitz spoke bluntly about the alleged innocence of most criminal defendants, as well as the motive of their defense attorneys.

Dershowitz said:
"Almost all criminal defendants are, in fact, guilty.

"Any criminal defense lawyer who tells you that most of his clients are innocent is bluffing.

"In representing guilty defendants, it is often necessary to put the government on trial for its misconduct.

"Criminal defendants and their lawyers certainly do not want justice. They want acquittals, or, at least, short sentences.

"It is the job of the defense attorney to prevent the whole truth from coming out.

"Once I decide to take a case, I have only one agenda: I want to win. I will try to get my client off without regard to the consequences.

"I don't apologize (or feel guilty about) helping to let a murderer go free--even though I realize that someday he may go out and kill again."

Assuming Dershowitz right, this means the overwhelming majority of men and women in blue--those willing to take a bullet for someone they don't even know--try their best to adhere to the slogan "To protect and serve." The police deserve our support. For, in the end, officers come out of the applicant pool known as the general public. If we want qualified, honorable men and women to join up, our goal should be to improve, rather than to vilify the police. They, after all, who form the thin blue line protecting the majority of us from the minority of thugs.

---

Copyright © Larry Elder & Associates  - All rights reserved.
Send mail to Larry@larryelder.com
www.larryelder.com