“All I could think about was how it could be possible for the perp to get away after snatching the chain off a man who’s paid millions for his ability to run fast.”
With so much anti-police rhetoric out there these days, it’s so important for us to constantly remind ourselves of the enormous numbers of Americans out there that appreciate and respect us. I write exponentially more warnings than citations when I’m on patrol because of this. I’m no tax collector, and my experience has revealed to me that the sheer discomfort that inherently comes with a roadside police encounter is enough to cause most well-meaning people to auto-correct their behavior.
But then there are those people out there that police cannot do favors for simply because they despise cops and everything they stand for in the first place.
One top law enforcement official in the great state of Alabama, Oxford Police Department Chief Bill Partridge, understands this concept fully. Social media dishonesty coming from members of the public does nothing but fuel hatred of police, divide communities, and give the press something juicy to “report” on. Sick and tired of the garbage being spewed, Partridge did something about it. This is what he had to say this week.
“Effective this date it will be my policy that if you disrespect one of our officers and then file a false complaint or make false claims on social media, I will post the video footage of the contact on social media for the public to see. I am tired of false complaints being brought to the department in an attempt to get out of a traffic charge or criminal charge.”
First and foremost, I want to say that I would gladly work for Chief Partridge over at the Oxford Police Department. Officers require their leadership to have backbone and loyalty more than ever right now and it’s apparent that Chief Partridge possesses both. I can only assume that the morale of his force has received a substantial boost as a result of his proactive and public support.
There’s a major paradigm shift going on all over the country right now that transcends the police world and one doesn’t have to be a cop to benefit from it. Do you feel it? The good guys, who have been beaten down in the public arena for too long now, are finally beginning to fight back. We’ve seen it happening all across the web with new-media outlets shining a light on the reporting fake news by outlets like CNN and the rest of the main stream media that steadfastly puts profits and political motivations over the best interests of our nation and the American people.
Of course, every boss has a boss and every chief is an Indian in some larger tribe. Although far from being a perfect person, our 45th President has been a major pioneer in this movement as it relates to not only a dishonest press and this regressive cultural virus of political correctness, but also to how it pertains to policing. When Standing Up for the Law Enforcement Community becomes a major cog in a President’s machine, the concept trickles down to police leadership, and thus, empowers them to stand up for their people as well. So what happened, and why is Chief Partridge taking the strong public stance of protecting his officers in the first place?
It all began when a sworn Oxford PD Animal Control Officer responded to a call involving a dog running loose in the street. Once the officer located the dog, he then located the owner to talk to him about this being the third time similar complaints were made. Soon after Officer Caldwell met with the irresponsible dog-owner, the man posted this status to Facebook.
Mark Twain once said, “A lie makes it halfway around the world before the truth straps on its boots,” and boy, was that the case here. It didn’t take long for Chief Partridge to be made aware of the Facebook post and an investigation swiftly followed. 35 minutes of body-cam footage from the incident was pulled, and not only did each and every minute of it completely contradict the outrageous claims made, the poster’s behavior was so over the top that it approached Reno 911 levels of absurdity.
In the face of a cartoonish and irritating human being, Officer Caldwell showed the restraint and professionalism of a Saint – so Chief Partridge went public with it. As far as I’m concerned, this is the perfect example of how body-cam technology should be used in my line of work in today’s climate.
It’s not only the average Joes out there making it a point to denigrate police officers with outright lies and slandering. Known worldwide for its strip clubs and nightlife, Atlanta attracts entitled professional athletes, actors, and musicians from all over the globe on a regular basis. To say I’ve been around the block with these types a few times would be an understatement.
Not too long ago, I got a call out to the strip club for a hit and run. When I arrived, some poor guy trying to make a little extra money Ubering out his Nissan Versa started telling me about how someone rear-ended him and then drove off in a BMW. A moment later, this massive statue of a man comes walking up to me with a completely ridiculous story about how his friend – who he didn’t know by name – crashed the BMW into the Versa before taking off and parking it about 100 meters away by the entrance to the parking lot. I got his ID and immediately realized that he wasn’t just an NFL wide receiver, but I had him on my fantasy football team that season.
Nevertheless, I called him on his crap and he literally began to cry when I told him he was a grown man and it was time to start taking responsibility for his actions or he was going to wind up on TMZ and without a contract to play ball one day. Knowing it wasn’t going to help the Uber driver get his car fixed if I decided to go a different route, I got the entitled jerk with plenty of money and resources to atone for his mistake and take responsibility for what he had done. With his admission to driving the car, I wrote it up as a private property accident in which he was at fault. He never left the parking lot so it wasn’t a hit and run after all. The whole thing was recorded and could have easily blown up in his face had he tried that nonsense in a place like Oxford, Alabama.
Then there was the recent run-in I had with one of Atlanta’s famously inaudible mumble rappers, a caricature of an Atlanta Blood Gang street soldier by the name of Waka Flocka Flame. The guy walked up to my car shouting “Fight the power!” with a smirk on his face in front of hundreds of people outside of a busy night club. I beeped my horn at him and I couldn’t help but return a smirk as we made eye-contact. Soon after, he left with an entourage of overweight, jewelry-clad, developmentally-stunted, 30-something man-children in a black SUV. When he’s not rapping about selling cocaine or robbing people, his message is “F- Pigs” – and when he’s not rapping, he’s trying to taunt us in public. Keep that in mind when he inevitably tries to claim police brutality or harassment at some point in the future when his actions force the police to interact with him.
The night prior to that, an NFL running-back got what he claimed to be a $150K chain snatched off his neck by some random thief who somehow got away with it. The guy was going ballistic when we arrived and he couldn’t stop calling myself and other officers “b*tch a** n*ggas” and other names for the first several minutes of the interaction. Eventually, he managed to get himself together and realize that his bad night wasn’t our fault.
All I could think about was how it could be possible for the perp to get away after snatching the chain off a man who’s paid millions for his ability to run fast. To make the situation more absurd, standing there next to him was a built-like-a-super-hero NFL linebacker who gets paid millions to tackle people for a living. I wanted to tell them they must play for the Cleveland Browns just like I wanted to tell Waka Flocka he’s the kind of guy that believes in the Flat Earth Theory – but I didn’t. I knew very well the whole thing was being recorded and I’ve often joked that if I didn’t care about my job I’d be calling up TMZ and outing these spoiled children faster than Maxine Waters shouting “impeachment!”. For the sake of their endorsements and lucrative contracts, they’re lucky I love what I do.
