“When all is said and done, the annoyance inherent in the insinuation that the officer might shoot her for no reason at all is insulting to Lt. Abbott and it triggers him into giving a brash response.”
A police Lieutenant in Cobb County, Georgia retired in lieu of termination today after a swift media backlash over a DUI traffic stop he conducted some time last year. The controversy surrounding the incident is getting far more attention than warranted, but it is a perfect example to show how cautious, measured, and subdued officers must remember to be, not only in our actions – but also our speech – in today’s hyper politically correct and racially charged “cry foul!” atmosphere. Pay close attention to the way the media frames it. You can draw your own conclusion. I’ll give you mine.
Hopefully you’ve watched the video linked above, read the article, and thought about the incident critically. I actually thought WSBTV’s breaking story and presentation of the facts was pretty fair by media standards. Of course, when I say, “by media standards,” I’m alluding to the fact that they decided to title the story, Cobb Cop During Traffic Stop: ‘Remember, We Only Shoot Black People’. This is a title wittingly chosen to characterize the whole thing in a particular light that will garner maximum clicks, buzz, and outrage right from the start. The Washington Post, Vox, Time, FoxNews, The Guardian, TMZ, and more outlets are all running the same headline. Why? Because outrage sells.
Regardless of how any outlet covers the incident as a whole, their headlines paint a picture of a cop making some kind of admission that himself and fellow officers are racially targeting black people for execution. It’s in your mind before you even watch the video when you read it. Then again, if you’re a smart bear, you’re already wondering, “in what ways will the video I’m about to watch run contrary to the title I just read?” In other words, what messaging are they sending here?
If you can’t already see a seven-person CNN panel using this story to devolve into Symone Sanders making accusations that a racist officer was caught red- handed reminding a fellow white that she’s safe because police only have a love for murdering black folks, then the work ethics we hold for researching these issues are operating on two different levels. Go do your homework and you’ll find ten examples of Ms. Sanders reaching further into outer space to spread crazier propaganda than that.
Even by just watching the mere snippets of the actual dashcam footage that outlets are providing, you can easily see that the cop is having a hard time getting the woman to comply with the directives he’s giving her during the stop.
The conversation goes like this:
ABBOTT: Use your phone. It’s in your lap right there.
WOMAN: OK, I just don’t want to put my hands down. I’m really sorry, I just…
ABBOTT: You’re just…(garbled)
WOMAN: No, no, no. I’ve just seen way too many videos of cops…
I have to hit pause and comment on just what is going on here before I go into the Abbott’s response. The woman being stopped is not being a threat. She’s not being belligerent. To put it plainly, she’s just being annoying. Is her annoying nature intentional and manifesting itself in the “smartass” brand of contempt for police that we’re all familiar with, or is she completely out of touch with reality and legitimately so fearful of cops that she doesn’t want to put her hands down to reach for her phone after being told to do so? I’d put my money on the former.
In addition to being annoying, the woman is hindering the stop from proceeding any further. When all is said and done, the annoyance inherent in the insinuation that the officer might shoot her for no reason at all is insulting to Lt. Abbott and it triggers him into giving a brash response.
The conversation continues:
ABBOTT: But you’re not black. We only kill black people. Yeah. We only kill black people, right?”
WOMAN: OK
ABBOTT: All the videos you’ve seen … have you seen the black people get killed?
WOMAN: Right.
ABBOTT: You have …
WSBTV cuts it off there. What else was said? I want to know, don’t you? Great! Here’s the full video. Did the officer’s unfiltered response lead to compliance? No, but she’s put into handcuffs without incident after being given several chances to cooperate reasonably. Where, WSBTV, was the rest of the video leading up to the salacious soundbite? Let’s dissect what Abbot actually said based on what we know.
In addition to being annoying, the woman is hindering the stop from proceeding any further.
Lt. Abbott is clearly speaking in a sarcastic tone. Sarcasm is defined by the use of irony in a mocking nature. It’s ironic that a white female, statistically the least likely demographic to be shot and killed by a police officer, is using a fabricated media narrative of police violence against black males as a reason for not complying with a lawful traffic stop based on “videos” she’s seen.
When Lt. Abbott tells her all the videos she’s seen are of black people getting shot, not white women, he isn’t lying. Go ahead and Google it. The only thing more rare than white women being shot and killed by police officers is videos of white women being shot and killed by police officers. In fact, one white female is killed by police on average per year according to the Washington Post Officer Involved Shooting Database.
Let’s compare that number with the 40-50 people who are killed by an electric rod shooting down from the heavens and striking them dead annually. Being that she is 40-50 times more likely to be struck and killed by lightning than she is to be killed by a police officer, I’d say that it’s not reasonable for her to be able to use cop-phobia as an excuse for failing to comply with a police officer during a stop. I’ll go ahead and double down by saying that it most definitely is reasonable for a cop to call her on her nonsense to get her back to dealing with the issue at hand.
I appreciate WSBTV mentioning that the woman’s attorney, a minority himself, acknowledges that the officer sounded as if he was being sarcastic – but the attorney goes on to say that it is unacceptable nonetheless. My question is, what part is unacceptable? If you want to say police officers using sarcasm in a “mocking nature” around citizens is a violation of courtesy and professionalism then I’m willing to listen to that argument.
Surely, there was a more diplomatic way of conveying the holes in the driver’s logic and getting her past a ludicrous attempt to stall the investigation. If instead Abbot said, “you shouldn’t believe what the media tells you about us,” even followed by a statistical soliloquy detailing why black citizens also should not succumb to media induced cop-phobia, then would that have been ok? To go full bore into the realm of racism and police brutality against black Americans is good old-fashioned sensationalism – and that’s becoming increasingly dangerous for everyone in case you haven’t been paying attention.
WSBTV also shows Cobb County Police Chief Mike Register giving the standard damage control response dictated to him by the laws of identity politics. Chief Register states:
“The statements were made by an individual and they’re not indicative of the values and the facts that surround the Cobb County Police Department and this county in general.”
The Chief was obviously cowering to identity politics here as most in his position these days would, but I thought he missed the most important factor. The “statements made” by Chief Register’s officer weren’t even indicative of his own values because he didn’t express his own values in anything he said.
Abbot assumed that the woman on his stop was referring to videos of black men being shot by police and reminded her that she was not a black man in a sarcastic tone. There was no expression of a lack of values regarding fairness in race relations anywhere in any of the recorded interaction. If you’re fired up over the LT’s values as they regard to maintaining composure or politeness then that’s a far more substantive argument to make.
A Chief with a backbone ought to have given him a suspension for it and told the media to pour gasoline on the race fire elsewhere.
Sadly, Chief Register wasn’t that leader. He tried to puppet that “tough but fair” persona in announcing a firing, but neglected to tell the media of the county’s plans to actually allow Lt. Abbott to retire instead – and that’s politics for you
This is the heart of the issue for me. Those in leadership positions in the law enforcement community do not stand up for the men and women of the profession enough, instead caving under media-manufactured controversies time after time. Just last week, an Oregon Sheriff folded like a wet diaper and took down a “Thin Blue Line” American flag from the Sheriff’s staff break-room in the county courthouse. Why? A person who didn’t even belong in there saw it, became unreasonably offended, and went to the press.
A few months ago, the Chief of the Atlanta Police Department went with a knee jerk reaction in response to a video of an officer striking a non-compliant civilian during the course of an arrest when a bystander released footage to the media. The officer was put on 20-day unpaid suspension without even being given a proper investigation despite the fact that the Chief’s own police academy staff advised her that the tactics used by the officer were in-line with what is taught.
The politically correct action is often not the correct action and identity politics is cancer. Police leadership needs to come back down to earth on this. Put the flag back up in the break room and allow officers to honor their fallen comrades.
Pay that APD officer his back pay for doing his job the way he was taught. For goodness sakes – remind Lt. Abbott of the current witch-hunt on officers, suspend him for a day for not having the tact in the moment to deal with a person playing games, and let us all get back to protecting our communities.
