PAX Centurion - Winter 2016 - 2017

www.bppa.org PAX CENTURION • Winter 2016-2017 • Page 13 Tough times ahead for rank-and-file BPD Once again …“we’re all alone and always put in the middle…” D OESN’TMATTERWHAT SIDEYOUWERE ON, Democrat or Republican, or whether you’re happy or angry about the results of the presidential election. If you’re a cop, the bottom line is that the immediate future – once again – places us squarely in the middle of everybody else’s anger, resentment and displeasure. In Boston, an already shorthanded patrol force endured increasing amounts of mandatory, forced overtime shifts – even before this past election. Now, the possibility of repeated protests and continued civil unrest threatens to overwhelm a beleaguered and aging department. Across the country, many police departments report the same phenomenon: even as fewer and fewer younger recruits are attracted to police work, the demands placed upon shrinking police forces have dramatically increased. The fledgling left-wing protest movement now has a “raison d’etre” (“reason to live”) as the result of President Donald Trump’s election. Largely based on unfounded fears, perceptions, “feelings,” rumor and innuendo; and fueled by an angry mainstream media feeding impressionable college students false information, the protest movement has not yet coalesced into anything approaching the anti-war riots of the Vietnam-era. But make no mistake, whatever the movement’s grievances – real, perceived or imagined – we, the rank-and-file police officers, will find ourselves smack-dab in the middle. The bomb-throwers and professional agitators of the elitist media and academia will find an ample supply of pliable, human ammunition in the army of disaffected people and indoctrinated college students for whom President Trump and conservatives are anathema. The thin blue line – growing ever thinner – will once again be pressed into service as the line of demarcation between civil order and anarchy. Virtually all officers who were around during the Vietnam-era protests have long-since retired. Some officers (yours truly among them) remember the protests against President Ronald Reagan during the mid-80’s. Back then, the liberal media drummed up By James W. Carnell, Pax Editor protests against Reagan as he bargained with the Russians from a positon of American military strength. The protest movement accused Reagan of war-mongering and bringingAmerica to the brink of nuclear war. Movies such as “The DayAfter” (about life after a fictional nuclear Armageddon) incited fear among the public. Giddy protesters, eager to rekindle the “glory days ” of the Vietnam war, 60’s/70’s anti-war movement ramped up and held daily protests at the JFK federal building and other locations. Papier-Mache’ puppets bobbed and weaved down Tremont St., as protesters accused President Reagan of being ….”racist, sexist, anti-poor, war- mongerer”….(fill in the blank). In other words, the exact same set of circumstances as are occurring in front of us today. The movement died a quick death as the U.S.S.R. (that was the “Union of Soviet Socialist Republics,”AKA “Russia,” for those of you in college today…) disintegrated, communism was overthrown, and Reagan was proven correct in his foreign, domestic and military policy. The difference is that the scrutiny and the second- guessing for police officers are 100 times more intense than they were back then. Then, cell-phone cameras were non-existent, and omnipresent video surveillance was in its infancy. Then, there were still a few remaining judges who may have qualified as being “pro-police/ law-and-order”. Today, they’re as rare as a free cup of coffee. Also, back in the 80’s, the number of younger cops entering the work force was increasing, and the job was still very attractive, especially as a family tradition. Sadly, that tradition, too, has become rarer today. Life has been breathed into the professional protest movement with the election of Donald Trump. The radical phoenix rises from the ashes. It might consist of a hundred different causes du jour right now, but one thing is certain: the thin blue line will be thrust in the middle, and the bottles, bricks, rocks, insults and cell-phone cameras will be trained on us. Watch your backs and watch each other. Is it any secret why we’ve lost so many young officers to the fire department over the last few years?