Ringside Report Puts The Spotlight On The Fraternal Order of Police!

By Joyce Davis

I grew up in the hood of Detroit. We had so many gangs it was ridiculous. There was even a gang called the Eight Mile Smurfs. I didn’t know about Crips and Bloods until I moved to Texas. Once a friend of mine told me that the biggest gang in the entire world are police officers. He challenged me to compare. I was young so I did not know much but my response was honor. Crips and Bloods were gangs and there was no honor in that. He explained the reason kids joined gangs was for protection. In these neighborhoods children can get brutalized and murdered and the cops do not care. The only means of protection were your boys, your set, also known as your gang. The honor was in the looking out for one another no matter what. You had your boys back regardless of what he did or who he did it to. Maybe behind the scenes you told your boy what he did was wrong but you got his back. He looked at me and said tell me that ain’t the cops? I could not. That happened in my teens. I still remember it because it made an impact on me. In just about any hood cops are considered a gang you don’t mess with because they have the system on their side.

Prior to January 6, 2021 the way I saw cops was as a big blue wall.

Someone every now and again may say something was wrong but for the most part they stuck together and never spoke out about too much. After the Sixth of January they began to speak out about what they went through because Republican leaders were openly denying what happened in order to protect Trump. Republicans have chosen to protect domestic terrorists over protecting The United States Of America that they took an oath to protect. The Capitol police officers protected the Capitol. To this day they are still traumatized and injured from the events of that day. Through their hurt and distress they have to listen to the people that they protected pretend what happened to them was minimal. They watch them call domestic terrorist Patriots, and political prisoners. Which is disgraceful, unacceptable, and should mean removable from office. Instead it is being embraced all around the country.

The Capitol Hill police officers for the most part want support. Throughout the years police officers that kill someone have representation and people coming out in public to defend their actions. Officer Michael Fanone was on CNN after the July 27th hearing that took place in Congress. He displayed a voicemail of a man calling him all sorts of vile names and wishing he would get beaten some more all because he did not let them get through to stop the certification and keep Trump as the president. Not because he did anything wrong or said anything disrespectful but because Trump did not get his way. Mr. Fanone said this is what happens when you tell the truth in “Trump’s America”.

These officers have gone through a great deal of assault from Trump supporters to right wing media who want to discredit them so they do not look like heroes and it gives their viewers the okay to mock them and make fun of them. Try as I might I have not seen an overwhelmingly cry of support for these people who put their bodies and souls on the line to protect America. Officer Dunn called them cowards and said what they do doesn’t affect what he does. Officer Fanone said he spent time testifying in court and he always felt most comfortable when they had to resort to theatrical tactics because it meant they no longer had facts to work with.” He also said the problem with these entertainers is the people who watch them take it seriously and then you end up with results like January 6th.

The one set of people I expect to be behind then would be the police union. FOP Fraternal Officers of Police is the Union that represents the police officers. They actually pay dues to the union for protection. They pay because police need advocates that are not bound by a code of silence that the police have taken. Yet the union has chosen to take the position to protect Trump and the insurrectionists instead of the police officers that fought against them. Officer Fanone said he talked to Patrick Yoes, the National President of FOP. He was disappointed that after six months it was Fanone who had to contact Yoes. He was very specific in what he wanted support to look like. He asked them to denounce the 21 Republicans that voted against them getting a gold medal for January 6th participation, denounce lawmakers that miss characterize or lies about the events that happened on January 6th especially the guy saying it was a love fest between them and the cops, denounce Paul Gosar’s characterization that what the officer who took deadly force against Ashli Babbitt did was wrong, and denounce inactive, or retired police officers that participated in those events. Not one of those things seems like too much to ask for and if anything those are the smallest things you can do but much more should be done to protect their officers. To this day no such thing has happened.

Mr Yoes was questioned by the media as to why the union chose to protect Trump and insurrectionists instead of his dues paying police officers and he responded that he supported them with whatever they needed since the beginning and that he did not want to get political. They have my undying gratitude. They did not ask for your gratitude but your support. These officers are being attacked by fellow Americans because they protected America.

The very people that are supposed to protect and be advocates for police officers are taking the side against those very police officers. By refusing to speak out in support or denounce those that come against those officers they say they support traitors to this country. When it came to BLM they spoke out publicly against BLM. They called them a terrorist group. Yet now when it comes to speaking out against an actual terrorist group they no longer get into politics. Is it because you are a racist group? Is that what makes it okay for you to speak out about BLM as terrorists and not Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, Three percenters or any of the other domestic terrorists that actually committed a terrorist attack against America?

This is shameful. There should be outrage. No one should feel comfortable with anyone taking up for domestic terrorists yet right in front of our eyes it is happening. The police who have been known to be an impenetrable force have been divided into those who protected America against those that were sent to attack America. The Capitol police officers that fought to save democracy need our voices.

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