We need to thank our police

Since the POTUS, Mayor De Blasio and Rev. Sharpton failed to say this in any of their statements yesterday - please allow me to do so. Thank you to the NYPD for protecting the law-abiding citizens of NYC, and to all policeman everywhere.  Ninety-nine+ % of you are dedicated to our protection and
our civil rights and I applaud you. Also, Thank you to the Grand Jury of the Garner case who spent 3 months examining evidence and listening to and evaluating testimony. It could not have been an easy job. You exercised your obligations as citizens and I thank you for that even if the POTUS, Mayor and Reverend failed to thank you. I did not sit on that Grand Jury and neither did the POTUS, Mayor or Reverend. The decision was yours to make and I respect that. The Grand Jury has spoken and we should accept the Grand Jury's decision.

I do not dismiss the tragic deaths of Eric Garner, Michael Brown and Tamir Rice. But if the POTUS, Mayor and Reverend have forgotten let me remind them that one was selling cigarettes illegally, one had just robbed a convenience store and another was an unsupervised minor with a gun. None of this was mentioned in their public statements. Perhaps there was excessive force used in these cases - but that determination is to be made by a Grand Jury; NOT by acts of violence that include looting, arson and inciting riots. There are legal, civilized and peaceful avenues to changing laws and changing public attitudes. Violence is not that avenue. I am very disappointed that this 'leadership' and the media describe our police as public enemies. While searching for solutions to the racial divide in our country, let's also show some support for our local police and for our legal system.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

On The Twentieth Century 2015

Image
Last night I saw a revival of "On The Twentieth Century" at the beautiful American Airlines Theatre. "20th Century" was the first Broadway musical that I saw on Broadway, 37 years ago.  I had forgotten how very funny this musical was. Kristen Chenowith was born to play Lily Garland/Mildred Plotka. In this role she fully demonstrates her magnificent voice and great comedic skills.  Peter Gallagher was a great hammy and handsome Oscar Jaffe. I've always thought the Oscar Jaffe character was based on the late impresario David Merrick.  Andy Karl was very good as the egocentric Bruce Grannit although not as agile as Kevin Kline was 37 years ago in pratfalls and comic timing.  Nevertheless he was quite funny.  Mary Louise Wilson was a scene stealer as the nutty Letitia Primrose and much better and funnier than the original Imogene Coca.  The sets were again a star of this show - as they were in 1978. Almost all the action takes place on a train traveling ...
Read more

History always repeats itself

Image
When I moved into my old Long Island township 30 years ago garbage collection was privately run. You had to contract with a private company to pick up your garbage.   The township did not take care of it.  I had not moved into my new house 2 days when I got a pounding on my front door from some Italian goombah trying to shake me down for $100 to get my garbage collected.  Either that or I would have to drive 12 miles every week to personally dispose of my trash in the town;s waste management dump.  I refused to pay this guy unless he provided me with a contract and an invoice.  That came in the mail 2 days later.  And then, after signing their contract, they started picking up my trash.  No more than 3 or 4 months later there was a shootout in the street about 6 blocks north of my house.  Three trash collectors were gunned down in the early morning while picking up trash.  One of them was killed. 1987. It was the top story in Newsda...
Read more

Grumpy Old Man? Not me!

I would never consider myself to be a “grumpy old man”.   I believe I try to be pleasant to everyone (except to mean or rude people.   I have no tolerance for them).   But then again, I am from New York.   Now New Yorkers are actually friendly people.   Hollywood might have convinced the rest of the country that we are rude and competitive and would knock our own mother down if she got in our way.   But that is just not true at all.   Still, I realize that the adjustments I need to make for the overly friendly culture of Florida is happening too sloooowly for me. I will give you a typical example:   When I lived on Long Island, if I needed to pick up a quart of milk at the grocery store, I was able to drive there, park, enter the store, find the dairy section, grab a quart container of milk, get in line at the check-out counter, pay for it when the cashier announced the total I owed, slip the quart into my grocery bag and leave the store – wi...
Read more