The progressive left has so dominated our cultural perception of high-profile police shootings that millions of people seem to earnestly believe that there is a way to enforce the law in which bad guys never get hurt and good guys never do anything the public doesn’t like.
This is, quite plainly put, complete and utter fantasy.
Enforcing the law is not pretty and it is not clean or neat. People get hurt. People die. This is the reality of life in general, and always has been throughout the whole of human history.
Anti-police leftists always want someone to hold 100% of the blame for any death that happens at the hands of police, and of course, with their sick biases against law enforcement, they always blame the officers.
The reality of high-profile police shootings, however, is that most of the time, it’s simply not that simple.
This is particularly true in the case of Breonna Taylor, and one of the injured officers involved in the raid that led to her death is setting the record straight.
Police sergeant Jonathan Mattingly issued a letter to 1,000 of his Louisville Police Department colleagues this week prior to Wednesday’s grand jury decision, defending the officers who returned fire when Taylor’s boyfriend shot then as they entered his home in a raid in March of 2020.
Taylor was struck and killed in the crossfire.
“Regardless of the outcome, I know we did the legal, moral, and ethical thing that night,” Mattingly declared. “It’s sad how the good guys are demonized, and criminals are canonized.”
BizPac Review explains that Mattingly was shot and injured when he and three other LMPD officers entered Taylor’s apartment. They were searching for a suspected crack-cocaine dealer who lived in the same apartment complex.
Although the incident has received much attention from the media as being part of a “no knock raid,” BPR says that the department has explained that they “knocked on the door several times.”
Taylor’s family, in a lawsuit, claims that they didn’t knock.
Mattingly says that he and the officers have been defamed by the media as racists and issued an apology to his colleagues for the abuse and slander they have endured in the aftermath.
He wrote:
I’m sorry your families have to go through this.
You DO NOT DESERVE to be in this position. The position that allows thugs to get in your face and yell, curse and degrade you. Throw bricks, bottles and urine on you and expect you to do nothing. It goes against EVERYTHING we were all taught in the academy.
The position that if you make a mistake during one of the most stressful times in your career, the department and FBI (who aren’t cops and would p*ss their pants if they had to hold the line) go after you for civil rights violations.
Your civil rights mean nothing, but the criminal has total autonomy.”
He went on to call out the Black Lives Matter movement, the left, and the media for demonizing police officers, most of whom are decent people and wholly committed to enforcing public safety.
We all signed up to be police officers. We knew the risks and were willing to take them, but we always assumed the city had your back.
We wanted to do the right thing in the midst of an evil world to protect those who cannot protect themselves. To enforce laws that make it possible to live in a peaceful society. We as police DO NOT CARE if you are black, white, Hispanic, Asian, what you identify as…this week.
I’m still proud to be a cop. To be an LMPD cop. With that being said, these next few days are going to be tough. They are going to be long, they are going to be frustrating. They will put a tremendous amount of stress on your families.
Regardless of the outcome today or Wednesday, I know we did the legal, moral and ethical thing that night. It’s sad how the good guys are demonized, and criminals are canonized.
I wish I were there with you leading the charge. I’ll be praying for your safety. Remember you are just a pawn in the Mayors political game.
I’m proof they do not care about you or your family, and you are replaceable. Stay safe and do the right thing. YOU ARE LOVED AND SUPPORTED by most of the community. Now go be the Warriors you are, but please be safe! None of these “peaceful” protesters are worth your career or freedom. Godspeed, boys and girls.
This is the speech that every single police officer in the United States should be getting from their superiors right now.
We will not have a country if we do not rally behind our officers of the peace and let them know we see them, we support them, we back their efforts to keep the peace. The radical left must not be allowed to win this culture war against not only police officers, but the very precepts of a rule of law. They are fascists. They are tyrants. They do not want to abolish law-enforcement: they want complete and total control over everything we think, say, do, and feel.
The police officers of our great republic, like our own Second Amendment, stand between our nation and its destruction.
We must stand with them.
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