I don't feel the need to elaborate on factors affecting use of force because of the excellent job done by protect and toothless, however, I would like to comment on the brief discussion about police being more or less safe under Obama's reign. He started off right at the gate by calling officers foolish for the way they handled a reported break-in at a black Harvard professor's residence. I give him props for trying to remedy the sitch by inviting them for beers at the White House. But that may have been the only time a police officer was invited compared to blm being invited multiple times.
If less officers were killed during his administration, it was certainly not because of any actions he took to protect officers. I don't know if any officers that felt like he had their blacks, I mean backs. Excuse me.
Anyway, I think the number of officers dying in the line of duty has been dropping since the 70s, but not because the job is so much less dangerous, but rather the improvement in equipment and tactics.
And the last 3 years of his administration saw what was referred to as the fergusson effect, in which officers definitively became less proactive. This was because of a few different reasons.
First, officers felt under attack, and not just physically, but on the news, social media, and the potus low opinion of officers. So the officers, being human, were hurt and basically said "fuck it" for a while.
When officers are being proactive, they are going specifically after the serious criminals. Big time drug dealers and gang members. Some may say that drug dealers are not "serious criminals" because they are selling a service that has a demand, it is a non violent offense, etc. but drug dealers and gangbangers are often one in the same. And I am not talking about the college kid or the hippie peddling pot. But street drugs. These guys are killers. They protect their turf with violence(see Chicago) and rob people, shoot rivals, and cops. So maybe a few less officers were killed in the line of duty because they were not going after these bad dudes.
And regardless of the numbers of police officers killed, I can't remember too many times where an officer(s) were gunned down while sitting in a patrol car/having lunch with the exception of that asshole all those years ago in Spokane wash.
Under the last few years of Obama and the proliferation of blm and an increasingly violent anti-cop movement on the internet and social media, cops became actual targets of assasination rather than a bank robber, domestic violence call, or crankhead trying to avoid jail. Being fueled by anti-cop sites such as those dickbags at copblock and other social media sites, people were whipped into such a fury, that a few of the people talking about liking cops actually went out and did it in the most cowardly way possible. They would walk up to a cop car and just start shooting. And while CNN and dick lemon were having town hall meetings to bash cops, they spent approximately two minutes talking about the murder of police officers before changing the subject to "why did these misguided souls feel threatened enough to shoot the police officers?" Because Mike brown, who died with a frown? Or Eric garner, and let us not forget the convicted sex offender and multiple felon(for robbery, sex crimes, shooting someone, multiple felon in possession of a firearm) Alton sterling, who was shot by police while trying to get rid of the illegal firearm he had and had displayed prior to police getting called about a man selling pirated cds flashing a gun. But the news and social media reports "man shot for selling cds" which angered some scumbag enough to shoot and kill three police officers. Had he shot Alton sterling instead of the cops, there would be no March, no riot, no anger, and about as much media coverage as a mouse fart. And this was weeks after Dallas, where some cockgobbler shot and killed six innocent police officers. And what were people angry with about that situation? Was it that police officers were murdered? Nope. It was because dalllad pd blew this asshole up with a robot.
My ranting point comes down to this: regardless of the numbers of police officers killed under the Obama administration, it was the manner in which they were assasinated. First in the news media and socal media, then in real life. And this train has not derailed or even slowed down. The cop hate only seems to grow and these cowardly attacks will continue. And I will say one more thing. It is never the officers that are dirty, or even the ones that are abusive or shooting people(like the tx cop that just racked up his third shooting in 18 months with the first two being fatal) it is some innocent cop(s) sitting in a patrol car.
