California has nothing better to do, so a pair of elected officials have introduced a bill that “would end the use of K-9 units for arrest, apprehension, and crowd control.”
Police dogs would still be permitted in other situations, such as explosives detection and search and rescue missions. …
[But?]
“From the brutal attempts to quell the Civil Rights movement, Black Lives Matter protests, and their day-to-day use in law enforcement, police K-9s remain a gross misuse of force and victimize black and brown people, disproportionately,” [Assemblymember Corey] Jackson said during a press conference announcing the bill last week. “The need for AB 742 is apparent, not only through a historic perspective but also through the clear racial disparities we see every year.”
In a press release, the assemblyman cited research that said that black and Latino individuals are more likely to be involved in K-9 apprehensions. According to Jackson, 65% of those seriously injured by police dogs in 2021 were “people of color.”
Some much-needed detail is absent from this statement, like K9 involved apprehensions as a percentage of all apprehensions by race. Detentions or arrests are demographically distributed. Crimes and convictions. Calls for police assistance. But if we did that, we might discover other unpleasant truths.
Black-on-black crime, especially murder, has long been exponentially higher than any other race vs. the black population, but we’re not allowed to talk about that. It’s uncomfortable, especially for Democrats who have worked so hard to destroy families and fathers whose chronic absence is a well-known factor in the community’s cycle of poverty and violence.
So what about the dogs?
Officials have underscored the critical role K-9s play in keeping law enforcement safe and protecting suspects from potential deadly force; they see the bill as counterproductive to its aim.
Sheriff Mark Lamb, of Pinal County in Arizona, told OAN last week that he’s “absolutely seen cases where lethal force would have been justified, and was likely going to be used next had the [police] dog not been effective.”
I’m not seeing that holding water with the California Assembly, and if we go back to the black-on-black crime reality, there’s very little evidence they care about mortality.
It’s virtue signaling, much like the defund movement, which pandered to a false narrative and resulted in more harm than benefit. I doubt this is much different.
So, d the dogs have a union? Maybe the Teamsters or the SEIU should step in to speak for them. Shepherds are, after all, dogs of color.
Woof!
