XPost: tx.guns, alt.culture.african.american.history, alt.politics.economics   
   XPost: alt.impeach.obama   
   From: race.war.coming@barackobama.com   
      
   The incident had the hallmarks of an execution. Harris County   
   Deputy Darren Goforth was filling up his patrol car at a   
   suburban Houston gas station Friday when a man he had never met   
   walked up behind him and opened fire, police say.   
      
   The suspect, Shannon Miles, is in custody but "we have not been   
   able to extract any details regarding a motive at this point,"   
   said Harris County Sheriff Ron Hickman.   
      
   In struggling with the overwhelming senselessness of the loss,   
   Sheriff Hickman turned to what, for the nation at large, has   
   become a familiar topic.   
      
   “We’ve heard black lives matter, all lives matter,” he said at a   
   press conference. “Well, cops’ lives matter, too.”   
      
   The anti-police rhetoric surrounding the Black Lives Matter   
   movement, he added, has ramped up “to the point where   
   calculated, cold-blooded assassination of police officers   
   happens.”   
      
   In the aftermath of tragedy, it is perhaps an understandable   
   sentiment. The comment came on the same day that a group of   
   Black Lives Matter protesters in Minnesota appeared to chant   
   offensive anti-police slogans. And it echoed the comments of a   
   police union official last December when two New York City   
   police officers were ambushed and killed by someone who had   
   participated in Black Lives Matter protests. There was "blood on   
   the hands" of the mayor for standing with protesters, not cops,   
   police union chief Pat Lynch said at the time.   
      
   Beneath such comments is the implication that the fallout from   
   last year's protests in Ferguson, Mo., has made police beats   
   more deadly. But are vigilante attacks against police on the   
   rise post-Ferguson?   
      
   So far, data don't dismiss the idea, but nor do they show strong   
   evidence supporting it. Though there was a jump in the number of   
   police killed in so-called ambush attacks last year, it was   
   within recent norms. And while the numbers for police killed in   
   ambushes this year are not available, the overall number of   
   police killed by guns is down and near historic lows.   
      
   Instead, Hickman's comments appear to point more to a broader   
   challenge to morale in police departments nationwide. Public   
   confidence in police has fallen to a 22-year low, according to   
   Gallup, and that has left departments from Baltimore to Virginia   
   Beach, Va., feeling "under siege."   
      
   "When you see officers in Baltimore going through what they're   
   going through – and in Ferguson and New York – that affects   
   morale here," Brian Luciano, president of the Virginia Beach   
   Police Benevolent Association, told The Virginian-Pilot. "You   
   just see your brothers and sisters, and that could be you."   
      
   Some officers have said that they see more belligerence in those   
   they stop on the street. But there is not yet strong evidence to   
   support what Harris County District Attorney Devon Anderson said   
   he worried was an "open warfare declared on law enforcement."   
      
   Last year saw a spike in overall police deaths by gunfire (51).   
   But 2013 had marked a 33-year low (27), and data for this year   
   suggest a return to pre-2014 levels, with 23 officers killed by   
   gunfire as of Aug. 30.   
      
   The number of police killed last year in ambush attacks also   
   tripled to 15, according to a report by the National Law   
   Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. But 15 officers were also   
   killed in ambush attacks in 2009, 2010, and 2011, CNN reports.   
   Police ambushes can be connected to a variety of causes.   
      
   Last year, for example, an antigovernment sniper made headlines   
   when he killed an officer at a Pennsylvania police barracks in   
   September, and two policemen were shot point-blank last June   
   while eating at a Las Vegas pizzeria by a couple trying to start   
   a "revolution."   
      
   For their part, many Black Lives Matter activists say they want   
   peaceful police reform. And for some police officials, the   
   rising concern is less about personal safety than running afoul   
   of society's changing expectations for policing.   
      
   "Police are under siege in every quarter," said Gene Ryan,   
   president of Baltimore's Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 3, in a   
   statement. "They are more afraid of going to jail for doing   
   their jobs properly than they are of getting shot on duty."   
      
   Studies have found that police cope with the operational stress   
   of doing their jobs far better than they do with organizational   
   stress.   
      
   On Saturday, hundreds of Houston residents showed up at the   
   Chevron station where Mr. Goforth was killed to offer support   
   for police officers amid trying times.   
      
   Carol Hayes, an African-American woman who attended the vigil,   
   told NBC News that her family had always felt welcome in the   
   area. "I wanted to demonstrate that all lives matter, regardless   
   of color," she said.   
      
   http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2015/0830/Texas-cold-   
   blooded-assassination-Black-Lives-Matter-rhetoric-to-blame   
      
       
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)