Bob Lonsberry

Bob Lonsberry

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LONSBERRY: THE RPD IS YOUR PROTECTOR, NOT YOUR ENEMY

They are lying.

               The people who say that the Rochester Police Department is racist, that it is oppressive, that its officers are thugs and criminals, an occupying force on behalf of white supremacy.

               They are lying.

               The Rochester Police Department is an honorable, lawful, disciplined institution for good, comprised of imperfect people who also happen to be noble, brave and virtuous. People who have enlisted in a service that has as its core purpose the protection of others, the promotion of safety and the fight against evil.

               This is a worthy band of brothers and sisters of every background and hue, some who pray and some who curse and every single one sworn to serve and die on the public’s behalf. They don’t go to work, they go on combat deployments of eight hours or 10 or 12, where they comfort crying children and rescue beaten women and stand between evil and good.

They tie tourniquets and give CPR and run toward the sound of the guns.

While, increasingly, they get sworn at and challenged, harassed and hated, punched and kicked, the targets of bottles and bricks.

It is an ingrate that bites the hand that feeds him, it is a dying society that attacks its defenders, and it is a lie that says good is evil.

And the Rochester Police Department is a force for good.

Equality before the law – and God – was the first assertion and is the perpetual objective of the American Republic. For almost 250 years, the United States has marched closer to that goal, doing so in a fashion often far ahead of the rest of the world. The institutions of American society – including the police – make that possible.

To attack those institutions – including the police – is to attack the structure and future of American freedom. To attack the police – to defund and disarm them – is to leave American communities defenseless against crime and oppression.

Repeating for emphasis: To attack the police is to attack the American people and their freedom.

And to specifically attack the Rochester police is to lie to do it.

Because the Rochester Police Department is not some theoretical or philosophical debating topic for the politically progressive. It is a group of some 700 specific individuals commanded by a police chief who has a name and a record. It is an entity whose actions are recorded and documented, whose work is done under the scrutiny of omnipresent cameras, angry activists and antagonistic reporters.

And the district attorney and the attorney general and the governor.

And when they get it wrong, they get hit, and they get hit hard. They get fired, they get prosecuted, they get convicted. They get hung out to dry.

And when they get it wrong – when individual officers violate procedure or break the law – they have it coming. And history shows the department and the system give it to them, without hesitation.

That is truth.

But saying that the department itself and its officers as a group are racist is not the truth. It is a lie. It is a purposeful, defaming, divisive, toxic lie.

And it is being told about a department that, at the same time it is being turned against by neighbors and newscasts, is standing up against a dramatic nationwide escalation in violence. As the echoes of gunfire compete with chants to defund the police, the officers and investigators of the Rochester Police Department have been relentless in the defense of their city.

They have not let up, they have not backed off, they have not gone into defensive mode.

And their selfless service has only been met with more insults on the nightly news, as lying activists and politicians partner with their public-relations assistants holding microphones and television cameras.

So let’s set the record straight.

The Rochester Police Department is deserving of the praise and gratitude of the city and region. Attacks upon it in the context of a national movement or a national political campaign are unjustified, dishonest, immoral and wrong. Politically correct letters from corporate suites and crude insults in chalk or spray paint are cheap and wrong when they defame the RPD and its officers. Spitting upon, swearing at and defaming the Rochester police – whether from the steps of MLK Park or the woke salons of white suburbia – is despicable.

People might have their feelings against “the” police, but they are wrong in their attacks against “these” police. The Rochester Police Department is your savior, not your enemy.

And any claim to the contrary is a lie.


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