Colin Flaherty Quotes

Here is your law enforcement and media question of the day: Was the TV show COPS real or BS?

It might have been real incidents, but it wasn't really all that real. They edited the episodes to make it appear as if black people were committing fewer crimes. That is what the show creator John Langley said in a 2009 interview in response to people who were unhappy his long-running reality show, COPS, was showing too many black people getting arrested.

What irritates me sometimes is critics still watch and say, 'Oh look, they misrepresent people of color.' That's absolutely not true. To the contrary, I show more white people than statistically what the truth is in terms of street crime..It's just the reverse. And I do that intentionally, because I do not want to contribute to negative stereotypes, said Langley, the show's producer, in 2009.

Ninety-nine out of a hundred conversations in the media about race go through the same kabuki: Ignore the victims. Humanize the thugs. When it is over, congratulate each other for superior moral sensitivity.

The flip side of the rising tide of black mob violence is what the prison psychologist calls "infantile omnipotence." This is the feeling that because something has not happened to you directly, you can ignore it. Like an infant who thinks it is not vulnerable to any danger, because all it has ever known is the safety of the womb or the crib.

This is what accounts for widespread willingness to ignore the violence among members of the media and some members of the public.

Let's not forget Chicago. There have been tons of attacks on Chicago Transit Authority buses and trains. The head of the CTA said riders should be more aware of their surroundings. More blaming the victim. Maybe the riders need some pamphlets on how not to anger the rioters.

When the Department of Justice came in and found the school had a long history of black-on-Asian racial violence that school officials ignored, school officials admitted they might have had a problem. So they printed up some pamphlets and gave them to the Asian students, instructing them how to avoid antagonizing their black schoolmates with their racist behavior.

Something happened and I confirmed it. Or I did not write it. There is no seems. I did not say the attack was anti-white. I describe the attackers as a mob of black people as part of a pattern of such attacks.

What is it with Florida? In Pensacola, Jack Crawford answered his door only to get cracked on the head with a bat. "About 8:45 p.m., three teenage males knocked on the door." As soon as Crawford opened the door, "Wham! Split my head open," Crawford said. "So I shot him and another guy." Of the three intruders, one was white. "Crawford said he wasn't too rattled by the attack, and he still felt comfortable staying in the home." Crawford is not in danger of prosecution because of Florida's "Stand your Ground" law.9

I don't do the mob mind-reading trick, so I do not speak to motivation. But I do keep my eyes open and watch what happens. It is called reporting.

Note to reporters: The sanctimony thing probably works better on someone who has never broken real stories.

Writing about race and crime was not new territory for me. But it can be treacherous. So here are my rules: No stereotypes. No generalizations. No explanations. No apologies. Just the facts, ma'am.

Just say anything without even caring if it is true. That is how riots start.