I am unpaid subscriber to Weiss's Substack and I caught your article. A great look at the other side of the argument with people who are close to the situation. I'm also glad you got the exposure. I wish more people would follow you because your opinions are nuanced and balanced.
Great piece, Leighton. The mainstream coverage of criminal justice and police issues since Ferguson and most dramatically since Floyd has turned my whole worldview upside down and illuminated a dark Orwellian PsyOps universe to which I had previously been blind. For anyone familiar with the world that Towers describes in your article, which I am as a result of having worked in the courts for the past decade primarily on the criminal defense side, the mainstream coverage and discussion of these issues has not even been making contact with reality. These out of touch (or opportunistic) academics, pundits, and politicians, like Cori Bush, have developed a narrative around these issues that is completely delusional and hostile to the interests of the most vulnerable people in our society, while purporting to be their champions.
I am sympathetic to the criminals who come out of these crime-ridden communities because, if you are surrounded by violence since childhood and do not have a stable home environment, criminality is a likely outcome. While I don't deny their agency and responsibility, and I recognize that many products of these environments rise up above the criminal element, I often think that I could easily have been a criminal if I had the life experiences of my clients.
At the same time, I am horrified by the acts they commit and the harm it causes not just to the victims but to the entire communities. I am also horrified by the extent to which such acts are normalized within these communities. I cannot imagine living in a neighborhood where I have to worry about random violence and gunfire, even while inside my own home. How can anyone be expected to learn, grow, and thrive in such an environment? Life is hard enough for people like me who don't face that reality.
To deny that reality, and to shout down and vilify anyone who mentions it, in the name of "social justice," "equity," "Black Lives Matter," and "anti-racism" is psychological warfare of the most pernicious variety. We need to recognize and grapple with the reality Towers describes in an innovative and evidence-based way for the sake of the people who live in these communities. It sounds like Towers is trying to do just that. Pretending the problem does not exist doesn't accomplish anything except creating space for left-wing demagogues like Cori Bush, Kendi, Charles Blow, etc., to become rich and powerful by riding a wave of white guilt. It also gives the likes of Antifa a pretext for burning and looting while declaring themselves to be brave warriors for justice.
Having seen this propaganda campaign for what it is, I find myself in the uncomfortable position of questioning everything from establishment sources, which is not my general disposition. I want to believe the New York Times. I want to believe peer-reviewed journals. I want to believe the CDC. But I can't anymore, at least without solid supporting evidence.
During trials, jurors are often instructed something like, "a witness false in one part of his or her testimony is to be distrusted in others." Applying this instruction, I can no longer trust mainstream media, left-wing academia (which is to say 90+% of academia), and government bureaucracies who have peddled these false narratives around crime and policing. I am grateful for reporters like you, Taibbi, Weiss, Greenwald, Kirn, and others who are calling establishment sources on their bullshit. May your audiences continue to grow.
The scary thing is it's not just you: the media has actually, quite demonstrably changed (which has been one of the themes of this substack). Not to say that it was great to begin with, but it's become bad in ways it didn't used to be, and on net far worse. I suspect millions of people are questioning their own mental health when they read the news and listen to establishment sources and feel like they're in the Soviet Union being force fed Pravda, but their mental faculties are in fact just fine — the information sources they rely on really have become as detached as they suspect they have.
I was questioning my mental health by June 2020. Then I took to the internet to see if other people were seeing what I was seeing and stumbled upon one of Taibbi's articles. Have been an avid Substack reader ever since.
The trick was to escalate the propaganda campaign through coverage of Trump. I really did not pay that much attention to Trump coverage and really did not read it critically for the first few years of his presidency. He seems like an awful person, they're saying he's an awful person, they're probably right. Trump's apparent awfulness gave the media license to remove their shackles (also known as "ethics") and say whatever they want without drawing skepticism.
As Taibbi said, Trump's the most lying and most lied about president in American history. Having left reality in the dust in the name of protecting democracy from dying in the darkness, there was no turning back for the media. The rules of the game had changed entirely. Like a frog in a boiling pot (frogs actually escape, but it's a good metaphor anyway) a critical mass of the engaged public (like most of my family) still haven't woken up to what happened.
"The trick was to escalate the propaganda campaign through coverage of Trump. I really did not pay that much attention to Trump coverage and really did not read it critically for the first few years of his presidency. He seems like an awful person, they're saying he's an awful person, they're probably right. Trump's apparent awfulness gave the media license to remove their shackles (also known as "ethics") and say whatever they want without drawing skepticism."
Very astute analysis. That mirrors my experience entirely. In my case, I really started to see the issues with the election coverage, where I was fully on board with the idea that Trump was attempting to steal the election, and that he needed to be opposed, but I often found myself questioning the quality of the arguments being made about him, and craving a simple list of the claims he and his fellow travelers made against the actual evidence. The only coverage of that was a heavily slanted and *heavily* summarized coverage of the court cases. I had to go read the actual court cases themselves to figure out what was really going on, because the media simply were not bothering to even recapitulate, let alone analyze the details.
That's the maddening thing about this - you really have to do your own homework to figure out what's really going on. We (and/or advertisers) pay the media to help us out with this because our time and resources are limited, but the media has utterly failed us.
Good independent journalists (like many on Substack) fill the void, but their resources to thoroughly report on a wide variety of issues remain limited (e.g., limited foreign correspondents). Also, quality and trustworthiness vary. They seem to be finding more and more ways to pool resources and coordinate between each other, but it'll be a while before they are able to provide the full depth and breadth that a lot of us want to help make sense of the world.
I have my doubts about pooling resources leading to the best journalism. For one, these folks all have to make a living. That means talking about the things their audiences want to hear about. That means limiting the diversity of voices (to be clear, when I say diversity, I don't mean identity diversity; I mean idea diversity). I *want* to have a few successor ideology writers in that group, a few serious conservatives, a few progressives-to-socialists. The only unifying point I want them all to have is respect for reasoned arguments.
If we don't get something along those lines, with true diversity, the subset of substack simply becomes another media "wing" serving its readers what they want to read.
Great piece, Leighton. I admire how I can know where your personal opinion seems to fall on these issues without you ever using inflammatory language or being unfair in your reporting.
Excellent piece. But a quick note; I think that some of the necessary reforms need in policing today, such as changing qualified immunity, will be quashed in the coming challenge of getting enough police back to make up for all the damage that was done to the idea of policing and being a police officer over the last year. And that sucks, to be blunt. This is literally going to set police reform back 20 years if not more.
The thing is, I’m not sure why qualified immunity is getting banner headlines in the defund movement. My husband was a police officer for 5 years, including being the top recruit in his 7-month-long police academy, and when I recently asked him what he knew about qualified immunity he said, “uh I dunno it’s some obscure legal thing.” Qualified immunity comes into play so infrequently as to be essentially meaningless to the average police officer, but it’s being used as proof that the whole policing system is corrupt.
In reality it’s a minor if important protection that says an individual officer can’t be sued for actions carried out in the line of duty. If some higher up in the ranks are applying that inappropriately, that’s a different issue.
But by removing it you’re telling officers that they can be personally sued for doing the job they’re hired to do, without their employer being held responsible.
Having qualified immunity does not mean officers can’t be prosecuted for committing crimes while on duty. Just look at Derek Chauvin.
QI has often been used to cover gross violations of the use of force, such as no-knock raids on the wrong residence that end up with a person killed. Now, I do know and understand that a) accidents happen in the line of duty and b)use of force is a sad but often necessary component of policing. That said, far too often horrendous behavior is excused and waved away with QI.
I see what you're saying, but how is a no-knock warrant being served at the wrong address an individual officer's fault? Like, the officer read the address wrong? Or they're carrying out a warrant on an address that isn't based on good data? If you're referring to Breonna Taylor that was awful and should never have happened, but that's something that doesn't happen if no-knock warrants are no longer a thing that can happen.
"how is a no-knock warrant being served at the wrong address an individual officer's fault?"
Seriously? Can they not read? Can they not enter the correct information when they present it to a judge? Police officers are given permission from society to use lethal force. Damn straight they should double-check every single thing. If they feel the need is so strong as to bust in without knocking to serve a warrant, then they need to feel the repercussions if they screw that up. Much like the mass deaths the ATF caused in the Koresh massacre, there are better ways of doing it.
If a warrant, as required by law, had been obtained, then there would be zero ground to sue the officer, however, no warrant was obtained and the victim should be able to seek redress up to having the officer arrested for breaking and entering or any other crimes that an ordinary citizen should be liable to. But, as the article mentions, he is not held to that standard.
I’m not arguing that officers shouldn’t be able to read or enter correct information. I’m saying the one mentioned in the reason article is not representative. Changing policies so that no knock warrants are not even an option takes care of the vast majority of those types of cases.
And on further thought, what that reason article highlights it's the breakdown of disciplinary action by both the BRPD and the city itself. Because of QI, the city paid out a settlement.
It makes no sense for a city to pay out tens of thousands and keep the guy on staff. That's corruption right there.
My problem with rhetoric on QI is it's still focusing on individual officers as though making one pay in civil court would fix the system. It won't. In fact it will make recruitment of good officers harder, and it will further disincentivize departments and cities from enacting good policies.
"But, as the article mentions, he is not held to that standard." Then rid the goddamn chief. Recall the city council.
My question to the defund crowd is simple: "then what?" Defund the police totally, then what? Abolish the police and prisons, then what? What happens next? It won't be all unicorn farts and fairy dances.
I am unpaid subscriber to Weiss's Substack and I caught your article. A great look at the other side of the argument with people who are close to the situation. I'm also glad you got the exposure. I wish more people would follow you because your opinions are nuanced and balanced.
Great piece, Leighton. The mainstream coverage of criminal justice and police issues since Ferguson and most dramatically since Floyd has turned my whole worldview upside down and illuminated a dark Orwellian PsyOps universe to which I had previously been blind. For anyone familiar with the world that Towers describes in your article, which I am as a result of having worked in the courts for the past decade primarily on the criminal defense side, the mainstream coverage and discussion of these issues has not even been making contact with reality. These out of touch (or opportunistic) academics, pundits, and politicians, like Cori Bush, have developed a narrative around these issues that is completely delusional and hostile to the interests of the most vulnerable people in our society, while purporting to be their champions.
I am sympathetic to the criminals who come out of these crime-ridden communities because, if you are surrounded by violence since childhood and do not have a stable home environment, criminality is a likely outcome. While I don't deny their agency and responsibility, and I recognize that many products of these environments rise up above the criminal element, I often think that I could easily have been a criminal if I had the life experiences of my clients.
At the same time, I am horrified by the acts they commit and the harm it causes not just to the victims but to the entire communities. I am also horrified by the extent to which such acts are normalized within these communities. I cannot imagine living in a neighborhood where I have to worry about random violence and gunfire, even while inside my own home. How can anyone be expected to learn, grow, and thrive in such an environment? Life is hard enough for people like me who don't face that reality.
To deny that reality, and to shout down and vilify anyone who mentions it, in the name of "social justice," "equity," "Black Lives Matter," and "anti-racism" is psychological warfare of the most pernicious variety. We need to recognize and grapple with the reality Towers describes in an innovative and evidence-based way for the sake of the people who live in these communities. It sounds like Towers is trying to do just that. Pretending the problem does not exist doesn't accomplish anything except creating space for left-wing demagogues like Cori Bush, Kendi, Charles Blow, etc., to become rich and powerful by riding a wave of white guilt. It also gives the likes of Antifa a pretext for burning and looting while declaring themselves to be brave warriors for justice.
Having seen this propaganda campaign for what it is, I find myself in the uncomfortable position of questioning everything from establishment sources, which is not my general disposition. I want to believe the New York Times. I want to believe peer-reviewed journals. I want to believe the CDC. But I can't anymore, at least without solid supporting evidence.
During trials, jurors are often instructed something like, "a witness false in one part of his or her testimony is to be distrusted in others." Applying this instruction, I can no longer trust mainstream media, left-wing academia (which is to say 90+% of academia), and government bureaucracies who have peddled these false narratives around crime and policing. I am grateful for reporters like you, Taibbi, Weiss, Greenwald, Kirn, and others who are calling establishment sources on their bullshit. May your audiences continue to grow.
The scary thing is it's not just you: the media has actually, quite demonstrably changed (which has been one of the themes of this substack). Not to say that it was great to begin with, but it's become bad in ways it didn't used to be, and on net far worse. I suspect millions of people are questioning their own mental health when they read the news and listen to establishment sources and feel like they're in the Soviet Union being force fed Pravda, but their mental faculties are in fact just fine — the information sources they rely on really have become as detached as they suspect they have.
I was questioning my mental health by June 2020. Then I took to the internet to see if other people were seeing what I was seeing and stumbled upon one of Taibbi's articles. Have been an avid Substack reader ever since.
The trick was to escalate the propaganda campaign through coverage of Trump. I really did not pay that much attention to Trump coverage and really did not read it critically for the first few years of his presidency. He seems like an awful person, they're saying he's an awful person, they're probably right. Trump's apparent awfulness gave the media license to remove their shackles (also known as "ethics") and say whatever they want without drawing skepticism.
As Taibbi said, Trump's the most lying and most lied about president in American history. Having left reality in the dust in the name of protecting democracy from dying in the darkness, there was no turning back for the media. The rules of the game had changed entirely. Like a frog in a boiling pot (frogs actually escape, but it's a good metaphor anyway) a critical mass of the engaged public (like most of my family) still haven't woken up to what happened.
"The trick was to escalate the propaganda campaign through coverage of Trump. I really did not pay that much attention to Trump coverage and really did not read it critically for the first few years of his presidency. He seems like an awful person, they're saying he's an awful person, they're probably right. Trump's apparent awfulness gave the media license to remove their shackles (also known as "ethics") and say whatever they want without drawing skepticism."
Very astute analysis. That mirrors my experience entirely. In my case, I really started to see the issues with the election coverage, where I was fully on board with the idea that Trump was attempting to steal the election, and that he needed to be opposed, but I often found myself questioning the quality of the arguments being made about him, and craving a simple list of the claims he and his fellow travelers made against the actual evidence. The only coverage of that was a heavily slanted and *heavily* summarized coverage of the court cases. I had to go read the actual court cases themselves to figure out what was really going on, because the media simply were not bothering to even recapitulate, let alone analyze the details.
That's the maddening thing about this - you really have to do your own homework to figure out what's really going on. We (and/or advertisers) pay the media to help us out with this because our time and resources are limited, but the media has utterly failed us.
Good independent journalists (like many on Substack) fill the void, but their resources to thoroughly report on a wide variety of issues remain limited (e.g., limited foreign correspondents). Also, quality and trustworthiness vary. They seem to be finding more and more ways to pool resources and coordinate between each other, but it'll be a while before they are able to provide the full depth and breadth that a lot of us want to help make sense of the world.
I have my doubts about pooling resources leading to the best journalism. For one, these folks all have to make a living. That means talking about the things their audiences want to hear about. That means limiting the diversity of voices (to be clear, when I say diversity, I don't mean identity diversity; I mean idea diversity). I *want* to have a few successor ideology writers in that group, a few serious conservatives, a few progressives-to-socialists. The only unifying point I want them all to have is respect for reasoned arguments.
If we don't get something along those lines, with true diversity, the subset of substack simply becomes another media "wing" serving its readers what they want to read.
Well done.
Great piece, Leighton. I admire how I can know where your personal opinion seems to fall on these issues without you ever using inflammatory language or being unfair in your reporting.
Excellent piece. But a quick note; I think that some of the necessary reforms need in policing today, such as changing qualified immunity, will be quashed in the coming challenge of getting enough police back to make up for all the damage that was done to the idea of policing and being a police officer over the last year. And that sucks, to be blunt. This is literally going to set police reform back 20 years if not more.
The thing is, I’m not sure why qualified immunity is getting banner headlines in the defund movement. My husband was a police officer for 5 years, including being the top recruit in his 7-month-long police academy, and when I recently asked him what he knew about qualified immunity he said, “uh I dunno it’s some obscure legal thing.” Qualified immunity comes into play so infrequently as to be essentially meaningless to the average police officer, but it’s being used as proof that the whole policing system is corrupt.
In reality it’s a minor if important protection that says an individual officer can’t be sued for actions carried out in the line of duty. If some higher up in the ranks are applying that inappropriately, that’s a different issue.
But by removing it you’re telling officers that they can be personally sued for doing the job they’re hired to do, without their employer being held responsible.
Having qualified immunity does not mean officers can’t be prosecuted for committing crimes while on duty. Just look at Derek Chauvin.
QI has often been used to cover gross violations of the use of force, such as no-knock raids on the wrong residence that end up with a person killed. Now, I do know and understand that a) accidents happen in the line of duty and b)use of force is a sad but often necessary component of policing. That said, far too often horrendous behavior is excused and waved away with QI.
I see what you're saying, but how is a no-knock warrant being served at the wrong address an individual officer's fault? Like, the officer read the address wrong? Or they're carrying out a warrant on an address that isn't based on good data? If you're referring to Breonna Taylor that was awful and should never have happened, but that's something that doesn't happen if no-knock warrants are no longer a thing that can happen.
"how is a no-knock warrant being served at the wrong address an individual officer's fault?"
Seriously? Can they not read? Can they not enter the correct information when they present it to a judge? Police officers are given permission from society to use lethal force. Damn straight they should double-check every single thing. If they feel the need is so strong as to bust in without knocking to serve a warrant, then they need to feel the repercussions if they screw that up. Much like the mass deaths the ATF caused in the Koresh massacre, there are better ways of doing it.
Here is a good example of what I am talking about: https://reason.com/2021/06/24/this-cop-conducted-3-warrantless-searches-in-under-3-years-he-gets-to-keep-his-job/
If a warrant, as required by law, had been obtained, then there would be zero ground to sue the officer, however, no warrant was obtained and the victim should be able to seek redress up to having the officer arrested for breaking and entering or any other crimes that an ordinary citizen should be liable to. But, as the article mentions, he is not held to that standard.
I’m not arguing that officers shouldn’t be able to read or enter correct information. I’m saying the one mentioned in the reason article is not representative. Changing policies so that no knock warrants are not even an option takes care of the vast majority of those types of cases.
And on further thought, what that reason article highlights it's the breakdown of disciplinary action by both the BRPD and the city itself. Because of QI, the city paid out a settlement.
It makes no sense for a city to pay out tens of thousands and keep the guy on staff. That's corruption right there.
My problem with rhetoric on QI is it's still focusing on individual officers as though making one pay in civil court would fix the system. It won't. In fact it will make recruitment of good officers harder, and it will further disincentivize departments and cities from enacting good policies.
"But, as the article mentions, he is not held to that standard." Then rid the goddamn chief. Recall the city council.
My question to the defund crowd is simple: "then what?" Defund the police totally, then what? Abolish the police and prisons, then what? What happens next? It won't be all unicorn farts and fairy dances.
Then what?
Then what?