"Instead of immediately shooting the criminal, to stop the attack, the officer allowed the criminal to beat Pelosi and instead tackled him many seconds later, allowing the criminal to break Pelosi's skull and inflict numerous other blows. If the officer shot the criminal, instead of wasting time in putting the gun down and then running and tackling him, Paul Pelosi would not have been injured."

^ The same could be said of the Uvalde, TX police officers who allowed a massacre of schoolchildren and two teachers to occur.

D, I disagree with the way you go from what happened at Pelosi’s house to your conclusion about policing. I don’t know what your expertise is in this area but I think your opinion is more intended to criticize Democrats than to assess the situation based on facts, police tracing, laws, etc.

Hi D,

I think your powerful brain might be overthinking this.

The reason the cops didn't shoot David DePape is because they have a well established and documented history of siding with right wing terrorists.

According to an NBC report last evening when the SF police arrived, Mr. Pelosi and the intruder appeared to be acquainted and it was only after the intruder attacked Mr. Pelosi that the police responded in full.

@Kevin- I am criticizing the Democrats for creating a culture that treats the police like criminals and criminals like victims, so now the police understandably are reluctant to use their weapons to stop criminals from inflicting injuries on innocent people. I also am criticizing the Democrats for not allowing ICE to do their jobs as the criminal who attacked Mr.Pelosi was an illegal alien and should have been deported long ago. I also criticize the Democrats for pushing no cash bail and letting criminals out, and am glad the criminal who attacked Mr.Pelosi is not out on bail. Interesting how Judges and DA's in San Francisco suddenly become concerned about crime victims when the victim is married to the second person in line to President.

@local fun guy- The criminal who attacked Mr.Pelosi was well known liberal nudist who lived in Berkeley with extreme views on both sides and is not accurately described as simply a "right winger".

@Deanna- You need to stop pushing the false story that this criminal and Mr.Pelosi knew each other and was let in the house by Mr. Pelosi. The lies and false stories repeated by Donald Trump, Jr. and others have zero credibility. Mr.Pelosi is an innocent victim, and as such deserves our sympathy and respect.

We as a society, on both sides, have lost our ability to disagree on issues without being disagreeable individuals, and we need to come together as a country and support all crime victims and let the police do their job to protect all of us. The rhetoric by both the Republicans and Democrats has escalated over the last few years and needs to stop. Everybody is too busy yelling at each other, and nobody is listening to each other.

D

Nobody asked you to write an op-ed about how liberals as a whole are to blame for Paul Pelosi's skull being cracked open by a nutjob who spent the last few years imbibing right wing media, so please don't suddenly put your hands up and say we need to stop being "disagreeable" to each other.

I'm not sure how liberal criticism of police killings has managed to magically make crime rates rise or affect any kind of change whatsoever, besides giving conservative cranks something new to be mad about all the time. Perhaps in your next op-ed you can explain the actual tangible connections between people talking about police violence in the media, and crime rates rising. I'd challenge you to use actual data rather than circular conservative logic and slogans that you saw on a bumper sticker one time.

In the reality I live in, no amount of criticism has managed to stop police from killing people. Cops have killed more Americans, year after year, without cessation, since "Black Lives Matter" and other visible criticisms of their policies began. Last month, cops shot a child to death right after an Amber Alert went out about her being kidnapped. Did those cops somehow manage to avoid hearing about police violence being bad for the last seven years?

What about the cops in the Uvalde? Were their guns magically jammed by some kind of liberal guilt-inducing phantom? Is that why they stood in a school hallway scrolling through their Facebook feeds for 45 minutes?

Maybe it's time to admit the fact that everyone else has known for a long time, that for some reason you can't seem to stomach - the police are not your friends. Having a badge does not make you a good or moral person. In fact, if you were to think about American policing as it exists in reality, and not what you see in your prime time TV dramas, you'd probably agree that they help make America an ultimately less safe and pleasant place.

@Local Fun Guy (LFC) Actually, he appears to be a Local Cop Hater (LCH)

When someone starts off a paragraph by stating: “In the reality I live in…,” I just have to chuckle. Yes, LCH definitely lives within his own reality. LCH believes that if a police officer shoots a suspect in self defense, it’s a killing, not self-defense. Um, the district attorney in the Kyle Rittenhouse case thought along the same lines, but was destroyed by Rittenhouse during questioning. It went some thing like this:


Binger: "Everybody that you shot that night, you intended to kill, correct?"

Rittenhouse: "I intended to stop the people who were attacking me."

Binger: "By killing them?" .

Rittenhouse: "I did what I had to do to stop the person who was attacking me."

See? But according to you, there is no difference. Semantics aside, you must have had a bad experience with police at some point in your life, perhaps?

By the way, the guy you called a nut job shifted from progressive activism to QAnon-type conspiracy theories. So, you are correct about the nut job title, you just need better perspective on facts.

And stop being so angry.

@local fun guy- Here are some stats from the FBI: There was a 51% increase in police officers murdered in the line of duty in 2021, the highest number since 1930. In 2021 over 60,000 police officers were assaulted in the line of duty. The result of the Democrats "de-fund the police" movement and constantly slandering their entire occupation has created a culture in our country that demonizes the police and justifies violence against them. Those police officers who died in the line of duty are our brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, children, neighbors, who risked their lives every single day to protect complete strangers from harm. Imagine having a job where you never know if you are going to come home safely to your family.

I see that you live in Blackhawk, a wealthy, gated environment, with private security. Please have some empathy for the majority of the public who does not live behind a gated wall with private security, and relies on the police to keep them safe from criminals. Please tone down your anti-police rhetoric, it is making it more dangerous for the brave men and women of the police department to do their job and get home safely to their families.

The police have a job to do and like any trade, some are better at it than others.

Trigger-happy officers should not be assigned to active patrol but given desk duties where their administrative skills can be further maximized. Though they often wear them, a desk cop does not need to carry a loaded service weapon, just a pencil and a mouse button.

On the other extreme, officers who are hesitant to openly fire at suspects regardless of the situation are often weeded-out and given less stressful assignments like patrolling elementary school crosswalks and serving as community service officers/public relations.

This is not a Democrat VS Republican issue s both parties believe in law and order to a certain extent.

The difference is their focus. While the Democrats are being branded as soft in crime towards crininals of color, the Republicans are equally soft on crime when it comes to overlooking white collar crimes being committed by wealthy white people.

Regardless of where one resides (a gated community or inner city), the police always have access to those premises providing there is a legitimate reason for them to be there.

Unless directly contacted via 911, the police should respect one's personal privacy, 4th Amendment rights, and exercise restraint before jumping the gun (no pun intended).

Law enforcement is there to protect and serve the community and as such, they must respect certain boundaries as per the Constitution by not taking the law into their own hands

@Local Fun Guy

I almost forgot…

Hey LFG, was it not the police who showed up to stop the nut job who attacked Pelosi’s husband? Maybe we should just ban police departments as a whole? Right? That way, we won’t have police investigating rape, child abductions, elderly abuse, homicide, robbery, etc. Who will be left to investigate those crimes? Better yet, let’s just close down our prisons and county jails, and get rid of the peace officers who staff those facilities.

What it comes down to is this: If you had a robbery in progress high up there in your palatial estate, and you had a chance to call the police, I guarantee that you would be the first one, voice quivering, to scream that you needed help.