I love you, America. I love your Constitution, it’s Bill of Rights. I believe they are divinely inspired. I love those who served to keep you free. I love those who died in that service.

I was a Marine for four years. I was also a New York City Transit Police Detective; I retired after twenty-six years. 

Today, I struggle to understand how differently many of my fellow veterans and law officers think. This administration clashes with nearly everything those uniforms taught me.

There are so many issues we can discuss about this administration, but I need to focus on these:

I was a union man. The Transit Police Benevolent Association secured my health care, workplace protections, and pension. These were gained through collective strength, the power of a union. This president consistently sides with big business and against unions.

Only 9.9% of Americans are in unions today. Working men and women, and their families, need the power of unions to better share in the American dream. 

I’m also baffled by how many police officers oppose stronger background checks for gun buyers. Law enforcement sees, firsthand, the damage done by firearms in unstable hands. Wanting only mentally sound, non-violent people to own guns isn’t anti-Second Amendment—it’s pro-cop and pro-family safety.

As a Marine, I find the president’s performances of respect for the military hollow. Yes, he salutes on camera. But, when he was scheduled to visit a military cemetery, the Atlantic reported he said, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.”

In a separate conversation, in that same piece, President Trump referred to the 1,800 Marines who died at Belleau Wood as “suckers” for getting killed.

The president denied it.

But when I saw in the Atlantic,  and on T V, his contempt for Senator John McCain, “He’s not a war hero. I like people who weren’t captured,” it gave credence to the “suckers” and “losers” comments. 

In that same article, President Trump called former president George H.W. Bush a “loser” too for getting shot down by the Japanese as a Navy pilot in World War II.

Sen. McCain endured years of torture as a prisoner of war serving America. He deserved better from the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. So did former president George H.W. Bush. 
In my decades in law enforcement, I rejected excuses for the riot violence against cops, and I reject them now. Which is why January 6 matters.

More than 1,600 people were convicted in American courts for crimes related to the Capitol attack. They were given full due process under the Constitution that veterans fought and died to defend. Over 600 rioters were charged with assaulting law-enforcement officers; hundreds were convicted; many served prison sentences.

They were all pardoned. Along with a convicted international drug trafficker serving a forty-five-year sentence. This was a trafficker in the drugs that fuel street crime. The drugs that officers risk their lives fighting, in back-alley buy and bust operations.

Those pardons were not acts of mercy. They were acts of contempt—for the law and for law enforcement.

Yes, border enforcement matters. But enforcement is not the same as a violent spectacle. These heavy-handed tactics only increase the likelihood of needless injuries and deaths. They also create widespread community distrust of law enforcement. Professional police departments work long and hard to build trust in the communities they serve.

For six years, I was assigned to the N Y P D’s Felony Warrant Squads. Three years in the Bronx Warrant Squad, three years in the Queens Warrant Squad. I served one more year in the Transit Police Warrant Squad.

We didn’t flood neighborhoods with phalanxes of masked officers. Our military and police have uncovered faces with shield numbers and names on their chests. Power without accountability is corruption.

What I see on the streets of America is the corrupt use of power.
We’d conduct investigations with a low-key approach, usually knocking on doors in two-officer plainclothes teams. If the wanted person wasn’t present, we’d leave cards with our names, command, and squad phone number.

I arrested over 600 wanted felons and child neglect/child abuse subjects. My partners arrested hundreds more. We accomplished most of these with little or no force. During my time in these squads, we shot no one.

All police work is dangerous; nothing can be treated as routine.
When you’re apprehending felons, there will be a time for force. Sometimes subjects were injured through the use of necessary force, and sometimes officers were. 

Sometimes, officers have been shot, some killed, while executing warrants. I was lucky; the worst injury I suffered had me hospitalized for four days from human bites.

We’d sometimes locate someone in another state who was wanted on a low-level warrant, like a violation of probation. In these situations, we declined extradition.

The logic was practical: don’t spend thousands on airfares chasing someone whose case is minor. If the person reenters the state and is caught during a traffic stop or a turnstile jump, the warrant will fall.

This strategy should be applied by I.C.E.

Except for those wanted for serious crimes, those wanted for immigration violations should be minimally pursued in sober, measured ways. Not in street spectacles of raw, disruptive, and dangerous power.

In a strange turn of intention, an open warrant can help prevent crime.

I once arrested a man wanted on a ten-year-old warrant. He was 18 when he failed to appear for community service for a first offense. He fled to upstate New York. For a decade, he lived quietly, worked as a house painter, and avoided any trouble. He stayed out of the system entirely.

But one day, he pulled out of a parking lot and went the wrong way on a one-way street. A cop pulled him over. My partner and I drove up to get him.

As we drove back to New York City, he told me what his life was like during those ten years. He was afraid to renew his driver’s license or join the painters’ union for fear of discovery.

Sometimes a warrant hangs over one’s head like an anvil ready to drop. It forces people to stay trouble-free in America.

When the NYC judge heard his history, the warrant was vacated, and he was set free. That’s what wise, proportional justice looks like.

The uniforms I wore—military and police—taught me loyalty to the Constitution, not to a man.

That’s what I was taught while wearing those uniforms. That’s why I can’t support this president. Not despite my service—but because of it.

God bless America. God bless all who served, all who died for us. Too many Americans lost their sons, daughters, dads, and moms defending our country.

It is disgraceful to see their loved ones called “suckers” or “losers.” These families suffered enough pain.

Like this family:

Be well,

Leebythesea

U.S.M.C. 1959 to 1963

NYC Transit Police 1966 to 1992

See also, Wherethesundontshine.net