With all the lurid details of the Bolton Book coming out, it seems theat the BLM protests and Atlanta Police walk-out are getting lost in the coverage. I have a unique perspective on this. In 2009, I was the federal commander of a task force. One evening, after serving a 1/

2/ search warrant, I caught a ride back to the office with a local detective on my TF. We were riding along when we saw a guy slide through a stop sign. "I've got to pull him over," the *veteran detective* told me. What? You kidding me? Traffic tickets?

3/ "Yeah. Budget problems. Everyone is required to carry a ticket book and give them out. They're *counting*"
Now, the FBI doesn't quite have the same immunity some PDs seem to have - you're immune if the *FBI* determines you are in the scope of your employment. But we knew

4/ It was sometimes in the Bu's interest to say we weren't. Traffic stops for moving violations are most certainly NOT in the scope of an FBI Agent's employment. Agents aren't even Peace Officers in California.
"Don't worry," he said. "It's fine."

All I could think was,

5/ "Please don't find drugs or anything!" Because I was well aware that this simple traffic stop - one of the most dangerous tasks in any profession - could turn into a shooting match.

Over a traffic stop...

For a stop sign...

...to support the budget for more overtime.

6/ Maybe you see where I'm going. This was a good detective - a good cop - and a member of my task force. He and I were risking our lives and the lives of the people in the vehicle (and potential bystanders) because he was required to write tickets. No tickets, no overtime.

7/ This left the question in my mind for years: How is this a job for the police? Our job on the task force was to investigate and stop child sexual predators - something of which I think the vast majority of people would approve.

Why risk human life over a moving violation?

8/ I've been thinking a lot about this incident since the @LastWeekTonight piece on "defund the police." Why do we keep sending in armed people to handle non-life-threatening incidents? How have we created this self-licking ice cream cone that monetizes danger, rather than

9/ Protecting the innocent? We know minorities unfairly take the brunt of this - on both sides of the badge, as it turns out. We know that in the heat of passion and fear, people will die for stupid things. A drunk guy sleeping it off at a Wendy's? So what?

10/ Even if - somehow - you think that shooting was justified, how was the *encounter* justified?

If you send in armed and armored people to handle non-life-threatening incidents, lives will be lost. It's really that simple.

11/ It might be true that when "all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."

Police unions seem so busy trying to justify the shootings their officers get into, they don't seem to have time to ask the question, "Why was he/she in that position in the first place?"

12/ Instead of actually looking out for their officers and their community, these unions instead foster bad leadership and a narrative of "us against them."

No doubt some of that is because if armed officers weren't needed for every tail light bulb that burned out,

13/ who would pay the union dues? It's easier to twist a narrative of "let's watch each other's backs" - once about keeping each other safe - into one that means "let's lie for each other."

Instead of "It's us *for* them," it becomes, "It's us *or* them."

14/ All of which leads to a toxic culture, greater risk to Human life, and the anger and rage we've seen spilling out in the last several weeks.
It is time to rethink how Law Enforcement is to be done - it's supposed to be a *service* to help people, not a weapon against them.

15/ I've been in an FBI office when we indicted a local Sheriff. I've had to deal with the "be very careful if their deputies pull you over - they will try to incite violence. Don't let them."

Were all of those deputies evil? I'm sure they didn't think so - we were

16/ the "others" who weren't "looking out for our brothers." That comes from a culture made toxic from the top down - and a system that puts everyone's lives in danger by assuming every situation will become life-or-death - virtually guaranteeing that many will.

17/ Whether you're tweeting blue or black lives matter, you have to agree that all of them would matter more if we didn't place *everyone* in mortal danger for trivial reasons - all to feed a system which has become corrupted by a "war on crime" mythology that

18/ unfairly targets the poor and minorities, and casts them as "enemies to be defeated" instead of "citizens we serve." The "war on drugs" sounds like it would target big criminal masterminds - but they're rare and hard to find, so it gradually settles for going after anyone

19/ who happens to end up in the crosshairs for a dime bag. The "war on crime" turns into having body-armor-wearing troopers pull people for going 5 mph over the speed limit - and then asking to search the car - desperately trying to find something to "defeat."

20/ We've created an entire army to go after Al Capones, but there aren't enough Al Capones, so we - incongruously - send soldiers to hand out tickets, then send our "thoughts and prayers" when something terrible inevitably happens.

It's time to change.