The author has a unique background as a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the Marine Corps Reserve, news reporter, former White House Correspondent for Fox News, former morning talk cohost of “Fox and Friends,” and current anchor of “Greg Kelly Reports” on Newsmax TV.
As the son of NYC Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, he had a firsthand look on the importance of law enforcement in America, including the police and ICE. Now the progressives and left want to abolish these organizations that attempt to keep Americans safe. In this book, Kelly stands up to these people who call to defund the police and explains why police officers, military veterans, and other agencies of law enforcement should be applauded instead of maligned and delegitimized. Below is an interview with Greg Kelly regarding his book, which covers very relevant issues that are once again playing out on the streets of the US.
Recently, someone just shot a Georgia State Patrol trooper near the Atlanta autonomous zone. Other law enforcement personnel evacuated the trooper to a safe area as they returned fire in self-defense, killing the shooter. In response to the incident, Antifa accounts on Twitter attempted to organize a day of violent action in different cities across the country to avenge the death of their “fallen comrade.” In fact, in Atlanta six people were arrested for domestic terrorism and arson.
“I quote in my book how Antifa is a loose confederation of goons and losers who dress up in black to anonymize themselves when they go out in gangs to destroy things…They are uniformly ugly, sad scum who claim to be ‘antifascists and anarchists, and who cherish the idea of murdering police officers and burning down property.”
Kelly stated, “Antifa is another example of the ludicrous example of the insanity of the left. They are truly evil, trying to undue the American way of life, trying to convince themselves everything valued reflects White Supremacy. It is sad only the Conservative media is taking them on. Even the Federal Government only calls them an idea, a myth, a theory, denying what we see. They are real and denying them is dangerous. They are a movement and an organization.”
Another event occurred on January 7th where five Memphis police officers have been fired and charged with murder in the death of Tyre Nichols, a Black man who died three days after a traffic stop. He was beaten, pepper sprayed, tasered, and the video appears to show the accusations by the police unsubstantiated.
Every profession has good people and bad people. In the book, Kelly explains “People serving in uniform are still just people. I have seen great Marines and I have seen Marines convicted of serious crimes.” He goes on to say that he will not reflexively assume “that anyone in uniform is above criticism.”
He directly commented, “the race of all five officers involved complicates the narrative for those on the left, Black Lives Matter, and the mainstream media. Body camera is important, but it does not tell the entire story. Let the system play out. I am all for law enforcement but am against the knee jerk defense of law enforcement. I remember my father coming home after the Rodney King incident in 1991 and said, ‘those cops need to be arrested.’ Yes, there are bad cops, but do not call into question the entire profession. Where is society going and what will happen to society if all police are demeanized?”
In San Diego, the City Council is considering voting for the Protect Act, an acronym for “Preventing Over Policing Through Equitable Community Treatment,” written by members of the Coalition for Police Accountability and Transparency. The ordinance seeks to change the legal standard for police stops and searches from “reasonable suspicion” to “probable cause.” It also would prohibit officers from questioning people about any offenses beyond the one someone was stopped for. Kelly noted, “What I have seen is how the institution of policing in general has been called into question. Behavior in part and parcel with normal police work has been delegitimized. People watching MSNBC would infer there is something inherently racist and unjust about policing. Police are not able to do their Constitutional ability.”
The book explains how his dad, Commissioner Kelly, made sure police had outreach to the black community in NYC, recruited black and Latino police candidates, and tried to stop crime with “Stop, Question, and Frisk.” In 2013 the NYC police had a 70% approval rating with Commissioner Kelly’s approval rating at 76%: 59% with African Americans, and 63% with Hispanics.
Kelly noted, “My father is one of the greatest law enforcement professionals who ever lived, the longest serving police commissioner in the history of NYC, twelve years, from 2002 – 2014. One of my dad’s landmark achievements was the safe streets, safe city program, which was very effective. This set the stage for the turnaround. He is very much an innovator, competent, with a lot of integrity. He was the right man for the right job at the right time. Regarding “Stop, Question, and Frisk” there are no viral videos of this policy, throughout my dad’s tenure, even after the smart phone became prevalent in 2007.”
“What happened is that Bill de Blasio gets elected Mayor, pretends the NYPD is broken, then pretends to fix what was not broken, and then actually breaks it. Now we have Eric Adams as Mayor. He is a hateful man, has no business being Mayor. He has no managerial skills, very little experience. He has been clever in co-opting some on the right by saying all the correct things, ignoring what he has said the previous thirty years or the things he has said to other audiences. It is a disgrace that he became the mayor.”
What does he want Americans to get out of the book? “I wrote it because I am frustrated that police have been scapegoats, lied about, and savagely denigrated. I am in a profession to say this out loud. I have this book quote which summarizes what I hope Americans come to understand, ‘I want to speak for everyone to express gratitude to every member of the law enforcement community and the US military. Every day, they are endangering their lives to protect ours, and they should be held in the highest esteem by each one of us.’ Policing has always been difficult. There are very few jobs which entails a significant loss of life under ordinary circumstances. Now it is much harder.”THANK YOU!!
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