Sheriff Leon Lott of Richland County, South Carolina is a dangerously stupid man who says terrible and insidious things regularly. This week, he said that his office is "
declaring war on gangs." He went on to say, "We're coming after them."
This is the same sheriff Leon Lott who recently got into a very public tiff with Governor Nikki Haley over a proposed law that would require the state law enforcement division (SLED) to investigate all officer-involved shootings. Dangerously stupid person Leon Lott believes that it's perfectly acceptable for police to investigate themselves when officers are involved in shootings.
The question is not a theoretical one for Lott. It was one of his officers who opened fire on a man at a Columbia gas station as that man reached back into his car to comply with the officer's request that the man present his driver's license. Lott's training has produced the sort of trigger-happy officer who might kill an unarmed citizen, and Lott's proven himself woefully inadequate at building the sort of departmental culture that values and respects life.
Look - no one likes gangs. Gangs are bad, even when we understand them as a social response to oppressive conditions. But this kind of incendiary talk is the last thing that we need during a time when police are increasingly convinced that they're actual soldiers in a war zone.
Lott went on to say lots of other things, including:
“There are just a bunch of punks out there with guns not caring who they shoot,” Lott said. Motives for such shootings include gang members feeling disrespected or believing another gang member “snitched” on them, he said.
He went on to say:
"[I]f you are a victim of a shooting and you’re in the hospital, when you get out of the hospital, you’re going to jail if you refuse to cooperate with us.”
Let's get one thing straight. The people who Lott is talking about in that last quote are victims of crime. When Leon Lott threatens to send gunshot wound victims to prison for "refus[ing] to cooperate," what he's really showing is that he doesn't value those people who he is sworn to protect.
Given that Lott presides over a sheriff's office that trained an officer who fired multiple bullets into an unarmed man for the crime of complying too quickly with an officer's commands, perhaps dangerously stupid person Leon Lott should think twice before he claims that any group is "just a bunch of punks out there with guns not caring who they shoot."
Because when dangerously stupid person Leon Lott begins using big words like "war" when describing the job that his police are going to do on the streets of the United States in response to potential crimes committed by citizens of his county, he might just get his own trigger-happy cops worked up. In a sane world, where the Richland County Sheriff's Office employs officers who've proven themselves capable and of sound judgment, this kind of rhetoric would be harmless. But this is not that world. And dangerously stupid person Leon Lott doesn't preside over that kind of department.
He presides over one that's so likely to kill its own citizens that dangerously stupid person Leon Lott thought it necessary to fight the governor for the right of his own department to investigate those inevitable shootings when they happened.
It's time for dangerously stupid person Leon Lott to shut up and do his job, whatever that is. Go after gangs, for sure, and do everything possible to prevent crime while acting within the bounds of the constitution. It's become clear that officers are having increasing amounts of trouble telling the difference between the "enemy" and the average guy minding his business. It should go without saying that in the mind of many cops, the distinctions between gangbanger and "guy running for help after wrecking his car" are sufficiently skewed. In light of this environment, no sheriff needs to think in terms of the war he's bringing to his own streets. Especially this sheriff, these officers, and these streets.