Wherever there is a cause there is a scammer looking to make money off it. ‘The Blue Lives Matter’ backlash against the “Black Lives Matter’ movement is a current example. Telemarketers are calling on behalf of a cluster of similar sounding organizations purporting to be tending to the interests of our first responders. They promote such entities as the ‘Police Officers Support Association’, the ‘National Emergency Responders Coalition’ and the ‘National Coalition for Police & Troopers’.
The targets of the fund-raising calls are frequently the elderly, well known to scammers as an easier mark — especially for official sounding organizations. Seniors represent a telephone generation, some in cognitive decline, who are less likely to screen calls and think that anyone who takes the trouble to phone should be given the courtesy of a listening. If you have received one of these calls you know how persistent the metaphorical leg-breakers are. And if you give once they will not let you alone.
It is nothing more than low-rent BS. No police or fire departments receive any money. The collections all go to a super PAC, ‘Law Enforcement for a Safer America’ (LESA) which spends the money mostly on its own operating expenses, which is a fancy way of saying salaries of the PAC’s bosses and the telephone boiler rooms collecting more money.
To salt the wound, because it is a political action committee, the ‘charitable donations’ aren’t even tax deductible.
The organization’s website promotes a message completely at odds with their actual achievement
First responders place themselves directly in harm’s way and face disasters every day while protecting and serving our communities. We owe it to these brave men and women to assure that the right elected leaders are in place to press for legislation that will protect them while they risk their lives for us. Your donations will provide resources for our PAC to identify and support those candidates who will push hard for:
- Legislation and policy that promotes the safety of our First Responders.
- Legislation that helps them go home safe and secure every night and at the end of their career.
- Prompting legislators to protect the benefits of the families of First Responders who are killed while protecting us.
- Making available the tools and resources needed by these men and women to do their jobs safely and effectively.
But the only visible signs of the PAC’s activity are billboards expressing support for Trump/Pence and their pro-law enforcement position. According to information filed with the FEC, this political activism accounts for less than 2% of the revenues collected.
An increasing number of local police departments and Montana Attorney General Tim Fox have issued warnings that LESA is nothing but a self-enriching bunch of thieves. And in this case the thieves are members of a so called police union, the ‘International Union of Police Associations’, members of which are executives of LESA.
The rot runs deep. The Florida-based union itself has been identified as a fund raising scam and exposed in an article in the Tampa Bay Times with the tag line: “They promise to help families of fallen officers. But they’re mostly paying telemarketers.”
Scam charities often use the police as a hook. It is easy to scare a senior into believing that they will end up on some cop shite list if they don’t fork over the foldable. Eight of Money magazine’s top twenty worst charities present themselves as having a connection with the uniformed services.
While Trump or his campaign hardly benefit from this PAC, his inflamed rhetoric has prepared the ground for a lack of critical thinking. LESA dovetails it’s message to the victims of its scam using the same words and displaying the same images you will find in Trump campaign ads. It even features a video starting off with a scary looking Michelle Obama and trotting out the usual suspects, Pelosi, Biden and Schumer.
If you want to support your local cops bring some baked goods to your local precinct. You are already paying for them with your taxes.