Mike O’Meara, president of the New York Police Benevolent Association, gave an epic speech today slamming the media today for treating them like “animals and thugs”.
Watch below:
O’Meara starts by pointing out that there are 375 million police interactions with the public every year and they are overwhelmingly positive. But says that he reads in the paper that “mothers are worried about their children getting home from school without being killed by a cop.”
O’Meara passionately exclaims “what world are we living in?! That does not happen! It does not happen!”
He continues:
“I am not Derek Chauvin. They are not him. He killed someone, we didn’t. We are restrained. And you know what – I’m saying this to all the cops here. Because you know what? Everybody’s trying to shame us. The legislators. The press. Everybody’s trying to shame us into being embarrassed about our profession.
Well you know what? [He holds up his badge] This isn’t stained by someone in Minneapolis. It’s still got a shine on it, and so do theirs. So do theirs. Stop treating us like animals and thugs and start treating us with some respect. That’s what we’re here today to say.
We’ve been left out of the conversation. We’ve been vilified. It’s disgusting! It’s disgusting – trying to make us embarrassed of our profession. 375 million interactions. Overwhelmingly, overwhelmingly positive. Nobody talks about all the police officers what were killed in the last week in the United States of America. And there were a number of them.
We don’t condone Minneapolis. We roundly reject what he did as disgusting. Disgusting! It’s not what we do. It’s not what police officers do. Our legislators abandoned us. The press is vilifying us. Well you know what guys? I’m proud to be a cop! And I’m going to continue to be proud to be a cop until the day I retire.”
That was just fantastic. And boy is it something that people need to hear. If anything needs to be shared, it’s this speech.