In the very small hours of the morning on Monday, May 3rd, 42-year-old Detroit police Officer Brian Huff was shot and killed — and four of his fellow officers were shot and wounded — in a gun battle with a 25-year-old man with a history of violence against police. The officers had responded to a 911 call reporting shots fired. According to one news report, the officers entered the home and “were met with heavy gunfire.” Officer Huff, a 12-year veteran of the force, and his partner were the first to arrive at the house, considered by many who know the area to be a drug house. That a pound of marijuana was reportedly recovered from the scene would seem to verify that widely-held suspicion.
It is a sickening disgrace that at least one member of the community is responding to the incident by creating a hateful video praising the Detroit killer and calling for the murder of more cops. The YouTube video speaks for itself. The video was posted by an individual with the username “NatTurnersArmy” — according to his online profile, this person has 54 “subscribers,” another 72 “friends,” and apparently hates “ALL police both local (Washtenaw County PD) and the feds.”
Click on the image to the right to see the video, which we have uploaded to a secure section on BLUtube. Out of respect for the family and friends of Officer Huff, and out of simple human decency, Police1 will not repeat the hateful words spewing from the mouth of this individual, who is reportedly now the subject of an investigation by the Washtenaw County (Mich.) Sheriff’s Department. We will, however, share the words of several of our expert columnists and contributors, and we encourage you to add your own thoughts in the comments area below. We have set this article as secure, law enforcement only in an effort to prevent the posting of any civilian comments. We appreciate your continued vigilance to alerting Police1 staff if you see anything said by someone you suspect to be falsely claiming to be a police officer.
Police1 Columnist and Street Survival Seminar Instructor Betsy Brantner Smith says that, as she (with her husband, Dave Smith) had predicted last year, the ‘War on Cops’ continues in the United States.
“We are once again reminded that not everyone grieves when a police hero falls,” Smith tells Police1. “Much of the Oakland community hailed Lovelle Mixon as a hero for the murder of four Oakland police officers in March of 2009, and family, friends, and strangers had helped Maurice Clemmons avoid capture for days after the assassination of the Lakewood Four (until Officer Ben Kelly refused to be his 5th victim, killing Clemmons last December). We in law enforcement have known all along that indeed, there are some who celebrate the death of a cop. More than ever, we have got to stay strong, stay vigilant, and be prepared. We may be the hunted, but we must operate always as the hunter, even as we patrol the streets of our own communities, helping those who welcome us, need us and respect us.”
Police1 Columnist Dick Fairburn agrees: “It’s no secret that there are cop haters out there — and they’re becoming bolder. We’ve seen multiple-officer shootings in Oakland, Pittsburgh, and Lakewood. Now it’s Detroit. A couple of years ago, I had the FBI LEOKA office send me ten years of data on multiple-officer shootings, and I got a whole box full of information from them. The only pattern I found was our normal, ‘one at a time response’ I call a staggered response. I developed a street leadership course, focused on developing leaders with a mindset to do things differently. We need to change that solo, staggered type of response into a ‘pack of sheepdogs’ type of response.”
In an excellent article from December 2009, Police1 Contributor Joel F. Shults says that “anywhere on the Internet where malcontents can anonymously unload salvos of bile, you’ll find police officers almost universally disrespected, disregarded, and dehumanized.” Shults’ hypothesis on that has again been proven correct.
“I believe America has entered an era of identity crisis that involves a curious self-loathing,” says Shults in an email to Police1 this morning, sent after he had seen this revolting video. “At the center of this collective psychic crisis is the armed government agent playing the visible role of both conscience and oppression. Our profession can’t avoid the ‘big brother’ label when the hard work of education is supplanted so easily by legislation that makes armed government agents the national babysitters who have to make you wear your helmets and seat belts, stop smoking, show your papers, and pay your taxes and fees. I don’t know what the answer is, but leaders from all spectra of our culture — not just law enforcement leaders — must acknowledge the growing anti-government and anti-police poison in the air and develop a unified response. In the meantime, every law officer has to add assassination to his or her daily fears.”
