The SFPD surround two men grappling on the ground. The cops are making sure that their own personal safety comes first, last, and always.

The cowardice of the different police in the Uvalde disaster clarifies what really happens in many if not the great majority of police shootings of civilians. Take the example of the police murder of two civilians in San Francisco on May 19. In that event, two men were on the ground struggling and one or both of them had knives. Over a period of about ten minutes, about a half dozen SFPD surround the two men. The cops stand a distance away with their guns drawn. They try to negotiate with the one who apparently is trying to stab the other man. At some point, that one seems to raise his knife at which point the cops open fire, killing both men. At no point does any cop approach the guy – who is on the ground – and try to take the knife away.

Bear in mind, there are a half dozen or more cops. They are all armed with billy clubs as well as pepper spray. Not a single one of them is willing to put himself in the slightest risk of the slightest injury. As you can see, several are wearing body armor, meaning that their vital organs are more or less protected, so the chances of being killed (as opposed to receiving a superficial wound) are minimal. Since the man wielding the knife is on the ground, the cops, who greatly outnumber the aggressor, are at another great advantage.

Yet their go-to action is to shoot to kill rather than put themselves at the slightest risk. How many other times have cops confronted somebody having a psychological breakdown, maybe somebody standing dazed and holding a knife, and just shot him rather than trying to disarm him?

This, of course, doesn’t take into account instances like the murders of George Floyd and others who aren’t even posing the slightest threat.

Never mind how socialists see the role of the police in society: All this stuff about the cops putting their lives on the line for us is just bull__. “Not if I can help it,” is their real motto. Or, as Chris Olivarez, lieutenant for the Texas Department of Public Safety put it, the reason the cops waited for 40 minutes to go into the classroom to rescue the kids was that “they could’ve been shot.” Keep that in mind next time you hear about our brave, dedicated police.