Pavlov’s Protesters

The masses recently took to the streets again, this time in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, to protest yet another police shooting of a black man, one Kevan Ruffin. “Being black is not a crime!” they shouted. “No justice, no peace!” They bore aloft placards that read “Jail Killer Cops Now!” “Stop Police Brutality,” and “Until the color of your skin is the target, you will never understand.” The black man was murdered, opined one relative. Would the officer have acted differently had Ruffin not been black, wondered another. Yet another relative pointed out that the officer could have shot Ruffin in the leg, arm, shoulder, or foot to incapacitate him; that he didn’t do so indicated the officer was deliberately shooting to kill. The black marchers were joined by a surprisingly large percentage of useful white woke idiots—oops!—make that allies.

So what actually happened with Kevan Ruffin? Police received an early morning call that a woman had been terrorized by a man wielding a pair of knives, and the wielder turned out to be Ruffin, who was also known to have mental problems. The weapons actually turned out to be Asian martial arts implements called sai. At first glance, they appear to be long, narrow dirks with prominent crossguards that angle forward. In reality, they’re not blade weapons at all but rather tapering steel batons. They can’t cut, but if swung, they can fracture a skull, and if used to thrust, they can put out an eye and pierce the brain. The War on Cops: How t... Mac Donald, Heather Best Price: $16.73 Buy New $16.61 (as of 05:30 UTC - Details)

The responding officer, Bryan Pray, observed Ruffin walking down the opposite side of the street, sai and all. Officer Pray approached Ruffin respectfully, calling him by name, asking how he was doing, and inviting him to have a seat. Ruffin—a rather big lout—immediately advanced on Officer Pray, who backed up, issued verbal commands, and finally deployed his stun gun, but to no avail. Ruffin then began chasing Officer Pray in earnest, the latter having to draw his pistol and get off rapid shots while precariously backpedaling in circles. After taking a number of rounds, Ruffin finally crumpled to the pavement in the middle of the street.

The shooting—caught on video—demonstrates the silliness of suggesting that Officer Pray should have aimed for Ruffin’s extremities to incapacitate him. In a “fight or flight” situation, a person experiences an adrenaline dump that interferes with the functioning of fine motor skills. Under such stressful circumstances, it is easier to land “center mass” shots to the torso than to the extremities. And this doesn’t mean that police are being trained to “shoot to kill”; rather they’re being trained to shoot to end the threat. If a single non-fatal shot to the torso puts a suspect on the ground and takes the fight out of him, the threat has been ended. In this case, however, even after Officer Pray had fired his last shot, Ruffin continued to chase him before finally collapsing. The Courageous Police ... Chaix, JC Best Price: $35.81 Buy New $18.99 (as of 04:27 UTC - Details)

This was a totally justified shooting of a maniac running amok and attacking a police officer after having terrorized a civilian; no telling what he might have gone on and done had Officer Pray not stopped him. Yet on the same day of the shooting, without having all the facts, demonstrators later made false accusations that Officer Pray was a “killer cop” who needed to be jailed, that he was a murderer, that he killed Ruffin for no other reason than the color of Ruffin’s skin, that he was guilty of police brutality, and that this was an injustice for which there would be no peace. What we have here is a mindless, manipulable mob, and a mindless, manipulable mob is a very dangerous thing. What is really scary is that this has become a conditioned response, even in instances of perfectly justified police shootings.

Oh, and one other thing: Officer Pray is black. Does his life matter?