Garrett Styles - The Blue PR machine spins up again | #policeculture

From teh Tumblr.

Lives on the line.

Sudden tragedy.

A sobering reminder.

Heroes in blue.

Gave his life in the performance of his duty.

Officers coming from all over to pay tribute to a fallen comrade.

It’s a mythology with a lot of miles on it. You can practically write this shit in your sleep.

Just one question: even if we allow for the sake of argument that this mindless fetishizing of men in uniform is a good thing, how come we don’t see this kind of blanket, wall-to-wall, 24/7 coverage whenever a Canadian soldier gets killed in Afghanistan?

Yeah, I know. I’m an insensitive bastard.

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Police budgets, and how a phony narrative gets manufactured

Earlier this week, the Star ran an essay in which the best mayor Toronto's had in the last half-century argues that there's plenty of wasteful spending in the police budget, and that if the Ford regime is serious about trimming fat and stopping the gravy train, there's lots of room to cut there.