Cop Pistol-Whipped With Own Gun Didn’t Shoot Attacker For Fear Of Making Headlines

The Alabama police officer who went viral after he was pistol-whipped with his own gun last week said he didn't shoot his attacker because he didn't want to make headlines as the nation's newest vilified cop.

The Birmingham detective, whose name has not yet been released, paused while a suspect attacked him during a traffic stop because he feared the country-wide backlash he might receive for killing a black man, the head of the local police union said Friday.

"Local law enforcement officers are walking on egg shells because they're so hesitant of how to interact because of what's taking place in the media," police Sgt. Heath Boackle, president of the Fraternal Order of Police, told the Daily News.

"They're losing these confrontations," he added. "He who hesitates is lost."

Images of the bloodied officer lying limp and face-down on the ground quickly went viral after witnesses dispersed them on social media, where the wounded deputy was heavily mocked by cop critics.

"Pistol whipped his ass to sleep," one Facebook user wrote.

The plainclothes Birmingham cop was investigating a string of burglaries when he stopped a GMC Yukon and was attacked by the driver who immediately got out of his vehicle, authorities said.

The suspect, 34-year-old Janard Cunningham, allegedly stole the detective's gun during the struggle and clubbed him repeatedly with it.

Via: Daily News

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OPINION: Why Obama's Falling Apart

A presidential reelection campaign needs three key elements: a defense of the incumbent’s record, a successful effort to define the opposition and a compelling vision of a second term.

President Obama may well celebrate a second term in Chicago next month, but the conventional wisdom underestimates the difficulty he faces, as his campaign has distinct problems with all three elements

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His defense of his record is exceptionally weak, his effort to define Mitt Romney is nearly exhausted, and his vision for the next four years — perhaps the most important — has been largely missing from his effort this year.

Defense of the incumbent’s record

Four years ago, Obama expressed great confidence that he would be running amid renewed prosperity; he famously told Matt Lauer, “One nice thing about the situation I find myself in is that I will be held accountable. You know, I’ve got four years...If I don’t have this done in three years, then there’s going to be a one-term proposition.”

In February 2009, even most Republicans would probably have predicted that by 2012, the country would be feeling much more prosperous, with much lower unemployment.

Friday’s jobs report brought much-needed good news, with the 114,000 new jobs in the payroll survey meeting economists’ expectations and bringing unemployment down to 7.8% — but that was fueled by 582,000 part-time jobs. GDP growth is at a meager 1.3%, gasoline is averaging $3.78 per gallon nationally and the foreclosure rate is only slightly below 2011’s 17-year peak.

Any fan of Obama who tells you he expected the country to be in this condition at this moment is either lying to you or lying to themselves.

Still, Obama’s poll numbers have overcome the economic gloom for much of the year, because many Americans concluded he was doing the best he could after stepping into a bad situation. Probably the single most effective line of the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte was Bill Clinton’s declaration, “no President — not me, not any of my predecessors — no one could have fully repaired all the damage that he found in just four years.”

Via: Daily News

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