Evil forces are conspiring against the fine
police officers of Fayetteville, North Carolina. In that community,
a three-time winner of the All-America
City Award (and what greater endorsement is there?), “police
officers are under attack by drug dealers, lawyers representing
drug dealers and by the City of Fayetteville.” Well, at least
that’s according to
John C. Midgette, Executive Director of the North Carolina
Police Benevolent Association, and a man who brings a strong dose
of crazy to his organization’s campaign against the establishment
of a citizen review board — and of any criticism at all of the thin
blue line.

The above quote is
from a letter (PDF) Midgette sent to the the chairman of the
state senate’s State Local Government Committee, opposing SB
939, a bill that would establish a police oversight committee. In
that letter, he also charged that “a handful of anti-police
individuals in Fayetteville are attempting to create a Board with
an effective mission of interfering with and obstructing
traditional police operations.”

Also part of that obstruction, apparently, was the city
council’s moratorium on the cops’ charming practice of “asking” (no
pressure there) primarily African-American drivers for permission
to search their vehicles without cause. The PBA sued to overturn
the moratorium and actually won an injunction.

Midgette took his campaign against the forces of darkness to a
press conference, at which he called for official action against
critics of the police department. Reports the Fayetteville
Observer:

The head of the N.C. Police Benevolent Association said Thursday
he will ask for a federal investigation into what he described as a
conspiracy to undermine the Fayetteville Police Department.

Executive Director John Midgette levied harsh criticism against
a small group of people who continue to raise racial allegations
against police officers.

Midgette said false accusations – including a recent complaint
that was proven to be unfounded that an officer called a driver a
racial slur – have pushed officer morale to an all-time low and
have made it difficult for police to stop heavily armed “thugs” and
other criminals “preying on Fayetteville, many of those thugs with
high-powered weapons.”

He described the city as awash in crime, calling it a “cesspool
of corruption and anti-police hatred.”

That was about enough to get the Fayetteville Observer
over the press’s usual infatuation with anybody in a uniform. The
paper
editorialized:

John Midgette, head of the N.C. Police Benevolent Association,
has treated us to a doozy of a warm-up act. Let’s watch and see
what else he’s got.

Midgette, presumably speaking for the organization and its
membership, last week delivered himself of an oration against
unnamed conspirators bent on undermining the Fayetteville Police
Department. …

For now, we’re left to speculate – based on his extreme
unhappiness with the City Council’s decision to heed the advice of
its consultant – that this all harks back to the long-running
controversy over “consent” traffic stops and the great racial
disparities found in police stop data. Midgette seems to be
implying that it was somehow wrong of public officials and city
residents in general to concern themselves with those
disparities.

Some of us think leaning on people to agree to allow the forces
of law and order manhandle their belongings is wrong even
without a racial disparity, but Midgette clearly lost the
local press on that one. And he’s probably still a few years early
on calling for federal investigations of people who merely voice
their dissatisfaction with law enforcement.

I should point out that this kind of crazy may be contagious. Ed
Krayewski
found a similar case in Philadelphia.