1,835 words

James Lancia
“Downtown White Police”: Demonizing the Alpha Cop, Glorifying Thugs, and Militarizing Law Enforcement
CreateSpace, 2015
182 pages, $15.95 paperback, $9.99 Kindle

James Lancia is a retired police officer from the city of Bridgeport, Connecticut with indisputable credibility as an experienced “alpha cop.” With one of the highest per capita overall crime rates in the United States, patrolling the streets of Bridgeport during the crack epidemic of the 1980s provides a cornucopia of stories accurately summing up the experiences of a white police officer working in America’s most dangerous housing project. The author treats the reader to several riveting, real-life police stories that require no embellishment while truthfully and accurately describing daily life as a police officer. The sights, sounds, and smells he experienced during his tour are described in detail, providing a glimpse into the violence, fear, and dysfunction dominating life in the majority black housing projects.

Mr. Lancia discusses topics that only a true street cop can understand, and that only a retired one would dare to broach publicly. The book begins in his rookie year, 1978, when he entered the police academy at the age of 18. The son of Italian immigrants, he had initially planned to enlist in the Marine Corps but chose law enforcement after scoring highly on the police officers’ written examination. He was immediately thrust into the violent fray, working the unpredictable and dangerous housing projects in one of the most dangerous cities in America.

The book describes the rampant black violence occurring every day in the projects. A particularly disturbing story entails a young black male intruder who entered the home of an elderly couple, violently beating both of them and raping the defenseless woman. In another instance, the author describes an occasion when he and his partner responded to an elderly woman’s home. She was certain there was someone in her home. When the officers searched under her bed, they found a menacing 20-year-old black man with a pistol in his hand.

The book also immerses the reader in stories of black domestic violence and robbery, including the projects’ mob mentality, where witness intimidation prevails and “hits” are put out on police officers. Mister Lancia asserts:

The greatest threat to the safety of the American citizen today is not an overseas enemy in the guise of terrorism. It is the criminal on the street. These are the ones who rob your possessions, assault your person, invade your home at night and in the day, and kill you.

The vilification of the police

The seemingly never-ending attack upon and whittling away of basic police procedures, coupled with lowered hiring standards in the name of “diversity” as well as the media’s insatiable, proactive hunting for any anti-police story all work to hamstring their effectiveness. When police are reluctant or unwilling to proactively detect criminal behavior, the profession suffers, as does the quality of life in the communities they serve. As police become more emasculated and politicians decriminalize and minimize the importance of criminal behavior, those who prey upon the innocent are emboldened. The author recognizes that the tough, confident, white male police officer is no longer the norm. The hiring of timid, underqualified, “do-nothing” officers is resulting in skyrocketing crime rates, and also contributes to cases of the excessive use of force. Lancia discusses the effect of lowered hiring standards, including relaxed physical fitness requirements. He likewise describes the potential danger facing less than qualified candidates:

If anything, criminals have a keen awareness for weakness and strength, timidity and fearlessness. Just as in the laws of the jungle, a predator will attack the weak and afraid. It is the same with criminals and cops. These predators can sense if a cop is capable of handling himself; they can see it, smell it and sometimes feel it.

The author comes from the golden era of policing. Many Vietnam veterans returning from the war answered the call, shaping many law enforcement agencies across the country, and the sons of Italian and Irish immigrants who had grown up in poverty themselves dominated the departments in the northeastern regions of the United States. Their deeply-ingrained, hard-nosed approach to conflict was the necessary trait to maintain order in the late 1970s and early 1980s as the crack epidemic decimated urban areas.

The media’s overt attacks and deceptive tactics

Lancia published this book in 2015, on the heels of the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and Freddie Gray in law enforcement incidents. The resulting formation of the corrupt terrorist organization, Black Lives Matter (BLM), was just beginning to hit its stride as he wrote this fascinating book. He quickly recognized that BLM is working hand-in-hand with the media, the police brass, and local politicians:

With government propaganda and government staged hoaxes now legalized, freedom of the press is something of the past. News delivered via mainstream media is now controlled and/or censored by our government and includes social parameters which are guided by political correctness. Either way, the public will never receive all the facts to make a rational judgement on current events in this country.

The deceptive manipulation and outright omission of crime statistics is a real problem. Such tactics are utilized by federal law enforcement entities, local police chiefs and mayors, and the entire media establishment. The shameless exclusion of race when the perpetrator is a black male, the elimination racial demographics relating to reported criminal statistics and the media’s failure to accurately report on black crime are all strategies to disguise the truth. A dangerous double standard permits and encourages anti-white speech and racial violence against whites, and also blames whites for nearly all of black Americans’ problems. The author recounts several white-on-black crime stories that were proven to be hoaxes, and provides indisputable statistics on black-on-white rape, violent crime on public transportation, the “knockout game,” and black rioting. Besides distorting our ability to understand what’s going on, these tactics contribute to the vilification of white male police officers:

The George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin story is a perfect example of this, among countless others. Meanwhile, the media blowhards ignore crimes that are overtly racial in nature and give these no coverage at all, such as the wave of black-on-white racial mob violence sweeping the nation’s cities.

Lancia also lists several disturbing writings and speeches given by black “activists” that openly discuss and encourage anti-white discrimination, and even the murder of white people. These disgusting attacks are not only allowed, but are championed by the media and politicians.

The truth about black criminality and dysfunction

Lancia plainly and truthfully asserts that black criminal behavior is responsible for the destruction of their own communities. Their dysfunction is not the result of slavery or white racism. He states that poverty does not cause crime, but that unchecked criminal behavior renders communities unlivable and unsustainable:

Clean it up, and watch the change that occurs. Stop whining and letting others whine and make excuses for you about your social position. It is in your own hands to change it and not by violence or rioting, but by example and good character. You cannot blame the white man for fatherless households. Thugs cannot blame the white man for choosing a life of crime. Poverty is not an excuse to become a criminal.

There is no denying or refuting the irrefutable statistics of black-on-black murder and the proliferation of black-on-white crime. The author calls upon black Americans to take responsibility for their role in the destruction of the many Democrat-run urban communities of the country they inhabit. The ten most violent cities in America are consistently run by Democrats. The complicity of George Soros-funded white legislators is exposed through their policies of forced integration, decriminalization, so-called “bail reform,” and lenient sentencing standards –none of which affect them personally, and are implemented against the popular will of both black and white communities). All play a significant role in the degradation of American civility and society as a whole. The author calls on black Americans to take responsibility for their social ills:

Blacks kill more blacks than anyone else, and they are their own worst enemies. Our society has done everything possible for these people, and it is never good enough. Now they want to kill us whites, and they can say it with impunity because there is no punishment or accountability for racial hatred unless it is committed by a white person.

Lancia accurately describes the declining quality of life in black-governed cities and the resulting wave of “white flight.” With the introduction of Critical Race Theory curriculum, revisionist history, and “white guilt” indoctrination in our schoolchildren from a young age, white and black children are taught that whites are to blame for the plight of the black man, regardless of circumstances. The perpetuation of this false philosophy only serves to further entitle and embolden blacks and weakens whites to the point that capitulation is the only means of survival in society:

The fact is, there is no white privilege, which was a farcical theory to begin with. There is only black and minority privilege.

The fact that BLM is celebrated by the media, Hollywood, local politicians, police chiefs, and even the President of the United States shows how far-reaching the false notion of white racism and black victimization has become. The author points out the obvious hypocrisy of this organization and all those who support it.

The unchecked hostility against white people and especially white police officers is never more appalling than when spoken by “black activists” and race-baiting profiteers like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. The author points to several examples of this overt hatred for white people as articulated by well-known black civil rights advocates. Calls for the killing of white police officers, the indiscriminate murder of white citizens, the erasing of white history, and the condoning or excusing of black rioting and looting are routine occurrences.

The complicit and antagonistic media, spineless white politicians, and submissive police chiefs are all working to destroy the police profession. The author believes that this seemingly unstoppable trend will lead to a federalized national police force. The perils of this possible transition are discussed in detail and are evidenced in the proliferation of SWAT operations and the formation of specialized units in agencies across the country. Lancia is truly an “old school” street cop who pulls no punches in this eye-opening expose:

It is the beat cop that comes to your rescue, plain and simple. You do not have to love cops, or even like them, but don’t make them your enemy.

The author truly has his finger on the pulse of the direction and grim outlook of not only American law enforcement, but of the country itself. As this book was published long before the George Floyd summer of 2020, one can’t help but notice how prophetic he was. This book is a must-read for any active or retired police officer, and for anyone else who wants to know the plain and simple truth of what it’s like to be a downtown white police officer.

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