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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 Bridgeport, Connecticut, with indisputable credibility as an experienced “alpha cop.” In the 1980s, when Mr. Lancia patrolled the city’s streets, Bridgeport was in the middle of a crack epidemic and had one of the highest per capita overall crime rates in the United States. One of the Bridgeport’s worst areas was the notorious Father Panik Village, occupied largely by blacks and at that time America’s most dangerous housing project.

In “Downtown White Police,” Mr. Lancia describes what patrolling this blighted and violent area was like for a white officer. He treats the reader to many riveting police stories that require no embellishment. He describes in detail the sights, sounds, and smells, and offers a glimpse into the violence, fear, and degeneracy of life in majority-black projects. Mr. Lancia discusses topics that only a true street cop could understand and only a retired one would dare broach.

The book begins in 1978 when Mr. Lancia enters the police academy at the age of 18. The son of Italian immigrants, he had 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 as a rookie officer working unpredictable and dangerous housing projects, including Father Panik Village.

In Chapter 1, the author explains the book’s title and why he sets “Downtown White Police” off with quotation marks. The city police, most of whom were white, were based at the Downtown Headquarters. The Housing Authority police, which shared jurisdiction over the projects, were almost entirely black. Once, while responding to a call from Father Panik Village, Mr. Lancia overheard a black youth telling a friend, “’Dey the downtown white police!” The name stuck.

The book describes the every-day violence of the projects. A particularly disturbing story details how a young black entered the home of an elderly couple, beat both of them viciously, and raped the defenseless woman. In another instance, the author and his partner responded to the home of an elderly widow who insisted someone was in her home. When the officers searched under the woman’s bed, they found a menacing 20-year-old black man with a pistol in his hand.

A resident of the Trumbull Gardens housing complex in Bridgeport, Conn., where nine people were shot, looks out the door of her apartment as police investigate the shooting scene next door. Acevedo said she is concerned about the pattern of violence at the complex. ”I want to move,” she said. (Credit Image: © David Moran/TNS via ZUMA Press Wire)

The book immerses the reader in stories of black domestic violence and robbery, including the mob mentality of the projects where witness intimidation prevails, and “hits” go out on police officers. Mr. Lancia writes:

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.

Vilification of the police

The ongoing abandonment of basic police procedures coupled with lowered hiring standards in the name of “diversity” and the media’s insatiable hunger for anti-police stories all work to hamstring police effectiveness. When police are reluctant or unwilling actively to look for criminal behavior, the profession suffers, as does the quality of life for citizens. As police become more emasculated and politicians decriminalize and downplay 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. Hiring timid, under-qualified, “do-nothing” officers leads to skyrocketing crime rates and sometimes — ironically — in the excessive use of force.

Mr. Lancia discusses, for example, the effect of lowered hiring standards including relaxed physical fitness requirements. He 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 entered police work, shaping many law enforcement agencies across the country. Sons of Italian and Irish immigrants, who had grown up in poverty, began to dominate agencies in the Northeast. Their deeply engrained, hard-nosed approach to conflict was a necessary trait to maintaining order in the late 1970s and early 1980s, as the crack epidemic raged through the cities.

Members of the Prince Georges County Police ”Jump Out Squad” arrest suspected crack cocaine dealer. (Credit Image: © Mark Reinstein/ZUMA Wire)

The media’s overt attacks and deceptive tactics

Mr. Lancia published this book in 2015, on the heels of the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and Freddie Gray. The corrupt Black Lives Matter (BLM) organization was just getting started. He quickly recognized that BLM worked hand in hand with the media, police brass, and local politicians, whose behavior he described this way:

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 judgment on current events in this country.

Federal law enforcement, local police chiefs and mayors, and the entire media establishment disguise, eliminate, and omit the facts. They omit physical descriptions when the perpetrator is black, eliminate racial demographics from statistics, and inaccurately report black crime – all to disguise the truth. In doing so, they have helped institute a dangerous double standard that encourages anti-white speech and racial violence against whites, while blaming whites for nearly every social ill of blacks.

These tactics contribute to the vilification of white male police officers. While noting that many white-on-black crime stories have been proven to be hoaxes, the author cites indisputable statistics on black-on-white rape, black-on-white violent crime on public transportation, the “knock out game,” and black rioting. He points out several disturbing writings and speeches given by black “activists” who openly discuss and encourage anti-white discrimination and even murder. These disgusting attacks are not just allowed; they are championed by the media and politicians.

Black criminality and depravity

Mr. Lancia points to the criminal behavior of blacks, not slavery or white racism, as the cause of their communities’ destruction. Poverty, he says, does not cause crime; communities are unlivable and unsustainable because of blacks’ unchecked crime.

There is no denying the statistics of black-on-black murder and the proliferation of black-on-white crime, and the 10 most violent cities in America are perpetually run by Democrats. The book exposes the complicity of George Soros-funded white legislators through such policies as forced integration, decriminalization, “bail reform,” and lenient sentencing (none of which will affect them personally and all of which are implemented against the will of both black and white people). All degrade American civility and society. The author calls on black Americans to take responsibility for their problems:

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.

Mr. Lancia writes about the horrors of black-governed cities and “white flight.” Through Critical Race Theory, revisionist history, and the indoctrination of school children in white guilt, schools teach white and black children that whites are always to blame for the plight of blacks, no matter what the circumstances. This only encourages an attitude of entitlement, emboldening blacks and weakening whites to the point that capitulation is the only way to survive:

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

The celebration of BLM 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 Black Lives Matter and all those who support it:

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.

The unchecked hostility against white people and especially white police officers is never more appalling than when expressed by black activists and race-baiting profiteers such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. The author points to several examples of this overt hatred of white people. Calls to kill white officers, indiscriminate murder of whites, elimination of white history, and condoning black rioting and looting are common. The complicit, antagonistic media, spineless white politicians, and submissive police chiefs are all destroying the police profession.

The author believes that this seemingly inexorable trend will lead to a federalized police force. He discusses the perils of such a transition in detail and points to the proliferation of SWAT operations and specialized paramilitary units in law enforcement agencies.

Yuba County Sheriff’s Department SWAT member at an active shooter exercise at Beale Air Force Base. (Credit Image: © Sra Ramon A. Adelan/Planet Pix via ZUMA Wire)

Mr. 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 understands the grim outlook for American law enforcement and for the country itself. As this book was published long before the George Floyd incident in 2020, one can’t help but admire his prescience. This book is a must read for any active or retired police officers and for any person who wants to know the simple truth of what it’s like to be in the “downtown white police.”