Hello everyone. My name is Alex Hopper and I will welcome you to my new show, Across the Circus, where I have done this show on a previous podcast. I'm now doing it as a standalone and I'm so excited to have you all here with me. Every time we come on this show I'm going to try to give you a perspective on a situation in our country and what I think of it and what I think the solution is and honestly maybe sometimes just how angry I am about it.
But you're going to hear my raw emotions here and I think that we will be able to connect through that closeness that I'm going to give. Now if I don't sound joyful this episode you'll have to forgive me. I am angry.
I am so angry because throughout this entire country we have a gigantic epidemic that has gone completely unchecked, that has gone wild, and as much media attention as it gets there has been no change for the better if only changes for the worse because both sides are fighting on the wrong side of it. Where one side is saying we need more and one side is saying we do less, one side says it's all evil, one side says they can do no wrong, and both sides have constantly contributed to this problem.
And I'm of course speaking about police. In this country both sides of the aisle love to make noise about police but it is just that it is just noise and all the while the actions by both sides have enabled both criminals and criminal police to get overactive and destroy local communities and it is shameful to watch.
From the stores across this country that are having to shut down in major cities because these cities have completely defunded their police force and the local communities have completely shut down any connection with the police to where now simple businesses cannot run because there is not a rule of law, to rabid and I mean rabid R-A-B-I-D, foam at the mouth, sheriff's offices are showing up to people's houses and situations killing
them with absolutely no form of de-escalation and then whenever people try to speak out against it the people on the right have the gall to call them liberals, commies and all sorts of other slurs, they are just idiotic because you know the police can do no wrong. And so that's what we are going to look at in this episode.
We are going to look at both sides, idiotic actions and complete mishandling of the police force and the effects it has had on this country and the shameful ramifications that we all have to live every day from it. Welcome to the show. Now I am going to be 100% honest with you because I always will be on this show. I am going to do my best to be transparent.
I lean to the right just because how I was raised, my beliefs that I have and the way I would like to see this country run, I lean to the right.
But in fairness to that I am going to address the right first and their complete idiotic mishandling of all this police stuff that has led to people's deaths, sheriffs getting away with corruption and absolutely no action being taken against federal and local evil institutions that have just completely destroyed people's lives all the while they sing their praises like they are gods among men.
The first story we are going to talk about is the one that has my blood absolutely boiling out of my veins. It is such a disgusting story. The York County Sheriff's Office in South Carolina responded to a call of a suicidal man in his car with a shotgun pointed at himself with his mother standing next to him and wanting to talk him out of it. Now listeners you have to know I have spent so many years in suicide prevention and have lost a lot of friends to it.
I have been an active part of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and I even started the first high school level organization for students to work with the AFSP in the country. Suicide is very important to me and I have also been to a lot of classes where I have sat shoulder to shoulder with law enforcement because they were wanting to get the education to handle with these ditch situations so that they could help people, not these people.
The York County Sheriff's Office arrive, immediately pull their vehicles as close to the man as they can, all of them empty themselves out of their cars and immediately empty their weapons into him. He was shot at over 50 times with him being struck 8 times, one of which in the back of the head. No form of de-escalation, no form of mental health awareness. Which by the way you can go right now and watch the video on NBC, on YouTube, you can see it anywhere.
Whenever they began opening fire, the mother was standing less than half a foot from where they were firing. Which if you know anything about firearms, a bad grouping could have killed her very easily. Where a competent police force would have de-escalated, would have negotiated, would have made attempts to help with mental health. These morons decided to have a flagrant gun attack on this man when the only person he was threatening to hurt was himself.
If you want an emotional scene, just look up on YouTube about a police officer stopping a fellow veteran from suicide and see the absolute skills in de-escalation, in negotiation and helping someone through a mental health crisis. It is no excuse that they should feel like they need to empty a weapon into someone like that. And then we come to the problem on the right.
Whenever this story surfaces, the right and a bunch of idiots start singing the policeman's praises, start saying how they did the right thing, how there was a scumbag that was dealt with. Which by the way, I forgot to mention, that man did survive by the grace of God. If I was shot 8 times, one of which in the back of the head I would be dead. But luckily he has filed a lawsuit.
But whenever he filed this lawsuit, many people on the right started coming forward blaming him for what happened, saying he deserved it.
And whenever I made comments on their Facebook page trying to get accountability, trying to bring attention to this, all these people started calling me a commie, a lefty, a California dweller, and all sorts of horrible names and idiotic phrases just because they're a bunch of 40 and 50 year old morons who have become so blindly supporting of police officers that they're willing to support slaughter out of nowhere. They're willing to support improfessional handling of suicidal situations.
They're willing to support police just being able to solve every problem with opening fire and escalating situations immediately. And that is just the first instance of stuff like this. Another example of what these people are willing to support, just in the name of supporting police officers, is no knock raids.
For those of you who don't know what a no knock raid is, it's a special kind of warrant that allows police officers to enter your home without any form of announcement, without any form of saying police police, or anything that could let you know that is not a home intruder. A sad example of this is Donovan Lewis, a man from Columbus, Ohio who was sleeping in his bed whenever police invaded on a no knock warrant and shot him unarmed in his bed.
It was determined that these police would not be charged and no policy change has been made and the riot still sits by and it's just okay with these sorts of things. And beyond that with federal agencies, you see constant treading on people's rights whenever the ATF just decides in a day to change policy.
A company that produced force reset triggers after being told by the ATF that what they were doing was okay and would not have any sort of ramifications for production was then raided after the ATF had changed its mind without providing any warning to the manufacturer. In the ATF itself, this episode cannot be long enough to list all of their failings and all of their treading on people's rights. If you want to see that, just Google some stuff. Ruby Ridge is a great place to start.
But all the while the riot totes the thin blue line saying that all these things are all right while still claiming to be the party of small government, of more rights, and having these rights be undefiled by any government. Where these people fail to see the irony and fail to see the hypocrisy, they are doing themselves and their communities an injustice and allowing themselves to be treaded on, killed, have their rights violated without any sort of offense being committed.
Something involves police. They will sing the policeman's praises and that is going to be the death of the right is supporting authoritarian regimes just because they are law enforcement without any set of morals, without any form of filtering, just pure and dedicated loyalty with no form of accountability. And next, we are going to talk about the problem on the left in their democratic cities. Now for those of you who enjoyed that last rant, I expect you to be fair and listen to this one.
And those of you who didn't like the first one, don't worry, this one is going to get some equal treatment. Unfortunately in democrat run cities, police forces have been dwindling for a long time due to lack of support, ending funding and the demonizing of them in the media, especially in these cities. Where there are normal cops trying to do their job to keep a rule of law so that businesses are able to operate, so that people are able to live safely and peace.
They are being attacked on the streets by civilians, attacked in the government buildings by politicians who just want to win votes with those who want them gone and are completely prevented from doing their jobs. As a result of this, many crimes that were felonies are now misdemeanors in these cities simply because they do not have the police force to deal with all this crime that is going on.
You see these videos of people filling their personal bags with things in stores and leaving without paying because it is now a misdemeanor in these places to steal anything under a thousand dollars so these businesses are not able to stay afloat.
So in cities like San Francisco and Chicago you see stores like Walmart and Target pulling out completely because the amount of money they are losing to theft is way above what their margin of profit is for a year and due to the complete loss of rule of law they are no longer able to conduct business in these areas.
And it is even more unfair to locals in these areas, both to local business owners who cannot afford to shut down their business and move somewhere else and don't have a bed of money just to be able to move to another city.
It's also unfair to the residents of these areas because now due to other people completely stealing they are no longer going to be able to afford their groceries due to the inflation of the places that will still be open just trying to get by on the amount of money they are losing to theft. Not to just simply mention that they are losing more convenient places to shop like Walmart and Target and will have to go to more expensive, more specialized, smaller stores in these areas.
Another problem that the left has with these things and demonizing the police force and castrating the justice system is that people have to pay for being soft on crime and it is rarely the offenders that pay in these instances. One instance of this is Dequan McMillan. He was arrested for the strangling and beating of his 23 year old wife, Brittany Meyer. Then after being released on a $250 bail, he shot and killed the mother of his children. Another good example is Adam Benefield.
This man was convicted in 2000 of kidnapping his ex-girlfriend and another woman with a gun. Then on September 28th of last year, on camera, he attacked and beat his wife, Kira Benefield. After she showed the video to police, he was charged with 3rd degree assault, 4th degree criminal mischief, 2nd degree menacing and 2nd degree unlawful imprisonment, which are all misdemeanors. But due to New York's no cash bail system, he was released within 24 hours.
And the only protection Kira had was an order of protection, a piece of paper from the state. So unfortunately, Adam crashed his car into hers while she was taking her kids to school and killed her with a shotgun.
Due to what they see every day on CNN, the people on the left believe that every criminal is just someone who was put in a bad situation, is just someone who was unlucky and could just as likely be them whenever most of the time this couldn't be further from the truth, especially in these cases where we see abuse, where we see beatings, where we see violence, and it's classified as misdemeanors so that they don't have to be held in jail for any amount of time.
And the victim is always the one who pays for it whenever we go soft on crime. And so that's both sides. And so appropriately, we're now going to talk about how both sides' problems affect each other and draw them to more extremes, making things worse and worse for the rest of us.
Now, for those of you on the right, I want you to imagine that you're sitting on your couch in a liberal city like Chicago and you see on the news that an innocent man was shot in his home while he was in bed for no reason on a no-knock warrant. What idea would that give you of police?
Now people on the left, I want you to imagine you're sitting on your couch and watching television in the middle of the suburbs of a red state and you see that a woman was killed by her husband who was released only 24 hours after strangling her. Both sides unwilling to say that their way is not working and justifying their extremes is what's making it worse for everyone.
Whenever the right allows unchecked power, tyranny, and murder to be committed by police, even in few numbers, it gives the left the fuel they need to continue hating law enforcement, seeing them all as evil, and deciding that they don't need them in their community at all because there is no benefit from them.
And whenever the left drives out these police due to what they see on television, crime goes up, people are hurt, people are killed, businesses can't run, cars burn, and the right only sees chaos in all of this and they justify their way of life. They justify the tyranny that is reigning over them from these corrupt police officers because at least they have their way of order and at least they are safe whenever in reality they are not. And each one feeds into the other.
If we want to see any change in the police forces in this country, if we want to see any change in crime in this country, both sides have to come together and say that it's not working their way. The left has to realize that not all police officers are evil, not all criminals are angels, and that there is a place and a need for rule of law in society.
And the right has to come forth and say that they're not going to tolerate corruption, murder, or any form of infringement on their rights given to them by God and this country by police officers, whether federal or local. Whenever we can engage in a dialogue in the middle, we will make meaningful change in this country where police officers will do their jobs and protect all of us without oppressing us and criminals will not be free to do whatever they want to the victims in this country.
But of course, we do have to be realistic. People will not meet in the middle. There is rarely a dialogue exchange and that is due to so many things, from radicalization in the media to social media driving people further in their own beliefs, to just so many forms of isolation that we have allowed in this country, to where politics is a taboo subject and if you disagree on something that you are the enemy of each other.
And you can say that about so many different things, so many different problems we are facing in this country. What we have to realize is that we are facing these problems together. And as long as we are unwilling to speak about it, unwilling to be realistic about it, unwilling to look at the facts of it, all these problems will continue the way they are, especially this one we see every day with the police. And so ladies and gentlemen, that is our first episode.
I've been your host Alex Hopper and I look forward to having so many more conversations with you about these sorts of things. I hope you all have a wonderful day. I hope you are all doing well and don't forget to turn off the gas stove before you go to bed. Have a great day. Thank you for tuning in to this episode, proudly presented by the AP&M Group, a subsidiary of Algen Productions LLC. We strive to produce content that informs, entertains and adds value to your day.
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