MENTAL ILLNESS A MAJOR FACTOR IN GUN CRIMES: WHY AREN’T WE ADDRESSING THAT?

(This article appeared as an op-ed in Florida Today, this date: 6/8/21 )

by Marshall Frank

Whoever coined the adage “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people” was spot-on, because it’s true.

Firearm-related crimes often involve guns that are stolen or purchased illegally. Background checks have little effect on getting to the root of gun crimes, because such checks mostly involve people who are law-abiding. We rarely find violent criminals or the mentally ill via background checks, because the black market gun business is easily accessible for people with criminal intent. Mass shootings continue to terrorize Americans.

We are spinning in circles instead of getting to the heart of the problem, which is two-fold: unshackling law enforcement to reduce crime and properly dealing with the mostly ignored mentally ill.

Marshall Frank

Why do we try to reinvent the proverbial wheel when we have evidence of success? Do we study what works and what does not? Politicians in every city and state should educate themselves about the astonishing accomplishments of Mayors Rudy Giuliani and Mike Bloomberg in New York City,  between 1994 and 2013, and learn what measures actually worked. That’s when gun crimes in NYC dropped to record lows and people were safer. The rising anti-cop movement may cause some officers of today to look the other way, if they can.

Without question, severe mental illness is the most complex of problems. It’s where our leaders have fallen short of facing facts. Suicides, gun crimes and mass shootings are many times a product of psychotic individuals. But we do nothing, except perform background checks. Then, there’s jail.

Times have changed drastically over the decades. In the 1960s, mentally disturbed people in Florida who showed symptoms of severe psychosis could be held in a psychiatric facility for further testing and evaluation. If determined by a judge to be a danger to himself or herself or others, that person could be remanded to a psychiatric institute for long-term care, with periodic reassessments.

I was one of those officers who brought such people to court. It was a process that worked far better in 1964 than in 2021 — for everyone.

Thus, prisons and jails have assumed the role of mental institutions. A myriad of studies have concluded over 26% of prison inmates today suffer from severe mental illness. One study by the U.S. Bureau of Justice found that the mental health crisis is greatly pronounced among female prisoners, whereby 75% of women incarcerated in jails and  prisons suffered from mental illness.

It takes only one deranged person to kill 10, 20 or 50 people in a single event. In 2020, 19,379 died by gunfire, including 611 in mass shootings, according to the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive. That does not include more than 24,000 suicides by gun.

In 1955, more than 558,000 patients occupied beds in mental hospitals. Today, that number has diminished to 35,000 in a period when the national population more than doubled, from 158 million to 331 million. So where is the extreme overflow of 2021 coming from?

Correctional facilities are struggling with the reality that they have become the nation’s de facto mental health care providers, although they are ill-equipped for the job.

While America is rife with sick, homeless, drug addicts, gangsters and sexual predators, we are apparently unable to help the mentally disabled, until they’re caged like animals. According to HUD, there are more than 580,466 homeless living in squalor today.

Millions of mentally challenged people who are fighting afflictions on their own commit crimes just to eat. Crimes translate to victims. It is the victims who we must protect and serve. I fear we are not doing a very good job at that.

In America 2021, the bottom rung of all mental health treatment is prison. 

Who cares? We better.

Marshall Frank is a retired police captain and author of 15 books. www.marshallfrank.com

DO NOT BELIEVE THE HYPE ABOUT SYSTEMIC RACISM

(Published in the Op-Ed page, Florida Today, 5/24/2021)

 

                                                                                DON’T BELIEVE THE HYPE ABOUT SYSTEMIC RACISM

 

                                                                                                                 By Marshall Frank

 

Americans are often made to believe that systemic racism is widespread throughout our nation, particularly on the part of law enforcement agencies. It has become a constant drumbeat. Purveyors want the public to believe that black people, in particular, are the victims of such attitudes.

     Not only is that grossly exaggerated, it’s simply untrue. Not in 2021. If anything, police today go through a plethora of training and education to ensure such biases do not exist. Yet, the media and some leftists relentlessly invoke fervent assertions that cops are programmed as monsters who seek out blacks for unfair treatment or physical abuse. Some holdovers from the old days, may privately harbor ill-feelings toward blacks, (or other minorities). But to allege that police are systemically biased across America is absurd.

     Cops are among the finest public servants in America. I’ve been immersed in law enforcement for sixty years, half that time an active duty cop in Miami-Dade, Florida, where I served for 30 years, working Homicides 16 years. Police officers, white, black, male and female, or whatever, are all breathing, feeling human beings with needs and responsibilities like all citizens, while raising families and caring for the oppressed.

     Number one priority on a cop’s list is to come home every day in one piece from the streets – mentally and physically.  Police officers pray daily hoping they will not have to engage in any violent confrontations. Thirdly, police (for the most part) are immaculately professional, and protective, as they inch closer to a lifelong pension at the end of the proverbial tunnel.

     There are 800,000 cops in America. It is their job to run toward, not away from, the most dangerous of scenarios to save lives and enforce laws to keep us safe. That’s not a choice, it is required. They risk their lives, not just for paychecks, but to protect you and me, and people of all nationalities and colors. On rare occasions, a cop will screw up. But it is not systemic.

     The 911 system reports roughly 240 million calls a year are dispatched for police, fire and medical needs. Of those, 12 million (or five percent) involve potential dangers for police. That’s a huge number of volatile conditions in a single year. In 2020, 119 officers lost their lives in the line of duty, mostly from firearms. This doesn’t include 145 police officers who died from contracting Covid19 on the job.

     The last thing any cop wants to do is participate in any form of violent action. Sometimes, there is no choice.

     I know about systemic racism. It was around me in early childhood growing up in segregated Miami, until well into my police career. When hired, racism prevailed in Miami-Dade. And, it was definitely systemic. Less than one-percent of the department’s police were black. Rest rooms, drinking fountains and restaurants were unwelcoming to blacks. They weren’t the only victims of racism. Some Miami Beach hotels displayed desk signs that printed, “Gentiles Only.”

     But changes occurred. Eventually, many folks worked jobs shoulder to shoulder with others and schools were integrated. Police agencies also changed enormously. The notorious beating death of Arthur McDuffie by a ring of Miami-Dade cops in 1979 ignited the positive changes that followed. The department modernized rules for hiring and training, with emphasis on treatment of minorities. In the early 1980s, blacks became important members of management teams in police agencies throughout America. Today, 44 percent of the police chiefs amid the fifty most populated cities are black. Systemic racism has evolved into a 180 degree turnaround.

     No cop wants to hurt anyone, black, white or purple. But it’s true that blacks, in general, are disproportionately victimized by violence far more than whites or Latinos. According to the FBI, 89 percent of blacks killed in 2018, were killed by other blacks.

     Racists? I don’t think so.

     Better to say: All Lives Matter.

 

                                                         —————————————————————

 

Marshall Frank is a retired police captain and the author of 15 books. www.marshall frank.com

THE TRUTH ABOUT ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION AT THE BORDER. OP-ED By M. Frank

Let’s be brutally honest, folks. The recent surge of thousands more immigrants swarming over the southern border illegally has nothing to do with helping immigrants with humane objectives. It’s all about politics. It’s all about gaining millions of votes in future elections, legal or illegal, tipping the scales, irreversibly, for one political party over another.

Numbers matter. Years ago, people went to the polls on election day, produced a voter ID, then voted. Contrary to years past, the architects of our voting systems have now made sure that anyone and everyone can declare themselves as eligible voters, even when they’re not.

Times have changed from elections of yore. According to Ballotpedia online, 15 states now require no proof of identity, including New York, California, Illinois and Pennsylvania. Sixteen more require some form of I.D., but no photo. Nineteen still require some ID, plus photo. It’s insane that a federal election can use different systems from state to state.

When driver’s licenses are provided to immigrants who entered the country illegally via the black market, it gives them wrongful access to the voting booths. It’s just a matter of time that Republicans will be irreversibly outnumbered.

I don’t believe that political overseers are awash with sympathy for immigrants that enter the country illegally. It’s all about the quest for power.

Today, there are multiple methods for casting votes, including the new mail-in system which seems to be convenient, while critics consider that as one more system that is fallible.

How many immigrants are living here now, having crossed illegally or overstaying their visas? The common answer is roughly 11 million. (The Center for Migration Studies said it was 10.7 million in 2017). However those figures have been a standard response for the last 15 years. Separate studies conducted in 2018 by M.I.T. and Yale concluded the number was closer to 22 million.

Truth is, we really don’t know. We do know that health care, public education and criminal conduct has always been a serious battle when those numbers explode, particularly for victims who are dependent on American tax dollars to survive. Law enforcement, schools and health providers are maxed out, barely able to keep up with constant demands. Add to that the impact of COVID-19 upon our workforces, job markets and the stresses upon health care.

Then there’s the sudden surge of unaccompanied children seeking asylum in the past few months. Nearly 3,000 of those kids are under age 12.

Increases in criminal conduct are inevitable considering the numbers of immigrants who have no sources of income. How will they feed and care for themselves and their families?

Marshall Frank

With the addition of the new wall, and effective enforcement by the Trump administration, this problem was far more under control than the present day.

Unemployment figures are likely to spike considering the disastrous effect COVID-19 has had on the economy. Additionally, the thousands of current and projected jobs now defunct at the Keystone XL pipeline (according to PolitiFact.com). Then there are the farming and construction industries that will likely be hiring low-paid workers, keeping Americans searching for other jobs.

We certainly feel compassion for the law-abiding folks who simply wish to live in America. But we must also preserve the nation and its people from destruction from within. Once we assemble a flood of migrants from Central America, there is always South America, Africa and Asia in future decades.

The slippery slope awaits.

There are politicians who clearly support immigrants crossing illegally into America. It’s all about votes. Votes equal power.

Marshall Frank is a retired police captain from Miami-Dade County, author and frequent contributor. Visit marshallfrank.com.

www.marshallfrank.com

 

 

BERNIE THE BOOKIE: From The Heart of a Gangster

Marshall Frank

By Marshall Frank

Most people who are introduced to my history as a 30-year law enforcement officer in Miami-Dade, Florida, immediately draw a conclusion that I’m a tough guy.

Not true.

I hate guns. Hate fighting. I was terrible at sports. I’m reluctant to call anyone “Sir,” especially those who had not earned the moniker. My six-year nightmare in the U.S. Marine Corps (reserves and active duty) was an exercise in utter misery. Yet, I was able to fake through it.

When people hear that I authored fifteen published books (fiction and non-fiction) and had over one-thousand op-ed articles published in various newspapers, they draw a conclusion that I’m an intellectual.

But I never ever saw myself as an intellectual.

I do not read for recreation, nor anything I don’t want to read. As a kid, books were a bore. Adults accused me of having “ants in his pants.” I flunked high school English, two years in a row. I did not graduate because I rarely attended classes. My tenth-grade English teacher, a humble old woman, didn’t want to see me flunk so she offered me a special assignment to read any fiction book of my choice and write a report citing story-line, characters, plot and publishing details. A month later, the teacher reminded me that my paper was due the next day. Oy!

I had yet to write one word of the assignment. I had no book. With one day to go, I concocted the false title of a book (that never existed) and wrote a detailed story-line with people and places that never existed and character struggles that were totally fictional. I invented the title as I did the name of the publisher, and of course, the characters.

I got an A plus.

Forty years later, some scientific brainiac labelled a new-found psychological condition which replaced “ants in pants” and now called it, “Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).”

I could not sit still. Neither could I concentrate on classroom learning if it didn’t stimulate. I dreaded boredom.

My mother insisted I learn music, so she bought me a violin. (half-size) She had been a classical pianist as a young girl, but now we were living in a small hotel room on Miami Beach amid the post-war world of thugs and gangsters. No room for a piano. My Italian-born teacher named Atillio Canonico, said I had talent. c. 1947

My mother was also an accomplished dancer. As a twice widowed mother in 1949, she needed a job and began working for a dance studio. As a bonus, I was awarded free lessons. Yes, I learned the art of ballet, tap and Paganini at a young age. My mother had good intentions, but the rough-tough kids in school thought otherwise. At age eleven, I became the repeated subject of a classical bullying campaign. Kids surrounded me in the school yard, chanted dirty names, kicked and punched my face, and took my violin, the case, and my leotard, throwing things in the woods, while I wept.

It was a nightmare.

I pleaded with my mother to let me quit dance school. But I had to continue violin. Apparently, I was lucky to be born with an amazing ear for music.

In 1955, mom remarried her third husband, another former New York gangster known as Bernie the Bookie. He was good to her and to me. What he did in his other life was no business of ours. I was the son he always wished he had. He loved telling me stories, about his friends, Bugsy and Meyer. He’d lay back in his bed, wearing only his underwear, puffing on a cigar despite the oxygen tank on the floor near his bed.

A few years later, at age 20, I knocked up a girl in the back seat of my Pontiac. She was gorgeous. Mom was irate, but we had to get married nevertheless. I needed a regular job, so I asked Bernie if he knew any place where I could play violin in restaurants or maybe, the Miami symphony. That’s when he smirked at me and said, “I’ll tell ya what, kid. You’re gonna be a cop.”

A pall of silence cloaked the room. I was stunned. Bernie smirked, puffing the cigar. He couldn’t get over the startled look on my face.

“Bernie, that’s impossible. I can’t be a cop. Are you kidding? I’ve had some trouble with the law.” (traffic)

“Fuhgettaboutit, kid. You’ll make a good cop. Good pay, good insurance, job security.”

I still had acne pimples. Being a police officer was inconceivable. “Bernie. They’ll never hire me.”

“Yeah they will.”

“How do you know?

Bernie chuckled, like all gangsters chuckle. “Heh. I got connections.”

The rest is history. Of thirty years on the job, sixteen were assigned to Homicide where I rose to the rank of captain. It was important that no one in the department ever knew I had family connections to hard corps mobsters. I worked closely with future Attorney General Janet Reno heading up a most tragic investigation of a black motorcyclist chased down for speeding in the night. When apprehended, the cyclist was beaten and killed by several out-of-control cops. I ended up as arresting officer of five officers. After their acquittal, the Miami riots exploded in May of 1980, leaving 18 innocent people dead.

I was eventually invited to testify before the U.S. Congress in 1980, about crime problems in the United States. I also headed Homicide during the Cocaine Cops investigations, and the arrests of many corrupt officers by federal authorities. Then came the Mariel Boat lift incursion of 125,000 desperate and/or handicapped Cubans fleeing the communist dictatorship headed by Fidel. Bodies were everywhere, every day; car trunks, beaches, Everglades, trash bins and death falls from tall buildings. Miami became the murder capital of the nation, for four years.

Bernie, nor the dirty cops on the job, ever asked me to compromise my position in any legal actions or police issues of any kinds. As far as the department was concerned, I was clean, one of the good guys.

He kept me clean. One day I was chatting with Bernie in his bedroom, as I watched him taking bets on the phone. (Using flash paper…that would vanish by one lit match if the cops raided)

The idea of a little extra money sounded good. “Hey Bernie,” I said. “I know the sporting world, let me make a couple bets on the horses and baseball.”

He turned suddenly sullen. With the cigar gripped in his fingers, he lasered his eyes directly at mine, and took a deep breath. “Let me tell ya something, kid. I do what I do, ’cause I don’t know nuttin’ else. You? You keep your nose clean, and never ask me that question again.”

In March of 1966, while my mother was suffering from brain tumors on the 6th floor of North Miami Hospital, Bernie was dying on the 3rd floor from heart failure. I stood by his bedside and helped him to raise his head, sipping ginger ale from a straw. When I put his glass back on the table, he offered me a blank stare, exhaling his final breath.

I never knew much about his sordid lifestyle from the other side. But I do know I would never have risen to my successes if he hadn’t guided my life.

Thanks, Bernie.

· “Marshall Frank has authored fifteen books, fiction and non-fiction, with more to come. He is probably the most natural crime story writer in the world today.”

— — Christopher Douglas, Author, Publisher, founder of Authorpaedia

An extension of this story is available in Frank’s book of memoirs, From Violins to Violence. Frank can be reached via his web site: www.marshallfrank.com

More details about Marshall Frank at: Marshall Frank — AUTHORPÆDIA

Marshall Frank retired as a 30-year police captain from Miami-Dade, mostly homicides. Author of 15 books. www.marshallfrank.com

HONEST REPORTING VITAL IN RACIALLY CHARGED CASES

In the November 6th issue of Florida Today, the Associated Press issued an article about the renaming of a road in Miami to honor 17-year old Trayvon Martin, who had been shot and killed in Sanford, Florida in 2012. The article would have us believe that Martin deserved the honor because he was an innocent kid wrongfully murdered by George Zimmerman, a local resident serving as a neighborhood watchman. Readers would naturally assume Trayvon Martin was victimized by a racist-born madman. Martin was considered by some as a hero, especially because he was unarmed. It was also emphasized that he was black and Zimmerman was not. Sadly, the often media fails to tell the whole story.

     Trayvon Martin was no hero. He was in Sanford visiting his father, because he had been suspended from school for ten days for possessing illegal drugs. Zimmerman spotted the lanky teen after sundown, walking through the neighborhood wearing a hoodie. Some might conclude that Zimmerman was wrong to follow the teen. True or not, that doesn’t justify Trayvon Martin’s actions from there.

     Based on a myriad of evidence and eye witnesses, it was determined that Trayvon Martin angrily turned and confronted Zimmerman, a pudgy 29 year-old. Martin suddenly punched Zimmerman in the face, knocking him to the sidewalk, then sat on Zimmerman’s body flailing more punches, battering his head on the concrete. Bloody trauma to Zimmerman’s head and face supports that accusation. Then, and only then, fearing for his life, Zimmerman removed the pistol from his clothing and fired one shot.

     Had Zimmerman failed to act, he would likely have been the corpse and not Trayvon Martin. Zimmerman knew that.

     As a retired 30-year cop who handled hundreds of assault cases, including the jailing of some police officers, I fail to grasp how and why Trayvon Martin should be honored when, in fact, he was committing a deadly assault on the watchman.

     These kinds of cases and the manner in which the media sometimes portrays an event, is what stirs hatred, particularly when it’s unwarranted.

     Per Associated Press: “The teen was unarmed and walking back from a convenience store when he was shot by George Zimmerman.”  

     There was far more to that story.

     This is also reminiscent of the killing of 18 year-old Michael Brown by Police Officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014. The officer was ruthlessly vilified by the press and other citizen groups. One cable newscaster I watched went into an outrage stating, “A police officer shot and killed an unarmed boy.”

     That “unarmed boy” had just robbed a convenience store. Minutes later he was confronted by Officer Wilson on patrol, telling him to get back on the sidewalk and off the street. Weighing over 300 pounds, Brown suddenly punched Officer Wilson through then driver’s window, then reached in and grabbed the cop’s pistol, unsuccessfully.  Dazed and bloodied, Officer Wilson stepped from his car and warned the large teen to halt, that he was under arrest. Brown turned around and began charging Wilson in a menacing manner. Wilson fired shots. Brown went down, dead.

     These are facts as determined by a Grand Jury and a number of on-scene witnesses. Hate had nothing to do with it.

     This case spawned the group known today as “Black Lives Matter,” forging the perception by millions that it was a “racist” assault upon an innocent black teen. That simply was not true. Zimmerman came from a racially mixed family.

     Then began the ill-conceived chants among haters, “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot,” as though the officer killed Michael Brown for folly. Officer Darren Wilson actually did nothing wrong. But he and his wife still live in seclusion for fear of retribution by hate mongers. His police career is finished.

     We also remember the New York City haters, marching the streets and chanting: “What do we want? Dead Cops?” over and over…while those targeted cops had to stand by, face to face, sucking it up, knowing how the press and local politicians stood by in accord. 

     The media has an obligation to be fair, neutral and non-presumptuous. Stirring emotions with errant reporting or purposeful omissions, means the reporters are guilty of manipulating facts in order to produce a volatile story.

    These are two incidents in which the media and people-mobs acted upon ill-conceived falsehoods, wrongfully castigating the innocent. Sometimes the bad guys are actually good, and the good guys are actually bad. It’s much about preconceived conclusions.