Sgt Betsy Brantner-Smith: Police Are Fighting An Uphill Battle Part 1

Betsy Brantner Smith is the national spokesman for the National Police Association. She is a retired 29 year veteran of the Naperville, Il Police Department. She has been a law enforcement trainer for over 20 years.

Law enforcement officers have been facing criticism in recent years, with some incidents causing a shift in public opinion to view them as villains. However, the majority of law enforcement officers are heroes who risk their lives to protect communities, apprehend criminals, and respond to emergencies.

Today, Sergeant Betsy Brantner-Smith, shares her unique perspective on the challenges and sacrifices that law enforcement officers face every day, and how we can better support and recognize their efforts as true heroes.

She speaks about her personal experiences as a law enforcement officer and the sacrifices that officers make every day. The recent tragedy in Sheriff Mark Lamb's family serves as a reminder of these sacrifices.

It is crucial that society recognizes and supports these heroes for their service. Empowering police officers is the best measure to eliminating crime and creating safe places for families to live.

Takeaways

1. Police are heroes
2. Crime is out of control
3. Respect property rights

Connect

Sgt. Betsy Brantner-Smith: https://twitter.com/sgtbetsysmith

Website: https://nationalpolice.org/smith-betsy

Jared Bradley: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaredvbradley/

DNA Retrieval: https://www.m-vac.com/

All Things Crime is a new, comprehensive video series that will explore every aspect of crime and the ensuing investigation, one video interview at a time. The host, Jared Bradley, is the President of M-Vac Systems, which is a wet-vacuum based forensic DNA collection system, and has experience traveling the world training all levels of law enforcement and crime lab DNA analysts in using the M-Vac to help solve crime.

Along the way he has met people from all walks of life and experience in investigating crimes, so is putting that knowledge to use in another way by sharing it in these videos. If you are interested in more videos about the M-Vac, DNA and investigations, also check out the M-Vac's channel @https://www.youtube.com/c/MVacSystems...

🛑 🚔 THIS POD IS PROTECTED UNDER COPYRIGHT LAWS, AND VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED! PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU CREDIT AND LINK THE SOURCE. THA

Transcript

Jared Bradley: 0:00

Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of All Things Crime. I am excited this morning have an amazing guest and it's not too often that we get . Guests with the national exposure and the expertise of Sergeant Betsy Brantner-Smith. But here she is, and so welcome to the show. Welcome back to the show, Betsy.

Sgt Betsy Brantner-Smith: 0:22

Yeah. And thanks so much for having me. I mean, there is just a plethora of things to talk about when we talk about All Things Crime.

Jared Bradley: 0:32

Isn't that the truth? And so, you said you just got back from a meeting last night, and so we appreciate you making time for us. And then you were saying this morning that you also have like a video cast? So why don't you tell us about that?

Sgt Betsy Brantner-Smith: 0:47

Absolutely. So it's called the NPA report. It's on stay mornings at depending on the time zone nine or 10 Eastern. And it's on Pluto, it's on it streams on the first tv, which is Bill Streaming Network, and then it sits on our YouTube page. Or you can go right to NationalPolice.org and see all of our episodes. And I've had incredible guests, like Sheriff Mark Lamb and Sheriff Grady Judd. And I've had pro law enforcement celebrities. My first guest of next year will be a CBS reporter named Liz Collins, who was the weekend anchor in Minneapolis. And she happened to be married to a police lieutenant with Minneapolis PD, who was the union president, and she was basically set aside for two years after the death of George Floyd, just because of who she was married to and because she wouldn't buy into the anti law enforcement rhetoric that was rampant in the media. So, tune in and see what Liz has to say and all of my other guest.

Jared Bradley: 1:53

Oh, that's awesome. By the way, I don't know if you're still in touch with Sheriff Lamb, but I saw the tragedy that his family's going through, and so I hope he knows our thoughts and prayers are with him.

Sgt Betsy Brantner-Smith: 2:06

He truly does. He and his wife Janelle have, in fact, Janelle posted last night just expressing the incredible outpouring of love from the law enforcement community and from the community in general. I just got back from Turning Point USA's Amerifest. We, the National Police Association was a sponsor, and of course, sheriff Lamb was going to be on stage during that, but this horrible tragedy, the death of son and granddaughter and the critical injury of his daughter-in-law are what they're focusing on right now. And they have, they're a family. The lambs are a family of faith, and they'll get through this, but it's unthinkable for any parent or grandparent.

Jared Bradley: 2:48

Oh yeah. Geez. Well, like I said, we're praying for 'em and anything else we can do, of course we'd love to do for 'em. And on that note I'd also like you to make sure and convey our thoughts and prayers are always with all the law enforcement out there and you know, the last few years, I just been if you sit back and objectively look at what, especially the law enforcement community has gone through in the last couple of years, it's just like, it's just insane. I mean, it went from, you know, I'm a huge action movie guy and I love, like, that movie the Patriot. It starred mark Walberg and about the Boston Bombings. But, you know, just that movie, it shows some clips of, you know, actual footage at the very end of that movie. And it shows how once that Boston Bomber was captured and the city was released, and because prior to that it was all sorts of, I, I can't imagine the anxiety that was within the city of Boston. You know, they knew that some terrorists had not only exploded the marathon, but you know, they were out shooting cops. They were out shooting other people and stealing cars and yeah, you know, it's just horrible. And then once they, once Boston PD caught'em, they said they were like celebrities. You know, they were invited to the Boston Red Sox and, you know, they were Boston Strong and all these amazing stories were coming out of that. Well, you think about, you go from that atmosphere and that dedication to the police, and they're like, the police are heroes, to all of a sudden the entire police community is basically ostracized and they're all evil. And, you know, because started with the George Floyd incident and it's like, hey, hold on. You know, these are the same men and women who were protecting us the day before the George Floyd incident. And, you know, yes. That was a horrible incident. But you don't condemn an entire community. You know, 800, what is it? Seven, 800,000 law enforcement officers based on the actions of one.

Sgt Betsy Brantner-Smith: 5:00

Well, and that's something we talk about a lot. That's why the National Police Association exists, quite frankly, you know, law enforcement officers those of us who were on the job after 9-11-01, remember just the incredible outpouring of support for our profession. And then you talk about the Boston bombings, you know, that was such an incredible event. We were able to go there a year after and get it b y some of the law enforcement officers involved, because that was a really a, that was a team effort of city cops, state, local, suburban, federal. And we took a tour of that whole area and that I was able to talk to a woman who basically gave up her home to be the command post for where the ultimate shoot out took place and she was just, she talked me and you know, it's just, it's so interesting cuz what she said was, you know, I left my dog with those police officers. You know, they're in the middle of this shootout. They're running the command post in my home. I just left. And she said, the last thing I said when I left was, will you please take care of my dog? And she said, those cops fed their dog, took 'em out for walks, absolutely everything. The middle of all this chaos and death and mayhem. And she was so grateful. Law enforcement, that's the law enforcement that America knows. There's 750,000 police officers in this country, and that number is dwindling. You know, we can talk about that. We have record resignations, record retirements, and a real recruitment crisis. But here's the thing, we're in the middle of a war on cops right now and that's something that we all need to focus on at the end of the year. We've got about what, a week and a half left this year, and we've already seen 323 police officer shot in the line of duty, 60 of them shot fatally. And you know, we're gonna have about 60,000 police officers assaulted this year. And deaths by gunfire are up at 23% from 2019. So really, since the death of George Floyd, the war on cops that started in 2014 under Barack Obama's Tuttelage, the war at cops is raging and we've got to do some things to stop it.

Jared Bradley: 7:20

Yeah. It's hard to underemphasize, Well, no, it's hard to overemphasize, if I say this correctly the policies of government at every level and the attitude that they put out toward their law enforcement, toward firemen and toward military, toward all of our first responders, is incredible that influence that they can have over the public's attitude toward that. And I think when you think about the mastery of like George Soros, that guy personally, I think that dude's just evil. But him backing some of these district attorneys in different areas. And I don't know if he's, you know, if he's got a one in Phoenix where, or in Arizona, wherever you're at, but--

Sgt Betsy Brantner-Smith: 8:06

Why in Tucson and Pima County, Arizona. We have a Soros installed prosecutor and guess what? The Tucson, where pima County is the most dangerous city in Arizona. It's funny how that seems to work out, right?

Jared Bradley: 8:20

Right. You look all over the place . Where these just leftist DAs are, and it is crazy. They're like, it's a revolving door. So every police officer that I talk to, they're saying the ink isn't even dried on their paperwork. And the person that they arrested, and sometimes for heinous, they're back out on the street.

Sgt Betsy Brantner-Smith: 8:41

Right. There's a movement in this country again that's been happening for several years. It's called Procedural Justice. And basically what procedural justice means is that instead of Lady Justice wearing that blindfold, right? That's what's supposed to, you know, in the United States of America, our justice system is supposed to look at individuals and their crimes. We are not supposed to care about the race, the color, the sexual orientation, any of that. What procedural justice says is that we are supposed to look at the criminal and what sort of issues he or she have had in their lifetime and judge them based on that. So let me give you an example that I've read in some of their paperwork. That me, a middle-aged white woman, if I am sexually assaulted by a young African American man, and if and it's assumed that I was raised in privilege because I'm a white middle-aged female, I was not. But that's already assumed. And a young African American man, they assume, even though that's not the case, has been raised in poverty. That his punishment is supposed to be lesser because of my privilege. That's basically procedural justice. So now we have these George Soros installed DAs, and that's not hyperbolic. That is absolutely the truth. George Soros, he wrote an op-ed. I want everybody to remember early, way early in 2022, he wrotean op-ed saying, yep, that's exactly what I want. I want these woke prosecutors because he wants prisons emptied and what he really wants as a chaotic society, so that then people like him and his ilk can come in and take over our society. So these woke das in places like Portland, Seattle, LA, San Francisco, although San Francisco was able to get rid of Che Boden, cook County, Illinois, where I'm from. And of course Manhattan in New York City and Austin, Texas, one of the worst. What they do is they support this atmosphere of lower or no charges. In Cook County in Chicago, Illinois, last year we had a video of multiple videos of a gang fight involving firearms between two groups of gang members. And the woke DA there, Kim Fox and Cook County said, you know, I'm not gonna charge anybody because it was mutual combatants. That's absurd. And the left loves to talk about gun crime and gun control, but they don't want to actually follow the gun laws in this country, and that is why you are seeing this horrible uptick in crime and this war on cops by these whoa prosecutors and by some of the political left. It doesn't just affect cops. Who does it ultimately affect? Citizens. The citizens that we are trying to protect. So we need our citizens to step up and learn about what's happening and then get loud about what they wanna see. Remember, prosecutors are elected officials.

Jared Bradley: 12:02

Absolutely. And the citizens that are most affected and the first affected are the most marginalized. And so you have these neighborhoods where the cops are trying to clean'em up and yet they're pulled out of those neighborhoods first. And so the crime just festers, it's almost like a cancer that starts in these marginalized neighborhoods, and then it just radiates out from there. And like I was just talking to a retired NYPD cop, and he was talking about that the dude had been arrested like 16 or 17 times, and yet they found him in Robert De Niro's home. And so , it's like, oh, you know, the you know, well that's one of those chickens are coming home to roost kind of thing. It's like, well, it's reaching a point where the crime is so outta control and the criminals are becoming so brazen that they'll even go into homes. I can't imagine the security system the neighborhood itself, I'm sure is very secure and yet this seasoned criminal was able to get into Robert De Niro's home while they were there. That's even the more brazen part, so--

Sgt Betsy Brantner-Smith: 13:11

Well, that's the thing. We're living in a society now where there really is limited respect for property, for property rights. And again, this is based on this atmosphere of procedural justice where if I have a home and I, you know, want my doors locked and I want everything to be secure. Somehow, that's not fair. Now, the whole Robert De Niro thing I find amusing because he's as far left as you can get. And I find it interesting that he is the first one to preach all of this far left rhetoric. And I'm sure you know, they were calling 911, whoever discovered this crime and wanting the police to come immediately, even though he doesn't particularly support American law enforcement. And that's a problem you're seeing you know, people like hollywood and far left wealthy politicians, you know, they love to vilify American law enforcement until they need us, and then they're the first to call 911 and to man that we are there immediately. We just, we saw this all the time in Portland, in Seattle, where you had all these politicians who said, oh, we gotta get rid of the police. We can't have the police until something upset them. And then they're first to call 911. And demand that we come and do their bidding.

Jared Bradley: 14:31

Oh, yeah. Well these guys, you put these guys in front of a microphone and they're all these tough guys that can beat their chest. And then when it actually comes down to it and the rubber meets the road and somebody's in their house and might be affecting their family. I just I think of all the movies that Robert De Niro's been in and how he's always this you know, tough guy, gangster. And yet, I guarantee you, he was cowering underneath his desk, waiting for the police to show up. You know, there's two worlds going on here. There's the real world. Which is what he finally experienced. And then there's this fantasy land and I don't know--

Sgt Betsy Brantner-Smith: 15:06

And we see that, you know, we see that from far left politicians too, where you see people like Representative Corey Bush out of Missouri. You know, she has spent tens of thousands of dollars on private security even while she constantly shouts to defund the St. Louis police force when her city, St. Louis is the number two murder capital in this country. Ilhan Omar is constantly talking about reimagining the Minneapolis Police Department, but yet what does she do? Hire off-duty cops to be her private security. All you know, AOC is another one. She's an anti law enforcement politician. Who has her own private security, and of course, you know, great locks and alarm systems. And she loves to talk about how frightened she was on January 6th and how she was waiting for the police to come save her. But she doesn't want anyone else to have that kind of security that she is allowed. It's very classist if that's a word. You know, this political elitist class and this Hollywood elitist class who wants to be secure. But then when you go into poor neighborhoods or the working poor or homeless people, they don't really care about the safety and security of those people.

Jared Bradley: 16:23

No. It's all the Marie Antoinette thing. You know, what's good for me is, and not for thee. And it's-- I grew up in kind of, you know, lower middle class in Idaho and I'll tell you, nobody hated that more than actual working people. But back then, you know, when we were growing up, it was just kinda like, whatever, you know, just don't bother me and just you go do your thing and just leave me alone. Well, the problem is they won't just leave you alone. You know, eventually, they have to impose their values on you, and you're almost looked down upon to the point that can't work.