Randy Leonard Compares Some Cop Critics to Teabaggers

City Commissioner Randy Leonard currently has an ordinance before City Council that would beef up oversight of the Police Bureau.

But don't think that ordinance gives Leonard sympathy for the city's most virulent police critics. On those who have described the recent police shooting of Jackie Collins as murder, Leonard had this to say in a WW interview last week:

"You just watched the health-care debate. If you're just a person who thinks people ought to get better health care and you listen to the angry words on both sides, people who call this a murder are amongst those same kinds of people who have become irrational in whatever side of the debate they happen to be on. I'm not associated with that," Leonard said.

"It actually helps the police, and the people who want to defend them, when people use irrational remarks about everything cops do," Leonard continued. "If the Republicans thought they had the Democrats on the ropes with health care, the name-calling of African-American congressmen and the death threats helped the Democrats. In the same instance, people who apparently don't value life as much as they purport — by suggesting an officer should allow themself to be hurt or harmed by a knife-wielding person — actually help the police."