Cops are the Good Guys Why does it seem to be that people love to hate cops when their current situation presents no immediate danger, but when it is, they just gravitate towards cops at the snap of their fingers? The reason may exist either because of recent trends, such as BLM, or a lifelong obsession with hatred of the police. This article written by Michael Medveb with USAtoday.com titled “Slow Down, Cops are the Good Guys: Column” attempts to sway the public and various movements associated with police hatred with his use of logos, ethos and pathos that officers should be respected and treated with fairness First off, there are many reasons why Medveb uses logos effectively, for starters he indulges the readers commonsense with real life anecdotes, highlighting at the end of the article the “tens of thousands of African-American lives saved due to enhancements in police training, tactics, and equipment in the past two decades” (Medveb). Disparaging the idea that militarization of the police is harming the public and shining a light on the good of borrowing from our Armed Forces, putting down one of the main criticisms from untrusting citizens all around the country; that our police forces are simply submitting to being militarized. Medved also addresses his use of logos by ways of facts and data, specifically from polls and the American Civil Liberties Union. This union actually denounces the use of surplus equipment from the Pentagon, but Medveb includes this because the equipment they are using does nothing to increase crime; the crime rate is slowing down in fact. Medveb excels excellently in this section as he presents many true facts and stories of the police and the US government doing their job. Rhetoric was effectively chosen and successfully denounces criticisms from other factions and promoting the good side of the police in the process of this section. Next, on top of use of logos effectively through anecdotes and data, Medveb expresses ethos through sheer utilization of experts. Medveb does not go into much detail in ways of ethos because; possibly Medveb does not possess any credibility to talk from an insider perspective or from experience, due to the fact that he is not black and hasn’t seen the bad side that can come from cops. Though he does make a persuasive argument by playing up the use of experts, retorting statistics from the government that cops don’t partake in civilian shootings often and that “a black male is 60 times more likely to die at the hands of another black male than to perish through actions of a white cop” (Medveb). Providing facts that cops don’t kill civilians as much as civilians kills civilians should be persuasive enough to state cops are not as bad as the Black Lives Matter movement makes them out to be. Medveb also manages to utilize excellent rhetoric in this section as well by convincing the reader through wording the facts in a way that makes the police really seem like the good people that they are. Finally, in addition to logos, and ethos, Medveb persuades little to none in ways of pathos, only playing to the deaths of African Americans nationwide while at the same time feeling emotionless in his writing while doing so. Though it is true the author does possess some emotion towards the topic and would not write it all if he did not, pathos is not just about making people angry towards the other side of the issue, it is about making them feel for the current site as well. Medveb utilizes no vocabulary to express his emotional appeal so in no way at all did the author express pathos effectively. In conclusion, Medveb makes good points in line with the good side of the police force through his excellent use of logos and ethos but lacks written emotional appeal for the topic of this article. Medveb shines overall in his wording and weaving facts and anecdotes into this column but lacks any emotional appeal other than the facts of the body counts bad cops have racked up. Medveb does a nice job at bringing out the good in the police force but it would shine even brighter if he wrote it in another way that made him care more for this topic.
Works Cited Micheal Medved. "Slow Down, Police Are the Good Guys: Column." USA Today. Gannett, 21 Aug. 2014. Web. 20 Nov. 2016. <http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/08/21/police-militarization-ferguson-crime-violence-justice-bureau-column/14307505/>