A recent report documenting 1,000 people’s deaths after the use of force by police officers paints a distorted picture of what really happens during citizen encounters Joe Gamaldi, a Houston Police Department lieutenant and the vice president of the National Fraternal Order of Police, said on Newsmax on Wednesday.

“We actually have millions of interactions with citizens across this country every single year,” Gamaldi told “National Report,” “It’s not a shock that these left-leaning journalists are writing an article that bashes and criticizes police officers.”

In its article last week, The Associated Press outlined 1,000 people who have lost their lives when officers used force measures that were not meant to be fatal while subduing them.

“When you dig down into it, 30% of the people that are listed in this were actually assaulting other citizens at the time and an officer stepped in and used non-lethal force to stop that assault,” Gamaldi said. “They flippantly mention later on in the article that most of the people involved in these encounters were fighting or running from police officers.”

Police officers, he added, do not work in a “static environment” where all things can be controlled.

“There are a number of things that contribute to someone’s death when they’re involved in police custody like this, including what kind of drugs are in their system, and what kind of exertion have they had by running and fighting with police officers?” Gamaldi said.

In addition, citizens need to understand that they can’t fight back with police officers or resist arrest when they’ve been detained, he said.

“We have a problem in our culture right now in America,” he said. “We’ve taught an entire generation that you are no longer accountable for your actions, and [it’s] all the police officer’s fault.”

Police officers also take the use of force seriously and document it thoroughly, said Gamaldi.

“Their opinion is we should never use force at all,” he said. “That’s really what this article is saying. We don’t live in fantasy land. People assault citizens out there. There’s a war on cops that is raging in this country. We’ve already seen 98 police officers shot this year. That’s one every 22 hours.”

He added that the media’s disrespect for police was also evident in how the article was released on the same day a wake was being held for New York Police Department Officer Jonathan Diller, who was shot and killed while on duty in Queens.

“They just care about their grift and continuing to drive a wedge between us and the public,” he said.

© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.