PJ Mediahttps://pjmedia.com/author/jack-dunphy/feedPJ Media is a leading news site covering culture, politics, faith, homeland security, and more. Our reporters and columnists provide original, in-depth analysis from a variety of perspectives.en-usSat, 11 Apr 2026 12:30:13 -0400Nostalgia for George Gascón at the Los Angeles Times<![CDATA[In the 2020 race for Los Angeles County district attorney, George Gascón, flush with $2.25 million in cash from George Soros and millions more from other well-heeled, progressive donors, defeated incumbent Jackie Lacey, taking advantage of the anti-police hysteria that followed the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, when an astonishing number of people came to adopt the magical thinking that criminals would be less inclined to mischief if we would but stop treating them like criminals.]]>Sun, 22 Feb 2026 11:17:57 -0500<![CDATA[Jack Dunphy]]><![CDATA[California]]><![CDATA[Crime]]><![CDATA[George Gascon]]><![CDATA[Los Angeles]]>https://pjmedia.com/jack-dunphy/2026/02/22/nostalgia-for-george-gascon-at-the-los-angeles-times-n4949815Focus on the Mission, and Tell the Truth<![CDATA[For as long as I’ve been instructing young cops on the intricacies of the job, I have most often boiled it down to four simple words: Focus on the mission.]]>Mon, 26 Jan 2026 20:39:32 -0500<![CDATA[Jack Dunphy]]><![CDATA[Border Patrol]]><![CDATA[Domestic Terrorism]]><![CDATA[Minnesota]]>https://pjmedia.com/jack-dunphy/2026/01/26/focus-on-the-mission-and-tell-the-truth-n4948779Just the Facts, Ma'am<![CDATA[The Jan. 7 shooting death of Renee Good has become a political Rorschach test. A Quinnipiac poll released on Tuesday finds that a majority of American voters, 53%, believe ICE agent Jonathan Ross, who shot Good on a Minneapolis street last Wednesday, was not justified in doing so. Thirty-five percent believe the shooting was justified, while 12% have no opinion. But the poll results vary widely when the respondents’ political affiliations are examined. Seventy-seven percent of Republicans believe the shooting was justified, while 28% of independents and only four percent of Democrats hold the same opinion.]]>Fri, 16 Jan 2026 22:01:00 -0500<![CDATA[Jack Dunphy]]><![CDATA[Civil Rights]]><![CDATA[Crime]]><![CDATA[Domestic Terrorism]]><![CDATA[ICE]]><![CDATA[Law & Order]]>https://pjmedia.com/jack-dunphy/2026/01/16/just-the-facts-maam-n4948405The Renee Good Shooting: Follow the Bouncing Narrative<![CDATA[It’s been a challenge to keep up with the shifting narratives in the death of Renee Good, the woman shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis last week.]]>Tue, 13 Jan 2026 21:16:28 -0500<![CDATA[Jack Dunphy]]><![CDATA[Crime]]>https://pjmedia.com/jack-dunphy/2026/01/13/the-renee-good-shooting-follow-the-bouncing-narrative-n4948254Awful but Lawful<![CDATA[Somehow it just had to happen in Minneapolis. Opponents of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement efforts have been waiting for their martyr, and now they have one.]]>Wed, 07 Jan 2026 17:50:49 -0500<![CDATA[Jack Dunphy]]><![CDATA[Domestic Terrorism]]>https://pjmedia.com/jack-dunphy/2026/01/07/awful-but-lawful-n4948027I Stand With Israel<![CDATA[In the northeast corner of London’s Hyde Park, near the Marble Arch, is an area long known as Speaker’s Corner. Tradition holds that anyone is free to speak there on any subject for as much time as he pleases, “as long as the police consider their speeches lawful.” Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin would sometimes peddle their poisonous rhetoric there and yet go unmolested by the authorities, though in recent times the police seem to have drawn the “unlawful” line at anything uttered by a native Briton that offends the delicate sensibilities of Muhammadan immigrants.]]>Tue, 30 Dec 2025 18:57:16 -0500<![CDATA[Jack Dunphy]]><![CDATA[Antisemitism]]>https://pjmedia.com/jack-dunphy/2025/12/30/i-stand-with-israel-n4947725A Few Thoughts on the Drug Boats<![CDATA[As a police officer of some four decades’ experience, I confess to experiencing a certain visceral satisfaction in seeing Venezuelan drug boat crews being instantly turned into chum for sharks.]]>Fri, 05 Dec 2025 15:31:00 -0500<![CDATA[Jack Dunphy]]><![CDATA[Cartels]]><![CDATA[Crime]]><![CDATA[Fentanyl]]><![CDATA[Venezuela]]><![CDATA[Nicolás Maduro]]>https://pjmedia.com/jack-dunphy/2025/12/05/a-few-thoughts-on-the-drug-boats-n4946749What I Saw at the Charlie Kirk Memorial<![CDATA[I regret that I was only dimly aware of Charlie Kirk before he was killed. Of course I knew of him; we have a mutual friend in Michael Walsh, and last year Kirk and I were among the contributors to the book Walsh edited, Against the Corporate Media: Forty-two Ways the Press Hates You. And I also knew Kirk was an evangelist for both Christianity and conservatism, but I’ve been a Christian all my life, a Catholic, to be more specific, and I was evangelized into conservatism some 30 years ago by William F. Buckley Jr., this after chancing upon a providentially abandoned copy of National Review during a prolonged delay at O’Hare Airport.]]>Tue, 23 Sep 2025 21:10:00 -0400<![CDATA[Jack Dunphy]]><![CDATA[Charlie Kirk]]><![CDATA[Christianity]]><![CDATA[Conservatism]]><![CDATA[Pro-Life]]>https://pjmedia.com/jack-dunphy/2025/09/23/what-i-saw-at-the-charlie-kirk-memorial-n4944042The Witnesses Suffer Too<![CDATA[I’ve been a cop for more than 40 years, during which time I have waded through the aftermaths of many, many violent deaths. A murder case may take several years to meander its way from the crime scene, investigation, and then through the criminal justice system before it’s finally presented to a jury. In observing this process as often as I have, it never fails to strike me how the ripples of sadness radiating from such a crime can wash over so many people, even those only tangentially connected to the case.]]>Thu, 18 Sep 2025 15:35:56 -0400<![CDATA[Jack Dunphy]]><![CDATA[Gun Violence]]>https://pjmedia.com/jack-dunphy/2025/09/18/the-witnesses-suffer-too-n4943877Restoring Order at Home and Abroad<![CDATA[Gentle readers, I’ve just returned from vacationing with my family for two weeks, during which time we remained blithely unaware of all but our own tourist itinerary. Now, having come home and reconnected to the great wide world, I find that these two weeks have been fraught, both in my hometown of Los Angeles and around the world.]]>Tue, 17 Jun 2025 17:59:00 -0400<![CDATA[Jack Dunphy]]><![CDATA[Border Security]]><![CDATA[Illegal Immigration]]><![CDATA[Iran]]><![CDATA[Israel]]><![CDATA[Los Angeles]]>https://pjmedia.com/jack-dunphy/2025/06/17/restoring-order-at-home-and-abroad-n4940898Boulder Police Chief's Statement on Terror Attack Was Political, Not Factual<![CDATA[“It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool,” goes the old saw, “than to speak and remove all doubt.”]]>Mon, 02 Jun 2025 16:51:00 -0400<![CDATA[Jack Dunphy]]><![CDATA[Antisemitism]]><![CDATA[Crime]]><![CDATA[Hamas]]><![CDATA[Terrorism]]>https://pjmedia.com/jack-dunphy/2025/06/02/boulder-police-chiefs-statement-on-terror-attack-was-political-not-factual-n4940374When the Fire Came to Pacific Palisades, Where Were the Firefighters?<![CDATA[Gentle readers, my apologies for including some erroneous information in my last column. Commenting on the catastrophic fire that destroyed much of Pacific Palisades last week, I wrote the following:]]>Thu, 16 Jan 2025 17:32:00 -0500<![CDATA[Jack Dunphy]]><![CDATA[Conservatism]]>https://pjmedia.com/jack-dunphy/2025/01/16/when-the-fire-came-to-pacific-palisades-where-were-the-firefighters-n4936069When the Fire Came to Pacific Palisades, Where Was the Water?<![CDATA[Despite what you’ve been led to believe in recent days, the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles is not the exclusive domain of the rich and famous. Yes, the Palisades has (or had) a healthy share of celebrities, and there are (or were) wide swaths of multi-million-dollar homes, but in truth, there are plenty of what we might call regular folks living there as well, even a police officer here and there. It is a community in the best sense of the word, where the wealthy and the not-so-wealthy go to the same churches, shop in the same stores, eat in the same restaurants, and line Sunset Boulevard every Fourth of July for the annual parade.]]>Mon, 13 Jan 2025 10:47:00 -0500<![CDATA[Jack Dunphy]]><![CDATA[Big Government]]><![CDATA[California]]>https://pjmedia.com/jack-dunphy/2025/01/13/when-the-fire-came-to-pacific-palisades-where-was-the-water-n4935921Sanctuary for Whom and From What?<![CDATA[On Tuesday, the Los Angeles City Council formalized what had long been an unofficial policy. By a unanimous vote, the council declared Los Angeles to be a “sanctuary city” in which municipal resources may not be used in the service of immigration enforcement. In practical terms, the declaration will have little effect, as the Los Angeles Police Department has been constrained from immigration enforcement since 1979, at which time Special Order 40 was instituted by then-chief Daryl Gates.&nbsp;]]>Fri, 22 Nov 2024 18:33:00 -0500<![CDATA[Jack Dunphy]]><![CDATA[Border Crisis]]>https://pjmedia.com/jack-dunphy/2024/11/22/sanctuary-for-whom-and-from-what-n4934562The Tyreek Hill Affair: They Should All Be Ashamed<![CDATA[I confess I pay little attention to professional sports and had never heard of Miami Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill until yesterday, at which time there was no escaping hearing about him. Bystander video of his Sunday morning encounter with police officers were everywhere to be seen on social media, with the police coming in for much criticism. I reserved judgment, assuming there would be body camera video that would shed light on how the encounter began and what led to Hill being handcuffed.]]>Tue, 10 Sep 2024 20:00:19 -0400<![CDATA[Jack Dunphy]]><![CDATA[Police]]>https://pjmedia.com/jack-dunphy/2024/09/10/the-tyreek-hill-affair-they-should-all-be-ashamed-n4932418Kimberly Cheatle Had to Go<![CDATA[One might almost feel sympathy for Kimberly Cheatle.]]>Tue, 23 Jul 2024 19:00:00 -0400<![CDATA[Jack Dunphy]]><![CDATA[Donald Trump]]>https://pjmedia.com/jack-dunphy/2024/07/23/kimberly-cheatle-had-to-go-n4931001There Will Always Be Vulnerabilities<![CDATA[On several occasions during my career with the Los Angeles Police Department, I was called on to work in various roles alongside the Secret Service when a president or some other high-level protectee visited the city. In one such instance, I was assigned to man a rooftop with a Secret Service counter-sniper team. The position overlooked a field on which the protectee would be landing in a helicopter, and that field was surrounded by multi-story buildings which offered a potential assassin a position from which to shoot.]]>Sun, 14 Jul 2024 10:35:35 -0400<![CDATA[Jack Dunphy]]><![CDATA[Trump Assassination Attempt]]>https://pjmedia.com/jack-dunphy/2024/07/14/there-will-always-be-vulnerabilities-n4930675The Case for Pretext Stops<![CDATA[In my column yesterday here on PJ Media, I discussed the murder of Patricia McKay, the tourist from New Zealand who was run over and killed during an attempted robbery in Newport Beach, Calif., on July 2. One of the three suspects now facing charges for the crime, Leroy McCrary, who police say was the driver responsible for running over McKay, had at least twice been the beneficiary of Los Angeles County district attorney George Gascón’s lenient policies, the most egregious example of which was a plea deal that allowed McCrary to avoid prison after pleading guilty to a 2022 armed robbery in Santa Monica. Had McCrary been incarcerated for the crime, as he would have been in most other jurisdictions in California, McKay would be alive today.]]>Thu, 11 Jul 2024 19:04:00 -0400<![CDATA[Jack Dunphy]]><![CDATA[Law and Order]]>https://pjmedia.com/jack-dunphy/2024/07/11/the-case-for-pretext-stops-n4930604When Lenience Is Deadly<![CDATA[And now we know.]]>Wed, 10 Jul 2024 19:08:58 -0400<![CDATA[Jack Dunphy]]><![CDATA[Woke]]>https://pjmedia.com/jack-dunphy/2024/07/10/when-lenience-is-deadly-n4930561When Can a Police Officer Disobey an Order?<![CDATA[Two days ago, I wrote in this space on Sunday's debacle in Los Angeles, at which pro-Palestinian (read pro-Hamas, pro-murder, pro-hostage-taking, pro-rape) demonstrators shut down access to the Adas Torah Synagogue in the heavily Jewish Pico-Robertson neighborhood. LAPD officers were slow to respond and ineffectual when they did respond, leading to speculation on social media that they were ordered to stand down in the face of pro-Palestinian provocation.]]>Thu, 27 Jun 2024 17:00:00 -0400<![CDATA[Jack Dunphy]]>https://pjmedia.com/jack-dunphy/2024/06/27/when-can-a-police-officer-disobey-an-order-n4930167