L.A. protesters taunt cops while their colleagues inside fight for their lives, say they 'hope they f****** die'

Two Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies were shot over the weekend in an ambush. As of this writing they are fighting for their lives in a Los Angeles-area hospital.

Please join us in praying for their full recovery.

Also: Please don’t join the people who did this:

As the word got out where the deputies are being treated, protesters started showing up. In addition to taunting the cops who had gone to check on their fallen colleagues, they also blocked entries to the hospital, which made the Sheriff’s Department feel compelled to tweet the following:

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To the protesters blocking the entrance & exit of the HOSPITAL EMERGENCY ROOM yelling “We hope they die” referring to 2 LA Sheriff’s ambushed today in #Compton: DO NOT BLOCK EMERGENCY ENTRIES & EXITS TO THE HOSPITAL. People’s lives are at stake when ambulances can’t get through.

— LA County Sheriffs (@LASDHQ) September 13, 2020

By the way, if you want to know why we’re describing the shooting as an ambush, you can see it for yourself right here:

Update: The gunman walked up on the deputies and opened fire without warning or provocation. pic.twitter.com/cBQjyKkoxJ

— LA County Sheriffs (@LASDHQ) September 13, 2020

There was no context. There was no provocation. The deputies were simply sitting in their squad car and the gunman walked up and shot them. Just like that.

Now we are not the New York Times, so we are not going to blame specific politicians or their rhetoric for what happened here. But we would like to ask you this: Do you think it matters that rhetoric making villains of all police officers has become so mainstream, that it is treated by political and media figures as acceptable?

What makes a guy like this think it’s OK to just walk up to two police officers he doesn’t have anything to do with, and attempt to murder them? If he hates cops that much, what has fed his hatred? Has the current national discourse on police had anything to do with it?

And is it reasonable to think that the same rhetoric that influenced this shooter might also be fueling the hatred of the people taunting the cops outside the hospital?

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We have said, and we will say again, that there are measures that can and should be taken to rein in the worst rogue cops. We have also said, and we will say again, that the vast majority of police officers are among the finest members of our society, and they deserve our respect and support.

The current political/media environment is offering neither, and it’s not hard to pick out the people who are responsible for that.

Don’t forget to pray for those deputies. Their lives matter.