ArcaMax

News that the police lieutenant widely and affectionately known as "G.I. Joe" in the Chicago suburb of Fox Lake, Ill., is not the hero he made himself out to be has taken some fuel from the media-driven myth that has given us headlines like these:

"War on Police Sparks National Crime Wave" --Investor's Business Daily

"Police face recruiting shortage due to war on cops" --New York Post

"(New York Police Chief) Bratton warns of tough times ahead due to 'war on cops' " --New York Post.

Conservative politicians and pundits who promote the idea that there's a "war on cops" reacted with a bold message to the fatal shooting of Fox Lake police Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz in Fox Lake on Sept. 1. Their message: Blame 'Black Lives Matters' first.

Then blame President Barack Obama and anyone else who believes -- as the loosely knit Black Lives Matters movement does -- that protests over police killings of unarmed African-Americans over the past couple years are anything but a "war on cops."

The message from the "war on cops" crowd, which includes some Republican presidential candidates like New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and a platoon of conservative commentators, has been simply: This is what you get when you question the police -- dead police.

Alas, some of the steam has gone out of that message, now that investigators have concluded that Gliniewicz is nowhere near the heroic G.I. Joe of his nickname.

Lake County officials now say that GI Joe committed a "carefully staged suicide" to look like murder -- and perhaps try to cover up his theft of thousands of dollars from the police department's youth auxiliary program, which he then spent on such nonessential items as porn websites, mortgage payments and gym memberships.

He also tried to arrange for a gang member "to put a hit" on a village administrator, officials say, because he feared she would discover he had been embezzling money.

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