Walk a mile in an LEO's shoes

I have had enough and it’s time to vent about something that just really makes me insanely mad. I, like a lot of people read the news on the internet, listen to talk radio as well as watch it on T.V. I also enjoy reading blog’s in my down time because of the vast variety of opinions etc. I have to tell you though I really am pissed off about the simple minded, arm chair quarterbacks that have the testicular fortitude to call in to talk radio or write criticizing police officers that are involved in shootings. It amazes me that these people actually feel that these officers had other choices!

Lets take a look at the most recent case of Sean Bell. You have undercover officers working at a strip club. Well geez I can’t believe that there would be any type of crime there! So anyway, they approach this fine citizen, one thing leads to another and the suspect {Bell} decides to try to run over all 3 officers. Now here’s where I am asking the simpletons who think that these officer’s had another choice- You have a 4000 pound automobile that is now being used as a weapon coming right at you. You are the officer or officer’s that risk being run down, what do you do? The person behind the wheel is not driving away from you they are driving directly toward you. They want you dead. Please remember that you as an officer do not have the luxury of thinking about it for oh, I don’t know 10 seconds. No, you have a split second.

If you are honest with yourself you would say what any reasonable person would say, that you are going to go home at the end of the night and if it means taking this psycho out then you will do what you have to do. This is a different time and place people, these thugs that run around are carrying weapons, using vehicles as weapons! They do not hesitate at all to use these weapons either and it makes no difference if it’s a policeman or a civilian that they use them on. In fact, they are more likely to use them on LEO’s. The reason why, because if they go to prison they go in as a hero for taking out a cop!

I can assure you that there has never been a day in the last 27 years that I got up in the morning thinking about what I could get into while on patrol so that I could shoot somebody and possibly kill that person. This ain’t the old west and I’m not looking to mirror the careers of “law men” of yesteryear. I have been on a number of police involved shootings and I can tell you they are no cake walk. The officer is now the focus of a criminal investigation. He or she has to prove himself or herself innocent. The suspects may be innocent until proven guilty but don’t delude yourself into thinking for a second that LEO’s are lucky enough to be viewed that way because we’re not! That’s sad too because the officer is guilty until proven innocent, first by the State Attorney’s office, then by their own department. If all of that is not enough, then the officer is raked across the coals “judged” in the media- and we all know how fair and unbiased the media is.

The odds are against an officer involved in a shooting. As mentioned, they are not only accountable to their internal affairs department, the state attorney, and the media- they are also tried before a jury. The jury is made up of citizens, not fellow officers. Face the facts folks, we can’t afford the type of legal representation that certain, wife murdering ex football players get. We get the same lawyers everyone else does. After going through all of that and being cleared by a jury I’d have to say it’s clear cut. Wouldn’t you?

So again, I ask that you put yourself in that position and if you can honestly say that you want to be put through that kind of hell and scrutiny, you’re in the right mindset. I would also like to ask these officer’s critics out there- How many wives or husbands of coworkers did you get to tell their spouses had been killed in the line of duty? Maybe they were killed because they did what you would have them do, hesitate. Do you know what it’s like to go to the home of a close friend that’s just been murdered in cold blood, knock on the door, see his wife with her children at her side and tell her that her husband is never coming home because some asshole shot him or ran him over? Have you seen the wife of your friend crumple to the ground, grasping for her children as sanity slips from her eyes and her world falls apart? Have you seen your company’s Chaplain fall to his knees beside her and begin to recite the Lord’s prayer? Oh, you don’t have to do that in your job working at Wal-Mart or as a bank teller or manager of McDonalds? Well guess what? That might not be part of you job description but it is a very real part of mine.

Contrary to popular thug belief, these officer’s didn’t want to take a life, they wanted to preserve and protect it. They have family’s just like you. I’d be willing to go out on a limb and bet that if you were put in a life or death situation you would do what you had to do to protect yourself. It’s no different for us, we want to go home to our family’s every night too.

So the next time you jump on your pulpit and begin shouting to the masses “unjustified shooting”, think real long and real hard about how your loved ones would react to you being run over or shot by the criminal element that you in all of your self righteous glory are defending. I hope everyone will take a moment and pray for the ignorant arm chair quarterbacks- hopefully they will never have to tell the spouse of a friend that their loved one was killed because the bad guy got the drop on them or they hesitated.

We as a society have made it incredibly easy to persecute these officer’s way before the facts are ever known. The media is not your friend, they will print or say whatever they need to so they can get top ratings. I have a saying that I have always lived by on the street, “I would rather be judged by 12 than carried by 6!”

I’m Out And We’ll Talk Later!