Pig pile on the police!!

Or not. Anyone who spends time cruising the internet for news is aware of two stories involving the police. One comes out of New York where apparently five cops shot fifty rounds into a car, killing the driver who was unarmed. The other involves a drug raid in Atlanta where a 93 year old woman was killed after she opened fire on the police breaking into her home.

Now you'll note I really don't fill in the details. If you want anything more specific I'd suggest you go elsewhere. My posting here mainly concerns the knee jerk reflex seen in too many quarters to automatically damn the cops before ALL the information is in. Hey, whatever happened to the idea of, "innocent till proven guilty"? Or does that not apply to our police? Does putting on a badge automatically make you a second class citizen?

Just asking.

From where I sit it looks like the sort of job you couldn't pay me enough to take. Everytime you pull a vehicle over for a busted tail light you run the risk of getting shot. Your every action is up for public scrutiny, if you're involved in an altercation with any minority you can bet someone is going to crawl up your butt making sure you're not racist, sexist, ageist, an Islamophobe, anti-Semitic, etc. The degrading jokes never stop about tickets to the policeman's ball, where the best doughnut shop is, and so on and so forth.

God forbid there is any kind of emergency. Your job will come first because you're the one entrusted with the public safety and screw any idea of taking care of your family. You might be called on to deliver a baby on a city street, step in between two warring spouses, calm down a belligerent drunk, comfort an accident victim after verifying the puddle of goo is what used to be his kid, give CPR to some homeless guy who might have every disease in the book including leprosy, check out that telltale smell coming from the apartment where it turns out some guy killed himself three weeks before. And you get to discover the body. And it's summertime in Texas. Fill in the blanks, pizza anyone?

And for what? For the "respect" you receive when some speeder you've stopped wonders aloud why you don't chase "real" criminals? For the wheedling of favors such as fixing a ticket, favors that might cost you your job? For the constant denigration you'll receive when someone who once got badmouthed by a cop discovers you also wear a badge?

This is a job someone would want? Not me, brother.

But it's a job that needs doing. One that holds the fabric of our civilization together. When the fit hits the shan we're all glad to see the cops. They're like owning Dobermans. We don't want them around when polite company arrives but if something goes "bump" in the night we're damned glad they're sleeping at the foot of the bed.

I know there are bad cops, hey at the age of nineteen myself and two shipmates were involved in a dustup with members of Newport News' finest. One of my buddies was beaten so badly that if the cops hadn't been stopped he'd have been crippled or killed. Police brutality at it's best and I witnessed it firsthand.

Does that mean all cops are not to be trusted? I don't think so.

Just as there are bad cops there are subsailors who qualify as real scum. When I was on the Daniel Webster (B) in 86 we had a senior chief who liked to brag on how he used to slip the salami to a fifteen year old back when he was a second class. Nice guy, huh? But that definetly doesn't mean all bubbleheads are not to be trusted. By the same token we shouldn't paint all cops with the same brush.

The case can be made that just as we hold our clergy to a higher standard so should we hold our police. I've no beef with that. But when something goes awry, when a story hits the news that might lead us to find wrongdoing on the part of the police we should WAIT till all the facts are in. They deserve no less.

If we're going to give the benefit of the doubt to every rapist, child pornographer, wife-beater, etc. that goes through our criminal justice system then it's only right we give that same benefit to the cops. "Innocent till proven guilty" applies to our police too. IMHO they're out doing the job damned few can do and until proven otherwise I believe they're doing it to the best of their ability. So we owe it to them to recognize that effort and for us to act accordingly.

God bless them for their service.