Those two words “Breaking News” instill instant dread these days.
“Oh no! What now?!” we wonder, quaking, afraid to hear.
It seems every day there is “Breaking News” about one atrocity after another, the next worse than the last.
The latest, as of last Sunday, was the awful news of yet another mass shooting of police officers – this one in Baton Rouge, La., the city where a black male driver was killed by a police officer a couple of weeks ago. The vicious gunning down of officers in Baton Rouge (three of them dead as of Sunday) follows just days after the other atrocious massacre of officers in Dallas, Texas where five were shot dead.
The ruthless killings of police officers and deputies is nothing new, unfortunately, as we in central Minnesota know all too well after the cruel, unprovoked murders of officers Brian Klinefelter in St. Joseph (1996) and Tom Decker in Cold Spring (2014). The self-protective, cozy rationale that the murder of law-enforcement personnel happens mainly or only in high-crime metro areas is simply not true. And that is why law enforcement everywhere, even in the smallest towns and rural areas, are in danger. The risk is always there, and every officer knows that injury or death can lurk just around the corner: at a traffic stop, on the scene of a domestic flare-up, during or after a robbery or other serious crime or (increasingly) at the hands of an unstable hater lying in wait with a gun.
The controversies surrounding the deaths of black men by white officers have been used by hate-filled ambushers as “excuses” for their attacks against officers. Such controversies were merely the “triggers” that set these madmen’s rages exploding, the same way deranged individuals “copycat” other “homegrown” terrorists, using ISIS propaganda as their “triggers.” The fact remains, there is no excuse, none whatsoever, for such acts of insane mayhem. If there are officers who have killed black people or others with no justification, let justice take care of it, case by case, and yes, we should be vigilant that justice is served.
Most importantly, we should all remember the overwhelming majority of law-enforcement employees are topnotch, highly trained professionals who risk their lives every day and night to protect the public. What a tragedy the gun-crazed killers of cops can’t realize that.
What is worrisome after these recent vicious assaults is there seems to be more and more sick individuals just itching for a reason to kill officers – or to commit other unspeakable terrorist acts. And attacks against officers, make no mistake, are acts of terrorism. Such murders, over time, can destabilize our daily civic stability by bringing fear and suspicion into our streets and public venues, not to mention the anxieties they bring to officers and to their families.
What to do? Many commissions have made recommendations (assault-weapon bans and expanded background checks, more treatment for mental illness, community-policing programs and more), but we have to demand legislators adopt the recommendations.
In the meantime, here is something everybody everywhere can do: Stop bad-mouthing cops.
