I always have been an advocate for law enforcement, since my father was a police officer in both the Air Force and the private sector.
The one thing you always can count on is that a police officer is hated for doing his job and is hated for not doing his job.
Used to be that peace officers were respected, seen as be part of the community. And while there were some terrible incidents that people did, for the most part officers were a symbol of order that by their very presence kept a community on an even keel.
Over the course of centuries, but most particularly in the last few decades, the light that law enforcement has been seen in has changed from one of respect to one of derision. Think about it: many of us used to feel a pang of panic when a police car showed up behind us. We would question ourselves — are we speeding? Did we do an improper turn? Did we stop long enough?
Now, many of us just get angry, as if the police are an inconvenience. Here in Texas, and particularly East Texas, that respect remains, but slowly, inexorably, that attitude has gained traction, especially in larger cities and most especially in areas dominated by liberal mindsets.
The shooting of a woman in Minneapolis by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer during an enforcement action is only the latest event in that very long slide.
Before focusing on the immediate, or arguing that the facts of this case are different somehow, skip the minutiae of this to focus on the full timeline. (Yes, the woman made her own decisions, the worst of which was to ignore the officer. Yes, a case can be made that the officer went overboard in his reaction, particularly when tensions were running as high as they were.)
I find that the times that the national media used hyperbole in their description of events surrounding police shootings (all of remember “I can’t breathe” and “hands up, don’t shoot” and “fiery but mostly peaceful protests”) fanned the flames of hatred, and the reaction of elected officials who vilify men and women who were simply trying to keep peace (Obama’s “the police acted stupidly” or all of the mayoral and gubernatorial outrage leveled at peacekeepers), added fuel to the fire.
Even when the facts come out and prove that the officers in so many instances were right, those purveyors of “truth” and “respected” leaders kept up the myth, refusing to acknowledge the truth, and demanding that change be made (Defund the police! Hold hearings! Write more laws!), never once defusing the overcharged sentiment against the police. The protests over the death of George Floyd stand as the nadir of those developments.
(While this may seem relatively new, us older folks remember police being called pigs, songs talking about killing cops, and boatloads of television shows and movies painting police as crooked or violent.)
As long as there have been peacekeepers, there have been incidents and accidents that have led to tragedy. Waiting on the full facts makes more sense than mistaken jumps to conclusions that make already terrible problems worse.
Tony Farkas is editor of the Trinity County News-Standard and the San Jacinto News-Times. He can be reached at tony@polkcountypublishing.com.
