Call me crazy but i have the utmost respect for men and women who become our law enforcement officers. Are there bad apples? You bet. Years ago when i was growing we had 2 cops that were using their badges to cover for their own criminal activity.i won’t go into detail but they were eventually run out of town. Their reputations were so badly damaged they couldn’t hack living in the area after they were caught. It was shocking. We think so highly of these people when there are bad apples it shocks the conscience.

The officers who take their job seriously and joined to protect and serve their communities don’t deserve to be lumped in with the bad apples. When an officer approaches a vehicle or a person of interest they have no idea what they are going to face. Maybe it will be routine but there’s always that chance the other party has a weapon. Their families have to hope each time they go out that they will come back.

The nature of the job is that you are going to face criminal activity. It has to be disheartening to see the worst of persons but you are the one keeping the society we live in civil. The most dangerous scenario is an angry mob. It can turn on a dime and become violent. The violence can be directed at you and your fellow officers. You have to keep order and keep people from being hurt and property from being damaged but not ignite an out of control situation. It can escalate quickly. The next thing you know you have a riot and crowd control becomes impossible. Mobs don’t act the same as individual persons and here you are with a crowd that likely outnumbers you and the other officers. You have to be as restrained as possible and still maintain order. Not easy.

There are situations where there are split seconds to size up the danger. Most people have a job that doesn’t involve the kinds of situations a police officer faces. Most people don’t go to work and their family has to wonder if they’re coming home that night. Most people can take for granted they will put in their time and clock out when their day is done.

Here’s the deal. We have to have respect for LEGITIMATE AUTHORITY & LAWS for civilized society.

What about Jim Crow Laws and Segregation? ILLEGITIMATE. This is why there was the Civil Rights Movement. Rev. Martin Luther King never advocated for violence but he did support justifiable civil disobedience. He used the model of [Mahatma] Ghandi in India for the civil rights movement in the United States.During the Civil Rights movement you had a legitimate authority-the police-enforcing illegitimate laws. Eventually our laws were changed to correct the injustice & protect the rights of minorities against discriminatory practices. Our country owes a huge debt of gratitude to Rev King. His leadership in the Civil Rights movement can’t be overstated.

Law enforcement practices can go from one end of a spectrum to another.You can have anarchy with a breakdown in civil society all the way up to a police state.

The difference between the thin blue line that protects and serves the public is a police state that protects and serves a regime. Civilized society can’t survive either extreme ;anarchy at one end or a police state at the other.

It’s a shame seeing these assassinations of police officers reported as frequently as they have been lately. i was horrified when Antifa/BLM were getting away with their attacks on our police. BLM was chanting what do we want-dead cops and pigs in a blanket, fry em like bacon. Pigs was a common derogatory word used for the police in the 60’s. The media narrative regarding the police didn’t help. They took a bad situation and made it worse. The media has way too much power over the general public. It comes from people not questioning the media. and holding them accountable.

You can weed out the bad actors in law enforcement and respect the majority who are doing their best.