"The news had been hitting us like a one-two punch this week."
Wow. What a night. I was going to reflect on some observations on the wonderful event we had last night at our Liberty Tea Party Patriot meeting. But those good feelings got trumped as soon as we got into the truck to head home. Since we have Sirius Radio in the truck, we had Fox News on. Right off the bat, we could tell something was up. Regular programming had been superseded by breaking news.
The news this week has been hitting us like a one-two punch. First the lethal shooting of a black man by police in Louisiana. Then the shooting of a black man by police right here in Minnesota. Last night, all hell broke loose in Texas. As I write this, the story is still developing. A major ambush of police forces during a staged demonstration. Eleven officers shot, five of them dead. The highest death toll of police forces at one time since the 9/11 attack.
But that ambush will be the subject of a later article once more is known. I would like to focus on a increasingly bothersome trend. I once thought when people in the inner city said you could be shot by the police just for the crime of "being black," it was just hyperbole. No longer. I know that our police put their lives on the line each and every day. But by the same token, innocent people who get pulled over for a broken taillight should not have to worry about lethal force being used.
First off, we need a better instrument of non-lethal force than something like the taser. The reason I say that is often times the taser works just fine, thank you. But there are other times it does not. And a police officer needs to know with clarity that if there is a threat, it can be neutralized. And one reason for that is that his or her life is not in danger. So often times the officer will pull his sidearm instead of the taser. Then bad things can happen.
I often think about the Star Trek series. In that show, people are armed with sidearms called fazers. These mythical weapons have different settings, going all the way from stun to vaporizing a person. If you had to use a fazer on someone and it was in the stun mode, that person would wake up feeling groggy and with a headache. But the person would wake up. When you shoot someone four or five times with a 9 mm sidearm, there is a very good chance that person will bleed out and die.
We need to do something, and do it quickly. In many cities, we are inches away from an all out war between some in the community and police forces. Hopefully and prayerfully, that is NOT what happened in Dallas last night. Our police need to be protected AND so does EVERYONE in the community. Skin color, race, creed, religion, or whatever should not matter. If police need more training, let's get it done. If we need the body cameras, we should have them installed ASAP.
One final thing. We are at a point right now where we need solid, clear thinking by our leaders. We don't need the President or our Governor throwing gas on this fire. We have something which is broken which needs to be fixed quickly and the right way. To escalate rather than de-escalate will lead the the long, hot, and very violent summer many of us have long dreaded.
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