Friday, April 6, 2012

Today one APD officer was allowed to go home and sadly one was not

In the span of 7 hours one of our policemen was allowed to go home to his family one was not. Who decides who gets to go home to his or her family? I don’t know! 

Me, I don’t give a flying fart what race, color or creed you are. There is something unforgivably wrong when you choose who should live and who should die, I tend to err at first with the authorities until an investigation has run its course. If they are in the wrong I'll say so.

I believe that everyone should be able to go home, the cop, the suspect and the victim. I know that sometimes that just can't or doesn't happen, and its sorrowful for the families of everyone involved, including the officer who has to take the life of a suspect.

Some believe it should be the dink that tries to take the weapon of a police officer, ring his neck with his own radio cord and tries to shoot and kill the officer with his own gun. He the one, who tries to take an officer’s gun, should be allowed to live, but the police officer should not be able to go home to his family simply because he or she is a cop, others like me think it should be both, the suspect and the police officer.

A woman, an older white lady, just as am I, was interviewed after the first incident had the unmitigated gall to say “they’re killin people, here’s another example, it’s happening frequently, and until the city council or our citizens decide to do something about it I think it’s going to be a problem” really, you don’t see a problem with the guy trying to take the officer’s gun to shoot the officer with his own gun, only that the cop had to shoot the guy who ran, then tried to take that officers life, that’s the problem. Why did the guy run? Why did the guy try to take the cop's gun? That’s not the issue? No, the issue for this woman was that a cop shot a man. Oy gevalt, people really have to knock it off and start seeing all sides of an issues and hold your judgments till more of the facts surface.

A scant 7 hours after the first officer involved shooting in the ATX a routine disturbance call regarding a drunken idiot at a big chain store, what no one knew or could have known was he had a semiautomatic gun with him at the time he took the life of one of our policemen by shooting him in the neck at point blank range.

This is a very touchy subject for me. In 2009 my favorite nephew was involved in an incident in his job as a commissioned security guard. He had to shoot and kill some drunk idiot who was trying to use his 6000 lb vehicle to run he and the man who had been in this idiots SUV and had been run over by the idiot while my nephew was trying to give the guy on the ground first aid. I am most defiantly on the side of my nephew, my niece and their 3 babies. 

According to witness accounts, my nephew was defending his own life and the lives of at least five people who witnessed the entire thing. 

With a No Bill decision the Travis County Grand Jury concluded he acted appropriately so they declined to  prosecute.

The grand jury declared that my nephew acted swiftly and bravely when faced with a difficult situation and was able to rely on his training and instincts to save the lives of four strangers.

He at the time had two babies and a wife, my niece at home, no one ever said anything about that! Really, I don’t freakin think so, he did the right thing.

And as it turns out I used to tease the officer who was murdered this morning, when he worked at ABIA he would be at the gas station across the street from the airport, he was always buying junk food and soda, he was always sweet to me. And he had a smile that light up a dark room. Rest well.