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William P. Warford, Antelope Valley Press
"And still they answer the calls."
Every cop knows that every call could be the last. Sgt. Steve Owen - a brawny cop's cop who symbolized the Lancaster Sheriff's Station as much as anyone these last two decades - responded to a burglary call on Wednesday and took a bullet for his trouble.
He is dead at 53.
They respond, dozens of times a day in our Valley alone, when someone's in trouble, when someone needs help. Domestic violence calls, robbery calls, sexual assault calls, assault and battery calls, and - like Steve Owen on Wednesday - burglary calls.
Any one of those calls can kill you, no matter how skilled you are, no matter how careful you are, no matter how well-trained you are, because any of those calls can bring you face-to-face with a murderer who can shoot you before you even know he has a gun in his hand.
A traffic stop can kill you, too. So can serving a search warrant. So can sitting in your patrol car filling out reports.
Cops have died in all those situations. More than 20,000 have died since the first known line-of-duty death in 1791. Ninety-seven so far this year have died.
And still they answer the calls.
It is especially remarkable now, given the disgusting lack of respect given law enforcement officers by much of our society today.
The law enforcement agencies of all sizes, from the biggest urban areas to the most sleepy rural burgs, recruit from the human race. As long as they do, there will be imperfect cops; cops who will go wrong and cops who will make mistakes in the heat of the moment.
But name one profession whose mistakes are pounced upon and magnified more than law enforcement's. Name one profession that gets painted with a broader brush. It has become perfectly fine in this country today to smear all cops as racist killers.
When Roland Fryer, Jr., a researcher at Harvard University who happens to be an African-American, this summer published an extensive study that found that police were more likely to shoot whites than blacks, that there is no racial bias when it comes to the use of lethal force, the story made the news for a day and quickly disappeared. It didn't fit the narrative.
The national media called the results "surprising," as well they would be to anyone who watches or reads the constant hammering of police in the news.
This past summer we had people marching in the streets, calling for "dead cops."
Then, sure enough, we had a series of officers killed in ambushes, including five in one horrible night in Dallas.
And still they answer the calls.
So perverted has our society become, that the National Football League would not allow the Dallas Cowboys to honor the fallen officers, but does allow to sit during the National Anthem a second-string quarterback who wears socks in practice depicting officers as pigs.
And are the fallen cops the heroes, the ones praised in the national media? No, it's the "courageous" quarterback who's "taking a stand."
Walk up to a car on a traffic stop on a dimly lighted street and then talk to me about courage. Walk into a house on a domestic violence call. Serve an arrest warrant at a drug house. Answer a burglary call like Steve Owen did.
Steve Owen was loved by many people in this community. The loss must be unbearable for his wife Tania (who also is a deputy) and their children.
The loss wounds his brother officers to the core of their being. But that same night, the next day, and the day after, there were people in trouble who needed their help.
And still they answer the calls.
***
"And still they answer the calls."
Every cop knows that every call could be the last. Sgt. Steve Owen - a brawny cop's cop who symbolized the Lancaster Sheriff's Station as much as anyone these last two decades - responded to a burglary call on Wednesday and took a bullet for his trouble.
He is dead at 53.
They respond, dozens of times a day in our Valley alone, when someone's in trouble, when someone needs help. Domestic violence calls, robbery calls, sexual assault calls, assault and battery calls, and - like Steve Owen on Wednesday - burglary calls.
Any one of those calls can kill you, no matter how skilled you are, no matter how careful you are, no matter how well-trained you are, because any of those calls can bring you face-to-face with a murderer who can shoot you before you even know he has a gun in his hand.
A traffic stop can kill you, too. So can serving a search warrant. So can sitting in your patrol car filling out reports.
Cops have died in all those situations. More than 20,000 have died since the first known line-of-duty death in 1791. Ninety-seven so far this year have died.
And still they answer the calls.
It is especially remarkable now, given the disgusting lack of respect given law enforcement officers by much of our society today.
The law enforcement agencies of all sizes, from the biggest urban areas to the most sleepy rural burgs, recruit from the human race. As long as they do, there will be imperfect cops; cops who will go wrong and cops who will make mistakes in the heat of the moment.
But name one profession whose mistakes are pounced upon and magnified more than law enforcement's. Name one profession that gets painted with a broader brush. It has become perfectly fine in this country today to smear all cops as racist killers.
When Roland Fryer, Jr., a researcher at Harvard University who happens to be an African-American, this summer published an extensive study that found that police were more likely to shoot whites than blacks, that there is no racial bias when it comes to the use of lethal force, the story made the news for a day and quickly disappeared. It didn't fit the narrative.
The national media called the results "surprising," as well they would be to anyone who watches or reads the constant hammering of police in the news.
This past summer we had people marching in the streets, calling for "dead cops."
Then, sure enough, we had a series of officers killed in ambushes, including five in one horrible night in Dallas.
And still they answer the calls.
So perverted has our society become, that the National Football League would not allow the Dallas Cowboys to honor the fallen officers, but does allow to sit during the National Anthem a second-string quarterback who wears socks in practice depicting officers as pigs.
And are the fallen cops the heroes, the ones praised in the national media? No, it's the "courageous" quarterback who's "taking a stand."
Walk up to a car on a traffic stop on a dimly lighted street and then talk to me about courage. Walk into a house on a domestic violence call. Serve an arrest warrant at a drug house. Answer a burglary call like Steve Owen did.
Steve Owen was loved by many people in this community. The loss must be unbearable for his wife Tania (who also is a deputy) and their children.
The loss wounds his brother officers to the core of their being. But that same night, the next day, and the day after, there were people in trouble who needed their help.
And still they answer the calls.
***
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