Showing posts with label government. Show all posts
Showing posts with label government. Show all posts
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Two Arkansas Cops Killed by Anti-Government Activists
Police officers Brandon Paudert and Bill Evans were killed on Thursday during a routine traffic stop in West Memphis, Arkansas. Some time later, their killers, a father and son, were shot and killed themselves in a shootout with police. Two other officers were wounded. Such stories are tragic but not all that uncommon.
What is uncommon is the killer's motivation for shooting these officers. Unlike your average traffic-stop-gone-wrong, where the suspect is trying to get away from police because they are wanted for a more serious crime or because they have something in the car they don't want police to find, these shooters were not on the run from the law. They were so-called "sovereign citizen
" activists. They did not recognize the legitimacy of the government or the authority of the police.Death in the line of duty is unbelievably complicated. Paudert and Evans' fellow officers undoubtedly want to honor them for their service, as does the general public. They died protecting and serving the rest of us. At the same time, their deaths are scary, to us and to other police officers. Cops know that any traffic stop could be their last, and when it actually happens to someone they work with it drives that point home rather drastically. Spouses and children of cops, similarly, will look at their officer loved ones and wonder whether this could happen to them. Add to this the fact that, while Paudert and Evans worked to protect society, they could not adequately protect themselves, and there is probably a lot of blame and guilt in the law enforcement community in West Memphis.
All of this is textbook stuff that goes on whenever a police officer is killed in the line. But this case has a complicating factor on top of all that. This was not, in fact, a typical cop killing. These officers were not killed because they were trying to get a bad guy who didn't want to be gotten. They were killed because they were cops, period. There is no amount of training and strategy that can adequately prevent someone who wants to kill you no matter what and at any cost from doing so.
If you read the news stories about this shooting, you'll find lots and lots of information about the shooters. Their names are easy to find, as is information about their background. The names of Paudert and Evans, meanwhile, are something of an afterthought. They aren't as colorful characters as their killers. They don't make as good a story. And they aren't, frankly, as scary to the general public as their shooters are. There are people out there -- the Hutaree, the Guardians of the Free Republics, or just two guys like these -- who not only don't like the government but want to take it down, and are willing to take others with them. That makes it scary to be a cop. It also makes it scary to be someone who thinks having cops around is a generally good idea.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Poland's Tragedy
Ninety-seven people on a Polish government flight were killed in a plane crash in Russia yesterday. The group was on their way to a memorial service honoring some 22,000 Poles who were killed at Katyn by the Soviets in 1940. Thirty-seven government officials, including the President and First Lady, are among the dead.
Frequent Quarterbacker Edwin wrote yesterday with the following thought:
As I thought about it, I realized how crazy it was that the President of a country, all of the command of the armed forces, the head of the national bank and clergy, and members of parliament would all be on the same plane - a small plane going to a remote Russian village in foggy conditions. Clearly, there has to be something wrong with that. Isn't there?
I'm not sure I'm in a position to answer that question. Certainly it's not uncommon to have multiple members of a government on a single flight. We can all imagine that if Air Force One went down, it might kill more than jut the President. Edwin does have a point, however, that having so much governmental power on a single flight seems foolish. On the other hand, unlike the United States, Poland's President is the head of state but not the head of the government -- they have a prime minister -- so the loss to them is somewhat different than the death of a U.S. president would be to us.
When I was a young child, my parents sometimes traveled on vacation without us kids. While they were comfortable leaving us with a sitter, there was one rule. They never, ever traveled on the same plane. Even as a kid this freaked me out a little, because it represented my parent's contemplation of the possibility their plane would crash. As an adult, I realize that it also didn't make a lot of logical sense. If they were concerned about them both being affected by the same tragedy, leaving us with no parents, then they should not have been driving in the same car without us either.
There are certainly protocols that are publicly known for making sure that the entire U.S. government isn't wiped out all at once. If you watch the State of the Union Address on television, and you know your presidential succession, you may notice that one member of the President's cabinet is always absent. The entire line of succession never ever is in the same place at the same time, in case something happens to the whole group, to ensure continuity of the presidency. I don't know what the Polish equivalent is, but I would bet anything there is a reason that the Prime Minister was not on that plane.
It takes something quite counter-intuitive to produce a rule that says two important people can't be on a plane together. It takes overcoming the basic denial which enables us to not be afraid all the time to plan for the worst. Most civilians don't like to do that kind of planning -- that's why people who know they are extremely ill still don't make out wills or become organ donors. We don't like to admit that we might die, even though we know it's true. That's why, when it comes to security and continuity protocols, the people at risk are not the ones who make the rules. They have security and military people do it for them. The Poles may have a strong opinion about whether they did a decent job, given what has happened. Not being affected myself by the deaths of these government officials or the upheaval they may cause in Poland, I don't think I'm in a place to judge.
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Meet the Quarterback
- Naomi Zikmund-Fisher
- is a clinical social worker, former school Principal and a Crisis Consultant for schools and community organizations. You can learn more about her at www.SchoolCrisisConsultant.com
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