A Daughter's Perspective

          Police officers, Firefighters, and Paramedics, all have one thing in common, they are first responders, who put their life at risk each and everyday for the good of other people.  For the first fifteen years of my life, my dad got up each morning, put on his uniform, and badge and left for work.  When police officers leave their house in the morning, they have no idea what challenges they are going to face that day, or if they will return home that night.  They have lots of training, but when faced with dangerous situations they are forced to make split second decisions.  Even a routine traffic stop can turn into on of the most dangerous situations.   So, when I heard on the news that a family was suing two police officers in Indiana for using excessive force, it disheartened me. Why do people have so little respect for police officers?

            Last month officers Lt. Patrick Vicari and Sgt. Charles Turner pulled over a vehicle in Hammond, Indiana, because they noticed the driver and the passenger were not wearing their seatbelts.  The driver, Mahone refused to roll the windows of the vehicle down when the officers approached the car and on top of that she would not show identification, but later showed identification off camera.  When the officers asked the passenger, Jones, for identification, he did not have I.D. with him and refused to write his name down on a piece of paper.  Apparently, he remembered he had his name on a traffic violation ticket in the back seat, and without telling police, he turned and reached for the ticket.  The police officers could not see what he was doing, fearing he was reaching for a weapon; they broke the window and shot him with a stun gun.  Now, a month later Jones is suing the two police officers.  If he and his girlfriend would have shown some respect and followed directions, they could have avoided the whole situation. 

            Do police officers have too much power and authority?  How can we assure they   always use it appropriately?  Should police officers knowingly be able to put themselves in a dangerous situation, then harm that person and call it self-defense?  My dad was a police officer for many years, and most of his friends are also cops.  Growing up around police officers, and seeing them in a work and home environment, I have a strong respect for them and everything they do.  Other people also should have a strong respect and healthy fear for police officers.  They are the people that keep you safe, they walk into a building with a gun man to help hostages escape, they run out in the middle of traffic to pickup big pieces of garbage, and they park their vehicles in dangerous places to block traffic where a car accident has occurred.  They are also the people who write you a ticket for speeding, running a red light, and having a tail light out, but they do this out of concern for safety of you and others.  When they pull you over, they approach a vehicle not knowing who is inside or if they are armed and dangerous.  This is why Lt. Patrick Vicari and Sgt. Charles Turner acted like they did, and when Jones turned to get his parking ticket, they still had no idea who he was; he could have been someone that was armed and dangerous.  So, I think it is absolutely ridiculous that Jones is suing the police officers for excessive force.  What were they supposed to do, wait until Jones had a gun pointed at them to take the kind of action they did?  Jones claims his civil rights were infringed upon, but how?  Does he think this happened because he was African American?  Ultimately, it comes down to him not wanting to do what the police officers asked of him and now he will not take responsibility for his action. He believes the officers owe him, but for what, protecting themselves?  I feel like they are looking for deep pockets and easy money. 

      Now let’s say, someone breaks into Jones’ home, who do you think he is going to call?  He will call the police, probably the same department that Lt. Patrick Vicari and Sgt. Charles Turner work for.  Jones would want the police officers to do everything they could to get that person out of his house even if that meant shooting that person with a stun gun.  But what if the police officers said, “Oh no we can not do that because we might get sued”.  Do we want our police officers thinking about if they would get sued or not before they protect themselves or others?  As a daughter of a police officer, I do not want them thinking about getting sued first; I want them to do whatever they need to do to protect themselves and others, and I am sure many other sons and daughters of police officers feel the same way. At the end of the day we just want our parent’s home safe.            

Based off of http://abcnews.go.com/US/indiana-cops-tasered-man-accused-excessive-force-past/story?id=26051579