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.
