A SOBERING WORD OF CAUTION

by CHAPLAIN DAVID FAIR, Ph D., PPF ADVISORY COUNCIL MEMBER

COP KILLER! What image does that bring to your mind? Which of these people would you suspect? A crazed gunman? A bank robber? How about a 34-year-old soccer mom? A 17-year-old girl picking up a prom dress? A Dad in a hurry to his son’s first basketball game?

They are all COP KILLERS! How can that be? Maybe in our society we would expect the crazed gunman and the bank robber. But never a soccer mom, a high school student or Dad. Yet every year dozens of law enforcement officers are killed by ordinary everyday people who became careless.

The fact is careless motorists will kill more public safety officers than armed criminals. People who fail to pull over for the lights and siren of a police car. Citizen’s who are changing radio stations on the car radio. Normal everyday people who became COP KILLERS because they caused a fatal accident killing a sheriff’s deputy or struck down a highway patrolman who was giving a ticket to a speeder.

Having been a Police Chaplain for 20 years I have responded to hundreds of emergencies, crises, and accidents. I was at Ground Zero after 911. I was in east Texas for the Columbia Space Shuttle disaster recovery. I worked Katrina and Rita. I have worked countless murder scenes, plane crashes, and auto accidents. But never have I experienced a trauma worse that the line-of-duty death of a police officer.

 

Several years ago I received a call from a state police agency I serve. They needed me to respond to a nearby community on the interstate. There a young police officer, a rookie, who was just beginning a new marriage and his law enforcement career was struck and killed by a truck while he was directing traffic at another accident.

Not only was the officer’s family devastated, his department crushed, and his neighbors saddened, but the driver of the truck destroyed his own life and his family as well. He will forever be guilt ridden that he took an innocent life. In a split second he killed a COP. He was branded in the community. His wife and children deeply hurt. All because for just a moment he looked away, or was distracted.

Most people would never dream of hurting a law enforcement officer. Yet in our hurry and busy work a day world, we get careless, we get aggressive, and we get distracted. The baby crying in the back seat, 10 minutes late for work, answering our mobile phone. It only takes a split second to become a COP KILLER.

At church or synagogue, at civic clubs, at schools and universities, at bridge clubs and at sporting events, we need to take it upon ourselves to spread the word. To get people involved in spreading the message “ Proceed with Caution America- Police at Work.”

If we could save the life of just one police officer. If we could just spare a wife or mother the grief or losing a son or daughter needlessly. If we could keep just one family, just one dad or mom the trauma of being branded a COP KILLER, it would all be worth it. Remember careless motorists will kill more public safety officers than armed criminals. You can help!