An Edmonton police officer lost his life this week, trying to uphold the law and keep the peace. In other words, he was doing his job. It’s, overwhelmingly, sad to read these types of stories and they are becoming more and more too frequent. It bothers me when I see regular citizens who have no experience with law enforcement, passing judgement on when it is an appropriate time for a cop to pull out his weapon or how an officer should handle a certain situation. The reality is that all calls for police officers are dangerous. Every time they step into the middle of a dispute, or even pull over a speeding vehicle they are putting their life on the line. Only society’s bravest can do this job and I know I do not fit into that category, so I will never judge a police officer’s choices.
The day before the shooting death of Cst. Daniel Woodall, a Texas officer was put on administrative leave because of a video that surfaced where many had witnessed and determined he was way premature in pulling out his firearm. What’s neglected, of course, is that we have no idea what occurred before the video started rolling. The officer is, also, greatly outnumbered and I watched the video as well and I couldn’t see any indication the throb of rebellious teenagers was ready to comply with his order.
The society we live in now appears to accept civil unrest, even if it is not justified. We seem to promote standing up for what you believe, even if those views fly in the face of authority. In the matter I mention in the paragraph above, wouldn’t the entire confrontation be avoided if the police officer’s request for the people to leave the scene was, simply, complied with? I’m not saying he’s right to draw his gun, but I’m also wondering if the people questioning his decision making are aware of some magic word that could be used to have gotten those kids into some form of order.
A recent Participaction report urges parents to get their kids outside. That’s nice, in theory, but we parent so much differently than when I was a kid. I had a great conversation with my mother on the weekend and I compared my life as a 14-year-old to that of my own son, who turned 14 this month. When I was 14, I used to have an early morning paper route and by the time I was finished, my mom had left the house for work and it was up to me and my 12-year-old brother to get ourselves together for school. I also remember how lucky I felt to have secured an early morning paper route as they were, highly, sought after jobs for teenagers. Today? There is no such thing as an early morning teenaged paper boy. If there was, I’m not entirely confident my son could handle it anyway and that is, mostly, my fault as a parent. Municipalities are to blame too by outlawing things like road hockey and sliding. Still, it’s a bubble wrap world when it comes to kids. We don’t let them do anything without helicopter supervision. There is also a chance that if I allowed by 10-year-old daughter to walk seven or eight blocks to go get an ice cream on her own, I’d be reported to authorities. We’ve boxed ourselves in.
By no means am I a basketball expert, but I have found myself in front of the television as the NBA gets closer to crowning a champion. Lebron James has now been in five straight league finals, six in his career. He’s won two. The expectation is that with Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving both sidelined due to injury, James will not be successful in leading the Cleveland Cavaliers to the title, making him 2-and-4 in those six league championship series. Many ‘experts’ are suggesting James doesn’t have what it takes to be a, truly, great player based on that championship record. Yet, you hear these same ‘experts’ say all the time that a great player isn’t truly great until he wins a title. Well, James has two. And, for some reason, it’s still not good enough. In a professional sports world where it’s impossible to keep teams together for a prolonged period, James making it to five straight league finals is an incredible feat.
Washington Nationals outfielder Bryce Harper isn’t known to be a real friendly guy, heck baseball players have a reputation for being most aloof of all professional athletes. I maintain that is not the case and baseball players have emerged as the very best and most down to earth of all pro players. Harper, last week, got some attention for interacting with a fan in the bleachers and the fan threw him her camera. He took a selfie and threw it back. Made that person’s day, I’m sure.
Nice person mentions this week to Lynda Parsons, Karmel Foster, Evan Ortynsky, Terry Fullerton, and Chris Nykolaishen.
