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What are police for? [View all]
What are police for?Sometimes it’s little details that evoke the biggest feels. I have been writing about the Uvalde massacre most of the week. I have been so focused on facts and argument, I haven’t sobbed. But the tears came this morning after reading a report by KENS 5, a TV news station local to that Texas community, where 19 fourth-graders were shot to pieces.
The report was an eyewitness account by a survivor of the shooting. The boy, whom the reporter did not identify, said he and a friend “heard the shooting through the door.” He added that, “I told my friend to hide under something so he won’t find us. I was hiding hard. And I was telling my friend to not talk because he is going to hear us.”
He recalled what happened after police came through the classroom door that Salvador Ramos had locked behind him. “When the cops came, the cop said: ‘Yell if you need help!’ And one of the people in my class said ‘help.’ The guy overheard and he came in and shot her.”
That’s it. That’s the detail that got me. A child desperately needing to trust a caring adult. A child shot to pieces for needing and trusting.
Because of a cop’s incompetence.
The report was an eyewitness account by a survivor of the shooting. The boy, whom the reporter did not identify, said he and a friend “heard the shooting through the door.” He added that, “I told my friend to hide under something so he won’t find us. I was hiding hard. And I was telling my friend to not talk because he is going to hear us.”
He recalled what happened after police came through the classroom door that Salvador Ramos had locked behind him. “When the cops came, the cop said: ‘Yell if you need help!’ And one of the people in my class said ‘help.’ The guy overheard and he came in and shot her.”
That’s it. That’s the detail that got me. A child desperately needing to trust a caring adult. A child shot to pieces for needing and trusting.
Because of a cop’s incompetence.
https://www.editorialboard.com/what-are-police-for/
This is worth reading every single word.
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