There must be something to that idea of a parallel universe. Here in Chicago, citizens are treated to a daily litany of calumnies and charges against the very women and men who put their lives on the line to protect and serve.
The Chicago Sun Times ( and its satellite papers of STNG) and the Chicago Tribune shoo their reporters to The Center for Wrongful Convictions, the MacArthur Center for Justice and the Peoples Law Office for cookie -cutter feel good stories that uplift the hearts of people who live far,far from crime and those who commit the most heinous offenses.
The Path to the Pulitzer is assured by Trust Funded Think Tank Lawyers and 1960's Radicals with law licenses ( they actually did less harm to American society with bombs and bottles back in the day) committed to undermining any and all confidence in the Justice System.
However, in Philadelphia a lawyer and a journalist, Christine M. Flowers, has written many columns in defence of police officers and common sense. Today, Ms. Flowers offers a tribute to four police officers killed in the line of duty since May 2008 - this is Phildelphia's bloodiest year for Law Enforcement personnel since 1996.
In the City of Brotherly Love and where G. Flint Taylor screamed Free Mumia - a convicted cop killer and Boutique Bolshevik hero, Christine Flowers - did I mention that she was both a lawyer and journalist?- puts the human face on the victims of murder who happen to be Police Officers.
2008 has been the most dangerous year for Philadelphia officers since 1996, when four were killed. A prayer to Michael the Archangel, patron of police, that we don't break the record.Ms. Flowers writes for the Philadelphia Daily News.
And even though each death is different, some brutal assassinations, others reckless accidents, the effect is the same: overwhelming grief, followed by uncontained anger.
And it's a different sort of anger from when civilians die.
Yes, it's an ugly aspect of nature that innocent children should be caught in a drug cross-fire on their way to school.
It pierces the heart when elderly women are raped in their bedrooms by teen intruders, when retired army vets are bludgeoned to death in their living rooms, when young mothers are murdered by the fathers of their babies.
IT'S A MISERABLE world in which such things not only happen but become commonplace. And Philadelphia is a part of that world.
But there's something surpassingly sad when you see men and women grouped at the entrance of a hospital, tears in their eyes for a stricken comrade. The grief that accompanies the coffin of a fallen officer is unlike any other because the occupant of that coffin met death on our behalf.
And the symbolism of a rider-less horse following close behind reminds us that - for a moment at least - the city is defenseless.
Of course, that's only a brief illusion. For every officer who falls in the line of duty there are hundreds more ready to take his or her place in the thin blue line. While no one can replace the one who has been taken, the obligation is picked up by brothers and sisters, an unbroken continuum of faith and service.
We saw it with Timothy Simpson. Stephen Liczbinski's friend took the murdered officer's handcuffs and placed them on his accused assassin's wrist when he was apprehended back in May. Simpson honored that debt. Now, tragically, he and Liczbinski are together again.
Some people complain about the attention given when an officer is slain.
Some judges think we should not elevate their deaths above "the rest of us," those without the bulletproof vests and the shields. Some citizens think that color excuses criminality, or that poverty is an explanation for antisocial behavior, or that grief is misplaced for those who willingly enter a dangerous profession.
These sentiments are heard in the streets, seen in the courtrooms, read on the letters page.
But they are wrong. Decent people understand it. The rest are irrelevant.
Four officers won't see the New Year. Four men and women have made the ultimate sacrifice for a city and a system that often seems to care more about rehabilitating criminals than honoring heroes.
And still, they keep answering the call.
No greater love. *
Christine M. Flowers is a lawyer.
In the City of Big Shoulders and Pencil-Neck Media Stooges, who get spoon fed their investigative work into 'systemic racism, brutality and corruption'sagas by the very lawyers making millions of dollars out of lawsuits against the City of Chicago, police officers are fair game and objects of continual scorn and ridicule - Neil Steinberg went so far as to smear a whole neighborhood that is home to hundreds of the men and women who protect Neil Steinberg before he gets on the Metra to his lily white suburb, as a Nazi enclave.
I'd trade a fistful of cop-hating Media stooges for one Christine M. Flowers.
G Flint Taylor, Josefina Mogul and the Peoples Law Office PLO are evil and cause crime and anarchy. They get money for guilty men and lie. They should be disbarred for suborning perjury.
ReplyDeleteG Flint Taylor, Josefina Mogul and the Peoples Law Office PLO are evil and cause crime and anarchy. They get money for guilty men and lie. They should be disbarred for suborning perjury.
ReplyDelete