I. Police
Gordon Beesley is hardly the first police officer who has lost his life in the line of duty. But his tragic death in Olde Town Arvada, on June 21 does highlight what happens when the police in America are degraded, indeed demonized; when they are told that the best thing to happen to them would be defunding; when those officers who abuse their position are taken to represent all police. When this happens, police become targets. The likes of the gunman in Arvada target police not because they stand in the way of a criminal plot, but simply because they are the police.
There is a reason police are resigning around the country. Just like police must earn the trust of their communities, the communities must earn the trust of their police. Calls to defund police have severely undermined that trust.
The conventional wisdom is that when the self-appointed micromanagers of police protocol figure just what precise, narrow circumstances armed police intervention would be welcome, they will always be there. Gordon Beesley was there, but many of his colleagues have given up. Everyone’s heart goes out to Beesley’s family, but that is not enough. It is critical to thank police for their service. Only a dunderhead would figure that public and broad extension of gratitude to the police somehow ignores or excuses those who abuse their position and must be held accountable.
II. Guns
The pro-gun lobby maintains that if only more Americans were armed, mass shootings could be prevented. If an armed citizen were on every premises, then a would be mass shooter either would fear showing up or would be taken down before police even arrived.
There is much to support this idea in the Olde Town Arvada incident, but also much to refute it.
The anti-gun lobby maintains that if more Americans were armed, would be mass shootings would be exacerbated because the training in the use of a firearm does not, and cannot, prepare an armed citizen to cope with a messy, unpredictable mass shooting.
There is much to support this idea in the Olde Town Arvada incident, but also much to refute it.
Johnny Hurley, the armed citizen who happened to be on hand when the killer showed up, pulled his gun and shot the killer of Officer Beesley. It is certainly possible that Hurley, because he was armed and acted, prevented mass casualties. Chalk one up for the pro-gun lobby. At the same time, this incident proved to be messy. Hurley himself, a hero no less than Officer Beesley, was shot dead. Apparently, when police showed up they spotted Hurley holding the killer’s AK-47, only they did not know, and could not know, that the gun did not belong to the person holding it. Chaos does not allow for cool appraisal. Police shot an innocent person, a hero no less, and have to live with that for the rest of their lives. Chock one up for the anti-gun lobby.
II. Us
Underneath these complexities lies the deeper issue, the moral issue, the black-and-white issue: the compromise of humanity that has taken hold in America, the embrace of violence by a growing number of citizens, who caricaturize individuals as enemies in an endlessly growing number of categories. Some of them are race, party, national origin and religion. In this case, the category was the blue uniform.
May Officer Beesley rest in peace.
May Johnny Hurley rest in peace.
May the rest of us figure how to make society not only safer but saner.
Copyright © 2021 by the Intermountain Jewish News
