The Thin Blue Line

The Thin Blue Line. A phrase you have all heard. It refers to Police Officers. But look beyond the line, beyond a Patrolman on the side of the highway that you hope does not pick up that extra ten miles per hour that you are trying to squeeze in there. Look beyond the ticket you got when the patrolman picked up that extra ten miles an hour. The men and women wearing that badge walk a thin line that few of us could walk.

We want them at our beck and call but no where around when we decide to bend a rule or two. We expect them to be mind readers, have perfect reasoning abilities, and to be paragons of virtue. They are expected to behave a cut above the public, enforce the law, and yet wink at our infraction with just a warning. What they are is something far different. They are, in fact just as human as you or me. They have families and homes, and bills to pay. They go to bed at night tired and mentally drained from a long day at work, just like we do. But there is one major difference. You and I don't run the risk that if we make the wrong call, if we give in to human emotion and react with a justifiable anger to having someone spit on us, if we try to help a man in need and it goes wrong, we don't run the risk of having some bystander video tape it and put it on the 6 o'clock news. We don't run the risk of having our families threatened if someone finds out where we live. We don't take our lives into our own or someone else's hands every time we go to work.

Recently, here in Charlotte, North Carolina, two of our finest, two of our bravest, were gunned down in cold blood. What made it far worse, is that they were killed while responding to a Domestic Disturbance. They were tying to defend someone else, someone that was too weak to defend themselves

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Officers Sean Clark and Jeff Shelton were gunned down by a repeat offender that should never have been on the streets in the first place. These two fine Police Officers and MEN, for make no mistake about it, Sean Clark and Jeff Shelton were in all respects Men. There is a difference between a Male and a Man. A Male is a human that is not female, normally differentiated anatomically by the presence of a male organ and the absence of mammary glands. Maleness is imparted at birth. A Man is a male that lives by a Code of Honor, He is one that places the welfare of others ahead of his own. In my 24 years in the US Army I have known and served with MEN. Yes, Clark and Shelton were MEN. They stood in the breach, They defended others from the scum of the Earth that would seek to victimize the weak. They were killed by such a male. Demetrius Montgomery, the accused killer, had numerous previous arrests for resisting arrest and one for assault on a Police Officer. The scenario played out like this. According to the prosecution, the two officers were returning to their vehicles after settling a Domestic Dispute in one of Charlotte's "Projects". Montgomery ALLEGEDLY walked up to the two officers, engaged them in conversation, and as they walked past him, he pulled a gun and shot both of the Officers in the back of the head. He ambushed two MEN and killed them for no reason. What a waste. What a crying shame that Demetrius Montgomery was even out on the street in the first place.

To further the outrage, Susan Burgess, Charlotte City Council and Mayor Pro-Tem, asked the question "How did we as a Community, fail him?" in reference to Demetrius Montgomery. How indeed, Susan. How indeed. Let's see Ms. Burgess, this community, likely as not provided

Demetrius Montgomery with everything. Subsidized housing, medical care, and a free education. If his family was poor, he got a free breakfast and a free lunch. How much more, Ms. Burgess could this community have given to poor little Demetrius. You, and your liberal left buddies might not be able to answer this question. But I can. IF he is, in fact guilty of this crime, which he has yet to be convicted of, but it is likely that he will be, if he is convicted he gave back to the community that had provided so much for him several things. He gave back, in killing Jeff Shelton, a young Widow and in killing Sean Clark, a young Widow and two children, one of which was not even born when it's father was murdered. Two Widows that have no husbands, and two children that will never know their father. Susan, Demetrius Montgomery returned evil for good, and proved that the forced altruism, shoved down the throats of Americans with every Welfare Check written, has done nothing but breed a generation that thinks they are owed. Well, Susan, we owe Demetrius Montgomery one more thing. A Needle in his arm.