December 6, 2009 in City

To the thin blue line: Thank you

By The Spokesman-Review
 

Everybody knows that wearing a badge can be hazardous to your health.

The pitfalls of police work, after all, have been the go-to grist for myriad movies and half the shows on TV.

But every now and then the real world gives us a spinning-back kick to the teeth to show us what pinning that shiny shield onto a uniform can cost.

One week has passed since Maurice Clemmons, a gun-packing piece of filth if ever there was, walked into a West Side coffee shop and assassinated four Lakewood police officers who were about to begin their shifts.

Mark Renninger. Ronald Owens. Tina Griswold. Greg Richards.

Four good and decent lives lost.

I’m still angry and appalled over the unprovoked bloodbath that took place in Forza Coffee last Sunday morning.

I won’t pretend to imagine what the family and friends of those four fallen officers have been going through. I will, however, confess to cheering at the news that Clemmons’ two-day lam ended in a burst of karmic justice.

This spared us having to suffer through a protracted trial with defense-paid headshrinkers yammering on and on about the killer’s confused state of mind or his sad childhood.

Speaking of justice, let’s hope they throw the book at the creeps who aided Clemmons in his futile flight.

Sure, I’ve devoted plenty of words over the years to the subject of police misdeeds. But contrary to what some of my critics would suggest, I’m not anti-cop.

Not at all.

I believe that law enforcement is no mere profession – it’s a high calling.

Police officers take an oath to uphold the law and to protect and to serve. I don’t think it’s wrong to hold them to a gold standard of excellence.

So I tend to get a little, well, Clarkish when some of them don’t measure up.

I couldn’t be a good cop, I’ll be the first to admit it. I don’t have the discipline. I don’t have the temperament.

I definitely don’t have the courage.

Fortunately for society, the vast majority of our police officers do have the right stuff.

They assume the risks and do their jobs day in and day out, as the mother of a Spokane police officer pointed out in a recent letter.

She wanted me to know that her son was an honest, hardworking and caring Christian man, “who has put his life on the line for the city of Spokane and for you, Mr. Clark.”

Mom also had a request. She asked me to balance my frequent lampooning of police misdeeds and give some time to “the good decent cops that put in an honest day’s work every day and do it right for the likes of you and me.”

I couldn’t agree more.

And today seems like the perfect time to tell every one of these unsung heroes thank you.

Doug Clark is a columnist for The Spokesman-Review. He can be reached at (509) 459-5432 or by e-mail at dougc@spokesman.com.

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Two comments on this story so far. Add yours!

  • Fuschia on December 06 at 9:54 p.m.

    Good one on you Doug. Balance is good.

    It should be highlighted that Cops like this are rarely found in the SPD. However they remain silent, quietly doing their jobs day after day, while “the other kind” way too often make the news.Now if we could just get the guild to let us separate the chaff from the wheat and get to baking some bread.

  • Uptight_Spokanite on December 08 at 9:41 a.m.

    Clark reminds me of a cat covering up it’s poo in a litter box. Scritch, scritch, scritch.

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