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Editorial: When police are at risk, our society is in danger

Thu., Dec. 24, 2009

Gov. Chris Gregoire posed a chilling question Tuesday after two more of the state’s law enforcement officers were shot in the line of duty.

“How much more of this can we take?”

Less than 24 hours later, the query nearly became even sadder when a suspect fired several times at a Spokane police officer who had pulled over a stolen car. All the shots missed. Fortune smiled on the officer.

Seven other police officers and sheriff’s deputies have not been so lucky over the past two months in this state. Five have been killed and two others severely wounded. At least one of them suffered life-threatening injuries. Shockingly, the three separate incidents all seem to have been planned.

They weren’t the result of spontaneous gunfights in an attempt to avoid capture. They were ambushes.

And while that may not be the case in the Spokane incident, the willingness of any offender to make the attempt is a callous assault not just on the officer but on the rule of law.

It bears repeating that the men and women who step forward to enforce the law and maintain public order accept great personal risk and sacrifice. Under the best of circumstances, they and their families endure constant anxiety; in the worst cases death, disability and the loss of a loved provider.

No heartfelt tributes or solemn memorials can offset such costs.

But the consequences spread further than the officers and families. They reach across a society that relies on the law and those who uphold it.

In Pierce County on Tuesday, after two of his deputies were sent to the hospital by a man who’d hidden his gun in a bundle of clothing, Sheriff Paul Pastor pledged that regardless of the danger and unpredictability of the job, “we won’t let fear direct us.”

The sheriff’s dedication to duty is comforting but not surprising. It is the best possible answer to Gregoire’s sorrowful question.

It has been said before, in this space and in many other places, that a law-abiding society owes an unpayable debt of gratitude to its law enforcement officers. It’s worth saying again. And again.