The Unexpected Cop by Ernie Louttit

Author:Ernie Louttit
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Regina Press
Published: 2019-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

Policing and Paying the Ultimate Price

As an ex-police officer who has seen the results of violence and killing too many times, I still follow the news in spite of myself. Whenever the police shoot someone, and whenever a police officer is shot, the first question I have is what happened? The second question is why did it happen?

The first question gets answered quickly from many sources. The second takes time, and I do my best not to comment until I have some idea as to the answer. In July 2016, the morning after fourteen police officers in Dallas, Texas, were shot—five killed and nine wounded—I received messages from reporters in Saskatoon, asking me for my comments. I declined because I didn’t want to add my voice to the hundreds of people already expressing their points of view from their own perspectives on a tragedy we knew so little about. As an ex-police officer, I personally felt the frustration and pain I suspect all police officers felt. It’s like being kicked in the stomach and trying to catch your breath when you see fellow police officers murdered for doing their jobs. The day after the shootings was a lost day. People commenting on tragic events often say they can’t imagine the pain everyone is feeling. I can and do understand the enormity of tragedies like this.

Within ten days, six more officers were shot in Baton Rouge, Louisiana—three dead and three wounded. Twenty families devastated in ten days, and thousands of police officers across North America still went to work and carried on. You have to wonder how anyone in law enforcement south of the border could go to work after such carnage. But they did and have been on duty around the clock as they always are.

It’s the same for officers in Canada. They report in and head off to do their jobs as always. They do it because they have a sense of duty and obligation. They have sworn an oath to protect. They are still going to take the calls. The reality of everyday policing is you still have to do your job in spite of everything else going on in the world. You have to refocus and stay on your game. The missing child, the victim of domestic violence, and the thousands of other situations still have to be dealt with.

The murder of police officers in Canada is still a very significant event because our population is one-tenth that of the United States. In the United States a single officer who is killed in the line of duty remains a local story if there isn’t a titillating circumstance to make it newsworthy to the rest of the country. News sources want stories and, except for local interest, murders have become all too common place unless there is special significance. When the police shoot someone, it’s always newsworthy, and the why is often lost in the next wave of news. Long after most people have made their own

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