General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Do you feel comfortable with your local cops? [View all]hfojvt
(37,573 posts)Good news does not have that kind of noise machine to help spread it. Good news may not even make the paper.
People are quicker to complain than they are to write thank-you notes.
In 1996 I was visiting my brother. Pulled away from a stoplight and heard a rattling noise in my car. Found out later the timing chain had broken. So I had no power. Grab my dog and walk the quarter mile back to a gas station. Cannot remember my brother's new phone number and it's so new that apparently directory assistance does not have it either. So I try to call his workplace, but it is long distance, and the phone jams up as I am trying to feed it quarters. I could walk the two or three miles back to my brother's house, but he is heading to work in half an hour or so, and my dad is heading home soon as well. Happen to see a cop driving by, so I flag him down and explain my problem and he gives me a ride to my brother's house.
Not exactly a front page story, just a random act of serve and protect.
Similar story in 1976 or so when we got our second flat tire in forty miles (and this had no spare). Highway patrol drives by while dad is walking the half a mile to the nearest farm.
Personally, I found this story rather inspiring. http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/29/mall.shooter/
That guy killed three people, and was killed by the cops before he could kill any more. The news showed one cop grabbing a shotgun and running towards the mall - into potential danger.
But unlike the shooting of Oscar Grant or the arrest of Skip Gates, that story did not launch a thousand threads on DU.
If a cop kills somebody in error, there will be dozens of outraged threads about it. Meanwhile 120 cops were killed in the line of duty in 2012, about one every three days. http://www.odmp.org/search/year/2012 Is there a thread every three days to mourn their loss? To express outrage at the thugs who murdered them?
No, because the good things they do, the sacrifices they make are taken for granted, swept under the rug. Only the bad things count. Only the bad things are worthy of attention.