Posted on 08/06/2019 10:27:05 AM PDT by JDWetterling
I was blessed to make a long planned all-day ride-a-long with a dear Dayton police friend from my church yesterday, just one day after the tragic mass shooting. The outpouring of love from the grateful citizens of the city of Dayton was overwhelming. Restaurants offered free food to cops, trays of cookies and donuts showed up at the station, people came up and wanted to hug officers, big waves with thank you’s were shouted our way. At traffic stops people rolled down their windows to voice their appreciation. The shooter was dropped by a hail of police bullets at the door of a nightclub just 20 seconds after he fired his first shot. Another 10 seconds and he would have been thru the door and killed many times more than he did. I woke up just after midnight and could not go back to sleep, processing the events of the day and trying to make sense of so much senseless human existence. A collage of pathetic scenes are engraved in my grey matter: Endless city blocks of boarded up homes, many clearly quite stately in their day, overgrown shrubbery, weed-filled yards, vines covering whole houses… Some call it the unintended consequences of a former president’s “Great Society” welfare program now engrained in the culture. The vacant stares of people walking the streets—hookers and drug dealers… Their only goal in life finding the cash, by any means, for the next hit. Arrested a 28 year old WF for possession and warrants for robbery with 22 previous arrests on her record. She said she had been on heroin since the age of 12. A high-speed adrenalin-filled dash thru the city with sirens blaring to help corner a couple driving a stolen brand-new Buick. The driver was 16 and his sister fifteen, and they had the keys to 4 more cars in their possession. A harried single welfare Mom with 7 kids from 19 to 8, who had called the cops because she could not make her teenaged son mind, both of whom had anger issues—the 20th call for help in the last three months. A hopeless hysterical 30-something lady who was threatening suicide, a caged animal look on her face with nowhere to turn. My friend, like thousands of cops in big cities across America, dealt with it all with calm and cordial but firm command. It takes a man or woman with some pretty special gifts to deal with such day in and day out, interspersed with moments of terror-filled violence, for a whole career. And then to suffer the outrageous condemnation of so many people in this age, fueled by slanderous press and politicians. Why do they do it? Only a gracious God can answer. What is the solution? Only Jesus’ return. They surely have my undying gratitude. Blue lives matter! Immensely, in this fallen world! God bless ‘em all.
Welcome to FR. As a reminder, and most of us throughout the years on FR have been guilty of this, let me say, paragraphs are your friend.
Dayton cops will be honored for a day or two. Then back to the same old same old. Dayton is a smaller version of Chicago.
If you don’t use the < symbol anywhere in your post, you should be OK with using the “RETURN” key for your paragraph breaks.
Thanks for the first person report.
Posted on 8/6/2019 1:27:05 PM by JDWetterlingI was blessed to make a long planned all-day ride-a-long with a dear Dayton police friend from my church yesterday, just one day after the tragic mass shooting. The outpouring of love from the grateful citizens of the city of Dayton was overwhelming.Restaurants offered free food to cops, trays of cookies and donuts showed up at the station, people came up and wanted to hug officers, big waves with thank you’s were shouted our way.
At traffic stops people rolled down their windows to voice their appreciation.
The shooter was dropped by a hail of police bullets at the door of a nightclub just 20 seconds after he fired his first shot. Another 10 seconds and he would have been thru the door and killed many times more than he did.
I woke up just after midnight and could not go back to sleep, processing the events of the day and trying to make sense of so much senseless human existence. A collage of pathetic scenes are engraved in my grey matter:
Endless city blocks of boarded up homes, many clearly quite stately in their day, overgrown shrubbery, weed-filled yards, vines covering whole houses…
Some call it the unintended consequences of a former president’s “Great Society” welfare program now engrained in the culture.
The vacant stares of people walking the streets—hookers and drug dealers… Their only goal in life finding the cash, by any means, for the next hit.
Arrested a 28 year old WF for possession and warrants for robbery with 22 previous arrests on her record. She said she had been on heroin since the age of 12.
A high-speed adrenalin-filled dash thru the city with sirens blaring to help corner a couple driving a stolen brand-new Buick. The driver was 16 and his sister fifteen, and they had the keys to 4 more cars in their possession.
A harried single welfare Mom with 7 kids from 19 to 8, who had called the cops because she could not make her teenaged son mind, both of whom had anger issues—the 20th call for help in the last three months.
A hopeless hysterical 30-something lady who was threatening suicide, a caged animal look on her face with nowhere to turn.
My friend, like thousands of cops in big cities across America, dealt with it all with calm and cordial but firm command.
It takes a man or woman with some pretty special gifts to deal with such day in and day out, interspersed with moments of terror-filled violence, for a whole career. And then to suffer the outrageous condemnation of so many people in this age, fueled by slanderous press and politicians.
Why do they do it?
Only a gracious God can answer.
What is the solution? Only Jesus’ return.
They surely have my undying gratitude.
Blue lives matter! Immensely, in this fallen world! God bless ‘em all.
JDWetterling
See Post #7.
Thank you, much better.
Rookies don’t hurt for help in this outfit—a tight group! Thanks.
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