Follow-up to The Others

More information has come out, and a lot of it is bad in different ways, but again what really bothers me is the reactions. There have been opinion pieces about how cops need to be aggressive, because their job is so dangerous, and others about how they are too trigger-happy, and maybe their guns should be taken away, and an article on this guy who goes around flipping cops off whenever he sees them. Apparently “I’m Ron Frashour” t-shirts are being printed, but I don’t know if any other protests are planned.

One development that I am somewhat hopeful about is that there will be a federal investigation. An outside look, but by law enforcement without regional ties or loyalty, might be the kind of clear-eyed antidote that is needed. I hope that’s not too optimistic. Clearly there are training and coordination issues, and those should be resolved.

In the meantime, there are several important points that are worth remembering. We know there are training issues and communication breakdowns, and that is bad, but if Frashour can be taken at his word, he was trying to protect his own life and that of the other officers and civilians. In addition, it sounds like James Quackenbush was doing good work, and de-escalating the situation, and it is tragic that other factors ambushed his efforts, but it is only fair to acknowledge the good with the bad.

From the other side, in general the police should remember that if they cannot hear what the other officers are saying, then the other people may not be able to hear them either. So if a person’s only offense is not following instructions, and it is loud, you can’t hold that against him. Also, if a person is hit in the back, they might put their hand there, and falling is not necessarily an aggressive move.

I know, that makes it sound like more of the blame is on the officers, but it’s not. Some people have stated that it is offensive to say that Aaron Campbell is responsible for his own death, but he is. His intended result was for the police to kill him, and that is what happened. Honestly, we don’t even know that Campbell was being honest with Quackenbush—he may have still intended to die at that point, and we can’t know—but even if he had changed his mind, the events were already set in motion, and there is a thought process that makes me really angry and sad here.

Campbell’s reasoning for wanting to have the police kill him was that if he killed himself, he would not be able to go to Heaven—because suicide is a sin. That makes sense. It violates the commandment to not kill, it flouts God’s will for living out the days ordained to you, and it hurts people horribly. They are left feeling betrayed and angry and guilty, because they take the blame for not being able to help. It’s a rotten thing to do, but a person can get to the point where they are in so much pain that all they can think about is ending it. How do you decide that making someone else do your dirty work makes it less of a sin?

We could go over legal precedents of pre-meditated murder versus manslaughter, or penalties for the person who hires someone to do a crime, but I think it is more useful to look at the damage. If Aaron Campbell shot himself, his mother would be devastated, especially having already been brought down by the death of one son, and friends and family would feel bad.

With a police shooting, we still have the devastated mother and sad family and friends. We also have (I assume, and hope) several police officers who have to deal with the guilt of that. It is not an easy thing to take a life, and even if you think that they did it too easily, that doesn’t mean that they shrug it off and forget about it. That leaves a burden.

This has not been mentioned, but presumable we have a traumatized girlfriend and three children, who were dealing with a desperate man with a gun, which can be pretty terrifying.

We have the guilt of the aunt for calling. The Skanner is saying that if you have a crisis situation that you should not call the police. So how do you feel if you made a call and someone ended up dead?

Most of all, we have more pressure on a relationship that was already strained, and that needs to be a good relationship.

How is that less sinful?

The police did not cause or create a tragedy. They failed to prevent a tragedy, and yes, I totally agree that there was incompetence in that failure, and it needs to be addressed, and this particular bureau has not shown themselves to be good at addressing their own failures in the past, so it’s really good that the feds are stepping in, but theirs is not the only fault.

I have great compassion on Aaron Campbell. I know what it feels like to wish you did not have to deal with life anymore, and to know that actually stopping dealing with life would be wrong. I also believe that God is a lot more merciful than we understand, and while I know that suicide is wrong, I have hope for the people who have done it. I have to, there are people I care about who have.

But I also know that despair does not last. Pain subsides, and new pain comes along, but new joys will too. I was thinking today about how they say that big things like getting married or winning the lottery generally only improve happiness for a year, and then you are pretty much back where you were. I thought it seemed like kind of a bummer, but then I remembered that I am usually happy, so it’s okay. I can be happy married or single, rich or poor.

It just stands to reason that a loss should wear off in about a year too. I know you still carry around the sadness—there are some things that I will remember suddenly, and it feels just as sad as it did when it was fresh, and maybe it always will, but my overall disposition does not change. But that is for an event.

If there is a choice to give yourself over to anger, or bitterness, or hate, that could be a permanent change. If you are an unhappy person and want to change that, it is more important to change your mindset than your circumstances. What I am afraid we will have here is people who are going to choose unhappiness, because they have enemies, and we shouldn’t be enemies. I think most of us want a peaceful community. That will require cooperation.

I read an essay recently likening civilians, criminals, and law enforcement to sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs. I get the appeal of it, but it is exactly wrong, because it puts the sheepdogs as these creatures that the sheep don’t like, until they need them, but they are needed. No, lots of people love the police, and lots of people want to like them but have trust issues that can be kind of reasonable, and some people are just anti-authority, and besides which sometimes there’s kind of a thin line between a wolf and sheep, but really, the biggest problem of all is that we are all just people. For all of the good qualities of people, we also screw up a lot, and one of the big screw-ups is that we seem to have a hard time drawing a line without it becoming a gulf. We need to focus on what we share.