Officer Down!

By John Kubicek

Things like this just shouldn't happen in little old Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Unfortunately, though, it does. A police officer in Cedar Rapids suffered an injury that is life-threatening, right in my neighborhood. I shop at the grocery store just up the street from where this incident happened. Yesterday, I witnessed the ongoing police investigation of the nearby crime scenes as I stopped by that store on the way home from work. I had no clue about what was going on, until I saw the news last night:



In a world full of turmoil, we can easily lose track of the things going on in our own back yards. I decided that I wasn't going to let that happen today. Officer Tim Davis of the Cedar Rapids Police Dept. (CRPD) deserves more than that. He, along with his family, deserve our prayers.

Can we do anything to stop things like this from happening? I don't know if I can answer that question, but I know that it is very important that we have the right perspective about things like this. I hope to show in the remainder of this column why it is imperative for us to be aware of what goes on in our neighborhoods.

And then, there were the four officers in Oakland, California, that lost their lives trying to stop a very dangerous individual from doing further damage. Also, there was the young police officer in North Carolina that did his best to end a shooting spree at a nursing home, and was injured in the line of duty.

Well, here is the rest of the story. There are people out there, like our police, that lay their lives out on the line every day. I'm thinking that we sometimes forget about them, and forget they are people doing their jobs.... I was going to say, "doing their jobs, just like us," but that's the point. Our police, just like our military, do put their lives on the line all of the time. But we forget that, because it doesn't happen often.

It isn't just the police that face dangers and hazards most of us wouldn't want to deal with. How about the EMTs (Emergency Medical Technicians), corrections officers, firefighters, military, or even private security officers? There are many more people that I could mention, too, that selflessly put their lives on the line for the safety of the rest of us. And sometimes, there may not even be a title by their names. There are even those times, like on Flight 93 on 9/11, where people just like you and I had a once-in-life-time "option" to make a difference to save lives.

But think about it. There are occupations, such as Law Enforcement, that a person must choose to do, and it is their loyalty to those they serve (us) to have to make the ultimate sacrifice if required. They deserve all of the honor that we can give them!