When I was a boy, for better or worse, I knew lots of policemen. But one guy stood out. We weren’t that close, but I saw him enough, and heard enough from him, to know that he was…a hero. And that was even before that special day.
The most heroic deed he ever did as a cop was the day in 1975 when he had to confront a shotgun-wielding man who was holding an entire street hostage. The officer told the man to drop the gun, gave him enough time to do so, and when he didn’t, he shot him. Dead.
Although the shooting was by the book, and the officer had, while risking his own life, rescued the neighborhood, the local newspaper sought to destroy him. The policeman’s problem was that he was white, and the bad guy was black. Logically and morally speaking, if anything, that made him even more heroic. Black cops consider it their birthright to control black communities, and expect and get accolades just for showing up for work, without facing off against men with shotguns.
Conversely, a white officer who puts his life on the line saving black lives gets no payoff, no thanks, and is lucky if he doesn't get railroaded to prison, as veteran, decorated Detroit cops Walter Budzyn and Larry Nevers found out the hard way. Given the routine racial profiling of white policemen, he knows that he’s more likely to be called a “racist murderer,” and prosecuted, than heralded a hero. He has to be motivated by pure duty and pride in his job.
A reporter at the local newspaper decided to destroy the cop. She fabricated a story, in which 27 anonymous blacks supposedly claimed to have heard him utter racist epithets. I’d seen the man in situations, both with black folks in public and with me in private, where, if he were that kind of a guy, he would have said something…but he didn’t. Ever.
The newspaper also assembled some racist demagogues, who claimed to be the local NAACP. Problem was, there was no local branch of the NAACP, and I knew the demagogues. They were my bosses at my part-time job. I didn't work for the NAACP; I was a token white in a federally funded, black supremacist youth program.
Article comments
1 - Brother Donald
Eric Rudolph is not a terrorist, but an anti-terrorist fighter. Those who have killed babykilling abortionists have done so to protect the innocent. People use force everyday to protect the innocent and no one has a problem with it, except when it comes to protecting unborn human beings, then they go ballistic. It's very simple, the unborn deserve the same protection as the born. Born people are protected with force quite often. Force that you would be glad if it was to protect your children against a murderer. Force that you yourself might use to protect your own children from being murdered. The unborn deserve the same protection.
SAY THIS PRAYER: Dear Jesus, I am a sinner and am headed to eternal hell because of my sins. I believe you died on the cross to take away my sins and to take me to heaven. Jesus, I ask you now to come into my heart and take away my sins and give me eternal life.
2 - Nicholas Stix
"People use force everyday to protect the innocent and no one has a problem with it, except when it comes to protecting unborn human beings, then they go ballistic."
Eric Rudolph didn't protect the innocent, he murdered them. And he did so while wearing no uniform, no military insignia, carrying no foreign flag, and without bearing his weapons openly. All of the above characteristics are those of the terrorist.
If it were up to me, Rudolph would not have been offered a plea bargain that would maintain his worthless life at taxpayer expense. Although it may be morally desirable to torture a murderer like Rudolph, the Constitution forbids that form of punishment. It is, thus, for scum like him that the death penalty is legally fit and proper.