▶ Walker: Police take bullets, too.

I have never worn the blue and I have never been a potentially dangerous suspect.

But I would imagine that the space between a cop and a suspect during a confrontation is energized by adrenaline and heightened with fear and nerves on edge.

I would think it is in that dead space that bullets fly or strength wins out, lives are lost or conquered, heroes are made or lamented and law and order is restored or defeated.

And while I know it is not at the top of conversation when talking about police, it is also where cops take bullets, too.

I would think any rational person would understand these very basics about cops and robbers because cops don’t wear bullet-proof vests for nothing.

That is why when we send police into a potentially dangerous situation, the information they are armed with must be accurate, because it is also in that dead space where mistakes are made.

The events leading to the police shooting of two people in Hamden during the early morning hours of April 16 call for accountability.

I will leave it to the Rev. Boise Kimber and activist groups such as People Against Police Brutality and Hamden Action Now, along with the general public, to keep the focus on holding the two officers involved, Hamden police Officer Devin Eaton and Yale Officer Terrance Pollock, accountable.

But while they are demanding that accountability should include an independent investigation to remain truly transparent, I am going to switch focus and also demand the public be held accountable for its own actions, too.

Everyone should be outraged at what unfolded in those early morning hours when Eaton and Pollock opened fire on Paul Witherspoon and Stephanie Washington while they were in a car.

I can’t imagine the terror they must have felt as the loud crack of bullets popped and exploded around them in that small, enclosed space, shattering glass with the intention of finding their marks — or at the very least, wounding them sufficiently enough to be subdued.

But the public also should be outraged at what led to that potentially deadly confrontation because this is something that can happen at any time if it is not addressed immediately.

According to law enforcement transcripts, the clerk at the Go On Gas station who called 911 to report a street robbery on Arch Street never saw a gun in Witherspoon’s hand even though when he made the call, he told the 911 operator he did see a gun.

That not only sent police to the scene — but it sent them there with a mindset that unleashed a dramatic encounter.

During the last 10 years there has been an outcry — and rightfully so — over police tactics, brutality and what appears to be their unflinching willingness to pull the trigger and ask questions later.

According to the Washington Post, police killed 992 people in 2018.

That has put police departments under intense scrutiny and the actions of police being more closely scrutinized and held accountable for their actions through the use of visual aids.

But we live in uneasy times, when the database of criminals continues to rise — and they can be deadly, too.

Last year, 163 federal, state and local law enforcement officers died in the line of duty, 870 have died during the last five years and, over the last 10 years, 1,656 lost their lives serving and protecting, according to the Officer Down Memorial Page.

So far this year, 35 have lost their lives.

A lot of those officers lost their lives in that dead space of confrontation between a cop and a suspect. And I am pretty sure those officers wanted to go home. So there is fear on both sides when police and potential suspects meet headto-head.

That is why it is so crucial the information police get when they head to a scene is accurate and not embellished to up the drama.

Crime is a toxic pollutant unsecured by reason and police breathe it 24 hours a day.

After the heat of that night cooled and investigators began weaving their net, what happened is still under question and hopefully, when it is concluded, police will be held accountable for their actions.

But it started with a call to police — and a caller telling a 911 operator what he later admitted was not true.

And that, too, should not go unchallenged.

Accountability? Cops take bullets, too.

Christian Abraham / Hearst Connecticut Media Members of Black Students for Disarmament at Yale led a march to the Yale Campus Police Station during a protest on the Yale campus in New Haven on Friday. The group, along with other undergraduate groups, came out to protest the shooting last week of a black couple involving officers from Hamden and Yale University.