Shots fired

Violent Crime Division, indeed

Let’s stipulate that we only know what’s in the papers, and that’s not much. The State Police and FBI are investigating. The Pine Bluff police are in mourning, and their chief left the news conference Monday without taking questions.

An officer has been shot dead, again. This time in Arkansas. The facts made public are few, as investigators try to piece things together.

The papers do say that detective Kevin Collins, 35 years old, was a member of the department’s violent crime division. And how. He was caught in the middle of a shootout in Pine Bluff Monday afternoon, and was pronounced dead at Jefferson Regional. A second officer was also shot. He was in stable condition at last report.

Two people believed to be involved — as the cops say — were also wounded and hospitalized.

The facts will out. But perhaps not this week. One thing we know for sure is that Det. Kevin Collins is dead.

Reporters for this paper and The Pine Bluff Commercial have been going through archives. Turns out that young Officer Collins was the city’s Officer of the Year in 2017. In the summer of that year he had rescued a 95-year-old woman from a burning building. All in a day’s work for a police officer.

Now the governor’s ordered flags to be flown at half-staff. And the state mourns another lost police officer.

Word around the campfire is that officers were working a local case of some sort. And they were “met with gunfire” as they arrived at a small motel.

This is what police face. Every. Single. Day.

Because of the misconduct of a small minority of officers, police in general have been vilified this year of our American discontent, resulting in even “responsible” state and city leaders calling for defunding the police. And second-guessing split-second decisions. Law enforcement officers have been targeted for assassination. They’ve been burned out of buildings. Entrances to hospitals to treat their wounded have been blocked.

Contrast all that to what happened in Pine Bluff this week. A Black officer who drove the mayor around, when he wasn’t being honored for bravery, was killed in the line of duty, standing on that wall for the rest of us. And what a contrast it is.

The rest of the facts in this story will trickle out in the coming weeks.

But the facts that we know already are awful enough.

This man was an example of a person who mattered, who did great services for his community. And will be greatly missed.

In the year 2020, there have been many differences of opinion between those who say Black Lives Matter and those who say Blue Lives Matter. This week, a Pine Bluff officer proved that both are true. And both are at risk.