The Post editorial:
In mourning the loss of three slain deputies, there’s outrage at the bloodshed and respect for the job.
Colorado’s law enforcement community has been shaken to the core. Since New Year’s Eve, three dedicated, hardworking sheriff’s deputies have been shot dead on duty.
We join those outraged at such awful bloodshed, and offer our sincerest thoughts, prayers and condolences to those left behind.
In addition to the death toll, as The Denver Post’s Noelle Phillips noted following Monday’s carnage, “a total of seven officers now have been wounded in the incidents. Three civilians have been hurt after being caught amid the gunfire.” In addition, Phillips wrote, “Three women are widows, and four children no longer have fathers.”
The first to be slain was Douglas County’s Zackari Parrish. In the early hours of Dec. 31, he died trying to talk a heavily armed and barricaded man suffering a mental health crisis into peacefully agreeing to treatment. Parrish, 29, was a deeply religious man who gave up a career in banking to serve. His killer took him from a wife and two daughters.
Then, on Jan. 24, Adams County’s Heath Gumm, 31, was shot to death while chasing a man believed to have been involved in a fight. The deputy hailed from a family of first responders. His killer left Gumm’s wife a widow.
No sooner had thousands turned out for Gumm’s funeral last Friday than a gunman shot to death El Paso County’s Micah Flick Monday — on the very day of his 11th anniversary at the department. Flick, 34, had been part of an effort to stop a suspected car thief. His killer took him from a wife and 7-year-old twins — a son and a daughter.
Phillips has covered police for 25 years in five states. She tells us she’s never seen anything like the last several weeks.
Larimer County Sheriff Justin Smith said of the spate: “It’s absolutely unbelievable.”
Indeed. A look at data compiled by The Post’s Kevin Hamm shows that fatal shootings in the line of duty are often few and far apart in Colorado. The last time a law enforcement officer was fatally shot occurred on Feb. 24, 2016, when Park County sheriff’s Deputy Nate Carrigan was killed as a man opened fire while deputies were trying to evict him.
Hamm traced long time frames between such deaths. Since the end of the last century, there have been gaps between such tragic deaths of hundreds of days.
Smith, the former president of the County Sheriffs of Colorado, blames the recent bloodshed on the backlash to the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014. And while there’s no way to know what drove these recent killers, Smith’s observation is obviously on the minds of the brave men and women in uniform who work night and day in dangerous and harrowing circumstances to protect us.
We cannot imagine what it is like for them to do their job, or what it must be like for their spouses and children to watch them head to work.
Yes, when law enforcement does its job, the focus is often elsewhere. When it drops the ball, the outcry is intense and mean.
But the bottom line is that our society desperately depends on these brave men and women. They protect us and keep us safe. They hold us together and allow our communities to thrive.
All over Colorado Monday came voices of support and praise. More of that is needed each and every day. The members of The Denver Post’s editorial board are William Dean Singleton, chairman; Chuck Plunkett, editor of the editorial pages; Megan Schrader, editorial writer; and Cohen Peart, opinion editor.