NYPD commissioner’s words ring true here

IN the middle of the night one night last week, Oklahoma City police officers went to a residence to arrest a man on a felony warrant for assault with a dangerous weapon. When the officers entered, the man fired at them. They returned fire and killed him.

Thank goodness, none of the officers was killed or wounded. They all doubtless consider themselves lucky for having been able to return to their families when their shift ended. Far too many men and women in blue are not as fortunate.

In the span of just three weeks earlier this year, two Oklahoma law officers were gunned down on the job. In Tecumseh in March, 22-year-old Officer Justin Terney was shot and killed after stopping a vehicle whose tag light wasn’t working. In April, Logan County sheriff’s deputy David Wade, 40, was fatally shot while serving an eviction notice.

At a news conference in Guthrie over the Fourth of July weekend, Wade’s brother, Jerry, said most of his family had been unable since the shooting to speak publicly about what happened. His brother, “a good man, a loving father and a faithful public servant was ripped from this earth long before his time should have been over,” Jerry Wade said.

Good person. Loving parent. Faithful public servant. These same themes were touched upon last week by New York City Police Commissioner James P. O’Neill in his remarks at the funeral for Officer Miosotis Familia, who was assassinated July 5 as she sat in a police vehicle in the Bronx.

Familia, 48, “just wanted to do her job, work hard, live without fear, improve her life, and the lives of her 86-year-old mother, her daughters and her son,” O’Neill said. “But she also wanted to do something else: She wanted to improve the lives of other families as well. When she made that decision 12 years ago to become an NYPD cop — a Bronx cop — she epitomized why many people choose to become police officers.”

The Bronx. Tecumseh. Oklahoma City. Guthrie. Dallas. Regardless of locale, men and women become police officers in order to serve and protect their communities. The overwhelming majority of these public servants perform their jobs honorably. Some do not, and they provide the fodder for those who would have us believe that all police are corrupt or irresponsible or biased.

“When we demonize a whole group of people — whether that group is defined by race, by religion or by occupation — this is the result,” O’Neill said.

Familia’s was the 68th line-of-duty death in the United States this year and the 26th by gunfire, according to the Officer Down Memorial Page (both totals increased by one a few days later, when a New York state trooper was killed while responding to a domestic disturbance call). Last year’s 63 deaths by gunfire represented a 53 percent increase over 2015.

O’Neill urged the public to support his officers and work with the department. “We’re here to make things better. But we need your assistance. We need it now, more than ever,” he said.

“We want all our neighborhoods to be safer places for our children, for our elderly, for ourselves. But without peace and safety, we have nothing. It’s a shared responsibility. You must participate.”

His words were aimed at New York, but ring just as true in Oklahoma.