Two officers killed down the road from me yesterday

[Dill]

(02-02-2022, 09:33 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: So, when this occurred I was literally right down the road. I was turning out of a local market after getting lunch onto a main highway when I saw police from my city, which is about 5 miles away, fly past me going to Bridgewater. This, naturally, confused me and I tried to look down the road to see if they were chasing anyone. I saw nothing, so turned north and proceeded home. Then I saw VSP going flying in the same direction. A friend was on the other major highway that connects my city with this town and reported the same thing on our friend group text chain, only she said "This is an active shooter situation. It reminds me too much of when I was a student at VT." Then we heard what was going on.

This is something that hits home in so many ways. Bridgewater is a town I have spent a ton of my life in. It's just down the road from me, both of my maternal great-grandparents graduated from there in the early 1900's, I have friends that both work there and have graduated from there, I've spent a lot of time on that campus as well as the church connected to it (grew up Church of the Brethren and this is a COB college), I have had family both live and work in that town, and I still spend time there as I have Scout units there that I work with on a regular basis. I was just there on Monday evening and from where I was I could have seen everything unfold. This is a small town and a small college and I'm still wrapping my head around all of this. I'm really curious about the motives of the shooter in this situation.

I'm not posting this to make it a conversation about gun issues or school safety or anything. I just wanted to share this because it has hit national news and it is something that hits very, very close to home for me. I didn't know either of the officers that were killed, but I do know a lot of people who did know them. I know people who were at J.J.'s wedding where John was his best man. The ripples in the community from this are just starting to be felt.

Well, most of the time when someone posts about a police shooting, we go right into the more abstract legal and political issues. 

What you are doing here is contextualizing and humanizing a specific shooting by focusing on its wider community effects.  That is a welcome change.

Anyway, I'd be happy to follow updates along those lines, as well as any info on what actually happened--what the shooter was up to, effects on victims families, etc.

(02-03-2022, 12:16 PM)GMDino Wrote: I can't believe anyone would say the job isn't dangerous.  As you say anything can happen at any time.  That's not to say there aren't problems with policing and the public but no one should say it isn't a dangerous job.

Yeah, I haven't heard anyone say that in this forum. I have heard police say (in television interviews) that they've never fired their weapon in 20 years of service, etc. That may give people the impression it's a pretty safe job. 

I understand the concerns expressed by SSF. I have often thought I would not like to be a police officer or highway patrolman precisely because I don't want to be constantly walking up to cars I have stopped, wondering if what looks like a normal stop will be that carjacker who's vowed never to go back to prison or some such.  Also, my brother in law was a cop in a small MT town (3,000 pop.), and I used to ride around with him on rounds sometimes. He was called to a couple of nasty domestic disputes. What a job. Small towns have some advantage over big cities though, in that most everyone knows the police officers and they get more direct appreciation.