JumpStart by Robb Armstrong for October 24, 2021

Or… they were clapping for the “actors” in what they thought was an incredibly realistic re-enactment.

I can see what’s going on here … and I think that you’re right, mr Armstrong: People desperately need to identify police officers as the good guys, but unfortunately many time we are puzzled when we see all the bad that happens when they intervene with exaggerated force and violence …

Could they? Could they?

A nice reminder, after a week of lawsuits against officers who didn’t follow procedures, and a large settlement in suit against a city for a sheriff who violated the law, that there are officers who do their duty and do it well. Don’t blame the news media. We want stories about violence and an effort at ‘good news only’ will be cancelled for lack of viewers. But we need to remember the men and women who are doing things right and make a positive difference.

What a novelty, cops saving lives and not murdering suspects. Sometimes I wish our country was more like the one in Jump Start.

Yeah, the good officers really don’t think they are doing anything extraordinary. Unfortunately, sometimes they are. Hopefully, the good has spread to the rest of the force. They’re in reform class, after all.

Well written, sir, and thank you. I once watched through the window as two officers confronted a suspect who had gotten into my locked house in the middle of the day while I was home and had then run when he saw me. They were talking to him out on the street, but suddenly he lunged at one of them. The cops instantly went down on one knee, guns pointed (where had THOSE come from so fast!) while the one he’d lunged at…simply kept talking to him. And put away his gun. And calmed him down. And in the moment of extreme terror on my part that I was about to see a man die, nobody was hurt. The one who’d been doing that talking came to my door a little later and asked if I wanted to press charges, and said I’d be well within my rights to, but that the man was clearly simply not all there and had meant no harm; he’d come in (my door was apparently slightly ajar) to tell me my car alarm was going off. The cop told me he’d explained to the guy that you don’t just walk into someone’s house; “You could get blown away, man!” Oh. Okay. …And then the neighbor got mad at me for calling the cops on her tree trimmer, but never mind.

Pop is always the good guy!

I was under the impression that the bystanders thought it was some kind of re-enactment.

I like this one a lot!

Bystanders? In an abandoned prison?

I feel like Frank’s praise would be more impactful if the suspects had been persons of color.

Or if he wasn’t praising his own son and his own former partner.

Crowds notoriously cannot tell the good guys from the bad guys, though

Police officers save lives in every city, every day in our country. This is not new, not novel, it is literally what they do. They disarm suspects every minute of every day without that suspect being killed. And as they are many times the first to arrive at any medical scene or emergency, they are the first ones to render life saving aid.

Bass reeves comes to mind with his reliance on wits rather than weapons

I’m glad that we were able to see a bit more of what happened back there. And while the bystanders might have thought at first that it was a re-enactment, as matters escalated they must have realized what was happening…and that the cops were the good guys!