Yet, as someone who taught for years at a Sheriff’s academy, one of the main points I had to drive home was that being a policeman is not the most dangerous occupation. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, year after year, shows that. Worldwide, the same occupation comes up in nearly every nation as the “most dangerous” (fisherman; if controlled by which nations are landlocked, fishing is and apparently has always been the world’s most dangerous occupation).
The other “most dangerous” include roofers, airline pilots and flight engineers, loggers, and refuse workers. My brother, a pilot, is 3X more likely to die in the line of duty than my friends who are police. And fisherman are about 7-8X more likely to die than police.
Firefighters and police share similar death stats, and yet, both groups choose their professions knowing the risks and in my view, must work with that knowledge and not excuse illegal or negligent or antisocial behavior because there are risks. We honor some of these professions way more (police and firefighters get the flag at half mast where I live - refuse workers and pilots do not).
I agree that as a society, we must do what we can to equip police and support them in their duties; permitting them to use the tools we’ve provided to harm innocent people cannot be part of the gig. Perhaps our legal system is not yet equipped to deal with these police-specific screw-ups, and maybe this case will be part of addressing that.
Obviously, we need to treat police the same as all other citizens when it comes to facing justice. I sure don’t know what “justice” is in this case, but 180 days in jail does not seem like enough. Truthfully, if she could some how spend the rest of her life involved in traveling the nation to warn other police about the need to separate personal lives and personal problems (including the need for overtime) from their professional duties...that would be great.
