The Nexus of Survival
Charlotte, North Carolina, is the latest municipality to be dragged into chaos and mayhem over an OIS (Officer Involved Shooting). Charges of “Racism!” rage ceaselessly through the “community” and endlessly through the media outlets and agitators that fan the flames.
How the charge of “racism” can be applied to the Charlotte incident is beyond my comprehension, because the black perpetrator was shot by a police officer that WAS ALSO BLACK! What EVER the Charlotte incident was, it was “black on black”. What ever it was, it was NOT racism.
This tragedy got me thinking a bit more about officer involved shootings, and I’d like to make an observation: I believe that many of the OTHER officer involved shootings our country has suffered through, the “white on black” kind, may NOT have been racism either.
I suspect that, in the crucible of a criminal arrest, once a deadly weapon appears, EVERYTHING changes. Once a lethal weapon, or even something that LOOKS like a lethal weapon, comes into play, racism, prejudice and bias, even if they were there to begin with, vanish like a ghost. In those moments, the officer is NOT concerned with the perpetrator’s race, his ethnicity or his stereotype. That officer, in those seconds and moments, is concerned instead, with the existential fact that he, himself, is in MORTAL DANGER! That officer does not want to harm the perpetrator, but he does want to see his children that night. He doesn’t want to over react, but he does want to see his wife again. He does want to LIVE. I don’t believe that anyone who has not been in that terrible situation should pass judgement on an officer that has. That officer, for those moments of terror, is, literally, in hell on earth. That officer is in the nexus of SURVIVAL.
It takes less than a second for a perpetrator to turn his weapon on the officer and shoot. In less than a second, everything that that officer is (husband, father, brother, son, friend, church goer, believer, sports fan, volunteer) can vanish from the earth like a candle blown out. He’s just got a second to decide what to do. One second is all he has. One second….What should he do?…What would YOU do?…And who would you want to be your judge?
As a society, the only way out of this morass, that I can see, is that we have to teach, no INDOCTRINATE, our youth on what to do in an arrest situation. This should be taught at home, at school and in church. It must be gone over again and again. It’s NOT complicated: If you have a weapon, DROP IT! Put your hands up. Do as you’re told. Do NOT run. Do NOT resist arrest. And, for God’s sake, do not go at the officer or go for the officer’s gun! That’s it. It’s not complicated. These simple actions would dramatically reduce the incidence of OIS and the needless loss of life that results. If the individual involved is innocent or wrongly detained, America has MANY attorneys that will come to his defense. He’ll have his day in court. But that WON’T happen if he’s dead.