Not often that someone in the media writes about cops like this, I am still a bit dumbfounded and slack jawed.

I've copied a column below from Bob Lonsberry. We in Law Enforcement endure a tremendous amount of scrutiny and criticism for serving in the manner we do; particularly from columnists. In my opinion, regardless of your political views, Lonsberry hit a home run with this one. I thought you all might like reading it...I did and thought of all of you while reading it. Thank you all for your service.

Bob Lonsberry
Lonsberry.com



THE COPS AMAZE ME
The cops amaze me.

Some days I honestly don’t know how they do it.

Like yesterday, at the Navy Yard.

We know about the bad guy, we know about his military record and his criminal record. And we know what he did.

But we don’t know much about how he came to stop doing what he was doing.

We don’t know much about how they took him down.

But what we do know is impressive.

Which gets back to the cops.

Yesterday morning about 8:-)0, the first 9-1-1 call came in of trouble in Building 197. Moments later, an alert was broadcast and officers began speeding toward the Navy Yard from across the District of Columbia.

Regular patrol officers.

Some from schools, some from speed-enforcement details, all from the first hour a new shift and a new week. Old, young, male, female, black, white. They just came. Primarily from the Metropolitan Police Department and the Federal Park Police.

Officers whose lives were going from zero to 60 in the blink of an eye. Officers who went from the sleepy good morning of a Monday dawn to the real-world battlefield of an active shooter.

They began to arrive almost immediately.

And quickly formed up into an assault team.

They didn’t wait for the SWAT team. They didn’t stand back and wait for the armored personnel carrier. They formed up and went in.

Specifically, seven minutes after the first call, an ad hoc team of park police and district police with AR-15s ran into the building in their patrol uniforms.

They ran to the sound of the gunfire.

They closed with the enemy, and engaged him, and killed him.

And by every account some 10 minutes after the first word of trouble had breathed across the police radio, regular patrol officers had killed the gunman and ended his assault.

He fought the law, and the law won.

It’s impossible to calculate how many lives that saved. It’s impossible to calculate how much expertise that took.

It’s impossible to grasp the mindset of readiness that must permeate the men and women of law enforcement. Without notice, the police can be thrown into life-and-death situations where every second and every decision counts.

And sometimes, like yesterday, they must operate in an environment that is heartbreaking and troubling. The responding officers at the Navy Yard ran past the dead and dying, their blood pooling where they lay, in order to press their attack against a monster.

And that was just yesterday.

Every day it is different, every call it is different. Sometimes they are comforting heartbroken children, other times they are knocking on the door to inform someone of the death of a relative. Sometimes they are spat upon, other times they are vomited upon. They are hated and loved, cursed and praised, sometimes on the same call.

They see the carnage of the highways, the sorrow of abused and neglected children, the collapse of a battered wife. They talk the despondent off bridges, they catch the drunk drivers, they try to mediate family and neighbor disputes.

And half the time they do it while being cussed by one group or another. Maybe it’s the neighborhood people. Maybe it’s the pastors. Maybe it’s an activist with a cell-phone video.

The politicians trash them, the residents trash them, the police brass trashes them. They’re ready to lay down their lives for strangers, but heaven help them if anybody thinks they were impolite to a citizen. Heaven help them if they disrespected somebody’s culture.

They fight crime all day, every day, and usually it is a pretty low-key affair. Until there’s a glint of sunlight or a stumbling drunk or a dispatch on the radio.

That’s when it’s Superman time.

That’s when the next 10 minutes of your life are going to be some of the most important in your life.

Like yesterday at the Navy Yard.

Across a big city, the routine of the morning worked its way out. Until there was a cry for help, and the sirens began to roar, and a crew of men and women from at least a couple of departments ran toward the danger.

And killed it.

Before he could kill anybody else.

The cops amaze me.
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Great read! :-)


Also thank you for all you do! I was in Salt Lake City recently and was not shot at even a single time. And I think that's because of you!
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Reminds me of my buddies at Trolley Square with our shooter in 2007 , same exact thing.

When it's time for cadets attending the Utah police academy to learn how to intercept a gunman firing bullets in a crowded building, instructors don't look far for a teaching tool.

The 2007 shootings at Trolley Square have become part of the academy curriculum.

"With a local example, [cadets are] thinking, 'Man, this can happen to me,' and they're really into it," said Lt. Wade Breur, who oversees basic training at the academy in Sandy.

The way Salt Lake City officers and one off-duty Ogden officer responded as Sulejman Talovic shot shoppers and patrons has been considered such a good example of intercepting what police call an "active shooter" that it's been taught across the country.

A St. Louis company called In the Line of Duty made the events at Trolley Square into a training module for sale to police and sheriff's departments. The training materials include a video and manual.

"Other than Columbine, this is really the only incident of such magnitude that has ever been put together in a training product dealing with rapid response to the active shooter," said Ron Barber, president of In the Line of Duty.

Salt Lake City police have provided training, too. Brett Olsen, the gang detective and SWAT officer who was among the three officers who shot and killed Talovic, gave a seminar at last year's Utah gang conference.

Olsen, who has taught similar seminars in other states, said he even produced multimedia presentations of varying lengths — with or without gruesome crime scene photos — depending on his audience.

Salt Lake City police Sgt. Lance VanDongen was another SWAT officer who responded to Trolley Square on Feb. 12, 2007, and who has given training on what happened that night. VanDongen said the five officers who slowed, and then stopped, Talovic "legitimized" existing tactics.

Although Talovic killed five people and wounded four, VanDongen said the police response is considered a success because Talovic didn't hurt or kill anyone else once police arrived.

"It's almost like Sulejman Talovic was playing the role of the bad guy in one of our scenarios," VanDongen said.

So what are the lessons from the Trolley Square shootings?

For starters, Salt Lake City police and Ken Hammond, the Ogden officer who first engaged 18-year-old Talovic, were well-trained for such an event, Barber said. The shootings at Columbine High School provided lessons for police everywhere, Barber said, but Salt Lake City police also gained experience from the 1999 shooting at the Triad Center and from preparing for the 2002 Olympics.

The officers all knew to pursue Talovic immediately rather than wait for backup.

"Superb plan of action was the key factor in dealing with this incident a lot faster and more efficiently than a lot of law-enforcement agencies would have been able to do," Barber said.

As Hammond, who was in plain clothes after an early Valentine's Day dinner with his wife, was shooting at Talovic, Salt Lake City Sgt. Andy Oblad entered the mall. It could have been a disaster if Oblad had mistaken Hammond for the gunman. Olsen, in his presentation, said off-duty officers need to consider carrying a badge they can display in emergencies.

But Oblad was calm and realized Hammond was a cop. They pursued Talovic together. Breur said it's a good example of officers from different agencies being aware of each other and working together.

Barber said Hammond and Oblad saved lives by distracting Talovic until the SWAT team positioned.

SWAT officers, including Olsen, Josh Scharman and Dustin Marshall, arrived at the mall at the same time. They entered together through what was then a Pottery Barn store.

In his presentation last year, Olsen said a small team like that is trained to move in a sort of "V" formation with each member looking in a different direction, but so much furniture was obstructing the aisles of Pottery Barn that the team was forced out of its formation.

Scharman was in the lead and rounded a corner first. He saw Talovic standing in the interior entrance to the store firing a shotgun at Hammond and Oblad on the concourse. Scharman fired his M5 rifle, and Olsen and Marshall fired their rifles as they rounded the corner. Talovic was pronounced dead at the scene.

VanDongen and other SWAT officers entered Trolley Square through an east entrance and found five victims in the card shop Cabin Fever. VanDongen said Carolyn Tuft, who was wounded beside her dead 15-year-old daughter, Kristen Hinckley, grabbed his leg and asked for help.

But there were reports of a second shooter in the mall, and their training calls for the officers to search for him rather than stopping to help victims. The thinking is, VanDongen said, that the best way to help victims is to stop their creation.

"It was the hardest thing I've ever done," VanDongen said. "The humanity in me wanted me to stop right there and grab her and lay right there with her."

Barber said the stress and emotions for police officers after the Trolley Square shootings also are discussed in his company's training course.

VanDongen said when he teaches other officers about Trolley Square, he sticks to tactics used.
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Great article. It's good to look at a positive when a tragedy strikes as our only option is move forward somehow and not lose faith in humanity.
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Me at an oral board:

Sheriff: what do you think is the hardest thing about being a peace officer?

Me: Nobody likes you.

Sheriff: :-)

Thank you and all our LE for doing the job that nobody wants to face.
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Thanks for sharing that, Mike, it's nice to see at least someone in the media gets it.

We do rapid deployment training 6-7 times a year. Not SWAT training, active shooter training for the regular patrol officers on the street, sometimes with a grand total of two officers entering a scene to meet and stop the threat. When there is an active shooter, there is not time to formulate a grandiose plan, you must rely on training, instinct....and certainly, on bravery.
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Great stuff Mike. :-) :-)
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Very cool! Thanks for sharing -- it provides some good insight for those of us on the outside.
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Whether the officer ever has a call like that or not, the fact they are willing to lay it all on the line when need be makes them heroes.

Both great stories, Mike. :-)
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It is great seeing the news being uplifting to a group of men and women that are willing to do what's right.
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:-) Great story! Our LEO's deserve to be recognized more often for what they do.
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Good read. Like you and Tom said, I'm glad someone in the media gets it.
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Thanks for sharing this, and thanks to all the men and women in law enforcement for keeping us all safe every day.
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It's a breath of fresh air.. Many criticize police, but without them there would be anarchy and chaos. And confronting that shipyard killer was especially dangerous since the guy was clearly off of his rocker
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Awesome article and follow up info. Helps us regular people understand what allows us to live free in the country we love! All of which many of us take for granted.
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Great article. I have a lot of friends in law enforcement and that article is so true. They go above and beyond and are hated by most, until they are needed. Its a job that can wear on your nerves from so many different fronts.

Thank you to all the LEO's for what you do everyday.
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Heroes all day every day.
I can't imagine the stress of wandering (or running, as in this case) into a life-threatening situation any time of the day. The fact that any cops at all have a good attitude and a kind personality is quite amazing.
All for lousy pay, too. It certainly has to be a calling. The desire to lay your life on the line to protect your brother is as admirable a trait as a human can practice.
Thank You to all our LEO's, and even more so to our brothers here that show that it's simply their nature to be good, kind and protective. :-)
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That was a great read....The majority of LEO's are amazing people, my best friend is a retired Sheriff's Officer. But there are so many crooked, over-zealous, gestapo type LEO's that give the good guys a bad name....It's because of them, I prefer to have 0 interaction with any active duty LEO.
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I guess we can't interact then :-)
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nothing personal dude...
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