When I was a boy one of my heroes was Tommy L. His family were text book middle class liberals. Mom and Pop made a pile of money and worked hard for it. Tommy was 16 and the first of the Canadian children that were raised with a 'hands off, let them find their own way' approach. (Looking back on it, I suppose the fall out from that parenting approach is what gave us today's 'helicopter' parents).
Long story short, while Mom and Pop worked their butts off for that big house, pool, and two fancy cars - Tommy ran wild. Us kids loved him because he made us sling shots, sorted out our fights and sometimes even played with us. All that stopped when he got a drivers license and he started getting into real trouble. He got into a couple hit-and-runs as I remember and managed to beat the rap both times. Our "Mayberry" RCMP constabulary developed a major hate-on for him as he moved into drugs. Drugs were a new thing in my little town back then - and kids that got in trouble with them became pariahs. Tommy was taken into custody one day after he somehow managed to elude police on a high speed chase and they caught up with him at home His trial was short and sweet: they threw the book at him and he went to some kind of special jail for minors. (At least, that was the story us kids got).
It was all confusing as hell to me at the time as I was just a sprout: Tommy was the coolest big kid alive, and here were my other heroes - the cops - telling us we had to stay away from Tommy or we'd get in the same trouble Tommy did. So I went to Big Bro to get him to explain it to me. "Don't be stupid, Glen; pigs are all assholes..." he said. Fact is my brother was younger - but headed the same way Tommy was for awhile.
Unfortunately for us both Pop overheard that and had a friggin' bird. We both got grounded for a night and of course we blamed each other for it. Pop laid down the law too: "If a cop pulls you over, you NEVER run. If he asks you a question, you answer it respectfully and honestly. If I EVER hear one of you two calling a cop or 'pig' or an 'asshole' - I will tan your hides and we'll just see who the assholes are...!"
I've always heeded that advice and I've never had a problem with an officer of the law. And - had this fine upstanding citizen done the same... he'd probably be alive today. I know any number of people that love to piss all over law enforcement people but my heart goes out to the poor slobs in the rank and file. The vast majority of times, police shootings go down just like this. Those morons don't understand that the cops would much rather be eating donuts, razzing the kids and getting kittens out of trees rather than fighting with idiots. But for this officer, confronted by some failed liberal social experiment with a knife?
I am Glen Filthie and I approve of this shooting.
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