A Recent Shooting

A shooting in our city a couple of days ago was disturbing on a number of levels. The people targeted? Uniformed police officers in a marked patrol car. The method? What looked like a professional style hit on a random couple of officers. What was most disturbing? I have seen these kinds of hits on law enforcement officers in a number foreign countries but seldom, if ever, in the US. Of course US officers have been targeted before but rarely so blatantly or so randomly. Here's some thoughts:

• Was it a gang initiation? Often these cases are solved pretty quickly because your run of the mill gang banger is usually more concerned with telling everyone what they did so they can "bask in the glory" of the event...right before they get caught and end up in prison for life.
• Was it a message from a gang that was recently targeted by the police? Seems more likely. The details of the shooting point to people who have done this before and in a particular style reminiscent of Mexican drug gangs that want to make a point by taking out high profile/high publicity targets such as the police.
• Was it just a random shooting? Not likely. People don't randomly target uniformed police officers out of the blue. Doing so is too stupid for words.

What does this mean for us regular people?

• Again it reinforces the need for average citizens to be armed, trained, and to practice regularly. If police officers can be targeted, anyone can be targeted. Anytime. Anywhere.
• Citizens need to be proactive in their community. It was fairly horrifying to read about the 15 year old girl gang raped by a dozen teens last week while a group of people watched and not a single person called 911. If you want a good community you need to be part of the solution. Staying quiet out of fear, apathy, or just to go along with the crowd is a piss poor reason to do nothing and in these cases you create the community you live in so I hope those thugs enjoy their miserable community.
• I could complain about bad parenting, problematic kids, and society going down the tubes but Socrates already did that in 400 BC and people are still blaming society's ills on these things.
• People need to be aware of their surroundings. In this particular case, the shooting was so swift and out of the blue that the officers did not have time to respond. In most places in the US people feel secure in their homes, their cars, and on the streets so they don't take precautions that you would take in, say, Iraq or other war zones. People's awareness ratchets up quite a bit, however, when they perceive that the area they are in poses a threat some how. Situational awareness. Very important.