Appreciate your law officers (and firefighters and EMTs)

It was only a little while ago that I read today was “Law Enforcement Appreciation Day.” I didn’t know that it was or that there was even such a day. There is a good reason why I didn’t know though. Today is the inaugural day.

Recent incidents in which law enforcement officers used deadly force and likewise force was used against law officers prompted the day to appreciate police. Well, maybe not so much because of officers using deadly force although that is an underlying reason because deaths of young black men that were allegedly without provocation seems to be one reason police supporters feel such a day is needed.

Despite what some believe it is difficult to think there is plot out there in which cops want to shoot young black people. Some young cops need a dose of what regular folks think and a need to drop the macho macho man act. But most are just young people in their 20s and 30s. They were just like me when I was a paid firefighter and was their age. It isn’t a feeling of being bulletproof (or fireproof.) It’s just a feeling among some of the younger folk that they are among the right and the righteous.

Once they are literally and figuratively kicked in the nuts a few times in their lives most will get over whatever it is that makes them assholes. Either that or they move on and become supervisors working in offices with cubicle farms.

But yes, cops do what the rest of us don’t do. These are the people who usually are first on the scene to see what the rest of us don’t want to see. These are the young and older folks who have to cuff some crazed jerkoff, or perhaps even have to resort to a fatal encounter.

We need a law enforcement day and a firefighter day and an EMT day of appreciation. I know people on Facebook who see cops as only deserving this special day. But that is only until an incident in which 10 or 15 firefighters and Paramedics, or even 300 firefighters as in FDNY on 9/11, make an ultimate sacrifice.

Perhaps we should broaden this to Public Safety Personnel Day? Or use some other name. We need to appreciate all the folks who put their lives on the line every day and every night. Don’t you think?