MATTHEW ST. CLAIR: Police officers’ job is maintaining order

When I was on active duty with the Army, I worked with a Reserve major who was also a Dayton, Ohio, police lieutenant. We were taking a break one day and I asked him what he thought of citizens using firearms until police arrived on the scene of a crime.

He let me know it was a bad idea.

“When I roll up on a scene,” he said, “I don’t know who is and who isn’t. I will tell you exactly once to drop the weapon and if you don’t comply, I will shoot you.”

He went on to say, “I bet you think cops exist to protect you.”

I said I did.

He snorted derisively and said, “Wrong! The police are there to protect society. I don’t care about civilians. I care about laws being obeyed and order being maintained. That’s why I draw a paycheck.

“You need to understand that I have the authority to use the minimum amount of force needed to bring you into compliance with the law, and that goes from asking nicely to blowing your brains out if I have to. Consider this: Cops routinely deal with two kinds of people, and only two. There are perpetrators and there are victims. My first question at a crime scene is, are you a vic or a perp? Everyone I deal with is treated with suspicion until I decide who is which.”

As a retired soldier, I fully realize what “everybody goes home at night” means because in my line line of work everybody did not get to go home at night. Some went home in a box.

I’m smart enough to realize that no cop wakes up in the morning and thinks, “I’m gonna go out and kill somebody today because they are (fill in the blank).” Does that mean all cop killings are justified? No. It means that the job is extremely stressful, and I learned in a combat zone many years ago that you finally get tired of being afraid all the time, and your empathy is the first bit of baggage you jettison to save the rest of your sanity.

If a cop stops you for whatever reason, do exactly what he tells you. Do not argue and certainly don’t attack him. (How smart is it to jump on a man carrying a gun?) If you are combative, he will let you escalate the situation as far as you want, but he will always win the argument, even if he has to kill you to do it.

After all, if you get away with it and everyone gets away with it, then we have anarchy. At that point, the police are out of a job and the military is called in to restore law and order. Believe me, you do not want the U.S. Army to restore law and order, because we’re strong on order, but the law comes later.

Matthew St. Clair, of Poulan, is a retired Army lieutenant colonel.