There was a time in America when every beat cop nation-wide was considered a hero. For the overwhelming majority of state and local cops, most of us still unreservedly back the blue.
But as of late, I just can’t help but notice that systemic cowardice has reared its ugly head within the halls of too many law enforcement departments and offices.
Note that I’m using the word “systemic.” Don’t get me wrong… I’m not calling the individual officers, deputies and troopers cowards. I’m referring to a sizable minority of chiefs of police, sheriffs, commissioners, DAs, mayors, governors, etc., of incorporating what could best be described as cowardly behavior as the standard response to way too many scenarios.
Of course, everyone remembers the 2018 shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. when headlines such as “Four sheriffs’ deputies hid during Florida school shooting” from the New York Post were pretty standard in the wake of the tragedy.
Then the New York Daily News breaks an exclusive report that NYC’s Mayor Eric Adams has decided to axe the recently unveiled plan to have the NYPD flying solo while patrolling the subways.
The reason? A cop was beaten-up by a bum.
I have a sneaky suspicion that the NYPD has some of the more restrictive rules of engagement in the nation. I wouldn’t be shocked if employing his pepper spray was by design to be his dying act.
Then comes the truly heartbreaking story from just earlier today telling of how Officer Ruben Ruiz received a phone call from his own wife, teacher Eva Mireles, telling him that she was wounded and still being held hostage.
When Ruiz made a move to rescue the hostages, he was ordered not to, then had his weapon taken from him, then ordered to leave the crime scene.
As reported by Lauren Lewis of Britain’s Daily Mail (emphasis and deletion of the killer’s name, mine);
The cop husband of a teacher murdered in the Uvalde school shooting tried to rush in and save her after she called to tell him she had been shot but was stopped by colleagues who took away his gun.
Ruben Ruiz, an Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District officer, was rushing to his wife’s aid when he was detained in a hallway at Robb Elementary School during the shooting which left 19 students and two teachers dead last month.
Texas Department of Public Safety director Steve McCraw, speaking to the State Senate last night, revealed the heartbreaking story.
He said: ‘We got an officer whose wife called him and said she’d been shot and she’s dying. He tried to move forward into the hallway. He was detained, and they took his gun away from him and escorted him off the scene.’
McCraw did not specify which agency were responsible for removing Ruiz from the premises.
It came as McCraw became the latest official to lay the blame for the botched response to the shooting at the feet of district police chief Pete Arredondo.
Arredondo reportedly commanded cops on the scene to stay put and not confront gunman XXXX XXXX after the teen barricaded himself inside a filled fourth-grade classroom.
