Four more heros fall

If you have an ounce of charity in your heart you were appalled today when you read the news about the Four Oakland Police Officers Killed in Shootout. It is horrifying when any one member of the thin blue line has their life snuffed out in a moment of senseless unprovoked violence. Particularly when the product of a failed judiciary is the culprit and should be locked in a cage somewhere.

Having worked in both Corrections (in our State’s only maximum security lockup) and in the streets for a good part of the last twenty five years it never ceases to amaze me that even the most hardened criminals with violent tendencies are let loose to resume their predatory behaviors on the rest of productive society. While I am against the death penalty for reasons that encompass both moral and fiduciary beliefs there are ways to segment these bottom dwellers from their feeding grounds. The movement for rehabilitation confinement has its merits. First offenders deserve a chance to repent and turn their lives around. That being said it should be equally clear that those who would rape, rob and murder will not benefit from college classes and therapy. What is the benefit, a more educated recidivist? A good case in point is an alumnus from my Maximum Security days who I recently encountered after his violent shoot out with the police. It would appear that paroling him only twenty five years in to a sixty year sentence for his last armed robbery wasn’t the best idea after all.

Within twelve hours of the deaths of the first three Oakland PD officers this blog post appeared. If we stopped catering to the likes of its author there might be not be four California families their husbands and fathers this day. Then again, if we stopped taxing the life out of working Americans to pay for the shortcomings of absent fathers who drop babies like cigarette butts on the street instead of raising their children and directed the funding to long term confinement without conjugal visits maybe our world would be a safer place.

May they rest in peace.

Many thanks to Stephanie over at The Digital Hairshirt for the information on this one.