Don's Tuesday Column

       THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson  Red Bluff Daily News   4/05/2016

                     Salute the “thin blue line”

I was remiss last week to have omitted informing readers of the annual Republican “Red, White and Blue Dinner,” held last Saturday at the Elks Lodge. It was dedicated this year to “honoring Tehama County Law Enforcement” and featured demonstrations by the K-9 unit.

We in Tehama County are blessed to have outstanding law enforcement personnel riding the highways and byways, patrolling on foot or vehicle, running down leads or wayward suspects—always toward the sounds or signs of trouble and danger, never away. At a time when many such brave and dedicated protectors have collective targets on their backs, I sense that people in these parts, and certainly those attending the Republican event, are keenly aware of the need for those in uniform—and undercover among the scofflaws—to never let down their guard.

The bad men and women who violently and destructively pass through our collective lives rightfully live in fear of detection and apprehension by the tan, blue or olive green-clad warriors of the Red Bluff Police Department, the Corning Police Department, the Tehama County Sheriffs Department and the California Highway Patrol. Add in the inter-agency task forces focused on drug or gang activity. Thankfully, there is little of the anti-cop sentiment present locally, because our law enforcers exhibit high levels of professionalism and dedication.

Moreover, we law-abiding folks know that our law enforcers are “the thin blue line” between us and the criminal class—those who are dedicated to property theft, ill-gotten gains, drug abuse and sales, and violent behavior. We accept as a given that the criminal underclass make many choices that earn and deserve the stern attention of our sentinels of law enforcement.

We and our police are not burdened or harassed by the anti-cop, pro-criminal, leniency-obsessed interest groups that are seen in many urban areas. They’re seen and heard on our televisions as they bemoan the supposed injustices inflicted on poor little Johnnies and Jills, misfortunate in life, driven to drugs and crime, or born with a skin color that makes them targets.

Need any more be said of such apologists for crime? Only this: The groups I refer to have succeeded in creating an atmosphere that has threatened, and killed, lawmen and lawwomen, prosecutors and judges, and even citizens that come forward to assist in apprehending criminals. That Tehama County is less infested with defenders of the indefensible makes the killings of both novice and veteran officers in distant locales no less outrageous or heart wrenching.

 I shook the hands and thanked as many of the attendant police, deputies and patrollers as I could. Obviously, only a fraction could attend or the hall would have been standing room only, and our county would have been bereft of protection. Those present represented their units splendidly; the atmosphere was infused and permeated with a sense of dedication and seriousness only achieved through selfless service interacting with the dregs of society—so that we don’t.

The K-9s demonstrated techniques for subduing criminals when: 1) they are in a non-compliant, threatening position, 2) they make the foolish, even potentially deadly, decision to attack an officer, and 3) they attack the dog. The occasionally wagging tail indicated that what was serious work to us two-leggeds was nearly playful for them—playfulness that, nonetheless, involved hundreds of pounds of pressure delivered by their jaws.

Many who have served in the military can attest to the essential, often life-threatening, work performed by their K-9 “soldiers.” Subduing suspicious people and bomb sniffing are indispensable, as it is for customs operations dealing with drugs or other contraband. We have often seen the K-9 members of mountain ski patrols accompanying the “ski cops” on exercises and training, with exuberance and elation not readily associated with law enforcement.

The name of one of the Shepard-mix K-9 dogs was familiar from the crime log. A button on the board at the KBLF/KRAC morning show plays “Who let the dogs out?” while Cal has added Hillary Clinton barking like a dog on cue.

It’s not possible to ignore the political and policy implications for law enforcement and citizens that accompany edicts from Sacramento and Washington. By edicts I include those issued by judges (arbitrarily limiting, and thus freeing, prisoners), our governor and legislature (through soft-hearted, empty-brained “reforms,” pardons, commutations, early releases and sentencing reductions), and voters (falling for phony “Safe Streets…” initiatives).

Emperor Obama has similarly issued commutations for supposedly “nonviolent” drug offenders, dozens of whom have had weapons violations accompanying their drug sentences, as discovered by Sen. Richard Shelby and reported by Barbara Hollingsworth, CNS News. They include “possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime,” “possession of a firearm by a felon,” and “use of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking offence.”

Corning Police Chief Jeremiah Fears and Red Bluff Police Chief Kyle Sanders spoke of the serious increases in local crime, violent or not, that have accompanied legislative “realignment” of hard criminals into the local jail system, forcing lesser criminals back onto our streets secure in the knowledge that lower level crimes (like vehicle theft) will, at worst, earn light sentences. The political and economic elites, secure behind gated neighborhoods with protection from private security, care little about the distraction, destruction and devastation that befalls the rest of us.

Fortunately, those on “the thin blue line” do care.