Give cops respect, not scorn

The 7.62 x 39mm round, designed for the wellknown AK47, travels at a speed of around 700m/s and the rifle itself can fire about 600 bullets in 60 seconds.

It doesn’t leave a lot of time for negotiation when police, often acting on scanty, last-minute information, first warn a gang of armed robbers to give up.

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The gangsters would be fortified with muti and invincibility spells. Some are likely hopped up on drugs to keep them awake and everyone in the gang is under incredible adrenaline-driven stress.

Despite what some pundits may be saying about “intelligence failures” on the part of police when they go to a gang hideout, the time to gather all the information needed is not a luxury.

At best, the police will have the names of a suspect or two, the address of the residence, an estimate of the number of people cornered – and desperate – inside the house, the crime they are likely linked to and based on that, the type and number of firearms they have.

This is real life. There are no infrared goggles to find suspects hiding behind walls, no negotiators to talk to a group of malevolent people “off the ledge” in 15 minutes as on TV, and no access to building plans to plot a planned assault from sewer tunnels.

The police will have stun grenades and teargas at their disposal and the desire to go home at night to their families.

Criminals have no compassion, no morals and freedom from any constraints the law places on everybody else, including the police.

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It is difficult for the average person to comprehend simply not caring about taking a life, but there is no simpler way to put it. Some criminals care less for their own lives than they do for those who will get in their way.

And the chaos they cause in death is nearly as extreme as in life. At each shooting scene, every death automatically starts a new life as a murder investigation.

Firearms are collected, statements taken, fingerprints lifted from police members and the officials go home with a murder case hanging over their heads and careers which can take years to resolve.

Do mistakes happen in shootouts? Of course. Even with all the training in the world, which our boys and girls in blue do not have access to, mistakes happen.

Is our police service populated by bloodthirsty trigger-happy goons with less brains than ear wax? No.

The overwhelming majority put themselves in the line of fire so you and I don’t have to. They deserve our respect.