End Of Watch: Police Officer Kenneth Copeland, San Marcos PD, December 4, 2017

Officer Kenneth Copeland, San Marcos Police Department, San Marcos, TX was murdered on the afternoon of December 4th as he and three fellow officers attempted to serve an arrest warrant.  The subject named in the warrant opened the door after Officer Copeland knocked, and immediately opened fire on the officers.  Officer Copeland was hit twice in the chest.  Officers returned fire and removed Officer Copeland from the danger zone.  The subject was struck by officers' bullets but survived and will be arrested as soon as he is released from the hospital.

Officer Copeland left behind his wife and four children, as well as his many friends in his community and colleagues on the police force.  He is said to be the first San Marcos police officer killed in the line of duty.  I am saddened to hear of his death at the hands of a wanted felon, but honored to mention him in my blog.  Officer Copeland is now in that Thin Blue Line in heaven, but his family and friends are left behind to mourn his loss and to carry on without him in their lives.  May the Good Shepherd, who has comforted them, continue to do so as the days pass by.

I purposely did not write this memorial to Officer Copeland in the hours after his death because I wanted to collect my thoughts and not write things I did not really mean or that would not have been appropriate at that time.  And I wanted to learn a little more about the circumstances surrounding his death, about the methods and measures employed by officers as they planned and executed the arrest warrant for this dangerous person.  Unfortunately very little information of that nature has been made available to those outside of law enforcement, so I am not much better informed now than on that terrible day.

I do not know what kind of planning went into the execution of the arrest warrant that day so I will not attempt to second-guess what was done in the moments before Officer Copeland was shot. Instead I will just discuss a few things that could make service of such warrants somewhat safer in the future, although, as one outside officer observed, sometimes even the best plans are thwarted in some way.  Perhaps weather plays a role, perhaps limited intelligence comes into play, or perhaps some random quirk of fate throws a wrench into the plan.  Nonetheless, there are things that can be done to hedge the odds in favor of police officers in these situations.

The one most important factor, the timing of the warrant service, is totally in the hands of the law enforcement agency, and is most often the most ignored factor.  What I mean is that just because a police officer secures a warrant does not mean that it must be served immediately!  Time is actually on the side of police officers.  Time is a precious commodity, but it can be used to one's advantage.  For instance, police officers should take the time to know the person they are about to arrest, to learn about his home, his mental condition, his access to known weapons, his daily routine, and so on.  Officers need to realize that they can, and SHOULD, take the hours or even days they need to acquire such information.  There is rarely the need to rush off and blindly execute a warrant, especially when officers already believe the person in question to be armed and dangerous.

Related to timing, in a way, is the setting of the arrest.  For instance, must the arrest take place at the person's home?  Is there a safer location to effect the arrest?  If officers take the time to surveill the subject of the arrest warrant, especially one known to have weapons in his home and have the willingness to use those weapons, this person's routine may allow for his arrest away from his home, his "base of operations."  Does he jog daily?  Does he go to a particular store or place of business regularly?  Does he drive to the mailbox at the same time everyday?  If a suspect's routine has been properly analyzed, it is very likely that police can set up an arrest based on this routine and arrest the person outside his home.  A search warrant, if needed, could then be executed on the home in relative safety.

A third consideration is the proper show of force.  Is the warrant for a felony?  That would call for more planning and a more significant show of force, than say, an arrest for outstanding traffic tickets.  This area of planning also calls for the involved officers to quash the "John Wayne Syndrome."  Officers may be tempted to make a "soft" approach to arrest the suspect when, in fact, a more appropriate thing might be to have the "SWAT" team make the arrest.  But pride and bravado sometimes cause officers to take action with less force than is really appropriate.  Officers may opt to knock on the door when the circumstances indicate that the person inside will probably resist the attempted entry or arrest, and that entry should be made with some type of overwhelming force right from the start.

A final precious commodity, but one which the police have time to gather, is information.  When a person has three felony warrants pending, it is very likely that there are two or three people, the suspect's victims, who will probably willingly share this information with the police.  Victims of family violence obviously know the person who victimized them, and know things that would be helpful to the police.  These persons know the suspect's mental state, his habits, his access to weapons, and his personal routine.  And many times they want to cooperate with the police not only so that the offender can be arrested, but that he can be apprehended without coming to physical harm or hurting the arresting officers.

So I am not writing this post to criticize anything that the San Marcos officers did that day, but to encourage police officers to always do the work needed to prepare for serving warrants on dangerous persons.  Granted, almost any person could BECOME dangerous when facing the prospect of arrest for a felony offense, but there are many things the police can do to minimize the dangers associated with attempting to arrest a wanted felon.  Even the best plans can go wrong, even a bullet-resistant vest can fail after sustaining multiple hits.  But the police must always carefully plan their operations and above all, take time to get to know the suspect, especially if the arrest attempt will be made on the suspect's home ground.  He has the "home team advantage."  But with proper timing, choosing the setting to the extent possible, fielding the appropriate task force, and garnering as much intelligence as possible, the police can put every advantage on their side, and possibly prevent officers from dying in situations in which the officers know the criminal has the motive and the means to use deadly force to resist his arrest.

May the Good Shepherd be with all police officers tonight...

And may God Bless America

Winter In Midland - or - I Would Rather Be In Portugal

As I face the reality of winter setting in for the...er...winter...I sometimes start thinking of far off climes that I might like to tour during these cold times in West Texas.  It is not cold at the moment, but the first real winter storm of the season is only days away!  When the cold gets here I think I would rather be somewhere warm.  Maybe Portugal.

Portugal, once a powerful empire-builder, is now a popular tourist destination, a place "right out of history."  Portugal is about average in size as far as European nations go, but small compared to other places - Texas, for instance.  The little nation is roughly only about one-ninth the size of Texas.  Stated another way, a road trip across the entire length of Portugal would take about as long as it would take me to drive from Midland to Houston.  A little more scientifically, the entire nation of Portugal encompasses just under 36,000 square miles, while the state of Texas boasts over 265,000.  But enough Texas braggin'!

I think my first stop would be the city of Lisbon.  Specifically I would like to spend a few hours riding the famous Tram 28 through the various historic districts of Lisbon.  I would love to see St. George's Castle, stroll through the streets of Alfama.  These streets are still paved with cobblestones and lined with small shops and eateries.  They say the trams are not air conditioned, so I hope people - natives and tourists alike - shower before getting on board!

After a day in Lisbon touring the antiquities, I would then make a dash to one of the nearby beaches.  I understand that the beaches closest to Lisbon are beautiful, but the water is somewhat cool.  The Mediterranean waters are warmer than those of the Atlantic.  I suppose the waters of the Gulf of Mexico might have spoiled me to expect warm water wading, but apparently that is not the case in Lisbon.  Nonetheless, strolls along the beach would be just what the doctor ordered.  The first night in Lisbon would definitely be spent in tipping a few Margaritas, or maybe some local favorite.

I suppose the real attraction that Portugal holds for me is that this little nation is chock full of history.  The old buildings, the castles, the convents and monasteries, and even the ancient cemeteries would hold my attention the second day.  Perhaps I would accidentally step where Columbus trod over five hundred years ago.  Would Portugal would have enjoyed another two or three centuries as a world power had the King financed Columbus instead of sending him packing? I guess we will never know.

Now, these five centuries later, Portugal has long divested itself of its colonial interests, the last being the richest colony, Brazil, which was granted independence in 1825.  Since then, Portugal has declined as a world player, but was a founding member of NATO in 1949.  But for some reason, Portugal has called me, gaining a spot on my "bucket list" along with a trip to the "Mull of Kintyre" and a visit to Campbeltown, in Scotland, to see if maybe I have some relatives living there.  Rats, I don't even have a passport!

Hopefully I will get that passport soon and beat the snow to Portugal!     

Sometimes It Is The Little Things

Today during an episode of "Daniel Boone" (yes, the OLD show starring Fess Parker - the man who showed us all -kids of the 60's - what Daniel Boone was REALLY like!), Daniel Boone and his faithful partner Mingo, a Harvard-educated Native American (actually quite an unlikely sidekick, in fact one the REAL Daniel Boone never had), were out in the woods hunting food when Mingo observed that there were no animals, not even a sign of any animal.  He said they might as well go home since they had been on the hunt all afternoon, with no success.  Daniel looked at the clouds and commented that he and Mingo should hurry to the local fort because a blizzard was on the way.  By the time the pair reached the fort, heavy snow was falling.

Prior to the Daniel Boone show, my wife had been conversing with her doctorate-bound "cohort" and one of the topics of discussion was how thankful they were for the "little things in life."  A member of the cohort is facing the daunting challenge of caring for an adult daughter who had a life-changing medical event and is now facing a long, torturous road to what may be only a partial recovery.  The daughter may never fully recover, indeed may never be able to live again as an independent adult.

How could an old episode of Daniel Boone possibly relate to the current medical problems of the lady I mentioned?  Both of these situations hark back to an oft-used, but little-appreciated, phrase: "it's the little things in life."  For instance, how often do you and I all but refuse to leave the house without first "checking the weather."  Many of us do not go to bed at not without watching the weather forecast on our local news show.  Heck, some of us even watch the "Weather Channel" or its cable-vision equivalent.  But really, have you ever thought about what it would be like not to be able to turn on the radio, the television, the computer, or even the cell phone (which of, course most of us never turn off) so that we "know" what the weather will be like.  Most of us do not walk out the door in the morning, especially during any non-Summer season.  Can you imagine what life would be like if we were not able to "predict" a coming blizzard.  Or in West Texas, where I live, we want to know when a "Norther" is coming.  A Norther can drop temperatures from the 70's or 80's down to 30 or 40 degrees in a matter of minutes!  Our forebears actually faced perilous times when they were suddenly caught in a sudden Norther or a severe blizzard.

It is such a little thing to be able to be able to "turn on the weather" and it is easy to take that luxury for granted.  Other things that are easily taken for granted, but which are actually very important, are things such as simply being able to say, "I love you," or "I would like a drink of water."  The woman I mentioned earlier recently lost all her ability to communicate or to care for herself.  Lately she has regained some cognitive abilities, including limited communication with her mother.  I can't imagine not being able to say even simple sentences.  This young woman is now able to point to pre-written words or phrases to communicate.  The positive side of this limited communication is that she is able to recognize the meanings of words and phrases, something that she had lost the ability to do at the onset of her medical episode.

Something that I find myself doing with alarming frequency is believing (that is, taken for granted) that other people are not having as much trouble as I am having.  For instance, the other day on the way to work a car ran a stop sign on a major highway. I was travelling at over 70 miles per hour and had to both brake and swerve.  Just minutes later, on the same road, but within city limits, a car ran a red light, and would have "T-boned" my vehicle but I had seen the car failing to slow and had already begun braking. By the time I got to work I was, of course, in a grouchy mood.

Flash forward eight hours...

By 2 PM many people in the Midland area had experienced worse days than had I.  For instance, police and EMS responded to a traffic accident with injuries at around 8 AM.  Four people came to the hospital via ambulance.  Within an hour one of those four was on the way to a Level 1 trauma center via helicopter.  A few minutes later a possible stroke victim arrived.  Just before noon I spoke with a lady who was checking on a patient's property.  The patient could not collect the property himself because he had died the day before.  Just before 2 PM, another multiple-injury traffic accident.  My shift was only a little more than half over, at this point, and I knew that I was not having a bad day at all.  What I had done was take for granted all the good things that happened to me through the day.  Nothing I had experienced even came close to what all these people had gone through before 2 PM.

So I am trying to make it a habit to actually notice the little things, be thankful for the small things, and enjoy the simple things in life.  As we know, and as we see over and over again, people's lives are changed at the drop of a dime, and fate is waiting at the turn of a corner or the running of a stop sign.  Other changes, while they may not occur instantly, are more profound, and can rob us of our ability to enjoy the little things in life.  Currently I am not up to par due to a sudden illness, but having the granddaughter over today was not the chore it could have been.  And enjoying the company of my loved ones, even through veils of occasional pain and fatigue, was not such a hassle.  There are so many more who have so much more going on in their lives than I do.

May the Good Shepherd embrace all these people and all others who need His help, all the others that had a worse day than I did, and may the Good Shepherd help me not to take for granted the little things, the simple things, the small things that make life on Earth worth the trouble and pain.

December 1, 1955 - Rosa Parks Arrested For Refusing To Yield Her Seat To A White Man

On this day in 1955 Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to yield her seat on a Montgomery city bus to a White man who had demanded that she move and let him sit down.  Rosa, forty-two years old at the time, refused to move.  She was arrested minutes later.  The next day, a young Black Baptist preacher named Martin Luther King, Jr., organized a boycott of the city bus lines by Black citizens of Montgomery.  This boycott lasted for around a year and had substantial impact on the municipal bus line, since over 70% of bus passengers at the time were Black.

The Rosa Parks case was heard by the United States Supreme Court on November 13, 1956.  On that date the Supreme Court ruled that Ms. Parks had been illegally arrested because her arrest was based on unconstitutional Alabama state law and Montgomery city ordinances.  Immediately after this ruling was handed down, Dr. King called for an end to the bus boycott.  Not only that, he called for the Black bus riders to make a point of sitting in the previously "White" sections of the bus.  Both Dr. King and Rosa Parks became hated figures in Montgomery; Dr. King more so apparently, because his house was bombed a short time later.  Luckily he and  his family escaped unharmed.

A couple of things surprised me as I was researching this incident.  For one thing, Rosa's decision to refuse to yield her seat to a White man was not actually a "random" decision, nor was it solely based on the fact that Rosa, who worked as a seamstress, was particularly tired that day.  In fact, Rosa Parks was a politically "savvy" lady who had joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Persons (NAACP) in 1943, after seeing that Black American veterans returning from the fighting in Europe and elsewhere overseas during World War II were not accorded the respect they deserved as veterans.  Not only that, they returned home to find the same discrimination and hatred they had faced before risking their lives fighting to keep America free from the Nazi bid to conquer the free world.

In the latter months of 1955 the NAACP had discussed an organized act of mass civil disobedience, such as not relinquishing seats on the bus to White persons upon their demand.  So on this December day in 1955, Rosa, apparently acting alone, decided to take the opportunity to commit her act of civil disobedience.  She remained seated in her chair until the municipal police came and took her to the city jail.  The story might have ended here, had not Dr. King heard of Rosa's arrest and immediately called the Black people of Montgomery into action.  Not only did the King-led bus boycott draw nationwide attention, but Rosa Parks' conviction was appealed and would eventually reach the Supreme Court, where it would be reversed.

A second thing that surprised me was that Rosa was already seated in the "Black" section of the bus.  Montgomery city ordinances not only required Black passengers to seat themselves in the rear section of the bus, it also required that Black persons already seated in the "Black" section yield their seats upon demand by White persons.  A White man told Rosa Parks to get out of her chair and let him sit down.  Rosa, not on a whim, but quite deliberately set out to rebel against the unconstitutional laws of her city and state, and to rebel against the institutions and people that kept those unconstitutional laws in place.  Even if it meant fighting a one-woman war, Rosa was determined to stand up for her rights...which in this case meant sitting down, keeping her seat in spite of the very real potential for, at best, arrest, at worst, physical violence at the hands of the police, the very ones who should have  been protecting her and supporting her constitutional right to use public facilities without fear of discrimination or reprisal.

The Supreme Court handed down the Rosa Parks decision on November 13, 1956.  The next month, on December 20, Martin Luther King, Jr. called an end to the Montgomery Bus Boycott.  The very next day Rosa Parks walked onto her regular bus and, for the first time ever, selected her seat without regard to whether or not she was in the "rear" of the bus, and knowing that she would never again have to yield her seat to anyone because she was Black.  No, the Black struggle for equality was not over by any means, but a small victory was won by a single, courageous woman.  At the same time, a young preacher, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was propelled into the national spotlight...perhaps taking his first step toward that destiny that awaited him on a fateful evening twelve years later in Memphis, Tennessee.