I was at the Lodge on Friday night, and tend not to check my phone until I am leaving. It was around Ten PM. I had received a few text messages from other cops telling me that it had happened again. Unbelievably, astoundingly, unforgivably, it had happened again.
On Friday night the seventh Philadelphia Police Officer in the past three years was murderd in the line of duty. Seven. In three years.
I say a Police Officer, and by that I mean, a cop. There is a difference.
Ofc. John Pawlowski was a cop. Like a few of you who might read this blog. Unlike a few of you who might read this blog, although you are also a police officer.
The kid had his bullet-proof vest on. He wanted to work. He was a cop, who came from a family of cops, and at twenty-five years old was expecting his first child. And with one foul deed, a piece of shit named Rasheed Scrugs took that young man's life.
I got a request today to say something in tribute to John, from a person who is friend's with John's dad. It is about the only thing that could make me break my self-imposed silence on the EB. I am not quite sure what information I can share with you from what I was told, because I make it a rule not to talk out of school, but I will do my best.
This is not easy for me. I want to tell you that I hold every person who has an NRA sticker on their car responsible for Pawlowski because if the gun lobby weren't so strong, we might be able to impose real regulations that would prevent guns from getting into the hands of people like Scrugs. I want to tell you that I hold every judge responsible who turns a blind eye to violent criminals and lets them out of jail without serving a proper penalty so that they can go murder police officers.
And it doesn't end there. If I told you all that, I'd have to tell you that I also hold the government responsible for letting inner-cities get as bad as they are so that they constantly create new Rasheed Scrugs's. I'd also have to tell you that these are the reasons I believe what I believe, and get so up in arms when I hear idiots talking about politics, as if there are not real world consequences for decisions that are being made just to appease the gun-toting, tax hating, Great White Right.
But, that is not what I am going to do. That's a divisive conversation, and I am not using this platform to interject my own personal opinions into it.
Unfortunately, I am simply at a loss to explain any of this in any other way. It was requested that I find a way to give this all some meaning. That I make an attempt find a tiny little bit of light in the rampant darkness surrounding us all. And I can't.
Maybe Abraham Lincoln can.
On November 24th, 1864, Lincoln sent a letter to Mrs. Lydia Bixby. Bixby was a widow who lost five sons in the Civil War.
Executive Mansion,
Washington, Nov. 21, 1864.
Dear Madam,--
I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.
I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.
I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.
Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,
A. Lincoln
Although the authorship of the letter is much-debated, the words still ring true. It is right that in the face of such an extreme loss, we have not words to offer. It is right that we still offer our condolensces.
It is also right that we acknowledge that the lives were not lost in vain. They were spent on the altar of freedom, and given with honor.
There is a quote in existence that is often attributed to various people, including John or Robert Kennedy and Mikhail Gorbachev, but the truth is, the source of the quote is unknown:
"If Not Us, Who? If Not Now, When?"
Although we do not know exactly who said it, or what they were referring to, it is a universal sentiment that we, as humans, must take it upon ourselves to shoulder an enormous burden at times. Because if we don't, not only might it never get done, there may not be anyone left to do it.
At risk of revealing too much, I can tell you that John Pawlowski understood that burden, and that he'd recently signed a transfer request to go from the 6th District (Relatively low crime) to the 35th District (Relatively LOTS of crime) because he wanted to see and do more. If not him, who? Follow me?
One of the things I said after Chris Jones was killed in Middletown was that it really bothered me to think that at one moment we can all be standing around at roll call, laughing, and the next time I see you, you are pinned under a car, dying.
Think about that.
I am talking to you, we are kidding around with one another, or we are ignoring one another because we are both pissed off about something stupid, or we are making plans to get together for lunch, and we both leave to go our separate ways to start working. And the next time I see you, you are dying. Or you are already dead.
That is heavy-duty shit. It hurts just to think about it.
I normally get a few phone calls from my family after they hear about a cop getting killed and the question they ask me is, "How does it make you feel when you hear about something like this happening? Does it scare you?"
Absolutely. Terrifies the living shit out of me. Not because of me, but because of my kids and because of my friends and because of those I love. I don't want them to be handed that folded flag. I don't want my Chief to have to stand in front of my family and tell them that my call sign is officially out of service for all time. Screw that.
But that fear cannot, and will not deter me or you from doing our jobs. The risks involved with us NOT doing our jobs far outweighs the ones that are involved with actually doing it.
At times like this I think about the cops who were standing around outside of Columbine High School. Teachers and students are getting shot up inside. Those cops can HEAR the gunfire. They can hear the screams. People bailing out of the school are begging the cops to go in. Nobody is moving. Why? They were told to stay put until it was safe to enter.
But that is not what we do. We do not wait until it is "safe" to enter. We go in, while everyone else in the world is racing to get out. And we do it because if we do not, who will?
It seems to me, based on what I've heard, Ofc. John Pawlowski would have understood that it is better to die fighting than to live hiding. He would have known, if given the option between being those cops at Columbine who live to this day with the memory of their cowardice, or taking a round in the back from Rasheed Scrugs, that there is really no choice at all.
My thoughts and prayers go out to the Pawlowski family and friends. Thank you for your enormous sacrifice. My sincerest appreciation goes out to my fellow cops who take it to the streets every day and night, fighting against crime, against complacency, and against bureaucracy, all in the name of keeping the Blue Line strong. Rest in peace, John. We'll take it from here, brother.
Recent Comments