In my neck of the woods a fake “shots fired” call with reports of a “man down” amounted to nine Tampa police officers risking their lives racing to the seen. Once at the purported incident/intersection provided by the phantom caller, all nine cops were pelted with bottles launched by a crowd of hundreds and surrounded by hundreds of individuals.
That last part elicited a radio call for more back up; in total, the Tampa Police Department reported close to 100 uniformed Tampa cops responded to the makings of another ambush!
Ambush: a not-so-pleasant word graphically defining premeditation and extreme outcomes perpetrated by malevolent mindsets. Ambushes nowadays are largely synonymous with a mixed bag of police calls for service resulting in brutal attacks murderous individuals whose reticles have law enforcement officers dead center in the rifle scope.
Also synonymous with police service calls is the respectfully speaking diehard resiliency rather inherent in American police officers.
If you watch or read about any of our beloved nation’s revolts sparking across the states (sorta inescapable), you bear witness to seeming depravity when it comes to citizens (protesters, rioters) encountering cops responsible for maintaining law and order and the constitutional rights of everyone. No easy task lately, as the distinction between peaceful protesters and murderous lunes is often hazy, especially in the eyes of police officers defending themselves against the unjust assails stemming from a Minneapolis-based incident which we all concur was an absolute travesty.
In the context of all this uprising in which the police profession is the target, whereby many are calling for total erasure of cops in a free society whose constitutional allowances provide for free speech and expression, matters are chronically spilling over. Mainstream media machinations seemingly encourage riotous behavior, much of which is meeting muster with kid-gloved mayors, insulated governors, and hardcore advocates for change.
Even a few law enforcement executives either knelt or lain face-down (hands behind the back) in solidarity with protesters boisterously indicting the entire police profession.
Not Tampa, Florida police Chief Brian Dugan.
At the opening of our discussion describing a hair-raising scenario, Chief Dugan’s cops didn’t back down (as no cop ever should) and responded to a façade which could have gotten all of them maimed or murdered. In the following video you can listen to the interview of Chief Dugan involving the hosts of “Fox&Friends,” expressly analyzing the ambush of Tampa cops on June 20, 2020, a Saturday night scene resulting in a mere microcosm of what America’s police forces are enduring.
Resilience is what Chief Dugan concluded with, denouncing the pathetic behavior of misguided hostile citizens while praising the galvanized postures of police officers everywhere. In a Tampa media TV report, Chief Dugan concisely stated what American law enforcement continues to endure nationally: “The police, we always have everyone’s back. Nobody has ours right now. And that’s what I think is missing here.”
Still, law enforcement officers show up for street duty, however grotesque that looks nowadays. Much chatter about how despicable cops are—all baseless. Seemingly subdued talk of how brave, courageous, and resilient cops have been throughout heightened perils is offered. However, only lately has there been more vocalization and pushback from citizens who know the truth, who back the blue. Some communities take up collections to buy advertisement opportunities via billboard signs, showing gratitude to cops. And that’s a decent atta boy or atta girl for every LEO who straps that duty belt and exudes that certain resilience on the frontlines, the entrenchments where our beloved country’s roughly 900,000 cops continue to report for duty despite the harrowing, fatiguing rigors of police work.
At no time have we ever witnessed law enforcement warriors gallantly standing so tall when others wish for them to fold like a cheap, worn beach chair. As many bark “defund the police” and “abolish the police” and “disband the police” with little to no trace elements of wisdom, it remains gratifying to see cops from all corners of the United States resiliently holding the line. Indeed, “cops bounce back better than anyone.”