The other day a friend of mine sent me a copy of a news story done by Channel 32 news reporter David Boel. I don't know what the intent Mr. Boel has nor do I understand what he hopes to accomplish with this. It seems that some of these" Investigative Journalists" lately seem to think that taking potshots at the police is" Real News". They also seem to think the people who watch the news actually care about these "revealing" segments.
This article done by Mr. Boel concentrated on police driving to fast. He gave several examples about fatal crashes in the past couple of years, both of which while tragic accidents were poor examples of what he was trying to show people the intent and his story. Both officers were involved in fatal accidents, but both were also on their way to emergency situations. While no one differs the fact that over tragic accidents, Mr. Boel thinks their head should be served upon a platter. Mrs. Marsha Butler, mother of one of the victims is a class act. In a very sincere and caring tone she told news reporters she is praying for the officer's family and for the Officer that was driving the car at the time of her son's death. Mrs. Butler gets it, John Boel doesn't. These are not intentional reckless acts, they are accidents and they are treated as such. Mr. Bole uses flippant off-camera interviews to drive home his point.
One obvious police friend stated "Poleece ran the red light no sireens no lights no nuthin was on at all. It was Poleece's fault!"
Another of his famous off-camera interviews as stated" Apparently there are two standards of conduct one for police officers and one for all the rest of us."
Watch The Video - Channel 32 Investigates Police Speeding
Mr. Boel backs this up by stating the officer in the first fatal crash was only charged with speeding. He seems to think that police are getting away with murder. He doesn't understand that not everyone involved in fatal crash is charged with death of the person. It takes extenuating circumstances like DUI, intent, excessive speed or reckless driving etc. This Officer was responding to the rape of a child in progress. Sometimes bad things happen to good people.
Another point Mr. Boel tries to make is the cost to the community of "all" these police traffic accidents. Mr. Boel tends to forget that while he sleeps at night or putters around the golf course with his buds or even while he is at work trying to dig up dirt on the police that we are patrolling the streets of natural Louisville 24 hours a day seven days a week. Accidents are going to happen no matter what, and multiply by that the amount of time we're on the road, chances are we are going to be involved in more accidents than the regular citizen.
Officers patrol and respond to runs all throughout their shifts. Very few runs are made code 3. In fact there is a very short list of runs that are" authorized" code 3 runs. Mr. Bole seems to think that he has uncovered the corpse of Jimmy Hoffa with this one. Truth be known, most people don't really care about it. I've talked to friends of mine who state, "That if every cop drove 55 on the interstate which is the posted speed limit, everyone in Louisville would be late for work because nobody would pass the police car." Most folks realize that the police drive with a sense of urgency because they have to get places in a hurry. They realize that they would rather have an Officer drive fast and catch the bad guys rather than poke along, hold up traffic and let the bad guys get away. Again, most runs are not a code 3 runs. People ask all the time," What took so long?" Well, Mr. Boel doesn't want us to go fast. No seriously, we try and hurry, but in less is one of those situations where someone's life is on the line we can't respond in emergency manner. If something happens to you, you want the police their right away.
Two weeks ago in court and officer approached me and stated that there was a white car driving beside him on Interstate 64, filming his police car, filming the dashboard of his own car (I can only assume to document the speed that he was going) and then the car sped off down the road. I asked the officer why he didn't stop the guy, and he stated because he had his child in the car, and was on his way to court. The officer told me that he was probably going 65 along with the flow of traffic, but it appears that either Mr. Bole or one of his" investigators" chose not only to break the law but flaunt it.
In his report Mr. Bole wants everyone to believe that at no time did he or his investigators exceed posted speed limits but that they simply caught up to the "Offending Police Unit" when they were jammed up in traffic. B.S., Baloney, Malarkey etc…. its funny how Mr. Bole and his investigators can follow cars and not lose them while the police lose them all the time and we're using lights and sirens. Do the bad guys not ever run into traffic jams?
Now let me point at that in some cases the actions of the officers are not justified. Try and remember that we are people too. Sometimes we make mistakes. I would also like to point at that sometimes when I'm in a hurry, I don't use my lights, I don't use my siren, but I'm driving as fast and is safe as I can to get somewhere to help out someone in our community that I don't know but that I've sworn to protect and serve.