COMMENTARY:
First, we had a shooting so early Sunday morning that it delayed my wife and the dog from reaching their Sunday strolling grounds. I am appalled by anyone who says, “A police officer shot someone, but he’s a police officer, so he must be right.” I’m almost equally appalled by anyone who says, “A cop shot a civilian, so the cop must be wrong.” Especially as we mark two-year anniversary of the unprovoked killing of Officer Jonah Hernandez. Answering a call, he entered a yard, courteously and quietly greeted the guy he saw there, and the civilian knifed him to death.
I think cops are wrong more often than most folks realize. I know many are dedicated public servants doing a job most of you wouldn’t care to try. Let’s try to let facts help form our opinions. (But ICE’s conduct in Minneapolis is different, not only because we have so much video but because ICE won’t allow a proper investigation to uncover more facts. It’s a core judicial principle that in a trial, if one party is responsible for our lacking full information, the judge can instruct the jury to assume that whatever that issue is, the facts hurt the party hiding the information.)
In football, it’s fine for 49er or Packer fans to decide all Dallas Cowboy players are bad folks. But making such judgments about all public officials, all members of this or that political party, all cops, or all motorcyclists ain’t fair. Also, it’s stupid. Humans are wonderfully varied, as are facts. This morning I watched a cop’s chest video from Kentucky. They’re searching for a lost child. Helicopters and all. Can’t find him. A dog shows up and starts barking at the officer, like he has something to contribute but happens to be a dog. The cop follows him into a back yard. The dog approaches a car and barks furiously at it. Trapped inside, the kid hugs the cop like there’s no tomorrow once they jimmy the lock. That cop has patrolled that neighborhood for years. Never saw that dog before. Or since.
I also wish we’d make 2 February a national holiday. Not to celebrate the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed that day in 1848, but to remind us that the border our federales treat peoples so badly for crossing jumped over all of us. Mexico’s border used to be as far north as southern Wyoming. President Polk coveted San Francisco. When Mexicans declined to sell it for $30 million, we took it. (Gee, ya wonder why Greenland and Canada are nervous?) Point isn’t “Don’t protect the border!” It’s “Yo, this border jumped right into a community, so maybe use a little human decency and discretion.” At least, realize!
Lastly, will our governor, whom I loved when she first visited our radio show, be as infamous as Susana? She’s given us Jupiter. Now, when a regulated monopoly guarantees utilities a profit way better than stocks, and our permanent fund could buy PNM for a fraction of its funds, her appointees may let one of the worst private-equity firms buy it instead – so decisions get made with no concern for us, and profits go to distant investors.
That makes no sense. Not for us New Mexicans. Plenty for Blackstone. And maybe for the governor?
And we’re still Germans in 1933.
Peter Goodman's opinions are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of KRWG Public Media or NMSU.
