Roy Exum
I was having a casual conversation with one of Chattanooga’s top police officers Saturday morning when he asked me an unthinkable question. We were talking about the perverse way our society has steadily and successfully made out our police officers, who protect us night and day, as “the bad guys.” Absolutely nothing could be further from the truth.
But this guy, easily one of the most respected men on the force, looked at me with sad eyes and asked honestly, “What’s going to happen when one of our white officers has to shoot a black guy in the line of duty? I have nightmares about it because every police officer on the force will do just about anything to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
As you sit there and ask yourself if you really could pull the trigger, I’ve got to share that the man I was talking to has had to do that.
I don’t want to get into identifying him because we were talking as friends – not as a reporter to a law enforcement officer. But the fact I’ve been a huge admirer of some of our mutual friends and his fellow officers may have caused him to share more than he should and I respect that.
On April 11, 2011, the police officer I was able to tell how much he means to us, was on patrol on Brainerd Road and had plans to meet his friend, Sgt. Tim Chapin, for lunch. They were going for burgers at Bud’s when, about 10:45 a.m., the call came for a robbery-in-progress at the U.S. Money pawn shop. A bunch of officers got there in a hurry and Jesse Mathews, the would-be robber who was wearing a bullet-proof vest, started shooting through the plate-glass window.
There was an immediate response as other police officers arrived and a hail of bullets chased Mathews as he shot Sgt. Chapin fatally and badly wounded Officer Loren Johnston who, for the record, had donated a kidney to another Chattanooga police officer several years before.
Don’t you see, these officers are anything but “bad guys” and the cop who shared his heart with me Saturday morning is believed to have fired the shot that brought Mathews down. Then what? The very same police officers Mathews had just tried to kill helped load the assailant into an ambulance just like they did the two officers he shot. Then they gave the ambulance containing the murderer an escort as they raced him to Erlanger Hospital where his life was spared.
Mathews, nor his family paid a penny for the life-saving surgery, the hospital stay or the recovery. Unbelievably, the investigation found Mathew’s family had even helped facilitate the crime and, while some of his kin are still in jail for it, Jesse copped a guilty plea. That assured “the cop killer” would escape the electric chair and instead is serving life-plus-25 in Nashville.
The district attorney, who was Bill Cox at the time, said the sentence would virtually guarantee Mathews will die in prison, which is almost as serve a “sentence” as then-Police Chief Bobby Dodd and every officer who was there the day Sgt. Chapin died will carry the rest of their lives. As one said, “Everybody remembers where they were on 9/11 … we’ll never forget April 2nd.”
So what I can’t fathom is where we got the idea our police officers are not heroes? Already this year America has endured other nightmares. How about Ferguson, Mo., where not one police officer rioted but a lot of criminals did? Millions of dollars were lost in wanton destruction, not to mention millions more in costs to return a semblance of peace. Who pays for that? What if we’d used the money instead to figure out how to get those who rioted jobs, safe streets, and enough for their children to eat?
Let’s talk Baltimore. Had it not been for the police, the lawless would have burned the city down. There are still people in jail for making bad choices but it is the police department’s fault? Oh, please.
So what happens in Chattanooga when a white cop shoots a black guy who is trying to shoot another black guy? I believe, in a city where over 50 black guys have been shot by other black guys in this, the first half of 2015, that is a very distinct possibility. The reason, as was explained to me on Saturday, is that the Chattanooga Police Department is relentless in trying to stop the black-on-black crime that is now the No. 1 cause of gun-related deaths in America.
If the truth be told, roaming crowds of blacks are causing havoc for downtown nightspots. A couple of weeks ago two officers spied a smaller kid in a group walking downtown. He had broken no laws but something was amiss. They found the boy was nine years old, it was 12:30 in the morning, and they were unable to locate his parents. If they took him to the juvenile shelter, they would be called “racist” so, in order to accommodate the child, they finally found a relative. How many man hours you think that took and who, pray tell, paid for such an exercise?
“In all the years I’ve been a police officer I can’t remember a time when we have tried as hard to help people,” I was told. “We are involved in some wonderful community outreach programs right now. We are determined to keep Chattanooga safe. But, I’m going to be honest, I never thought when I went to school in law enforcement I would have ever been labeled ‘the bad guy.’ I know who the real ‘bad guys’ are … I see them … and it hurts every police officer to feel we are just as bad.”
Nothing in the world could be further than the truth, so help me God.
royexum@aol.com