It’s the part we don’t hear splashed all over the national media.

Recently, I was sitting with a group of mothers whose sons were all policemen who had been killed by felons in the line duty last year.  This was one of the sessions during Police Week in Washington, DC.

Each mother told her story.

And it was very hard to listen.

So much pain.

So much grief.

So much loss.

Too many stories about how evil won the battle.

But…through several of the stories….the bright light of heroism shined through.

One son stepped in front of a gun in order to save the life of the innocent person behind him.  He literally took the bullet for a person he didn’t know.  He died.  The other person lived.

Another son drove his police car in front of a speeding vehicle to save the people in the car beside him.  The police car took the hit, killing the policeman.  But his act of heroism saved the lives of all of the innocent people in the car.

Have you heard these stories leading the way on all of our national media channels for several nights in a row going over the details again and again?

No?

I haven’t either.

We hear about the small minority of bad cop situations repeated over and over but we don’t hear any of the details of the daily stories of bravery and heroism of our police officers.

What does that tell us?  It means that the news is not telling us what’s really going on.  Reading the news doesn’t mean we’re well-informed.  The media tell us what they want to tell us.  They emphasize what they want to emphasize.  The more sensational the news is – especially about cops – the more viewers they get.  And sadly, people believe this unbalanced, one-sided source.

I have to say that our Phoenix local news channels really try to strike a balance and they do pretty well.  They get details wrong but they try to present a more well-rounded picture.

The national media doesn’t even try.   They’ve taken over for the tabloids with a bunch of sensationalized scandals with he-saids and she-saids.

The President gave an awesome speech to all of us at the National Peace Officers Memorial service on May 15  filled with encouraging statements of support for all Law Enforcement agencies and changes that are coming in order to reinforce respect and honor for those who work to support the law of our land.

Did we hear a significant part of that on the national news?  I didn’t.  It wasn’t there.  The scandals took up most of the news time on that day.

The truth is – a huge amount of bravery and heroism shown by our Police Officers doesn’t make it on the national news.

There’s also another reason why we don’t hear a lot of these stories of heroism.

If you talk to a police officer, they will say it was ‘just part of my job’.

Just part of the job –

sacrificing themselves

to save others.

There is so much more to this story.

#8144loveyou