Winston Churchill was supposed to have said that he could always count on Americans to do the right thing--after we've tried everything else. Whether he really said that is anybody's guess. Like Yogi Berra, he probably didn't say half the things he said.
Word has it that most of the officers involved in that standoff with--and shooting of--Monroe Isadore in Pine Bluff have given back their medals, or plaques, or whatever the awards given them. It's about time. Mr. Isadore was 107 years old.
Yes, 107 years old. Which is the reason this story made national headlines.
Monroe Isadore was renting a room in Pine Bluff back in September of 2013 when he apparently pointed a gun at the house's owner. The cops were called. And after a standoff, Mr. Isadore was shot dead. Did officers know how old he was? Maybe not. Did they know his condition? At the time, maybe not. ("He couldn't hear. He couldn't see."--Monroe Isadore's daughter.)
But after the shooting, somebody somewhere in the halls of the Pine Bluff Police Department decided that a dozen officers needed a medal (or maybe a plaque or some other recognition) for their actions that day.
To be sure, the shooting was investigated, as all police shootings are (or should be). The cops were said to have performed their duties. After all, Monroe Isadore had fired a pistol through the door. And a federal lawsuit against the department and some of the officers was dismissed by the courts.
But official recognition, a pat on the back, an award? For the shooting of a 107-year-old man? It seems that somebody would have recognized what an unseemly thing that would be.
Somebody did. Enter the city council of Pine Bluff, which demanded the officers return the medals/plaques/embarrassments.
Finally, after too much of a delay, most of the cops turned in their decorations Thursday. (A couple of officers no longer work there, and those awards might never be collected.)
Of course, the lawyers were heard from. Again. One of them, representing the officers, spoke to reporters before the cops officially gave up the medals. And said: "Even as this motion has been made by the City Council, there is not legal provisions binding the officers. If the officers do, in fact, turn in their medals it will be voluntary, and I can tell you from those who I have talked to that it will not be because they were compelled by the City Council. They will be doing so by their own volition."
Fine. Their own volition then. But it is a pity that the city council--and the papers--had to raise a stink before the officers found their own volition. It seems somebody in the chain of command at PBPD would have thought better of this whole idea the minute the paperwork for the medals hit their desk.
Of course, some might never learn. Even from experiences like this. Take, for example, the president of the Pine Bluff Fraternal Order of Police, who issued a statement saying, among other things, that the council's demand to return the medals represented "a new low" in civic governance.
"Isadore was begged to give up. Non lethal means were deployed. He chose to keep firing. Heroic members of the Pine Bluff SWAT team ultimately had to perform a duty no officer ever wants to do. It is that courage, not their final necessary act, for which they were recognized."
Yes, but medals?
After the death of a 107-year-old man, who thinks to hand out medals?
Better said, who would take one?
Editorial on 08/22/2016