PO Potatoes- The thoughts and musings of a crime fighting Potato

“You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”  - Harvey Dent The Dark Knight When I was a kid, cops to me were real life heroes. They were the physical manifestation of Batman, Superman…hell, even Gandalf! The point is they were something I knew I could put my trust into because of what they represented to me as a kid. I had neighbors that were police officers, people at my church, schoolmates’ parents were cops, and I was always excited to meet them. I was in Scouts as a kid and I can remember in the back of every Boy’s Life magazine was Scouts in Action! It was the stories of larger than life Scouts, braving the odds and performing life saving feats. Something I always wanted to have written about me. That very solid urge to go above and beyond the normal call of humanity and do something selfless and great for another human. When I was old enough I joined the Police Explorers, and what a rush that was! Here I was as a teenager, sitting in a R

"A person who is not inwardly prepared for the use of violence against him is always weaker than the person committing the violence."  - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn,  The Gulag Archipelago  chp 1, 'Arrest' If you've been paying attention to the news, the new buzz word around policing and the law enforcement profession is "police violence".  Even the United Nations is  getting in on the discussion  surrounding use of force in the US, with a heavy focus on the death of Keenan Anderson in Los Angeles, and murder of Tyre Nichols in Memphis. Notice the terms I used. Keenan Anderson was involved in a traffic crash, fled on foot, attempted to enter another vehicle, and was initially compliant with responding officers.  After a short while he suddenly gets up and runs off, and around this same time officers made the determination that he was at fault for the accident.  I watched the BWC footage and I could easily articulate the aspects of gross intoxication (body mov