It pains me on several levels to give any attention to an anarchist group in the Pittsburgh area. The only redeeming quality of their commentary was a little background on the police shooter and his friend, but that is generally old news.

What has been bothering me is the general attitude of this group. I can try to empathize with their sentiments about the cases they mentioned where innocent people were shot by police, but their extremist response is utterly foreign to me. While I would never knowingly justify inappropriate force by the police (and yes, I have disagreed with rulings on this in the past), I also would never promote violent retaliation against law enforcement.

The bottom line is that law enforcement is not infallible. There are officers who make grave mistakes, and unfortunately, those tend to stay in the headlines for much longer than their accomplishments. I know many officers, including a few in my own family, and I am not foolish enough to think that they chose their profession for some sort of power trip. Conversely, I have met a few who obviously live for the power they have over people by merit of a badge and gun, and have intentionally avoided dealing with them. But, in my experience, the former outnumber the latter.

Although it is not a scientific means of reaching a conclusion, I feel comfortable in my belief that there are more “good” police officers than “bad” based on both my personal experience and the relatively few times we are left with headlines about inappropriate behavior by law enforcement personnel. There are many police calls that the public never hears about because nothing goes wrong, and I am assuming that there are thousands of calls that don’t hit the public radar for every one that does - for positive or negative reasons.

Acting as though the police as a group are wholly responsible for the actions of a few in their midst is dangerous. I suppose the anarchists are looking to promote dangerous behavior anyway, but I do wonder about at least one thing. What would their attitude be when one of them is the one who needs a police officer? I have a feeling that their hatred for the badge would disappear rather quickly then.