SEATTLE NEWS ARCHIVES & FEATURES

Dori: As Antifa slanders cops, an officer gives his life to save shooting victims

Nov 8, 2018, 3:33 PM | Updated: 3:40 pm

California shooting...

This undated photo provided by the Ventura County Sheriff's Department shows Sheriff's Sgt. Ron Helus, who was killed Wednesday, Nov. 7, 2018, in a deadly shooting at a country music bar in Thousand Oaks, Calif. (Ventura County Sheriff's Department via AP)

(Ventura County Sheriff's Department via AP)

We woke up Thursday morning to the awful news of the California shooting. The officer who was close to retirement went into that Thousand Oaks bar to try to stop the gunman, and in the process, lost his own life.

Meanwhile, on the streets of Portland Wednesday night, the Antifa activists held an open-borders march, calling for literally opening our borders to immigrants. But, like so many of these leftist rallies, it soon devolved into an absolute melee of anti-cop hatred. With masks over their faces, the he cop-hating mob started shouting chants like, “All cops are [expletive],” and giving nonsense statistics like, “40 percent of cops hit their wives.”

I watched a lot of video of the hatred-filled rally in Portland Wednesday night. And then, a few hours later, I heard the news of the California shooting, and with it, the story of a cop who does not fit what these Portland mobs were saying. This police officer ran into a bar where bullets were flying. He was close to retirement. He called his wife right before he raced to the scene to tell her that he loved her. And then this husband and father was gunned down trying to save lives.

RELATED: Portland police instructed to do nothing as Antifa mobs take over streets

I think about what’s happening on the left in America. People chanting those hateful statements in Portland. The manifestly anti-cop initiative that we just passed two days ago in Washington. Our police departments cannot fill spots because no one wants to be a cop in this atmosphere. You have city council members who call them murderers and give them no support whatsoever. You have policies designed to attract as many drug-addicted criminal vagrants as possible to our region. And the cops’ hands are tied.

You have that kind of hatred, and yet, where would we be if officers were not willing to run into bars where bullets are flying? What has happened with the left in America, where people in Portland can chant those horrific statements and not realize that without cops, we would have anarchy?

It was so ironic that as that anti-cop hatred was spewing in our sister city to the south, we had a heroic law enforcement officer in California, Ventura County Sheriff’s Sergeant Ron Helus, who made the ultimate sacrifice — he gave his life — trying to save others.

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Dori: As Antifa slanders cops, an officer gives his life to save shooting victims