Have you ever loved a cop?

Have you ever loved a cop? I have. You know they are not easy to love. But we were reminded this week that every time an officer walks out the door, an entire family goes with them.

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Kent Officer Diego Moreno was hit by another patrol vehicle this past weekend in Kent while he was laying down spike strips to stop a stolen vehicle, which witnesses identified as being involved in a shooting.

GoFundMe for the Moreno Family

Any officer will tell you that law enforcement is one of the most boring and mundane, yet thrilling and fulfilling jobs a human could ever pursue. One moment you are working for state patrol saving a bird on I-5, and the next moment you are giving CPR to a small baby after a car crash on I-90. One day you are getting ready for your shift in a coffee shop in Lakewood, Washington, and on that same morning a lone gunman attempts to wipe out the entire department. One Halloween night you are training another officer at 29th and Yesler in an SPD patrol car, and moments later you are executed by Christopher Monfort as you sit in the passenger seat training a new cadet.

Do all those stories sound familiar? They should because they happened in the last 10 years in the Pacific Northwest.

I hope we take a moment this week to think about what we ask of these men and women. The job of a cop in today’s society goes way beyond the creeds that we see of “Protect and Serve” painted on the side of most patrol cars. It’s no longer just cops versus robbers.

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We want officers to deal with the homeless campgrounds that politicians don’t have the spine to close. We want them to stop and jail everybody, even though we are the most jailed and imprisoned country per capita in the civilized world. We want heroin addicts, dealers, pushers, and hookers off our streets. We don’t want DUIs or BUIs.

“They better be at my house” in five minutes or less with anything we deem to be an emergency, and they better carry a gun, a taser, and a baton. But there will be hell to pay in our liberal leftist city if they have to use one of them.

“Stop the drunks, the speeders, rapists, and the pimps.” We want them to deal with the people we would rather keep at arm’s length, from the mentally ill and addicted, to those struggling with PTSD after 17 years of war. Clean up the tents, clear our freeways, save our lives, and keep us safe. And when we decide to march with or without a permit, you better show up so someone can spit on you, assault you, call you racists names, all the while taunting you with cameras and video recorders.

Speaking of recorders, wear your body cameras, turn them on and off at the right time, show up to court, and don’t ever make a human mistake. Protect us from ourselves at sporting events, stop us from killing each other when we road rage, and be prepared for every natural and unnatural disaster that could hit our area. And we as civilians will have an oversight board that will determine your fate if you do have to use any type of force.

And we better not catch you in a doughnut shop!

When you love a cop, you wait sometimes until 5 a.m. to get a text that says they are at the end of their watch and they are safe. You wait to hear the sound of Velcro as they come home and remove their vest and lock away their gun, knowing that hours after they sleep, you will hear the same sound as they once again “strap up” and head out the door for another shift. You hope it’s a shift full of coffee, alarm calls, wellness checks, paperwork, and bad traffic. They hope to keep a jumper from jumping, a drunk driver from crashing, or baby from dying. Or, on an early morning in Kent, Washington, they hope to stop some young people with guns in a stolen vehicle from harming themselves or one of us.

In the coming days, you will see thousands in law enforcement from around the country arrive in Seattle in their pressed dress uniforms, their polished shoes, and their fitted hats. They will ride in a procession, stand at attention for hours, and comfort a family, a department, and a surviving Kent officer. At the end of it all, you will hear two bells. Officer Moreno will not respond. A radio dispatcher will proclaim that Officer Moreno is out of service. “That he is gone, but not forgotten,” proclaiming that it is the end of his final watch.

Do you know the names of the Lakewood 4? Do you remember the name of the SPD officer in 3 George 13 on that Halloween night? Did the baby live or die? Will you remember Officer Moreno’s name a month from now?

If we are honest, most of us won’t. His wife, son, and daughter will. And in the middle of the night, they will instinctively catch themselves listening for the sound of Velcro.

That is why it is tough to love a cop.

~ don

NOTE:  Kent police are holding a public vigil to honor Officer Moreno at Town Square Plaza this Wednesday at 7 p.m. A public memorial will be held Tuesday July 31 at 1 p.m. at Kent Showare Center.