SEPARATE EVENTS:
AMBUSHED IN
THE HEARTLAND
SGT.ANTHONY BEMINIO
AND OFFICER JUSTIN MARTIN:
MURDERED
SIMPLY BECAUSE THEY WERE COPS
(Wednesday November 2, 2016,
Des Moines, IA) A Des Moines Police Officer and an Officer from the neighboring
community of Urbandale were killed in separate attacks early this morning. The suspect was arrested a few hours later
with incident. Both of these fatal
shootings have been labeled as “ambush-style” attacks by local Law Enforcement
officials. The slain Officers have been
identified as Urbandale PD Officer Justin Martin and DMPD Sgt. Anthony Beminio. These are just the latest tragic line of duty
deaths (LODD) perpetrated on Police Officers this year, a year that has been
marred by several high-profile similar slaughters most notably in Dallas, Texas
and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. So far this
year 48 Members of Service (MOS) of the Law Enforcement Community (LEC) have
been fatally gunned down nationwide; a stark tally of 4 MOS per month.
With the suspect now in
custody the discussion will likely turn to motive; what possessed this 46-year-old
man who we will not name here out of respect for the ambushed Officers and
their families, to kill these Officers as they sat idle in their patrol
cars. In many ways motive is irrelevant;
his fatal deeds can have no acceptable rationale. While the state of Iowa will afford this
suspect all due Constitutional judicial rights to a robust defense as put forth
by his appointed attorney, no circumstances can in any way mitigate the
brutally cowardly cold-blooded assassinations of these two Officers. The
suspect is the personification of a particularly dark evil intent that cannot
be anticipated or predicted. Anyone so
consumed by this brand of evil can perpetrate cold-blooded murder at anytime,
anywhere, against anyone. To choose
Police Officers as targets speaks to just how deviant this evil behavior
is.
Front line members of the LEC
live with the underlying possibility that their job may someday precipitate
their death. While this reality is acknowledged
it is not usually the over-riding thought as they go about their assigned
duties. Yes, they realize that NO call
is ever to be treated as routine; every encounter possesses a threat. Situational awareness and a high level of
mental vigilance is what the MOS carry first and foremost; one’s guard can
never truly be “let down”. This is in no
way intended to imply that MOS typically function in a compromised defensive
mindset. There exists a wide gulf
between that particularly distracting position and sound but rapid
judgment regarding the scenario in which they find themselves at any given
moment, on any given call.
Every MOS is willing to act
unselfishly to preserve order, protect those who cannot protect themselves, and
place themselves in harm’s way. In quiet
moments of introspection, they may imagine a scenario be it affecting an arrest
or pursuit of a perpetrator or wading into a volatile confrontation that may
ultimately claim their life. But, not
since the widespread social unrest of the late 1960’s and early 1970’shave many
of us given much consideration to being assassinated, snuck upon as we sit in
an RMP, walk a beat, or exit the RMP to investigate a situation. Militant Black activists’ groups such as the Black Panthers,
the Nation of Islam, and the Weather Underground
waged a declared “war” on Law Enforcement in the late ‘60’s and did in fact infamously ambush and
assassinate several Police Officers perhaps most notably in what has come to be
known in the institutional and present memory
of the NYPD, “The
Incident at Mosque No. 7”.
Fast forward from those
contentious, violent days of extreme vitriol, violence, social unrest, and
overt Black militancy to 2016 and once again Police Officers again live with
the very real threat of the ambush/assassination
possibility in all locations throughout the country. The serge of recent attacks that have transpired
in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Dallas, Boston, Palm Springs, California, among
others, call to mind another assassination; young NYPD Officer, Ed Byrne
was sitting alone in his RMP guarding
the location of an individual scheduled to testify in an upcoming trial of drug
dealers in 1988, still echoes in the squad and locker rooms of every Precinct. In the aftermath of Officer Byrne’s murder,
the NYPD did institute some policy, procedure and operational modifications. Some point to those changes as proof that
Officer Byrne did not “die in vain” but that is no comfort to anyone especially
his family, a family firmly rooted in the NYPD.
If these assassinations are a
harbinger of a “new normal” the ongoing nascent debate about “Police reform”
will and should grind to a halt. Clearly
the atmosphere in the country, the raw, ragged divisions plaguing us as amply
demonstrated over the course of the last 16 months of an unprecedented
acrimonious presidential election cycle, insists that this is not the time to
be criticizing the LEC despite the acknowledged fact that some Police and Law
Enforcement reforms are needed.
Iowa will bury two of her
Finest next week.
Sadly, no one can imagine were
such a heinous assassination may strike next.
Updated:
Copyright The Brooding Cynyx 2016 © All Rights Reserved
Copyright Brooding Cynyc 2016 © All Rights Reserved
