KILL ONE OF US, WE KILL YOU !!!

Within a five-day period, shooting incidents in Odessa, Texas and Miami, Florida took the lives of four police officers and left three others wounded. In Odessa, three officers died. In Miami, one officer was killed and three wounded. There was a marked difference between the way these two incidents concluded, one with a satisfying ending and the other with a dissapointing one.

On Saturday night, September 8, three Odessa officers responded to a domestic disturbance call. They were met outside the home by Judy White who complained that her husband, Larry White,58, had been mistreating her. The officers, wanting to talk to Larry White, could not gain entry through the front door.

When they went into the back yard, White came out shooting, killing officers Arlie Jones, 48, and John Gardner, 30, with shots to the head, and fatally wounding officer Abel Marques, 32, with a shotgun blast to the face and throat. White, an avid hunter, had been drinking beer all day long. After a four hour standoff, this cop killer surrendered to officers who had surrounded the scene.

On Thursday morning, September 13, four Miami-Dade County police officers were in their car on a burglary stakeout when they observed a vehicle driving eratically. They left their stakeout to follow the vehicle and made a traffic stop. The driver, Shawn Labeet, 25, came out shooting and killed officer Jose Somohano, 37, while wounding the other three, with a female officer being the most seriously injured.

Labeet escaped and an extensive manhunt for this cop killer ensued. When he was tracked down some twelve hours later, he was wearing body armor. Labeet was then killed by the officers who found him. Two different cop killings, two different outcomes, one satisfactory and the other one not.

The killing of a police officer, whose duty is to protect society, is the most capital of capital crimes. I am reminded of a cop killing many, many years ago. Two crooks killed a police officer in New Jersey. When they were tracked down to a room in New York City, the cops did not yell "Come out with your hands up, we have you surrounded." Instead, without warning, they kicked in the door and entered the room with guns blazing. Within a few seconds two cop killers were dead from multiple gunshot wounds.

NOW, THAT WAS A SATISFYING ENDING. Naturally, what followed was that civil libitarians howled like stuck pigs, accusing the New York cops of assassinating and disregarding the rights of the New Jersey killers. Not being politically correct, in a case involving cop killers, I say "fuck the civil libitarians." But you ask, what about due process? Well, those killers received exactly the same due process they provided the cop they killed. And that brings me to the Odessa police killings.

If I had been in charge of that operation, Larry White would no longer be among the living. He was alone in his home while the Odessa officers sweet-talked him for four hours. The minute I found out he was alone, my officers would have fired dozens of tear gas shells into that house and shot him dead if he came out. If he failed to come out, I would have had my officers enter the house wearing heavy duty full-body armor with guns blazing until the bastard was dead. No negotiations, no asking him to surrender.

White is now facing extended and expensive court proceedings. During his trial some psychiatrist is bound to psycho-babble that this cold blooded cop killer is the victim of prenatal trauma and an abusive childhood. He couldn't help himself because his mama looked backwards in the mirror when she was pregnant and his daddy took away his rubber duckie while he was in the bathtub. And, after he has been sentenced to death, he will have ten years of appeals on those issues and on the claim that he was inadequately represented by incompetent counsel.

Justice was served swiftly in Miami with the shooting death of a cold blooded cop killer. Unfortunately, in the Odessa case justice has been delayed and will continue to be delayed for many more years to come because the police negotiated for a politicially correct peaceful ending.

In my years as a criminal justice educator, I always advocated the highest standards of proper and ethical law enforcement and I never defended bad policing. In every course, I placed a great deal of emphasis on human relations in the administration of justice. However, when it comes to cop killers, I draw the line and say "Kill one of us, we kill you !!!" I am certain that deep down in their hearts all cops, from the lowest rank to the highest, feel the same way I do. Career-wise, they just cannot afford to admit it.