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Carol Ratcliffe (Gairo)
I e-mailed this article Sunday afternoon and it was published in Monday's Mohave Valley Daily News after the 5 police killings. On Tuesday, Bruce Clark from TV2 The Morning Show read it on line. I was happily surprised.
Have a Great Day!
Carol
Heartbroken Again
As a wife of a retired Philadelphia Policeman, who kissed her husband “good-by” every working day, not knowing if he would return home safely to me and our three sons, my heart is broken once again for the families of the fallen officers.
My husband served in the 60’s and 70’s, when the Black Panthers’ slogan and underground newspaper read “Kill a Pig and be a Hero.” When an officer was killed in the line of duty, all Philadelphia officers wore black bands across their badges as memorials for a member of their working family who gave the ultimate sacrifice. During those years my husband dressed with the black band on more days than not.
One of my husband’s classmates from high school who became an officer too, was answering a call that turned out to be an ambush. Once the black radicals shot him and he was lying in the street bleeding to death, the evil doers danced around his body and kept the emergency wagon from getting through to assist him. By the time they got reinforcements to retrieve their wounded fellow officer, he lost so much blood that he suffered a stroke and to this day remains paralyzed on one side of his body.
Another officer who lived one block away from our modest row home and occasionally played cards with my husband was a 20 year veteran. Nearing his retirement he was given one of the more cushy jobs in a non-violent section of the city. Unfortunately one day when he stopped a car that didn’t belong in a certain area behind closed businesses, the black driver open fired and killed him instantly. He never lived to see his 5 daughters get married or kiss his wife that night. It turned out the shooter had a long criminal record and was recently released early from prison.
I forgot to mention that my husband’s partner was a black officer, who we socialized with and our children called Uncle Fred. Many blacks in Philly were good law abiding citizens, but not the Black Panthers.
Although I didn’t vote for Obama, I felt he had an excellent opportunity to help race relations and be a role model for the black community. Nothing could be further from what he has done. The black community is worse off; their life quality has gone down and with inviting agitating advisors like Sharpton to the White House more than 90 times, our country’s leader has chosen to be divisive instead of bringing harmony. His repeated rush to judgements about police shootings without finding out the facts first, is unacceptable. And now our men in blue are suffering the consequences of his negative responses. I pray our next leader knows how to heal the damages already caused, so I won’t have to feel Heartbroken again over slain officers.
By: Carol Gairo
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