Jerry Long, Republican candidate for the State House District 76 seat, spoke out recently following the current spate of police shootings in Dallas and Baton Rouge, citing personal and professional concerns.
“The recent attacks on our law enforcement officers deeply concern me, not just as a citizen and a candidate, but also as a father,” Long said. “My daughter Jenna is a cop. For the safety of our citizens — including our men and women in blue — we must reverse course.”
This year may go down in history as the most dangerous year for police-targeted acts of terror since 1973, when 14 officers died, Carl Bialik, of FiveThirtyEight news, said
| Contributed photo
A University of Maryland study revealed that since 1983 — when two officers were slain — not one U.S. police officer was killed in police-targeted terrorist acts until recently, when eight separate incidents transpired between 2013 and 2015 The statistics discounted 9/11 (when 72 officers perished) because the attack was not specifically police-targeted.
Attacks in 2016 will not be officially categorized by the Global Terrorism Database (GTD) until next year, but relative to earlier events, the Dallas and Baton Rouge shootings may qualify as acts of terror. To be considered thus, crimes must meet the GTD’s established set of criteria — that an attack is intended to achieve a “political, economic, religious or social goal," that it aims to send a message to people other than its victims and that it happens outside the context of genuine warfare.
“If we do not respect the law, we will have chaos,” Long said. “We must embrace personal responsibility and respect one another. These are the principles that bring security, peace, freedom and prosperity. This is not a time for political pandering. This is a time for principled leadership. For our cops, life depends on it.”
Alerts Sign-up