[Vision2020] Another Way to Honor Moscow's Police Force

[Joe Campbell]

With all due respect to Debbie Gray, I'd like to make one point in response to her eloquent post. I also want to make a clarification about a similar post that I put up earlier this week.

Debbie Gray wrote: "This is not the time to debate gun control laws. It wouldn't have prevented anything. Jason Hamilton could have used homemade car bombs or one tiny envelope full of anthrax powder. If someone is bent on mass destruction, we can't prevent it."

But you can't, on the one hand, tell people that it is disrespectful to engage in a debate on gun control and yet, on the other hand, engage in that very debate with your own argument -- an argument that, with all due respect, I disagree.

People have different ways of grieving and responding to tragedy. For some of us, debating about issues is therapeutic. Others think: If this is not the time to have the debate, when is the time? Personally, I find it hard to engage in some debates at this time, like debates about gun control, but I have no problem at all engaging other debates. I realized after the fact that my own post was interpreted as an attempt to silence folks who wanted to talk about violence against women, which was not my intent at all. 

I think that the best advice is not to silence people -- as I did in my earlier post -- but for us to (a) be respectful of each other's opinions and (b) as Carl noted, for those who choose to engage in debate to make the topic clear in the subject line. That way, people can say what they want and others can avoid reading what they wish to avoid reading.

--
Joe Campbell

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Date: Wed, 23 May 2007 22:36:18 -0700 (PDT)
From: Debbie Gray <graylex at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Another Way to Honor Moscow's Police Force
To: nickgier at adelphia.net, vision2020 at moscow.com
Message-ID: <78535.9642.qm at web62410.mail.re1.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

It would be more of on honor, more respectful, and
more supportive to not try to capitalize on this
horrendous experience and twist it to suit one's own
political or social agendas.

--This is not the time to debate gun control laws. It
wouldn't have prevented anything. Jason Hamilton could
have used homemade car bombs or one tiny envelope full
of anthrax powder. If someone is bent on mass
destruction, we can't prevent it.

--This is not the time to push for a union. Would it
have made any difference to Officer Lee Newbill or any
of the other responders if they got paid $20/hr more
that night? Or if their health insurance benefits were
stronger? No.

--This is not the time to blame the prosecutor's
office, the jury, the judge, the doctors, etc. There
are hundreds of thousands of people in and out of our
legal and mental health system every day. Sometimes it
fails. Those are the things we read about. Most often,
it works and you don't know about it because psycho
nut job # 43093902 is locked away never to cause harm.

--This is not the time, nor will it EVER be the time
to link this kind of event to Doug Wilson, Christ
Church or the non-violent criminal Steven Sitler. I
can't believe the sick, hatred filled minds that dare
to create a link where there is none.

--This is not the time to second guess the officers
involved, their reactions, your neighbor's reaction,
etc. There is guilt, there is fear, there is joy,
there is grief, there is panic, there is helplessness,
there is raw anger. 

--This is not the time to assume you know anything
about the shooter, the victims, the officers, the
dispatchers, the support staff, their families and the
circumstances involved. Stick with the facts, don't
spread rumor or speculation.

--What is it the time to do? Be patient. Wait for
answers. Be mindful of your actions. Be generous to
your family, your friends, your neighbors. We are all
grieving in some way, big or small. Plan your next
steps. Yes there will be time to lobby for stronger
domestic violence laws, stronger checks/balances with
mental health issues and access to guns, higher pay
for city AND sheriff's officers, funding for top
quality bullet proof vests that could prevent tragic
officer deaths, videos in police cars, etc etc etc.
But please, be respectful of this time when officers
and co-workers and family members and the entire
community are still trying to wade through the
details, mop up the mess, go back to work in a
dispatch center with bullet holes through their pencil
holders, bullet holes through their lives... please
honor them. Don't use them. 

Respectfully,
Debbie Gray (wife of LCSO Sergeant Phil Gray)