Bulletins

May 3, 2015

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With Baltimore still reeling from violent protests that will not long be forgotten, we still need to pray for peace and calm. The first capital of Maryland was St. Mary’s City, dating back to the 1630s settlement of the Eastern banks of the Potomac River by the Calvert family and their motley crew. May the Blessed Virgin prevail over hearts and minds now at least as much as she governed them then.

With some trepidation I think it worthwhile to discuss citizens and what sometimes happens when law enforcement comes knocking. Nine years ago a young man I knew lost his life at the hands of the Fairfax County Police Department. Salvatore Culosi was gunned down in his front yard although unarmed while being served an arrest warrant for organizing betting on football games. The officer who pulled the trigger has said that it was an accident. The SWAT Team serving an arrest warrant for a nonviolent offense was not an accident. Something very similar happened not far away to another man two years ago. Something needs to change.

Suffice it to say that poor people and minorities sometimes or even often are comforted by the presence of the police. It also is true that sometimes the opposite is true. You may have had the experience of noticing a pair of police officers nearby and feeling encouraged or even grateful, unless they happen to be writing out a ticket for trying the use the last half mile of I-66 during the afternoon rush hour without being a High Occupancy Vehicle so that you can get to your mother’s house in ten minutes instead of thirty. I digress. It is also possible that when you have been some place where there happens to be a great many police officers standing in one place you get nervous, especially so if they are wearing body armor and helmets. Whether it be fear of what the police officers might do or what others might do to the police officers, it is not the usual state of affairs. I would imagine that a police officer who has been told to don such protective gear is immediately on edge and almost expecting something bad to happen.

Good police officers, whom we know to be in the majority of their profession, have an extraordinarily difficult occupation. Recently some of you have been reading about “John Doe” investigations over the last few years in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, involving police raids on homes which appear to be nothing more than political payback against supporters of the governor. One officer in course of one those raids confided in the innocent victim that “sometimes I hate my job”. I have sympathy for him but only to a degree. He has to complain to his superiors or even disobey them and/or resign. Anyone with convictions on public policy should consider the possibility of being subject to such intimidation. Eventually prevailing in a court of law is little consolation. Every single one of us has a stake in this.

May God bless us, all those who govern us and all those willing to die to protect us!

Fr. Christopher J. Pollard