Police in Houston need to sort out their priorities

September 27th, 2006

Okay, I was riding the Metro to the college today, when I saw this long line of police cars clogging the feeder in front of a nearby mega-church. This wasn't just a lot of police cars, it was literally hundreds of patrol cars, K-9 units, EMSs, and more. In short, this was probably the most police units I've ever seen at once.

Why? According to last week's news, Officer Rodney J. Johnson got killed in the line of duty on Thursday, and today's his funeral.

Photo courtesy of Houston Police Department

Okay, we lost an important guy. Like anyone else, I agree that losing a police officer is generally a bad thing, and he should be remembered for his services.

Traditionally, all sworn personnel in Houston (over 5300) are obliged to give their fallen a final salute before burial.

One small catch: while Houstons over 5300 police are all at the funeral, who's patrolling the rest of the city?

2005-2006 murder map. Courtesy of the City of Houston site.

Okay, I understand that Johnson must've meant a lot to the force, but you still have a job to do: back up your buddies on the beat so they don't get killed, too. Criminals won't drop everything and wait for Officer Tweedle to get back from church to jump in in the nick of time and foil that daring bank robbery.

Also, while yes, Johnson's death was, indeed, a tragedy, what makes it so special? At a national level, an officer gets killed in action once every 57 hours, or a total of 153 a year, or over 14,000 since the first recorded police death since 1794. That's an awful lot of funerals to go to. Texas is the third most dangerous state for officers, right behind New York and California. Basically, there should be a funeral procession larger than 5000 strong in the news every other day, and I'm not seeing that.

What made this particular death distinctive was that Johnson was the first Houstonian police death in a year. I still don't see funerals that clog the freeway that often.

Oddly enough, ask any average Joe at the Johnson funeral who the officer who got killed last year was, and you'll get a lot of blanks...and probably kicked out of the church.

Okay, I admit, this is a little irreverent. But it needs to be put in perspective. Police still have responsibilities more important than a final salute.

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