Thank you, officers

I’m grateful every day for two groups of people — our veterans and active military personnel and our law enforcement officers.

I’m biased, as both my sons are police officers with military backgrounds. Given that, I don’t really need a reminder of how important our military and law enforcement personnel are. I’ve seen firsthand the service and sacrifice those professions represent.

Need it or not, however, I got that reminder anyway over the weekend.

Without going into specific details, our newspapers received some communications that were concerning to me — concerning enough that I reached out to local law enforcement to make them aware of the situation.

Not surprisingly, my concerns were taken seriously and I was impressed and grateful for the response I received. Although I’m still concerned, to a degree, as I type this column on Monday evening, I am confident that our local law enforcement agencies are aware of the issue and will do everything they can to help keep us all safe.

In the course of my job, I interact with law enforcement officers fairly frequently. I have always found our local officers to be professional, polite and willing to help as much as they can. That goes both ways, of course. I do everything I can to stay out of their way and not make their jobs any tougher than they already are.

Several months ago, I got a tip about a traffic stop that I was told was newsworthy. When I arrived at the scene, I politely asked for and received permission to take photos. One officer asked me not to photograph him, and I didn’t. The last thing I want to do is to jeopardize an investigation — or an officer.

My hope — and belief — is that in 11 years here I’ve built a level of mutual trust. I’m grateful for that.

It seems easy, sometimes, to criticize the police. They’re human, after all, and humans make mistakes. But when a law enforcement officer makes a mistake, it’s prone to being magnified times a thousand. Sometimes, that’s not fair.

But this column isn’t about that. It’s about saying thank you to the local officers who answered my calls and texts, who listened to my concerns and took them seriously.

Without naming names, you know who you are. And so do I. Thank you to those officers and to all the others for doing what you do to protect and serve.

••• Scott Loftis is editor and publisher of the Carroll County News. His email address is SLoftis@Carroll-CoNews.com.