While on vacation in Georgia last week, I had the opportunity to participate in what is called a “ride-along” with the DeKalb County Police Department (one of my closest friends serves as a lieutenant in this department). A ride-along is where a civilian goes out with a police officer during their watch and is able to get an idea of what a law enforcement officer encounters during an average watch. I have participated in these over the years and in different settings (urban and rural, police department and sheriff’s department), both formally and informally. I want to share with you a few of my thoughts from that experience.
- While there has always been an inherent danger with being a law enforcement officer (LEO), that threat has increased significantly over the past couple of years. The last time I went for a ride-along with DeKalb PD, I was in the worst section of the county during the worst time of day. This time, I was again in the worst section of the county but during a different time of day. During roll call, I was asked by one of the patrol officers, “Do you have a vest?” (He wasn’t asking about my three-piece suit.) That was a question I never heard a few years ago. While the criminal elements have always had a disdain for those who seek to maintain a safe and orderly society, there is now an increase in the active targeting for harm of LEOs.
- On the other side of the coin, I visited neighborhoods that my friend referred to as being similar to “third-world countries.” Condemned apartment complexes with no electricity, running water, or sanitation and boarded up windows and doorways were fully occupied by people who had “no other place to go,” as my friend stated. My heart broke as I watched children and families wander through the complexes, sifting through garbage. It was a bit unnerving to see nearly every single person watch our police cruiser with hard and menacing stares, stopping their conversations or actions. This was a dangerous place to be, a place where a murder victim was found the very next morning after I had been there. Yet all I could see were “the least of these”: men, women, and children mired in the depths of sin and on the precipice of eternity.
- The vast majority of the population that LEOs encounter on a regular basis are those individuals who are involved in breaking the law. Let me illustrate what I’m trying to say here. During the course of my evening, there were assaults, an alleged rape, suspicious activity, and robberies and burglaries. When these things happen, you call the police. When you’re having a backyard BBQ with friends, do you call the police to stop by and have a bite to eat? Generally speaking, LEOs are constantly engaging with some of the worst elements of society. The saddest consequence is that it becomes very difficult for LEOs to shift between the attitude and readiness that is absolutely necessary for their safety and survival while on duty to a more relaxed attitude when they are not.
I know many of you pray for our LEOs regularly, and for that I am thankful. As you do so in the future, please keep some of these thoughts in mind so that you can pray more specifically for these men and women in blue. But brothers and sisters, pray for ways that we can penetrate the darkness of those areas such as the apartment complexes I saw with the light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. How might we, the body of Christ at Faith Baptist Church, take the Gospel into these places where it is so desperately needed? Just something to think about…
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