LISTEN: Your browser does not support the audio element.

Taken from Wednesday’s edition of KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson Show.

Police officers in our region are saying there’s a tremendous anti-police backlash right now even though there was no evidence in the grand jury that Darren Wilson did anything wrong in the shooting of Michael Brown and even though that happened a couple thousand miles away in Ferguson, Missouri. But still, all of these people have seized on the “Hands up, don’t shoot” false narrative.

It’s a phony storyline because there was no evidence that Michael Brown had his hands up and said don’t shoot and yet there are a bunch of people who are trying to push this storyline through for some agenda. It’s creating a real anti-police backlash. Cops are getting all kinds of grief from the public as a result of all of this.

In Pierce County, Deputy Sheriff’s Guild President Cynthia Fajardo tells KING 5 it’s been tough trying to convince people to be cops because of what is going on in the world.

“If you check with any of the agencies here in the Seattle Metro area, every single agency is having a very difficult time getting people who want to be police officers anymore.”

She told KING 5 that this false storyline, that cops are just out to hunt and kill people, is just absolutely ridiculous.

“We train them very significantly to think about their hesitation. We want it to be almost an instantaneous reaction based on their training. Nobody goes into this job wanting to take someone’s life. That is the last thing on anybody’s mind when they take this job. They want to help people.”

I want to remind everybody of something that happened in our area more than 12 years ago. It was a beautiful June Sunday afternoon in Newcastle near Bellevue. There was a naked black guy walking around in the neighborhood and he was screaming obscenities, pounding on the hoods of cars, and a bunch of people who lived in the neighborhood called police.

A King County Sheriff’s Deputy named Richard Herzog responded and he went to confront this guy who was reportedly on PCP. Law enforcement tells me that PCP is often the drug of choice that leads people to ripping off all their clothes and gives them this incredible strength.

So, Herzog went to intervene. He went to take this man into custody, but the naked man overpowered him. He got Richard Herzog’s weapon and he shot him. Then, when Richard Herzog was on the ground, he stood over him and kept firing at him, executing him in the middle of the street on a sunny June afternoon.

Now think what would have happened if Richard Herzog in trying to corral this naked PCP-filled man had managed to get off the first shot. What if he had shot and killed the naked man in the middle of the street. What would have happened to Richard Herzog’s life? He would have been crucified.

We would have had Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton leading marches in the streets of Newcastle and downtown Seattle demanding his badge, demanding life imprisonment for this King County Sheriff’s deputy who shot and killed this unarmed black man on the streets of Newcastle.

Those were the two choices for that cop that day: lose the battle for his gun and get executed in the middle of the street or win the battle for his gun and get executed in the media and by all of these race-hustlers. Those were the only two possible outcomes for a King County Sheriff’s deputy 12 years ago on a sunny June afternoon.

How can you put your cops in that situation? How can you live with yourself knowing we have to have police out there to protect us and to take these risks for us and to sometimes lay down our lives for us, like Richard Herzog? How can you look in the mirror with your phony narrative when you know that is the situation you’re putting our cops in?

I’m not at all surprised that they’re having trouble finding cops when that is the only resolution in these encounters: Kill and get killed in the media by the ignorant public or be killed in the literal sense. I wish people would remember a little bit of our local history as they’re just spouting all this nonsense about Ferguson.

Taken from Wednesday’s edition of KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson Show.