There's No Hiding from the Madness
But there are still a few good cops out there.
I live in the middle of nowhere. As George Clooney’s character in Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? put it, “Well ain’t this place a geographical oddity. Two weeks from everywhere.”
A lot of people think such geographical oddities shield them from the madness that’s spread over the rest of the world, but as my little community learned the hard way last Friday, geographical oddities have their limits.
We have a homecoming parade every fall, as many small communities do. The elementary school kids are brought out to stand by the road and wave at the parade floats roll by (and block traffic).
The Waukesha Christmas parade massacre has largely been forgotten by the public, but not by any sane person planning a parade, which is why a pretty large perimeter was established around the parade route. Traffic for the parade was blocked all the way outside the city limits.
When James S. Coburn blasted past the roadblock, clipping a cop car as he did so, the chase was on.
Coburn was flying about 60 mph down little narrow streets. At one point, he drove through the city park to reach the elementary school. I know this because people on Facebook were asking why the cops were driving on the walking trail.
Deputy Aaron Shipley is the School Resource Officer at the elementary school. He hopped in his SUV and got ready. Just as Coburn reached the school, Shipley rammed him.
Compare and contrast to the cowards who let children die in Uvalde. If not for Deputy Shipley, who knows what would have happened that day? Amazingly, Shipley was unharmed. Coburn was in critical condition but has since been stabilized.
Assuming Coburn walks out of the hospital, the city and Tennessee Highway Patrol are throwing every charge they can at him, but it doesn’t amount to much. So maybe we have to do this again. If he has any sense he’ll get the hell out of town and stay out. But then maybe you’ll have to go through this.
In any case, there is no escaping the madness. But at least there are still a few good men out there.