1 minute read
Moving at a snail’s pace
Winning Words
they were discussing how their technology could serve up information in real time, measuring response times in milliseconds. Again, we have become a culture that has a need for speed, instant gratication.
Michael Norton
As I came across a snail the other day, I watched it move slowly across the pavement. And I found myself fascinated by the slow and deliberate pace of the snail. I know it is a snail and snails aren’t equipped to move any faster, so they have to settle for the slow pace at which they move. It took the snail ve minute or so to cross the pavement and move into the grass. Just ve minutes, which for us could now feel like an eternity. So in that moment I re ected on my own need for speed. Although I can’t slow down advancements in technology that are designed to speed things up, nor can I or should e death of Mr. Glass by the hands of local law enforcement appears tragic. But what isn’t clear is the state of our law enforcement leading up to it. Having the daily responsibility of life and death takes its toll on even the best of professionals. e huge rise in crimes is only part of the outcome. Our commissioners, as a result of disastrous, long-term nancial controls, have stripped the sheri ’s o ce budget to below safety levels, leaving the sheri ’s o ce badly understa ed and with exiting quality support personnel. With the nation’s politically inspired attacks on law enforcement, o cer morale and recruitment are at all-time lows. Of all the professionals one might think of, law enforcement requires the “best of the best” at all physical and mental levels,
A career of thousands of correct life-saving decisions can be destroyed by one mistake. While, not o ered as an excuse, I state, disasters are commonly reconstructed by their many accumulating components and not by one act. I am very certain this was not a training de cit.
Recently, politics has been systematically destroying law enforcement.
