Dec 2023. Blues Vol 39 No. 12

of many moving vehicles.

of many moving vehicles. Traffic stops carry multiple dangers for LEOs: malice from armed motorists and injury from inattentive drivers, primarily. And there’s plenty of the latter to ruin lives… Any “local” trip I take nowadays is extraordinarily fraught with heavy traffic flow and invariable wrecks set in motion by some self-centered drivers operating tonnage without a care in the world—certainly not for anyone around them. All it takes is one person’s poor decision to cause a chain reaction resulting in a bad day for many. Wreckage Having served as a policeman, working wrecks is a typical part of The Job. Like everyone else on the pavement, I turtle-crawl forward until I see the blue lights, the telltale signs of troopers working yet another otherwise avoidable traffic crash, braving the open-air elements (hip-close cars and trucks) to gather everyone’s documents and testimonies, safely return to the office (cruiser), and piece it all together, finding fault(s), and distributing some bad-news docs requiring signatures. Yet even in the confines of a brightly lit, clearly marked police car, troopers working the wrecks epitomize the phrase “sitting ducks” (respectfully). But, but, but…the Move Over Law. We here at the National Police Association have covered the nuances of the Move Over Law several times. Although it is one among many laws relegated to keeping our nation’s road-borne cops safe while they lasso speeders, investigate traffic woes, and implement safety feats, it still seems to fall upon deaf ears (PSAs) and self-blind eyes (overhead marquees and a litany of signals to heed, all dismissed). The chronology of police cruisers smashed into accordion-like hunks of mostly metal is a dime a dozen, a telltale sign that some auto operators’ minds are on everything but driving carefully. Over the Thanksgiving Day week, I read several social media posts echoing how police families are typically unsettled when their sworn-to-serve loved one’s primary duty is enforcing traffic codes as a trooper, whose playing field is not the Indianapolis Speedway but a close replication. Spouses, children, and parents of troopers must be an unrested bunch, understandably so. In all of this, troopers uphold one another and carry on the fight against the aggressiveness of reckless drivers creating traffic tragedies resulting in fatalities on the asphalt, with troopers always in the crosshairs due to the very nature of their inherent duties and where they are performed. Some of the horrific fatalities are troopers whose lives were abruptly concluded while bravely serving in a space known for speed and inattentive motorists. In that extremely sad context, our cover photo today portrays troopers from various states standing shoulder to shoulder, attending Honor Guard training school, wearing their respective colors while also implementing cadence and cohesion, brimming with bravery in the face of chronic perils. Although any law enforcement agency Honor Guard contingent performs at various events — police academy graduations, promotions ceremonies, athletic events, dignitary presentations, to name a few— it is more commonly employed at law enforcement officer funerals. From state troopers to county sheriff’s deputies to city cops, Honor Guard cadres train the same and exhibit acute skills akin to solid soldiers marching without one iota of a misstep, all in reverence to the fallen whose bravery was maximized. The San Diego Police Department’s Honor Guard credo is to “keep the remembrance of fallen officers alive in the memories of all law enforcement personnel, their families, friends, and the communities they serve” and “will represent and honor the Department and its members with the highest degree of professionalism and integrity at all times” and whose training manual shall “constitute the nucleus for the conduct and operation of the Honor Guard.” Textbook directives translating to precision police training comprising agency tributes on behalf of those who forged forward bravely…for the final time. Troopers chronicling attendance at police funerals are thus starkly reminded of the myriad pitfalls and inexplicable carnage transpiring on America’s highways and byways, yet bravely suit up and step out of cruisers to pursue order in the torrents of traffic. 24 The Blues 40th Anniversary Issue

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