The Thin Blue Line  

This week, our town lost one of its finest. It lost one of the men who protect and serve. We lost one of our police officers.

The world of law enforcement is a tight knit community, one I'm proud to be a part of because of DH. He's a sheriff's deputy, and although the tragic shooting I'm talking about claimed the life of one of the men in blue, not in black like my husband, it's a loss that affects us all.

I remember covering my first law enforcement-involved shooting at my first job at a small TV station in the Deep South. It also happened to be DH's first week on the job, and I panicked when I heard "deputy down" pulsating in frantic, chaotic repetition on the emergency scanners in the newsroom. I didn't know a lot about DH's duties then; but for one fleeting, terrifying moment, I thought it was my husband who'd been killed.

I think just about everyone who has a spouse, a child, or a parent in law enforcement knows the emotions that coursed through me that day. Those feelings constitute the thin blue line that separate those of us behind the badge from the public at large. It's a line that separates those who can only imagine the worst-case scenario from those of us who know it's a real possibility every time our loved one leaves the house. It's a line that separates nightmare from reality.

As a journalist, it's my job to tip-toe that line on a daily basis. We work with the police and sheriff's office to bring awareness to the public, but we do not work for law enforcement, nor does law enforcement work for us. In a way, the two fields are diametrically opposed; they want to catch the criminal, but sometimes (and this is why I often loathe my job), the more-intriguing story "journalistically" is the one where the bad guy is still on the run. When our goals are such polar opposites, I find myself on the other side of that line.

But at times like this week-- when journalists and officers band together to honor a fallen hero-- we're ALL on the same side of the line. We're on the side that prays for peace, not war; yearns for love, not hate; strives for safety, not fear. It's times like that-- when I see the men and women who protect and serve, who put their lives on the line for me-- that I'm proud to live my life surrounded by the thin blue line.