The World Has Changed.

Cops are no longer what they use to be.

With all we’ve experienced lately, and the killings by cops with jittery fingers and a hair-trigger, as well as cop killings, I couldn’t help thinking of a cop who lived in a kinder world, though the world then was much more dangerous. My wife lived with that cop, for he was her loving dad, my father-in-law. I was one of the last to see him alive, before my sister-in-law, Gayle Miragliotta, an RN.

I can’t help thinking of him, for he was a selfless man, giving his all to his family and to his officers. His last words to me were, “Pascal, I am not a stupid person!” I held his hand and told him that “though we are from different walks of life, I never, ever thought you stupid”.

Here is an article printed in the Plain Dealer. What manner of a man would ever walk into an explosive situation to exchange himself for his young dispatcher who was sure to die unless President Jimmy Carter called to apologize for the crimes of the white? You be the judge.

I just recalled an incident when my daughter was only ten. So I am referring to circa 1998. Leo lived in Northfield, Ohio and we had just moved to Broadview Hts, a few miles away, eight years before. Leo took my daughter to the corner Circle K and while there suffered an insulin shock.

The police came and not recognizing who he was, assumed they had a drunk vagrant, started to push him around, and arrested him. My ten year told tigress went on the warpath beating the cops with her little fists, “Leave my papa alone!” The store called my mother-in-law and we went to the rescue.

Should we survive as a nation, this abusive “police” culture has to change. Here at home, ever since our two boys got into it, we made a rule: Never, Ever, call a cop, no matter what. Sad.