Straight up.
I've been known to inflict corporal punishment on a deceased equestrian animal from time to time, but sometimes the only way you can focus attention on a dead horse is by continuing to administer some post-mortem blows to his carcass.
Last week, quite the stir was created when we revealed the information that officers with the city of Fort Smith were told they could not participate in the annual Law Enforcement Torch Run while on-duty.
More on that in a few minutes.
I get very emotional about the subject of those with social and mental development issues being slighted. There is a reason for that.
The bottom line? Way back in 1975 as a high school student when I finally tricked my future wife of forty years into going out with me, I arrived at her home to pick her up for our second date to a surprise.
Katrina answered the door holding a child. I was seventeen, she was sixteen and I was confronted with a girl I had a real interest in introducing me to a child I didn't know existed before she opened that door.
You know where my mind went. This beautiful, complex and young woman standing before me--who I knew from the outset was going to be the love of my life-- had a child. I was barely mature enough to drive across town for the date, much less deal with the possibility of being a replacement father for some kid.
And what a child she was. Blonde, blue-eyed and bubbly. Happy to the point of being frenetic. And she had Downs Syndrome.
Katrina's mom--who had encouraged me to ask her out in the first place--quelled my astonishment. The child was not Katrina's biologically but was a child who had a troubled mother who had been in an out of the correctional system for various reasons. Katrina had been a babysitter for the little girl name Tonya, and one day Tonya's mother just failed to pick her up because she was once again the guest of the state.
Had she not explained --given how shallow I was an and how I had never dealt with a 'special person" -- I probably would have turned around and run. But something told me to stay.
From that day forth, Katrina and I have spent our entire lives together. From that moment, precious, precocious and loving three-year-old Tonya was a part of our life until her tragic death in her early thirties. And without Katrina---and the lessons I leaned throught my association with Tonya --I would not be the "Poppa" I am today to the belessing on the right.
There has not been a finer, more compassionate and more innocent child of God on the face of this planet than Tonya Davis. She taught me more about life--and myself--than any other person I have encountered in my existence.
So there's my disclaimer. There is the reason for my "bias" in this situation.
So fast forward to last week. I took it personally that participation in the Special Olympic Law Enforcement Torch Run was being used as just the latest of political ploys in a series of political ploys to push preferential treatment of one group of officers over another by a city and an administration that pushes policy with a "scorched earth", agenda-driven, at-all-cost attitude.
At the end of the day, maybe those in charge do have a fiscal responsibility to the taxpayers not to squander the funds made available by taxpayers and a right to make policy to best utilize those funds. If the policy is and/or was that officers -- nay any city employee -- is not allowed to participate in similar events, then so be it.
But that wasn't the case. The Torch Run had been an annual affair for officers for almost three decades and fars as our research indicates, participation while on duty was never an issue. Until it became one.
Also, "other officers" -- who might be identified as being "more friendly" to the current chief of police -- had been allowed participate in community outreach basketball games "on the clock". On overtime in at least one incident. With the knowledge should they break an ankle on a fast break, they would be covered by Workmen's Compensation.
There is and was no doubt about the facts. One group of officers were treated differently than another group of officers, which is unethical and illegal. I'll leave you to your own devices to decide why.
As if that wasn't bad enough, when exposed the city tried to cover their tracks with a press release that essentially tried to spin the situation into the suggestion that it was all a "misunderstanding".
Actually, they were calling me a liar and the original story a lie.
Well excuse me, and excuse my language, but you can take that bullshit, bundle it up with the rest of your bullshit and kiss me where the sun don't shine.
You dishonored the memory of Tonya. You tried to cover up your unexcusable and disturbing--albeit consistent -- behavior with a lie and you made me the focus of your petty and disingenuous denials.
Check back in a month or two and let me know how that worked out for you.