It wasn’t difficult to think of a topic to talk about for this month’s editorial after reading about the violence against law enforcement officers around the country and even in our relatively small state of Louisiana.

In my first inauguration ceremony, I spoke of the statement made to me by my training officer on my first day of work on Patrol, “Everyday as a law enforcement officer, you must come to work prepared to save a life, take a life or give your own for the people you serve.”

But the number of law enforcement officers being gunned down recently means too many have had to give their own life.

When an officer begins any call for service or traffic stop, his first action is to notify the dispatcher of his location. Prior to speaking to any civilian present, that officer’s level of alertness is somewhere in the middle of high and low.

The minute one person refuses a request like “may I see your drivers license,” the level of alertness rises. And it rises a little for every command that is not obeyed.

A well-trained veteran officer might handle this escalation in his alertness well, without a change in the tone of his voice or facial expression. The civilian may not notice how his stance changes and the things he does to prepare for a possible battle.

However, an officer on Patrol for less time may demonstrate his increased anxiety with a harsh tone of voice when someone says, “why do I have to show you my license? What did I do wrong?”

All in all, the ultimate goal at the end of the call for service or the traffic stop is for everyone to go home alive.

In my opinion, the idealization that the police are the “good guys” is being lost in the mistakes of some under-trained officers and in some cases, not the officers, but in the mistakes of leaders following an officer-involved incident.

Without directly criticizing any specific city or town, it was the handling of the situation after the officer-involved incident that may have caused the backlash that law enforcement, as a whole, is experiencing.

There is a saying that the sun will shine after every storm. This storm of violence in our country is causing irreparable damage.

We have all witnessed that after major disasters or tragedies, people are able to rise up and come together stronger, just as they did after the 9/11 attacks or, in our case, Hurricanes Katrina and Issac.

But this type of tragedy is not one that we can rebuild and move on from. Citizens are not trusting law enforcement, and officers are no longer ever at that middle sense of alertness when they put on a badge. We must work together to find that middle ground, where we all have the mindset to make sure we ALL go home to our families at the end of the day.

Governor Bobby Jindal has declared Monday as a Day of Prayer for law enforcement in Louisiana. On that day, SJSO has scheduled a prayer vigil on the front lawn of the Percy Hebert Building in LaPlace, starting at 11:30 a.m.

We ask the public to join us as we pray for the protection of our law enforcement officers here in St. John and throughout the state and the country.

God Bless St. John Parish!

Mike Tregre is Sheriff of St. John the Baptist Parish. He can be reached at sheriff@stjohnsheriff.org.