Jack Dunphy on L.A. Shooting

As usual, another great piece of writing by Dunphy:

• Everyone knows there are few certainties in life. Yes, you always hear about death and taxes, but recent events here in Los Angeles have revealed other certainties which are, perhaps not coincidentally, related to the first two.

  The first is this: If it is your custom to spend your afternoons getting drunk, wielding knives, and menacing passers-by on busy street corners, and if, after the police have arrived as they must when this behavior has been brought to their attention, you fail to drop your knife when ordered to do so, and if then you further tempt fate by advancing toward a police officer with the knife raised in such a way that the officer reasonably believes his life is imperiled, it is as close to a certainty as this world can produce that you will be shot and maybe even killed.

Dunphy isn't just writing about the riots in Los Angeles, he's serving on the streets attempting to maintain law and order in the face of an aggressive and violent populace. Go read the entire article.