Standing up for the Billings Police

This morning, Mark and Paul discussed yesterday's protest of the Billings Police Department, which was staged by the family of man who was recently gunned down by a police officer.

The family held up signs saying, "Guns don't kill people, cops do" while passing motorists honked their horns in support.  On television, the victim's mother said her son was "a good kid".

Well, the Flakes are sick and tired of people ridiculing our hard working law enforcement officers.  They put their lives on the line every day to protect us.  The mother is understandably upset that her son was killed, but it's not easy for the police officer who fired that shot either.  No police officer wants to shoot a suspect in the line of duty.

Instead of looking at the police, we should take a closer look at this family.  Richard Ramirez had just committed an armed robbery and attempted to murder a 61 year old man.  Two of his brothers, Jason and Daniel, are both violent offenders.  Jason was just arrested an outstanding felony warrant.  Maybe the Police aren't at fault.  The cops didn't know if this violent offender was going to shoot somebody else.

Paul put it best when he said, "These cops do a damn good job in this town every day.  Maybe people need to start doing a better job in their own families with their kids, raising better citizens and quit putting cops in this situation.  It's about time this community stands behind the Police force."