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2020-10-04 False witness at the Police Department

Whoso loveth instruction loveth knowledge, But he that hateth reproof is brutish. - Proverbs 12:1

Back in the early 90's when I was dispatching for a small town police department I got a call from the convenience store on the black side of town about someone grabbing something off the shelf and fleeing. To my mind this fit my definition of "strong armed robbery" and that is how I dispatched it. The "strong armed" indicating no weapons beyond the perpetrator's own body were observed. The "robbery" expressing the moral outrage of the act, but overselling the violence of it. My intuition was that such lawlessness was a threat to the life and safety of the public even if it wasn't perceived as such by any of the parties. The responding officer was used to my usual understated demeanor and accepted my implied violence level at face value. Later back at the station, he blessed me out long enough to teach me not to bear false witness by being too clever, that life was in the balance.