Killed in the line of duty

A cover story in Toronto's daily rag proclaimed how "Ontario salutes fallen officers". There is a memorial that enshrines the memory of these brave men and women who have given their lives in the pursuit of liberty, justice...

Shrive, 49, an OPP officer in Renfrew, west of Ottawa, was killed last May. He was making a U-turn to catch a traffic violator on Hwy. 17 when his cruiser was broadsided by a transport truck.

(sigh)

Not to sound cold, but I file this under the category of "bad things happen". Some people who use cars in the course of their work tend to die in car accidents. So do thousands of people who drive to work, are they any less noble?

However, at least Shrive was nominally doing something duty-like when he got killed, not so Fred Bingley, also honoured yesterday:

On Oct. 4, 1929, a 39-year-old constable named Fred Bingley died of a fractured skull after being tossed from his motorcycle as it rounded a curve near Caledonia

Unlike Shrive, Bingley wasn't even involved in a police chase of some sort, he just happened to die while in uniform.

What is the problem with honouring people who die in accidents? Simple, it cheapens the expression "killed in the line of duty". Being a police officer is purportedly a dangerous job, and some police officers do indeed get killed while interacting with some of the least desirable elements of our society. Those police should be honoured, for they were killed while performing a valuable service to society and, more importantly, directly because they were performing this service.

A soldier who dies in battle could be said to have died in the line of duty and because of his duty. A soldier who dies because he trips and cracks his skull back in the base died in the line duty, but not because of the line of duty. These two soldiers should not be honoured in the same way.

It is the same thing with police officers. Some die because of their job, others die during their job. There's a difference.