The Hasty Hand of the Law and Brian Wood

After an argument with his wife, Brian Wood was sitting in his car, an obvious shell of a man, a gun held to his head.

All about him the ever impatient law enforcement officers were huddled behind barriers and shields. Acting brave and trying to provoke Brian into standing down, the officers, all decked out in their SWAT team outfits, volleyed back and forth at him using tear gas, stun grenades and intimidation.

However, they didn't look all that heroic. It was all there to watch on the 10 o'clock news. They looked like a bunch of grade schoolers poking their sticks at a wounded, wild and trapped animal. The outcome was apparent without any additional watching or ever reading the morning news the following day. Someone was going to die and of course someone did.

So, for the last time, please explain to me why oh why oh why can't law enforcement ever simply show a little Gandhian restraint and calmly, patiently and simply wait things out? It never ceases to amaze me the countless lives, including the innocent, law enforcement and the not-so-innocent that are lost--from Ruby Ridge to the Swapp Compound to Wacco--because law enforcement had to force things instead of waiting out the stand off.

Let's face it, Brian Wood had isolated himself in his car. The car was hemmed in. He wasn't going anywhere. He was surrounded. Instead of using their expensive toys, all law enforcement had to do was secure the area, rig up lights for the coming night, post a few officers in four hour shifts and wait it out. Although not nearly as sexy and cool, even if it would have taken a day or two before Mr. Wood succumbed to fatigue, hunger and thirst--that would have been a far better outcome and probably less expensive than the bravado that law enforcement is always so eager to display--often with unnecessarily deadly outcomes.

Loren M. Lambert
September 25, 2008 Copyright