NC police shooting: Now is the time to mourn, not debate | Opinion

This is a time for mourning, not debate.

This is a time for reflection, not the pursuit of superficial answers.

This is a time for wailing and weeping and anguish, not retreating to partisan corners.

There will be time for that later. There’s always time for such things. Today is a time to contemplate and for a solemn celebration of those who put themselves in harm’s way for us and gave everything.

William “Alden” Elliott and Samuel “Sam” Poloche” of the North Carolina Department of Adult Correction, Joshua Eyer of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, and Deputy U.S. Marshal Thomas Weeks Jr. are no longer with us. Other law enforcement officials were also shot in Charlotte Monday afternoon while trying to serve a warrant on a felon for possession of a firearm.

I won’t name that man here. His name doesn’t belong alongside those who died in service of this community, of this country. He was killed during a gun battle that residents of the Shannon Park neighborhood said “sounded like Vietnam out there.” His name doesn’t belong alongside those who died. There will be time later to delve into his past, scrutinize his possible motivation.

But because of him, Monday April 29, 2024 will become a dark day of remembrance. It’s the day of one of the worst attacks on law enforcement in our nation’s recent memory. I wish it wasn’t. I wish the families of the men killed — their wives and children, their brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, friends — didn’t have to get what must have been horrific calls. I wish others didn’t have to hold their breath as they awaited word about whether it was their loved one who had been killed.

I wish that man I won’t name here neither had weapons powerful enough to take out dozens within seconds, nor the desire or willingness to kill fellow human beings.

I wish there were no gloomy headlines today coming out of Charlotte and blasting around the country because heroes had their lives snatched from them far too soon.

But I won’t get my wish. None of us will.

Just this weekend, I sat in First Presbyterian Church in Myrtle Beach watching a handful of “American Heroes” be honored by the Carolina Master Chorale, including local icon Diane DeVaughn Stokes. It was an inspiring occasion, particularly when near the end of the program music director Tim Koch asked veterans to stand and be recognized. He called each branch one by one, the Army, Navy and Coast Guard, the Marines, the Air Force. Those men and women served in a forward position in this country’s security apparatus. Army engineers Spc. Kennedy Sanders, Spc. Breonna Moffett and Sgt. William Jerome Rivers of Georgia did the same before being killed in a drone strike on a U.S. base in Jordan earlier this year that injured 40 others, another dark day that went by far too fast with far too little recognition.

There aren’t words pretty enough or just right enough to remember such moments fully. The word “sacrifice” feels too small. Truth be told, though, so does “hero.” There are no right words. And maybe there shouldn’t be.

Maybe we are simply supposed to let it hurt, allow the unanswerable whys to sink deep within.

Maybe we are just supposed to cry with those whose tears have already been streaming, and will again through memorial services and burials and attempts to move on with their lives without the men they loved and relied upon.

There will be time later to debate gun laws and the Second Amendment. There will be time to debate the role of police in a society that sometimes feels on the verge of coming apart at the seams. There will be time to contemplate tragedies that flow in the other direction and what they say about justice.

That time is not today.

Today is time to mourn.

Issac Bailey is a McClatchy Opinion writer in North and South Carolina.