If you don't like sad stories, you can skip this. Maybe you read about it, or saw it on TV. A 16-year-old killed a police officer and then shot himself. But this time it was in my community. My wife knew the boy's father. The officer was a county patrolman who was looking forward to being a father for the first time. His wife is expecting any day now. He was answering a domestic disturbance call and was met by four gunshots.

I turned on the TV and there was our sheriff in tears. It seems the boy had been drinking and his mother refused to let him drive to school in that condition. He hit her with a fence post and she ran to a neighbor's house. They called 911. When the shooting started, officers from two other counties came to assist. The standoff lasted 28 hours. I don't think they know when the boy shot himself.

Nobody can make any sense out of it all. He was a good kid with a part time job and lots of close friends. His family is well off and he would have had a good life. The officer was a young, well-liked person who never wanted to be anything but a policeman. Something just went wrong.
Howard