DENVER -- For the third time in just a matter of weeks, the people of Colorado have laid a sheriff’s deputy killed in the line of duty to rest. Going to those funerals is a constant reminder of the dangers the men and women who work in law enforcement face each and every day.
“Every day when our officers put that uniform on, when they kiss their family good-bye, that officer and that family know there is a risk they may not come home at the end of shift,” Aurora Police Chief Nick Metz told Anne Trujillo on this week’s Politics Unplugged.
Former Denver police detective John Adsit says in the three years since he’s been injured on the job, he’s seen tensions between police and citizens on the rise in many communities, but he says officers need to realize that’s just a small portion of the population.
“The unfortunate thing is that day in and day out, a lot of officers hear this bad rhetoric and this lack of respect for the profession itself and so they can easily fall into 'that is the way it is,'” he said. “The reality is that when you actually realize the support that community has for you, that’s huge.”
Politics Unplugged airs Sundays at 4:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. on Denver7.