As I scanned The Citizen Sept. 22 looking for the SPLOST results, I came across a letter addressed to Jim Basinger, the Peachtree City manager. The author of the letter, Vicki Brigham of Peachtree City, was concerned about a police officer who parks on the grass during an off-duty job.

It seems Ms. Brigham is frustrated over the fact that the officer is allowed to park his car wherever he wishes and the rest of the parishioners at Our Christ Shepard Lutheran Church cannot. Perhaps Ms. Brigham wishes she could park on the grass. Ms. Brigham wonders just exactly what the officer thinks is going to happen that would dictate he park on the grass. Then she offers some rather unimaginative scenarios stereotypically indigenous to small police agencies.

Well, fortunately, Ms. Brigham, I am here to tell you what the officer thinks. Better yet, I will tell you what he knows.

He knows through training and experience to expect the unexpected. He knows that if you are car-jacked in the intersection of Ga. highways 54 and 74 by some drug-addicted transient, he can respond with perhaps lifesaving quickness.

He knows that being parked in the parking lot may rob him of the few precious seconds that so often in his business means the difference in life and death. He knows that if that “old lady” you so incredulously refer to needs the assistance of a police officer, she won't have to wander through the parking lot to find him.

He might be taking a break in the comfort of his vehicle, or do you begrudge him even that? And as you were out enjoying your Sunday making observations about our law enforcement community, Ms. Brigham, did it occur to you that this officer was working an “off-duty” job?

What are we left to infer from that, Ms. Brigham? Instead of being at home enjoying his family, this officer was out on the same Sunday as you, not criticizing and second-guessing you, but protecting you.

David Studdard
Fayetteville

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