So a big story this week comes out of Waukesha, Wisconsin, where a study has been done concluding that sledding is dangerous. Waukesha Children’s Hospital brought in a police officer to clock the speed of sledders with radar, and discovered that sledders indeed go at an appreciable rate of speed – up to 19mph in some cases. The next step is of course the “you should wear a helmet” vigilante-ism.
Also not surprising about this story are some of the reactions from the public against the police officer in the article, Officer Jake Trussoni, as seen in some of the comments on Don Surber’s blog. It’s the standard party line: he should be out catching criminals, not oppressing the innocent citizen-sledders. In my opinion these people have completely missed the point of the article and the message it sends. It seems rather ridiculous to me to jump down the officer’s throat, when he was no doubt assigned to be there by his superiors in the name of “Community-Oriented Policing”.
People shouldn’t be so quick to jump all over the police officer. Jump all over the Children’s Hospital, or jump all over whoever was too lazy to buy their own radar equipment. But give some credit to a police department that doesn’t mind assigning expensive and much-needed resources to a community project.
