WHERE DO YOU STAND?

It's time for Augustans to choose sides when it comes to
crime.

When the shooting of an alleged drug dealer in a stolen SUV that is
ramming police cars and driving at officers sparks a near riot, as it
did Sunday evening, something is drastically wrong.

And it's not with the Richmond County Sheriff's Office.

The 30, and perhaps up to 50, officers who responded to the
rock-and-bottle-throwing crowd at the Cherry Tree Crossing housing
project Sunday showed unbelievable restraint. The crowd's insults and
projectiles were returned by the deputies with stoicism and
professionalism and a patience the crowd neither deserved nor perhaps
expected. Despite the fact that the bottles and rocks endangered the
officers.

Thank the heavens none of them was hurt.

According to Sheriff Ronnie Strength, video evidence will show that
the stolen SUV believed to be toting drugs and weapons was sandwiched
by two patrol cars before the officer in front exited his vehicle. The
SUV drove backward into the other patrol car, endangering the officer
there, then drove at the officer in front, who fired through the car's
windshield and, when the car drove at him, through the passenger
window as he jumped to avoid being hit. Suspect Justin Leonard Elmore,
23 was gravely wounded.

Instead of thanking the officers for cleaning up the streets and
making things safer in the housing project, or expressing concern for
the officers' well-being, an angry crowd of 200 or more confronted
officers and tried to injure them for their trouble.

Something is seriously wrong.

If some folks think it's OK to run drugs or guns in stolen cars up and
down the streets, that's their problem. The rest of us aren't going to
put up with it. And rather than hurling rocks and brickbats at the
Richmond County deputies for doing a dangerous job and handling
themselves with dignity under duress, we should all be thanking
Sheriff Strength's men and women today.

This knee-jerk reaction that says police are always wrong and every
ne'er-do-well who runs afoul of them is an innocent who's had his
civil rights violated just won't play anymore. And it's going to
create an unlivable city if it's allowed to continue.

You can't say "knee-jerk" without saying "jerk." And there were some
big-time jerks fighting against law and order Sunday evening in Augusta.

We stand with the men and women who are risking their health, safety
and lives trying to take back the night and clean up the streets and
protect our children from the destructive pollution of illegal
narcotics and guns.

Where do you stand?