Officer Down

The late Pc Keith Palmer of the U.K.

Every murder is terrible. Yet the murder of police officers is especially horrifying to me. As is true of the military, cops are people whose job it is to put their lives on the line for us every day. When one of them loses his or her own life while protecting us, I feel a quiet fury unlike any other emotion.

Pc (Police constable) Keith Palmer was a fifteen-year police veteran. As is usually the case in these atrocities, Palmer was also a husband and father. His end-of-watch came quite unexpectedly this morning, as he suddenly was called upon to stand in the gap between unfathomable evil and the Parliament of his country. Officer Palmer succeeded, at the cost of his life. He was a courageous man whose soul deserves more than peaceful rest. Like noble officers everywhere who die in the line of duty, Keith Palmer is entitled to fierce justice. May it arrive swiftly.