Every society that aspires to fairness and justice asks a great deal of those empowered to enforce its laws.
Thus, when police officers run toward danger without any regard for their own safety, those whom they protect and serve have a moral obligation to applaud the show of courage, to acknowledge it as anything but routine and perhaps even to describe it in divine terms, particularly when the officers’ courage reveals itself in stark contrast to the evil they raced to suppress.
A clip posted Wednesday to the social media platform X showed the precise moment, in the wee hours of the morning on New Year’s Day, when more than a half-dozen police officers responded in unison and without hesitation to the deadly terror attack on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, Louisiana.
The clip came from EarthCam, which describes itself as a “global network of owned and operated live streaming webcams.” EarthCam live streams scenes from tourism and entertainment hot spots.
In this case, EarthCam provided a stationary, street-level view of the famed Bourbon Street.
The camera, positioned on one corner of an intersection, showed the police officers standing on the opposite corner.
Do you support police?
Then, a few seconds into the clip, the officers took off running before disappearing from the camera’s view.
An X user named “Abby H.” posted the clip.
“Wow. These cops on Bourbon Street went flying on foot when the call came in,” Abby H. wrote.
Wow. These cops on Bourbon Street went flying on foot when the call came in. pic.twitter.com/uY2jWrbIZw
— Abby H (@KravGirl2004) January 1, 2025
Other X users also praised the officers and even lamented the fact that those whom they protect often refuse to forgive mistakes made during split-second decisions.
Thankfully, we have a great police force that runs towards danger.
— David Piechocki (@DavidPiechocki) January 1, 2025
Running towards whatever threat and danger, if they make the slightest mistake society will judge them. #respect
— ToddyTime (@time_toddy) January 1, 2025
They run towards danger while people complain about them, they are doing Superman work.
— SnowedN47 (@SnowWhite4007) January 1, 2025
Indeed, those officers deserve all the more praise when one considers that they raced in the direction of an armed terrorist who drove a rented white truck into a group of New Year’s revelers, killing 14 and injuring 30 more. Authorities later identified the terrorist as 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar. A black ISIS flag flew from the back of the truck.
Ironically, aside from the officers’ courage, perhaps the clip’s most fascinating aspect is the amount of fascination it generated.
For instance, Abby H. had only 923 followers on X as of Thursday afternoon. But the clip she posted had already achieved more than 13 million views.
Sheer curiosity, of course, could explain some of those views. One suspects, however, that something else must account for the majority of them.
Legendary Christian author C.S. Lewis gave us one way to understand the phenomenon.
“The better stuff a creature is made of — the cleverer and stronger and freer it is — then the better it will be if it goes right, but also the worse it will be if it goes wrong,” Lewis wrote in “Mere Christianity” in 1952.
“A cow cannot be very good or very bad; a dog can be both better and worse; a child better and worse still; an ordinary man, still more so; a man of genius, still more so; a superhuman spirit best — or worst — of all,” he added.
Lewis, of course, intended to explain both free will and Satan.
The same principle applies, however, if we keep to human beings and the different jobs they do.
For instance, when a historian goes bad, you have nothing more dangerous than a bad historian. But when a police officer goes bad, you have something substantially worse.
Thus, when police officers display courage by rushing toward danger, thereby proving a willingness to sacrifice themselves to protect others, you have something superlative — something, perhaps, that even provides a brief reflection of Heaven.
Those who witness such courage — in this case, millions of them — seem to instinctively understand as much.
Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.