Tragic loss of a police officer
Nassau County police Officer Michael J. Califano Credit: Newsday
The death of Nassau police Officer Michael J. Califano after he was struck during a roadside traffic stop this weekend left gaping holes. Holes in the hearts and lives of his wife and children and friends and extended family, sorrow in his church and on the force, and, for the entire community, an overarching sadness.
Some of that sadness, for most of us, comes because he was a police officer killed while doing his job. Police officers enter into an unusual social contract: We pay them to protect us, to enforce our laws. When they die at work we feel not only heartbroken but indebted. We sent them out, paid them to go, and we feel, along with the loss, a bit of responsibility and anger.
In our anger, we want to change something. There ought to be a law, or procedures, and if there already are dozens of laws or safeguards, there ought to be a dozen more to keep such tragedies from happening.
But many losses we can't prevent, no matter how many laws we pass.
The tragedy is a fine man gone, a father and husband and son and friend to people who loved and needed him and will miss him always.
We know about it because of where and how it happened. We feel he died for us because he sought to make the roads safe for us.
But the loss is simply the death of a good man far too soon, and that's tragedy enough.
