Comments about ‘Sheriff vows to catch man involved in shooting of park ranger’

As a 30 year veteren former law enforcement officer my respect and admiration for these Rangers and rural Peace Officers is very deep and I am very proud of them. Doing a peace officers job with back up seconds away or even just a few minutes away is still extremely trying and risky. That they work alone and miles from help is more than those without experience in the field will ever know. My prayers are with my brother and his family. God holds a these men and women who serve so valiantly below the threshhold of most peoples awareness as very precious. My brother in arms and his family needs your prayers.

God's speed, brother.

As a national park volunteer for years, I spent long periods in the backcountry of a huge park remote enough that even routine accident victims are usually flown out. I worked with exceptional professionals and can identify with this ranger and his family.

And as a former 911 dispatcher, I can attest that city police can typically expect back-up within a few minutes of requesting it, from their agency, nearby police or sheriff departments, highway patrol, or an off-duty colleague who just happens to have the agency radio on while out doing personal errands. Many cities have partner patrols at night or in high-crime areas.

Rangers have none of these. At any instant, they may need the knowledge, skills, insights,and intuitions of police, wildland or structural firefighter, highway patrol, paramedic, search and rescue, cliff or water rescue, resource or environmental management, animal control, press information officer, and friendly helper to visitors--knowing that whatever the situation, they have to handle it because their nearest backup could be an hour away.

Hats off to dedicated park and forest rangers, fish and game officers, and other public lands LEOs everywhere.

Go get him boys!

I'm very impressed. This man was obviously an achiever. He was picked to give the graduation speech after his six-week police academy training. Very impressive. I sure hope he gets better soon so he can get back out there and keep fighting the bad guys with his police academy training. We need more good guys out there like him.

This kind of thing just burns me up. I have thoughts about why this happened, if I voice them I will probably be called "prejudiced".
I truly wish this officer and his family well. God bless him.