Saturday, February 14, 2009

Philadelphia Police Officer Killed




My heart just aches when I read of police officers being killed in the line of duty. I can't imagine how it must feel to send your significant other to work and never see them alive again. My prayers go out to his family.


PHILADELPHIA — A Philadelphia police officer was shot and killed while responding to a street fight Friday night, city officials said. Police returning fire shot and wounded the gunman.
Officer John Pawlowski, 25, was responding to a fight in the city's Logan section at about 8 p.m. when he was shot, Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey said. The officer was taken to Einstein Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.


The fight began with an argument between two men, Ramsey said. One said he was going to call the police, and the other responded, "If you call the police, I'll shoot you and the police," Ramsey said.


When officers responded, the gunman shot Pawlowski multiple times, the commissioner said.
Police returned fire, wounding the gunman, who was in surgery and listed in critical condition late Friday, Ramsey said.


Police recovered a .357 Magnum from the scene.

Pawlowski, a 5 1/2-year veteran of the force whose wife was two months pregnant, is the city's sixth active duty officer to be killed in the line of duty in the last two years and the first killed in 2009.

"It's absolutely devastating to all of us," Ramsey said. "I've been in policing for 40 years and have never seen anything like this before."

Mayor Michael Nutter called Pawlowski a hero and said he was angry over the shooting of yet another city police officer.

"This is an incredible series of events that has happened too many times in this city over the last two years," Nutter said. "We're angry. We're upset and in a lot of pain. It is beyond words to try to explain what it is like when these incidents take place."

Officials said Pawlowski's brother was an officer who worked in the radio room, and his father is a retired officer.

Monday, February 9, 2009

Socialism prophetic words

SocialismNorman Mattoon Thomas (November 20, 1884 – December 19, 1968) was a leading American socialist, pacifist, and six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America . The Socialist Party candidate for President of the US, Norman Thomas, said this in a 1944 speech: "The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of "liberalism," they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day Americawill be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened." He went on to say: "I no longer need to run as a Presidential Candidate for the Socialist Party. The Democrat Party has adopted our platform."

"The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money." ~~Margaret Thatcher