Twisted priorities

The most puzzling story coming out of all of these street demonstrations in the past week was the NYPD cop who apologized for kneeling. That elegant gesture of understanding and compassion for the victims of inexcusable cruelty and bigotry defused a potentially explosive situation in a way that appealed to humanity the world over. But in retrospect the cop said he saw that was wrong on his part--he had betrayed his side.

Doesn't this show in a nutshell all that is so fundamentally wrong in our society--when public servants see the public as the enemy, force as power and compassion as weakness? Indeed, something is seriously amiss. The very concept of servant leadership seems to have been lost. Are we the nation we thought we were?