Issac Bailey | We cry for the police. When will they cry for us?

A young man walked into an Ocean Boulevard store in 2013 and tried to buy a pack of cigarettes.

He didn’t have an ID and was denied and denied again after returning with a possibly false ID.

He began cursing and acting wildly. He returned with a few friends and created “a disturbance.”

The owner tried to make them leave, but the men assaulted the owner.

Myrtle Beach police officers showed up, stopped the fight and issued trespass warnings.

The owner, who had sustained injuries, filed a complaint and the officers were reprimanded for their “failure to properly perform their duties” because no arrests were made.

They were also made to do something else: Issue formal apologies to the victims.

It’s an amazing thing, cops being made to apologize.

How I wish we’d see more of that — publicly.

On Friday, we observed law enforcement appreciation day.

Weeks earlier, the country mourned the loss of two New York City police officers.

There is a local annual observance for officers killed in the line of duty.

Little kids of all backgrounds dream of growing up to become heroic police officers while everyone is urged to revere and respect officers, to trust them, thank them for their service.

And a couple of weeks ago, I wrote about two police officers who showed incredible restraint and professionalism while on duty, able to corral an armed suspect without bloodshed.

I plan to highlight more such acts because it is important to defend remind people about the daily heroism of cops.

But it can’t just be about that, though it seems that’s all many people want to discuss.

In an odd confluence of events, the people who most often yell about the horrors of government are now screaming that this particular government agency should never be criticized, even mildly, never scrutinized, never asked to improve itself.

It is as though the part of government that empowers fellow citizens to arrest, detain or even kill other citizens is a model of perfection while the rest of government can get nothing right.

We rightly recognize that a police officer being attacked or killed is not just a threat against one person wearing a badge, but a threat to us all.

That’s why it frightens and disturbs us like nothing else.

But it can’t just be about that, either.

Police officers, granted an enormous amount of power, must not only mourn losses within their ranks, but also those harmed by police.

They can not simply give a passing nod to there being “rogue” officers.

They must be willing to discuss the times officers make deadly mistakes — and not only those caught on video — and tell us how those mistakes could have been avoided.

They must join us in saying that it is not OK that a 12-year-old boy playing with a toy gun in a park is shot dead within 2 seconds of the arrival of the police, no matter the outcome of a grand jury proceeding.

They must be willing to say, no, it is not OK that officers responding to a young man holding a toy gun in a Wal-Mart in an open-carry state is shot dead, or when New York cops stuff a broken handle up a man’s rectum or repeatedly shoot people by mistake or because of fear.

They must mourn with us when a man is choked to death over the alleged sale of untaxed cigarettes just as we mourn when a police officer is ambushed, either by a mentally ill man in New York seeking revenge for the death of a black teenager in Ferguson, a couple with white supremacist ties in Las Vegas, or criminals trying to escape the consequences of bad deeds along the Grand Strand.

Too often, though, we get the blue wall of silence, a refusal to honestly — and publicly — assess the harmful actions of police officers.

It is good that they sometimes do it among themselves, behind closed doors.

But all the cloak of secrecy does is create unnecessary suspicion and a sense, in some communities, that cops don’t care when it is their colleagues doing something wrong.

We cry with them. We need to know they’ll cry with us, too.

This story was originally published January 10, 2015 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Issac Bailey | We cry for the police. When will they cry for us?."