Modern policing?

Last week, the City of San Juan made the national news for all the wrong reasons right smack dab during the holiday season — three police officers stabbed while trying to arrest 18-year-old Enrique Martin Ayala after responding to a call from his mom who claimed that her son had assaulted her.

After determining probable cause, the three officers on the scene tried to make an arrest for the alleged assault. Gathered in close quarters, Ayala reportedly slipped from their grasp before he could be fully restrained, grabbed a nearby kitchen knife and began stabbing at the men in blue.

The only positive news to come out of this is that no one was killed during the encounter, and no officer suffered a life-threatening injury.

After the knifings occurred in the 400 block of Cancun Lane last Tuesday, Dec. 3, at approximately 7 p.m., Ayala was arrested approximately an hour later in another part of town after threatening another family in an attempt to steal a ca.r Ayala’s since been handed a bond worth approximately $3.25 million, so he’s not going anywhere for the foreseeable future.

The charges filed against the 18-year-old include — three charges of criminal attempt at capital murder; and one charge each for assault, aggravated robbery, and resisting arrest.

How, though, was Ayala able to stab three cops without any of them first drawing their service weapon?

The million-dollar question.

The three officers stabbed, now recuperating at home, are all apparently new to policing. Still needs verification from San Juan Police Chief Leandro Sifuentes, but from what The Advance has been told by at least three city sources, the most senior officer on the scene last Tuesday night was only out of the police academy for approximately 18 months, while the other two had been sworn police officers for less than a year.

If we find out different, we’ll run a correction.

Around town, the county, people are asking, “How can three officers like that all get stabbed? Why didn’t one pull his weapon and shoot?”

Without reading statements from all three officers, who knows.

Tougher Days for Cops

The one thing on which most people seem to agree, however, is that cops have it tougher these days than they ever have, thanks in large part to a long list of reasons.

For starters, the police officers who have made national news over the past decade or so, who were convicted of homicide after being found guilty of murdering a suspect during the course of an arrest, are all now part of the equation — shoot, don’t shoot.

Those stories obviously make an impression on young, and old, cops alike.

If you go to prison as a former cop, you typically don’t fare well.

Second, granted, Texas isn’t California, and there is still more respect for the law in South Texas than in other areas of the country where braindead people walk around with slogans like “Defund the Police.”

Why?

So the bad actors can really take over?

Some of the people who call themselves “progressives” actually believe that putting more money into social programs for the youth of America will decrease the number of dysfunctional adults bent on crime.

While that is undoubtedly true, doing it at the expense of the police department’s budget, which is meant to handle the dysfunctional people we already have walking among us, is, well, too dumb for words.

That’s what “Defund the Police” is all about. Steal from the police budget to fund more mental health/social services.

Makes no sense, but what does these days?

I’ve spoken to more than a few people though who told me that if they had been one of the three SJ cops attacked by Ayala, “I would have busted a cap on his…the second I saw him with a knife, before he got to me.”

Playing the part of an arm-chair quarterback. We’re all prone to doing it, even if none of us knows for sure how we would have reacted in similar circumstances.

So did any of the three SJ officers hesitate in pulling their gun because the thought of criminal liability was weighing on them, or did it just happen so fast, no one had time to draw?

A lot of questions to be answered.

One of which will also be, who trained these officers after the academy, and for how long did they have to work under a more seasoned supervisor before being cut loose with their own patrol unit?

Because in the world of policing, in today’s volatile age, even a year-and-a-half on the police force is barely enough time to get your ears wet, much less be called on to deal with a situation where a teen holding a large kitchen knife is lashing out at you, trying, in effect, to end your life.

Good news, though, which needs repeating in this sad world — no one died lastTuesday.

Last but not least, the question needs to be asked — how and why did 18-year-old Enrique Martin Ayala turn out the way he allegedly has?

At one point in time, he was most likely a happy baby, toddler, content to play and laugh. So what changed him over 18 relatively short years so that he’s at a point now where he’s looking at many years stuck inside a state prison.

A sad story all around.

Respect back for DPS

By the way, on a side note, I can once again have some respect for the Texas DPS now that its director, Steve McCraw, finally retired as of Nov. 30, after never taking any personal or departmental responsibility for the Uvalde school tragedy.

Old Steve-oh was willing to throw other people under the bus, both inside and outside his department, for the May 24, 2022, Uvalde mass shooting without ever accepting the fact that the buck stopped with him that sad day.

A better man would have resigned.