By MIKE ROSIER/Publisher

Published on Wednesday, December 21, 2011 - 5:24am |

• Opinion

A couple of weeks ago we were on the way home from work and school when the radio station I was listening to reported the death of a police officer during a traffic stop at Virginia Tech earlier that day. The news broadcaster announced the officer’s name and I shook my head.

I didn’t know his name, of course, but it still hurt.

Then I noticed the loud sniffling coming from the back seat. I looked quickly into the rear view mirror to see huge tears raining down the cheeks of our 6-year-old daughter, Sara. She was absolutely distraught. I asked her what was wrong and she repeated what she’d heard.

“They said that someone shot a police officer and killed him,” she sobbed through the tears. “Why would somebody do that?”