Being a police officer is a choice. Just like not blowing the whistle on abuse is a choice. You can blame people for their choices and some choices have consequences.

If I saw one bleeding in the street, I would have to weigh the possibility that getting involved would potentially ruin my life and that saving this person could result in the abuse or death of an innocent down the line.

Scorpion and the frog and all that.

It’s in my nature to help anybody in need, but I have to be responsible and I would naturally hesitate to help a dangerous person who’s a threat to the people around them especially if the system might punish me for the attempt because it was looking for someone to blame.

So sure it’s a person, a potentially monstrous, definitely dangerous, openly awful member of an elective class of abusive psychopaths that chases away any moral, healthy person.

That still makes them the recipient of the bullet.

As a side note: they are non-binary and use they/them pronouns.

This is why they are being smeared.

Thanks for the deep dive though!