When police are what we want
Dozens of Chattanoogans are among the luckiest people in the world after they dodged the random bullets of a 45-year-old woman in body armor who drove through Hixson shooting at people and cars.
Finally she pulled up alongside a police cruiser and pointed her weapon directly at the officer inside.
In that instant, Officer Rick Engle might well have been justified in saying he feared for his life and he pulled the trigger. But he didn't take that action. Instead, he aimed his gun and told the woman to drop hers. She did.
Because of the officer's cool head and her compliant action, we're not writing yet another police shooting story or editorial. Instead, we're writing about the police being the protectors we know and want.
"She was perilously close to severe injury or death -- as were my officers," Lt. Craig Joel said. "But ultimately through their calm and training, and through her compliance, she lived."
Mercifully, the woman's bullets didn't hit anyone, though at least one Chattanoogan has haunting memories of a shot hitting her car as she tried to protect her 84-year-old mother by shoving her down in the seat and speeding away.
Many thanks to Officer Engle and his fellow police colleagues for their fine handling of events on Dec. 26 in Hixson.
Instead of reacting with a bullet, Engle saved at least one life that day -- and perhaps even his own.
At a time when the nation is roiling with concerns of police excessive force and quick-draw shootings, he also reminded us all that police do more than fire their weapons -- justifiably or questionably. They also protect and serve.
We're grateful for your service.
Bringing down the shootings
Even with the Hixson shooting rampage, Chattanooga officials are touting fewer shootings in 2014 than the year before.
That's a good thing, since last year's shootings were up by more than 20 percent, and we had four more shootings on the very first day of 2015: In 2012, we saw 103 shootings. In 2013, there were 123. In 2014, the city was home to 111 shootings.
But frighteningly, the shooters' aims have improved, and 27 people died last year, compared to 19 the year before.
Mayor Andy Berke and authorities in his administration last year began a program called the Violence Reduction Initiative, aimed primarily at youth and gang shootings. And in that narrow category, shootings in 2014 dropped from 83 to 68 -- or a decrease of 18 percent.
VRI has had a rocky first year, with the arrests of a couple of its contract workers or volunteers and more than its share of community criticism. But 15 fewer gang shootings is not to be sneered at. A minimum of 15 lives saved is downright heroic.
It's impossible to know what part exactly VRI played in any of these numbers, but, warts and all, VRI is better than the zero initiative we had here before to help turn young people away from gang life and away from shooting each other.
Good job, folks. Make adjustments as needed, and stay the course.
Let's put an end to Chairgate
Perhaps Hamilton County Mayor Jim Coppinger should take a lesson from our president and exercise a little executive action.
Since commissioners came out one vote short of the six needed to bring back to the table a resolution to replace 144 chairs in the county's criminal courtrooms, it's time for the mayor to take a different approach to keep lawyers and jurors from injuring themselves in the 22-year-old chairs.
"Chairgate," as the fluff-up has come to be called, began about three months ago when penny-wise and pound-foolish Finance Committee Chairman Joe Graham bristled at the $416-per-chair price tag on the $59,000 bid. On Wednesday cooler heads had come to realize that courtroom chairs must be built to last more than just a few years and therefore can't come from the bargain basement. But there still weren't enough cooler heads to get an actual vote on the chairs.
Here's the thing: In the last decade, commissioners replaced their own 11 chairs for $17,400 -- $812 per chair, according to county purchasing records. Then just one year later, they replaced all 11 again with $776 La-ZBoy chairs. Why? Commissioners at the time said the 1-year-old chairs were too slick.
So bring it on, Mayor Coppinger. With the dawn of the new year, the $59,000 bid to replace the 144 ramshackle court chairs expired. Use the moment to exercise your opportunity to govern. Buy 30 or 35 chairs at a time -- always keeping the purchase under the $15,000 county limit for bid purchases. But you'd better act quickly before the next attorney who finds himself on the floor decides to sue us.