WATCH: Officer Shot At Point Blank Range During Traffic Stop – His Partner Drops Suspect

It’s harder to complain about the police when you remember that THIS is what a ‘day at work’ can look like.

It looked like she did everything by the book.

The unnamed lady cop walked up to the car and had the driver turn it off. She recognized the guy in it and she was friendly to him.

Watch:

“Haven’t seen you for a while,” she said to the gang member in the car.

She found out he was on probation, and that he was due to be discharged in nine months.

She asked if he’s got anything on him and opened the door so he could get out of the car.

That’s when Richard Mendoza, 32 shot her in the leg, shattering her femur.

Her partner, Miguel Alarcon, wasted no time in dropping Mendoza and turned his attention to helping his partner.

The good news in this story is that everyone lived to see another day.

Truth be told, even if the guy who didn’t think twice about shooting a cop without provocation had been fatally struck, it still would have been a happy ending.

Keeping the peace isn’t like ‘any other job’. Nor is it ‘lucrative’ in its pay scale, or convenient in the hours you keep.

First Responders run toward danger when the rest of us run from it.

And that’s why we owe them a special level of respect.

When a cop turns bad, throw the book at them. Absolutely. But the cynics who hate police forget that most cops aren’t bad. It’s not even close.

Most of them are like this lady cop, trying to do their job keeping the peace and dealing with people who do NOT want that peace to be kept.

It’s 9/11 today. While we can take a moment to remember — or better still, thank — those who defend our lives throughout the year, doing it today is a good way to honor those who work so hard to keep us safe.

God bless them all.