What more can we do? Here’s a good column I just got around to reading about the officer shot and killed Tuesday while serving a warrant at an Oak Cliff apartment — in it, Steve Blow ponders the “bitter irony” of the juxtaposition of last Monday’s announcement about lower crime numbers with news one day later of an officer’s slaying.

Earlier the same day Senior Cpl. Norman Smith was killed, I had met with Deputy Chief Thomas Lawrence, the new commander at the Northeast Division, regarding an unrelated article. When I brought up crime numbers, he expressed some strong feelings about numbers and statistics and their inability to adequately reflect quality of life — his purpose was, in part, to point out that at some juncture, crime numbers in our neighborhood won’t be able to decrease further, they’ll get as low as they can go, but that we can (working together) constantly make improvements and make the community better and safer. It’s not always about the numbers, but it’s about what affects us day to day and how we feel about where we live. It’s sort of the same thing Blow writes in the aforementioned piece. He talks about the preventative, service-oriented ways we can choose to respond to a tragedy such as the death of officer Smith. Writes Blow, " … when crime leaves a city in grief, everybody ought to ask what more they can do."
A memorial page has been set up for those who care to leave a message for the fallen officer and his family.

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Details about services—Funeral at 11 a.m., Friday at The Potter’s House, 6777 W. Kiest Blvd. in Dallas; Burial to follow at Restland Memorial Cemetery at Greenville Avenue and Restland Road