The other day, one of the local TV stations ran a news story about a young woman who was rescued from a creek by a police officer as she was about to drown. The woman had accidentally run her car out of the road and into the nearby creek as the officer observed from a short distance.
No mention was made about the officer giving her a ticket for reckless driving. I can only assume that he didn’t. To most people – myself included – that would have been a cruel thing to do, even though, by the book, he would have had every right to. A family member told me that it was outrageous for me to even verbally suggest such a possibility. The whole point was that mercy was completely appropriate in this case. I agree, but why isn’t it applicable in all cases in which people accidentally run their vehicles out of the road?
I have little double that this officer, like most traffic cops, had given tickets to numerous drivers for running out of the road. Generally, police operate under the automatic assumption that a driver was being reckless due to the mere fact that he or she ran out of the road. While I agree with the application of mercy in this case, I disagree with the lack thereof in similar cases. I would even take it a step further and say that mercy should be extended to drivers for all accidents in which they were not obviously and overtly driving in a reckless manner.
Obviously, this concept should be applied to situations other than just those involving driving. If mercy is shown to one person for a given shortcoming or misdeed, it should be shown to all for similar shortcomings or misdeeds. In my opinion, selective mercy perverts the whole notion of mercy. The Bible says God reserves the right to have mercy on whom He will. However, we are not God and therefore do not have this right.
Comments