The Arkansas Municipal Police Association will hold a Back the Blue rally at the Hot Springs Farmers & Artisans Market on Wednesday in conjunction with its annual convention, which is being held in Hot Springs this year.
The purpose of the rally is to "let the officers know that the public does support them" and show that "not all cops are bad," Jimmy Doster, executive director of the Arkansas Municipal Police Association, said Friday.
"With so much of the media and everything here lately that's giving police officers a bad eye, it's just time to show people that, hey, we're good guys, and we just try to do our jobs the best we can, and we're human just like everybody else," he said in a telephone interview.
"We just really want the citizens to come out and show their support. Like I said, with all the police officers that's been killed in the line of duty ... throughout the country, it's getting bad, and I don't foresee it getting better any time soon," Doster said.
Doster's comments were framed by the latest police shooting in San Diego. According to The Associated Press, a traffic stop led to a gun battle that killed an anti-gang police officer and seriously wounded another. The slain officer, a husband and father of two children, suffered multiple gunshot wounds and died early Friday. Officers have also been killed in Dallas and Baton Rouge, La., this month.
Doster said that law enforcement agencies from across Arkansas are expected to attend Wednesday's rally.
Officers will gather at the Hot Springs Convention Center's east parking lots around 9:30 a.m., then caravan down Convention Boulevard to the farmers market for the rally at around 10 a.m. Public parking will be available at Transportation Plaza, Doster said.
"We've got officers coming from four or five different agencies throughout the state. We've had a lot of interest in it," Doster said. "We've had some Highway Police officers, state police, local police departments and sheriff's departments. We've invited everybody. We hope to have a pretty good turnout."
Doster said it is the first Back the Blue rally that the association has ever done, and is being held in conjunction with its 80th annual convention at the Clarion on the Lake resort on Lake Hamilton.
The convention rotates to a different location in the state each year; last year, it was held in Heber Springs.
Local on 07/31/2016