A tragedy for all involved

My father told me a disturbing story. In 1945, his unit, the 254th Infantry Regiment, was attacking the heavily fortified Siegfried line. My father slid down into an anti-tank ditch seeking cover from enemy machine-gun fire. He saw a German soldier. My father fired his rifle. In an instant, the bullet went through the soldier's open hand. He fired again. The second bullet killed the German. The whole encounter lasted perhaps two seconds. Then my father realized that the enemy soldier was dropping his rifle and attempting to surrender.

If a camera had captured the incident, and the film broken down into isolated frames, the last frame would show my father killing an unarmed man. But that is not how things go down in combat, when life-and-death decisions are made in a few seconds.

When I read about what happened to Adam Toledo and Officer Eric Stillman, I thought of my father. It took courage for him to run toward German pillboxes and machine guns. It takes courage for a police officer to pursue an armed suspect up a dark alley.

The fact that Adam Toledo was only 13 adds to the tragedy. But at 2:30 a.m., Toledo was not on the way home from a Boy Scout meeting. He was armed, fleeing from a shooting. A bullet fired by a 13-year-old kills just as readily as one fired by an adult.

I think that my father was a hero. Although the pending investigation is incomplete, I think that officer Stillman is probably a hero, too.

One resident of the community where Adam Toledo died, put it best: "I see both sides. It's tragic for the officer and for the young man."

Wiley Edmondson

Geneva