A protest in Palmdale, CA turned almost deadly yesterday when a child stopped breathing. The protest was over what was deemed a suicide by hanging of a local man. No evidence of foul play has emerged, though a separate federal investigation is ongoing.

The child garnered an obstruction in his airway and then this happened.

TO THE RESCUE: A Southern California woman was attending a protest with her 11-month-old when the baby stopped breathing. Security camera footage shows the mother flagging down a sheriff's deputy who managed to successfully clear the baby's airway. https://t.co/52waqEq5I3 pic.twitter.com/3Erh2wju7i

— ABC News (@ABC) June 18, 2020

The sheriff’s deputy saved the child’s life, who was able to get whatever was obstructing the airway removed. This was all caught on what looks to be surveillance video.

Hopefully the irony is not lost on so many that are currently chanting to abolish and defund the police. For every incident where a cop does something criminally harmful to someone, there are thousands of incidents like this, where an unsuspecting law enforcement officer just doing his job comes to the rescue. This is why movements to even limit the amount of police on the streets are so dangerous. Poor communities objectively and quantifiably get safer when more police are in those areas.

Unfortunately, some are calling the above video “propaganda” because they can’t see past their own biases.

This is cop propaganda.

Now mention them systematically murdering people of color and refusing to change.

— David Carter (@_DavidCarter_) June 18, 2020

No matter what you think of individual officers doing evil things, such as in the George Floyd case, there is no systematic murdering of people of color going on by police. Facts, not feelings, matter in this case and the statistics show shootings of unarmed men, including black men, to be exceptionally rare (which is why every case of a black man killed in those instances is national news).

That’s not to say police haven’t misused their authority. Like all state arms, they no doubt have at times. Reform in those areas is necessary. But overall, police are a force for good and the continued desensitization of their profession is going to have horrific, unintended consequences.