Dan Casey is The Roanoke Times' metro columnist.

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Dan Casey

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Every so often after a local police shooting, you hear questions voiced in this community as to whether it had to happen.

Or suggestions that certain officers should be separated from their firearms, fired or prosecuted.

There are times when such speculation from the peanut gallery (which includes me) is understandable and correct.

The fatal shooting Tuesday night of Raheen Alexander Alleyne, 19, does not appear to be one of those occasions.

If the Roanoke Police Department's account is correct, Officer J.W. Hicks was defending himself in the dark from a suspect who already had fired at him.

He shot and killed a gunman who may have had a link to a home invasion robbery earlier that day. That left a Southeast Roanoke resident bound with duct tape inside his house.

Assuming those facts, Hicks is a hero who ought to get a medal and thanks from every person in this city.

It is not much of a stretch to conclude he took one of Roanoke's bad guys off the street permanently.

I haven't missed many opportunities to criticize law enforcement officers when I felt they deserved it. Sometimes they do.

Their high profile and the public-service nature of their jobs leaves them ripe for such jabs.

But those occasions are few compared to daily acts of do-gooding that rarely end in praise for people performing a job that's both difficult and dangerous.

Sure, it's not the most dangerous.

Roofers, truck drivers, loggers, farmers and construction workers all have higher occupational death rates, according to statistics compiled by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. So do industrial fishermen.

But police work is different from those occupations in a variety of ways.

Patrol officers often encounter people who are mentally ill or who have life-threatening communicable diseases -- and, not to be too graphic, those folks' blood and other bodily fluids.

They have routine run-ins with drunks, dope fiends, thieves, grifters, wife-beaters and others who are ruining their own lives at varying speeds.

Typical in-the-line-of-duty hazards include being spit on, called names, punched, kicked and scratched.

And sometimes far worse.

Does anybody remember the case of Officer Bryan Lawrence?

A little more than 18 months ago, he suffered a paralyzing spinal injury during an off-duty attack that occurred after he came to the aid of an assault victim.

Today he is walking, but slowly, with crutches.

We haven't even gotten yet to the job hazard that Hicks faced Tuesday night -- being shot at.

That is the big difference, dangerwise, between being a fisherman and a police officer. The accidental death rate may be higher for the former -- but the homicide rate's a lot higher for the latter.

Here in Roanoke, officers such as Hicks put their lives on the line each day for a salary that starts at $32,314 a year.

As rewards go, that is chicken feed compared to the risks.

Let us hope that Hicks is back on the street soon, protecting the residents of this city, and that he doesn't let this shooting weigh too heavily on his psyche.

And if you think about it, you might want to hug a police officer today and say thank you for what he or she does.