A Denver man pushes three people out of the path of a speeding pickup truck only to get struck and injured himself. To add insult to injury (literally), the man, suffering from bleeding in the brain, ruptured spleen, broken bones, and a dislocated shoulder, was issued a jaywalking ticket by a nearby state trooper. Uh… thanks?

This is a perfect example of some of the things that go wrong in our society. Frankly, it should have been the state trooper, getting paid a comfortable annual salary to drive around and harass people, that pushed those people out of harm’s way. But to punish a citizen who risked his own life to help someone is just unjust in the extreme. Where was the trooper when these citizens were trying to get across the street in a snowstorm? Why wasn’t he providing protection for them? How convenient for him to show up after the fact and start pinning tickets on victims!

I smell a fully justified lawsuit coming on, and I hope that trooper gets it. It’s one thing not to do your job. But it’s something entirely worse to show up after and penalize the people who did your job for you.