According to reports, in an isolated incident, a single worker at an Arby’s in South Florida refused to serve a police officer who ordered a meal. The manager then personally served the officer, saying that if the employee didn’t want to serve them, they did not have to. Now, police officers in that town are calling for a nationwide boycott of the restaurant until the worker and the manager are terminated.

“I am offended and appalled that an individual within our community would treat a police officer in such a manner. It is unacceptable,” stated PPPD Chief Dan Giustino.

The incident prompted wives of officers to stage a protest at the restaurant.

“I wanna cry. My husband spent 25 years. My son is an officer,” said protester Wendy Sorrell. …

“It is beyond comprehension and deeply troubling that a business would deny service to a law enforcement officer just for being a law enforcement officer. … This is yet another example of the hostile treatment of our brave men and women simply because they wear a badge. It is unacceptable and warrants much more than an apology. …” said Florida and Dade County PBA president John Rivera.

Look. Clearly, this was not good customer service. No denying that.

However, let’s get a little perspective here. A single police officer was temporarily delayed because when they ordered a sandwich, one person did not feel like they wanted to serve them. That is the totality of what happened here. A single act of disrespect. The manager personally served them, and tried to make light of it. That’s it.

And now, you have an entire department, including family members, picketing and staging protests, literally weeping in rage, over how one of their kind was not served a sandwich with respect.

To all of those Broward County police officers and their families now in such terrible pain and suffering, let me ask you this question:

Did it occur to you that perhaps the server in question might have been a friend, colleague, or family member of someone who was stopped by a police officer, arrested for not being respectful enough or because of their race, tased, beaten, humiliated, or even shot and killed?

Because, you see, when a police officer, charged with serving the public, commits acts of violence and even murder like that, police officers in general seem to expect us to brush that off and simply accept it. Only rarely does the officer pay any price for such conduct. And cases in which people are unjustly killed by police officers happen hundreds of times a year, all over the nation. Probably thousands of beatings.

You people all break down in rage over a fucking Arby’s sandwich. Consider how it might feel if that officer, instead of not getting a fast food meal served with the proper respect, had a gun pulled on them by a screaming Arby’s employee, who then shoved them to the ground, beat them, and killed them—and then was cleared of wrongdoing by the store’s manager and was allowed to go on serving people at the restaurant.

Now, that would be a good reason to be apoplectic.

But not being served once, possibly by someone who had been personally scarred by police misconduct?

Here’s the deal: if you expect us to simply accept police officers killing so many unarmed people and not be upset about it, I think you can deal with not being served with respect from time to time.

You know the family of the police officer in Texas who was killed by a man just because he was a police officer? Or that of the one in Illinois? Those people deserve to be angry, they deserve to be weeping in rage. As do the families of people beaten and killed unjustly by police. Their tearful protests I will respect and feel the deepest sympathy for.

But not being served a sandwich?

Get over yourselves.