The outpouring of grief and respect late last week for the fallen three of Burnsville, Paul Elmstrand, Matthew Ruge and Adam Finseth, constructed a 70-minute line of 1,400 law enforcement vehicles, 10,000 celebrants in church and untold thousands more inside a country mile who walked out to the edge of the road in the cold, backs straight and hands over their hearts.

What a difference 20 miles or so makes.

The closer you get to the tallest buildings of Minneapolis and St. Paul, the more the voters have signed up for the wrong team, a political class that egregiously holds law enforcement in eternal suspicion, always quick to blame the copper first. Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty recently charged State Patrol Trooper Ryan Londregan for doing his job, which resulted in the death of Ricky Cobb II. Londregan probably saved his partner’s life. Officers are left wondering if they are to be punished, even when they are going by the book.

There were seven kids in that house in Burnsville where the murderer, Shannon Gooden, hid in a bedroom with guns and ammunition he wasn’t supposed to have. He was a felon. Before dawn and before he killed himself, Gooden killed officers Elmstrand and Ruge and firefighter/paramedic Finseth. Another officer, Adam Medlicott, was injured.

The seven kids were unharmed.

When they got to heaven, maybe God stopped them and said, “What brings you here?”

“Well, we just saved seven kids.”

“Come right in, boys, and thank you.”

What do the people of Burnsville — of most of Minnesota — know that the politicians of Minneapolis don’t? What do they understand and feel? What brought them out on a winter day to stand at attention until the last car in the procession passed?

Let’s start with the American flag. They are proud of it. It means the world to them, as it does to most of us. Never saw so many. Nobody was triggered. The flag was displayed reverently.

They also know, those untold thousands, that prosecutions must be stern, that breaking the law cannot be tolerated, no matter your race or gender. They know that defund-the-police movements are mean and selfish and result in a world of hurt.

They believe that bad guys should not be immediately returned to the streets because of bail money raised by two-bit celebrities in California.

They know that riots and burned neighborhoods are not peaceful protests.

They don’t believe we need more pandering, knee-jerk laws. They believe we should enforce the laws we have.

They believe in right and wrong.

And they believed Medlicott, who, in addition to celebrating the unselfish human spirit of his fallen brothers, concluded with the truth of the day, the year, the truth of eternity.

“You can’t reason with evil,” Medlicott said.

No, you can’t. Sometimes evil shoots you dead in the break of dawn in a strange house where the lives of seven kids hang in the balance.

The people who lined the streets knew that, knew that these fellows were protectors.

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Joe Soucheray can be reached at jsoucheray@pioneerpress.com. Soucheray’s “Garage Logic” podcast can be heard at garagelogic.com.