End OF Watch: Officers Christopher Reese and Cameron Girvin

We don’t pay police officers enough.

Then again, there isn’t enough money in the world to fairly compensate these men and women who put on the uniform and wade into the cesspools of our cities - areas most of us avoid - so we can sleep soundly in our beds at night.

Let me ask, exactly how much money would you need to earn to risk your life making a routine traffic stop?

Officers Christopher Reese and Cameron Girvin were murdered Friday night by a convicted felon driving a car with expired tags. Initial reports suggest he shot each officer twice before fleeing the scene and killing himself.

“Those officers fell to the ground,” Police Chief Paul Neudigate said at a Saturday press conference. “While on the ground, defenseless, he shot them each a separate time.”

When the officers pulled him over, the felon was uncooperative and got into a “scuffle” with them. Neither officer fired a shot, but the felon was able to shoot both officers, shoot them both a second time and then run some distance before hooting himself.

The Killer was John Lee McCoy III, a 42-year-old convicted drug dealer who’d been released from federal prison in 2017. It’s illegal for a felon to possess a firearm. A conviction on that charge alone would have put him back behind bars.

According to the police, Reese was 30 years old and Girvin was just 25. Officer Girvin was about to become a father for the first time, according to Facebook postings. Think about that. These were young men who should have had decades ahead of them. Years of mundane events and the extraordinary. Children, grandchildren, weddings, birthdays, Christmases, Thanksgivings and summer days on the beach.

Instead, a local dirtbig ended their lives in a burst of violence on a quiet cul-de-sac off South Rosemont Road.

It’s been 16 years since a Virginia Beach police officer died in the line of duty.

Not long enough.