FASTEN YOUR SEATBELTS, PHILADELPHIA. It's going to be a bumpy ride. As bad as it is to have a cop-murdering fugitive on the loose, the helicopter video of a dozen Philadelphia cops beating the shit out of three guys who probably deserved it is only going to make the execution of Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski with an assault weapon more tragic. More maddening. More racial.

Three black men blow away a white police officer on a quiet corner in Port Richmond, one of the few ethnic enclaves in Philadelphia where the name Liczbinski sounds like the guy living in the rowhouse to your left or right. White neighbors rush to his aid, try to stop the bleeding, hear his last words, "Tell my wife. . ."

Yes, there is rage out there. And unspeakable hurt. The kind that makes grown men double over and sob in solitide, like Capt. Miller in a ditch in Saving Private Ryan. He wipes his eyes and goes back to his duty. And in the end he gets shot by the same German soldier he let go.

But nationally the image of Philadelphia police will again be on the news, not in heartbreak, but in brutality. And it's not fair, is it? None of it's fair. It's never been fair. But as a wise man once said, "we must learn to live with what we can't rise above." We owe it to ourselves, our children, and our city. We owe it to the family of Stephen Liczbinski. God bless his soul.