A week ago Friday I was driving on U.S. 1 in Prince George's County, Maryland. Two cop cars flew by me. A minute later, three more screamed by. Another couple minutes passed and a veritable convoy cruised by. I sighed. Though it took a few hours to confirm, the reason for the mass excursion to the extreme northern section of the county was obvious: Someone killed a cop.

Some kid in a stolen pickup truck ran over Cpl. Richard S. Findley in Laurel, a town so far north that some residents actually live in neighboring Howard County. I say that only to point out that while most of the Prince George's police force convened at a crime scene that Friday morning, there were blessed few officers available for any other problems in the county which holds around one million residents. Every time I hear of dozens of cops descending on a single scene, I think the same thing. I know that the death of an officer results in something akin to "all hands on deck," but there's plenty more crime going on.

Little did I know how true that was.

The Prince George's police arrested a suspect in Findley's murder early Saturday morning. Ronnie L. White was 19 and had a record that suggested he was dumb enough to have stolen a pickup truck. Chances are he was driving when the truck ran over Cpl. Findley. Unfortunately, we'll never know.

I hesitated to open my paper Monday morning. I knew what the lead headline would be. I didn't want it to be true, but I knew in my gut what would happen to White.

He was strangled in his cell sometime Sunday morning.

At first, the police tried to sell the death as a "possible suicide," even though there was nothing in the cell White could have used to kill himself. Then, when the medical examiner's report came out confirming strangulation, the county had to order corrections officers (the only people with access to White in the jail were seven guards and two supervisors) to meet with state investigators.

It's just awful, really. The police had a suspect in custody less than 24 hours after Findley died. One week after White's murder, no one has been charged.

Some folks are making a big deal out of the fact that Findley was white and White was black. I'll be honest: I don't think that race had anything to do with White's death. This has more the feel of a "you kill a police, we'll kill you" action. I understand the emotions behind that. But there is no place in our society for vigilante actions performed by those charged with upholding the law.

No matter how callous it may seem, the fact remains that the death of someone in the custody of our society is more egregious than the death of a police officer in the line of duty. Findley was doing his job as a cop, and White had no right to kill him (if he did--a fact that now will never be established in a court of law). But we hold public servants--including jailers--to a higher standard than we do crooks. Criminals are a scourge on society. They do not represent society. Whoever killed Ronnie White acted on our behalf. And we all share the shame of that act. Indeed, White's murder shames Richard Findley's service.

I'm sure there are a few cops in Prince George's who would dispute that statement. But they're thugs, just like those who would kill cops. A society is judged by how it treats the least of its citizens. Cop killers are about as low as you go. And as long as we allow cop killers to be murdered as they sit in their jail cells, our society is wallowing in the muck.

Jon Worley has a few friends in law enforcement. He'd like to think they wouldn't strangle an unarmed teenager in a jail cell.