EAST CHICAGO | Society always will be disappointed with police, but modern nations could not exist without them.

Indiana University Northwest professor Joseph Ferrandino offered those thoughts Wednesday during the East Chicago Police Department's fallen officer memorial ceremony.

Policing is inherently dangerous, and police officers are tasked with a near-impossible job, he said.

"We ask these people to go to any type of any situation, anytime, anywhere, and they can't say no," Ferrandino said.

"We can leave. We can go. Somebody is waving a gun — I'm running. But I call somebody who then has to come in and deal with that individual," he said.

When residents question officers' actions, it is with the luxury of hindsight, he said. But police often must make decisions in a split second.

"As we've seen recently over this past year, even the nation is affected by what people do in a split second," Ferrandino said. "So it must be recognized that this is nearly an impossible job to do.

"This is a human endeavor, and ultimately human nature is tough. Thus, the public is always going to be disappointed with police. This is a reality of the job. We're always going to be disappointed because we fail to recognize how impossible the job is."

Still, there's a vital reason police exist, he said.

"Paid police officers have only existed 186 years out of thousands of years of human existence," said Ferrandino, who has been working closely with local police on a crime-mapping project. "They exist because we have to have them to run a modern industrialized society."

The freedoms of modern society are possible because people know police are there to protect their property, he said.

"So in a sense, police are kind of the lifeblood of our entire economy," he said. "Oftentimes we try to avoid them, but we know we can call when we need them."

Police Chief Mark Becker said told a story about an old man talking to his grandson about the "two wolves" at battle in each of us.

The first wolf is evil. It is anger, greed, jealousy, resentment, inferiority, lies and ego, he said.

The second is good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, empathy and kindness.

The grandson asked which wolf wins.

"The old man quietly replied, 'The one you feed,'" Becker said.

"It seems we find ourselves in a profession with those who repeatedly decide to feed the wrong wolf," he said.

Ferrandino said there is a link between Memorial Day and the many fallen officer ceremonies this time of year. Members of the military and police officers are honored for giving their lives, he said.

Those who attend police ceremonies are honoring more than the fallen officers, he said.

"You're not just honoring the officer, you're honoring the department they came from, their chosen family, as well as the family that supports them and sends them out every day and shares the burden of having a police officer in the family."

Frances Mulvihill