A sheriff in Oregon once disabused me of the notion that police traffic stops were “routine.”

There’s no such thing as a “routine traffic stop,” the sheriff told me. I wrote the phrase in a police-related story I wrote for the paper I worked for back then. I was new to daily journalism. I have stayed away from the phrase ever since when writing about the work that police officers do every day. In the three decades since then, I’ve heard that refrain from other officers throughout Texas, in Beaumont (where I once lived and worked) and here in Amarillo.

The admonition came to mind this week as news came out about the ambush in Lakewood, Wash., in which four police officers were slain by a gunman who shot them dead in a coffee shop. The officers were typing reports on their laptops, getting ready for their shifts to begin.

Then tragedy struck without warning.

The officers were doing duties that should have been “routine,” but weren’t.

I’ll have more to say on this issue in the days ahead. The tragedy in Lakewood needs to be revisited as a reminder of the potential sacrifice that police officers face every single time they report to work.

I cannot imagine the dread their loved ones must endure.