Four Atlanta police officers are being hailed as heroes after they responded to an auto accident. A car had hit a support column for a bridge on I-85, near the infamous site of the I-85 collapse. Police respond to auto accidents all the time, but this time it was a little more intense.

You see, the car was on fire.

Dramatic body-cam footage of a fiery, Wednesday morning car accident shows several Atlanta police officers smashing the windows of the vehicle to rescue the two occupants.

The accident happened when a car crashed into a column under the I-85 and Cheshire Bridge overpass, a location not far from where the famous I-85 bridge collapse took place earlier this year.

Police say two people were trapped inside of a burning vehicle after it had crashed into the column. Officers broke open the car windows and used an extinguisher to put out the fire that started to engulf both passengers.

…

Fire department personnel soon arrived to help pull the victims out, but the department said without these officers’ quick actions, the victims — now identified as Shevron Wilson, 24, and Gary Todd, 20, would have died. Wilson has been identified as the driver. Both were taken to Grady Hospital in serious condition.

The officers appreciate the praise that’s coming their way, but say they were just doing their job, and would do the same thing tomorrow.

You ever notice how heroes always say that?

To be sure, the term hero is thrown around these days kind of willy-nilly. Someone his “heroic” because they talk to the press about their lactose intolerance or whatever, but all that stuff does is cheapen the term.

These four officers risked their lives to help two people who they didn’t know from Adam’s housecat. They didn’t care, either. They saw two people in needed and did everything they could to rescue them.

Unfortunately, they lacked the resources for the rescue, but they also managed to keep the fire at bay until the fire department got to the scene and could take care of business. This happens just days after Georgia Tech police have come under fire following the shooting of a mentally disturbed student with a weapon. At least three people have been arrested for inciting a riot and battery of a police officer there.

Both cases, however, illustrate the same thing. Police officers have a commitment to keeping the community as safe as possible, and that means putting themselves in the line of fire from time to time, but it also means doing some things that will keep them up at night for years to come. Do they always make the right call? No, because they’re human, but the vast majority of them try.

For that, they deserve our appreciation. Yes, we should call them on it when they mess up, but we should also come down like a ton of bricks on those who openly advocate for violence against them.

There are those in this country who actually want to abolish police departments. Right now, I suspect there are a couple of guys in Atlanta who would probably disagree.