It’s one of the worst feelings on the road. The speedometer stuck on speeding and the blue lights pop behind. Each flicker of the blue illuminates the guilt.

I’m a cop’s dream, though. Pull over, hand over driver’s license, sheepishly take the ticket and drive away. Is it a pain? Surely.

But think of the cop walking up to the window without knowing who is driving, or what that driver might be holding. Each traffic stop made is a walk into a potential danger zone.

And when Pearl police officer Mike Walter entered an apartment searching for a suspect accused of sexual crimes against a 9-year-old, it’s safe to say he knew the risks.

Carnell Gaines Jr., a man with an extensive history of felonious activities, shot and killed Walter, a former professional baseball player, a father and a husband. Two other officers were shot in the exchange. Gaines was killed.

Friday, the community of Pearl — a city about the size of Vicksburg where things like this “don’t happen here” — grieved together during a service for Walter.

By all accounts, he was a fantastic officer, advancing quickly through the ranks from patrolman to investigator. He looked like the kind of man who took his job seriously and with pride.

Officers in Vicksburg and with the sheriff’s department answer such calls routinely. They enter apartments, stop suspicious drivers and face a criminal element that is outnumbering and outarming the protectors. It is a rare day police are thanked.

In the past I have taken my shots at the Vicksburg police. I scoffed at the buying of two Segues — I still think it was an unnecessary expenditure — and the hulking mobile command center. I don’t like them changing uniforms so often. Pick a style and stick with it. But I am glad they do what they do.

It’s naive to believe that everyone will handle interactions with the police with courtesy and a smile. What gets lost is that when approaching the driver’s window, there is no telling what will be encountered. Inside could be the likes of Gaines.

Walter was investigating a terrible crime against a child near the same age as his own. A man who needed to be removed from society hid with a loaded firearm with no notion of going quietly.

He didn’t, and a community is less because of it.

Obey the law and the police are not the enemy. Quite the contrary.