Take a close look at the reactions to the weekend shooting of rookie New Kensington police patrolman Brian Shaw.

Throughout the day Sunday and Monday, there was a steady stream of police officers at the New Kensington Police station from a variety of municipalities across the region — all pitching in on the manhunt for Shaw’s accused killer, Rahmael Sal Holt. Officers also volunteered to cover shifts for the New Ken officers as they grieved for their fallen brother in blue.

“We’ve had so many — the number is too high,” said the mayor, Tom Guzzo. “I don’t even know how many different police officers from different places that we’ve had here in the City of New Kensington helping us.”

But it’s more than just that. The officers are showing up to express a common sentiment that has been building for months across our nation.

The vast majority of Americans still have respect and esteem for police and the tough job they choose to perform. But a persistent minority has lost respect. Everyone knows someone who would try to justify resisting arrest as an American right and privilege. There is no such right and never has been. Your mother taught you to respect authority, or she should have taught you.

At 25, Shaw was the newcomer to the department — the fresh lungs and legs dispatched to go after a suspect fleeing on foot. That’s what happened Friday night, police said, when 29-year-old Holt is accused of shooting Shaw after a traffic stop.

Rookie cops are like rookie athletes — all youth and raw energy and fantastic reflexes — unlike wily veterans who have learned to anticipate what’s likely to happen next, who rely on experience to keep the upper hand in potentially dangerous situations. Such skills accumulate and sharpen over the course of a career.

It’s tragic that Shaw won’t get to become a veteran. We’ll never know how great a police officer he would have turned out to be.

For the multitude of police officers volunteering their time and skills in New Kensington, the consequences must seem clear: a bullet has taken away a rookie patrolman’s right to pursue his career — and the pursuit of happiness is one of the genuine rights spelled out and guaranteed as unalienable in the United States Constitution.

Many of those officers might agree that there’s a price to be paid — we speak euphemistically about an eye for an eye, a pound of flesh. It’s a polite way of saying that if Holt is found guilty of murdering Shaw, then he should surrender his life as penalty.

All those police officers reporting to the New Kensington police station are professionals. They do the job without complaint.

They probably won’t say publicly what they believe a fair verdict would be for shooting one of their brothers in blue. But do we really have to wonder what they’re thinking?