In the early years of preschool and elementary school, we were taught that cops were the good guys. They were the ones who would always help you, and we were taught to trust them. At such a young age I would brag about how good of a person my mother was and how she saved lives. Little did I truly know everything she did. The job of a police officer isn’t as easy as it seems; you have long, hard hours (rain or shine), and the job can take a lot on your body. From switching from night to day shift multiple times and working a few years undercover with many different looks, my mom has been through it all (almost). She was the first female police officer for the town she worked for. It took a while for her to gain respect because, at the time, no one had really heard of female police officers, but throughout the years she became the most respected police officer around.

After 25 years of working, there’s a lot to carry with you. There’s a lot of joy, a lot of sadness, and a lot of bad things that you could only wish to forget. It definitely is not as glamorous as it seems, but some days my mom came home from work and felt happy. She felt happy after working 16 hours in the pouring rain because she had saved a life that day. She felt happy after a long night shift because she stopped a robbery in progress. She felt happy because she thought it was her civic duty to protect the people, which she took tremendous pride in.

With current events going on, it angers me more than one can imagine how many people, including my friends, have talked badly about police officers. I understand that some of the police officers should not have the honor of wearing their badge, but how many “bad cops” are there? For every bad one there are thousands upon thousands of good ones. Every day officers swear on an oath that they’ll protect and serve the people for the greater good. Also, every day some police officers are put in life or death situations and they can’t just say they don’t feel like doing their job. They were taught to think fast in tense and high pressure situations, and sometimes they do something that they didn’t intend to do that day when they woke up.

So just for a minute, put yourself in their shoes. Watch videos, interviews, read articles, whatever it is you have to do. You need to understand the things they go through, the environment they are in, and that they have rules and codes to follow as well. Every police officer is a son / daughter, a husband / wife, a mother / father, a cousin, etc. They are somebody’s somebody. So before you continue to point your finger at them, just remember that they are out every day serving and protecting your somebody.