When I heard of the events that took place in Texas, recently, it not only made my heart break for the five officers killed and their families, but it made me angry. As a society, we are all too willing to immediately point fingers and chant, “police brutality,” but what about the daily struggles that police officers have to go through every day?
What about the men and women who leave their families behind every morning to go do a job that most people would not even consider? What about the officers who have to deal with the death threats that come with just doing their job? What about the officers who deal with people fighting them for simply following orders?
It can’t be easy to be a police officer -- especially in today’s society. Today’s officers are constantly being criticized by society for simply doing their jobs. I hate to break this news, but sometimes people don’t go willingly when they’re being arrested. Sometimes, the use of force is necessary for police officers to be able to do their job correctly. They don’t leave their house with the intentions of hurting someone. In fact, they’re trying to keep people from being hurt.
I don’t know what it takes to be a police officer -- to put the lives of people I don’t even know ahead of my own-- but I do know that it takes a special kind of person to do that. Police officers across the country are hated because of the job they chose to do. A job- may I add- that the majority of people are too cowardly to do themselves.
When Lorne Ahrens, Michael Smith, Michael Krol, Patrick Zamarripa and Brent Thompson left their homes on Thursday to go out and do their job, they did not know that it would be the last time they would see their children, or say goodbye to their wives. When they ran towards the gunfire that everyone else was running away from, they were doing what they were trained to do: protect people.
I know that my point of view is not a popular one, especially with my peers, but I feel like the fact that police officers are being killed every day is being overshadowed by the Black Lives Matter movement. Maybe it’s because a civilian being killed is a big event whereas police officers dying is just an everyday part of the job -- even when it shouldn’t be.
With so many shootings and other terrible things happening across the country every day, police officers and other first responders are really our only hope. The general public criticizing and pointing fingers at police officers doesn’t help anything. Police officers do what they need to do in the moment because every moment could be a life or death situation.
Maybe we should be thanking police officers for the sacrifice they make every day rather than blaming them for something that isn’t in their control. At the end of the day, the police force is the only thing protecting us from those who want to hurt us. Blue lives matter, too, and I will always back the blue.