As National Police Week ends I thought this would be as good of time as ever to talk about a hot topic in our nation right now: the awful and completely ridiculous treatment of our law enforcement officers.
Almost every week when I open Twitter or Facebook, I'm faced with the headline of another unfortunate death of a man or woman that left home that day to protect lives only to lose their own. They patrol our city streets and interstates in order to take the bad guys off of them and make the world a safer place one criminal at a time. Yet every day there is a news outlet that tries to spin the truth or make a story more exciting in order to make the police look like the bad guy. We love to bring to the light the officers that have made unfortunate decisions in the heat of the moment, rather than discussing the awesome things they do everyday in our own backyards.
I challenge you to Google and find a recent article pertaining to a law enforcement official's good deed. It's rough right? It's difficult to find a single one written in the last month that features an officer going out of his or her way to do something for their community. Now try looking up an article blaming a police officer for a premature death of a young child, a woman, or more recently; a white police officer shooting a black man. I found four before I even had to scroll down to see more. Does this mean all of the police and state troopers and sheriffs in America, or the world, are racists, trigger-happy maniacs? Absolutely not. However, that is what your major media outlets want you to believe. They want you to think that the police are the bad guys and not to be trusted. That if given the chance, they will draw their gun and shoot first and ask questions later.
Is this to say that every police officer is a saint and has never done a questionable thing? No, because just like you and I, they are human. Are they held to a higher expectation than you and I? Of course! Why wouldn't they be? They are expected to be the pinnacle of confidence, intelligence, stealth, and heroism. They have to not only watch your back, but watch their own. As well as their brothers and sisters in blue. When they see a person lying in the street, bleeding from a gunshot wound to the chest- they don't see a white convicted felon, or a black drug dealer. They see a person that is in need of immediate help without discrimination.
So thank you, to the men and women that wear their blue, brown, and green uniforms. They wake up every day to go to work, patrolling our city streets and highways, providing security in our schools, and teaching the importance of wearing your seatbelt. Risking their own lives so that we can safely live our own.I support the thin blue line and all that it stands for, thank you for all that you do and more.
