Dating back to before I was born, to the present day and to the next 15 years, I’ve always been the girl whose answer was “policeman” when asked what my dad does for a living. When I was younger, the response was always with a bright face. I remember my classmates saying, "No way!" Teachers used to smile and explain the importance of the police. I always took pride that I was the girl in elementary school whose daddy was a police officer.

In recent years, I find myself reluctant to tell people my father’s occupation. Today if you say the word “police officer” you get a group of mixed responses, and I’ve even had my friends tell me they hate police officers. This pride I once felt is now being shadowed by fear because as time goes on and more young, innocent black individuals get killed at the hands of police brutality, it’s become a misleading, societal representation of all police officers.

My dad has seen a lot of things, things that are stuck in his mind to this day. In 2011, my dad helped rush a 14-year-old boy to the hospital in an effort to save his life after a suicide attempt. My dad was there when the doctors told the family their son and brother didn’t make it. And my dad cried to himself in that moment. Or the time my mom called him after her car accident to explain to him what happened and the fear that raced through his mind hoping his wife was OK. When he got home to see her in once piece, it was more than he could have ever wished for. My dad has seen car accidents, domestic violence, bloody scenes, mental disorders, alcoholism and countless deaths. So the widespread myth that “police are all terrible” couldn’t be further from the truth.To send my father to work every day and pray for his safety is one of the most nerve-wracking feelings.

On the tragic day of 9/11 they started sending officers from my dad’s department in western New York to the scene in New York City, my mom called my dad countless times crying hysterically asking him to come home while he was stationed to investigate a possible bomb threat in downtown Buffalo. The day his co-worker was hit by a car during a Walmart shootout I called my dad to make sure he was OK too. Then coming home from my friend’s house and seeing my dad sitting on the couch during his day off was more than I could have ever thanked anyone for. Living with my dad as a police officer is one of the hardest things I live with because when disaster strikes, my dad could easily be in the middle of that disaster. If God forbid, my dad doesn't come home one day, I would never be the same.

I’m not dismissing the severity of police brutality or saying it’s OK because it’s not. I believe the hashtag “Black Lives Matter” has a lot of merits. There is a lot of racism in police departments across the country and there are some officers to blame when we see black individuals being taken down and shot with bullet after bullet. I think there are departments that do not educate or train their officers enough to send them into duty. But do I think police officers are awful, racist and murderous everywhere? No, not at all. Especially when it comes to the smaller town police departments. All over the news, I see the police brutality taking place in larger areas and then I see this “police are all racist” mentality being broadcasted across smaller towns. If we want to end police brutality, we need to find ways to fix police departments, not riot our towns. At the end of the day, I'll always be so proud of my father and his will to watch over my community every single day.

We can never end racism, but working together to create an equilibrium in society to live together is a great start. To learn more about police brutality, click

here.