#NoMoreBloodshed

Let me give you a bit of background about myself. I grew up in a law enforcement household. My dad was, and still is a cop. So is my uncle. I've always been around police from a young age. I've ridden in cop cars, the front and back seats of them. I was able to play with the lights, or talk over the PA. And when I got my first car, my dad gave me a handcuff key to put on the keyring. Spring Break my senior year was spent working nights in booking at the police department. I have personal cell numbers for multiple cops, just because they're my friends. I have always, and will always, support the men and women in blue who do the right thing. However, I will not blindly follow ANYONE just because I support their group as a whole. I will try to find the whole story, and I'll make my own conclusion. But just because I support a profession, doesn't mean I don't support someone's rights to live. 

Right now, there's a "war on cops" in America. Or is it a "war on race"? Or are they the same thing? I've heard people say both things, and quite frankly, both seem like a waste of time. There's no "war" we should be fighting at all. Cops won't win just because they're cops, and "race" won't win just because they're a different race. It doesn't matter. All that's happening is something that's happened forever, but now that we have extensive media coverage over everything, it's much more prominent and in your face. But just because it's something that's in your face and you see a 15 second video of someone getting shot down, does not mean you know the whole story. A secret cops hold is that they don't wake up one morning and think "Yeah, today is the day I'm going to shoot someone just for the hell of it." No, that is not what happens. Even the bad ones don't think that. No one in their right minds should wake up and say they want to go kill someone just because they can. All that's happening in this fight is people dying out of fear. Police are people too, and they get scared and they make snap judgments, and they make mistakes, but if not making a mistake means they go home in a casket, they'd rather make the mistake. There's innocent men who have gotten gunned down by police forever. Hell, there's innocent people who have gone on death row, and they were killed for crimes they didn't commit. Sometimes bad things happen to good people, and I hate that but it's the ugly truth. But, that's not the fault of police. What's happening in this "war" is that there's a severe dominance issue. Instead of fighting for equality, the people who started this war are fighting for dominance. They're fighting for something that happened to their ancestors, they're fighting for something that happened because their son was in the wrong, they're fighting for something that doesn't exist. They aren't going to gain some kind of control just by putting fear in people. When people get scared, they have two instincts. To fight, or to run away. But with that, there's also mob mentality and peer pressure. So, when people's guts tell them to run away, but their friends tell them to fight. Guess what, they fight. So, instead of the original meaning behind an equality, or social justice movement, now it's a fight for power. And that isn't right. Cops don't fight for some kind of false power to boss you around with, just because they can. Don't get me wrong though, there are plenty of police who abuse their powers. There's many who think the rules don't apply to them. But, you know who else thinks that? Doctors. Lawyers. Politicians. Gang members. Housewives. Law abiding citizens. Celebrities. Criminals. Just about everyone, on some level, thinks that certain laws don't apply to them. It isn't just police. 

When we fight each other, we get no where. We don't get closer to solving the issue of inequality. We get further away from it. When a tantrum is thrown, policies aren't made. They aren't even considered. When an articulate argument is made, they'll think about it and try to get some law passed, or get some kind of policy made. But, when police get gunned down at traffic stops, or at rallies, or at calls, by people who claim your movement, it gets no where. Your movement is shoved to the side with a huge warning sign on it. Right now, there's a split in our country. And we don't need that. We can't afford to be divided on everything right now. Not with the two people who have the potential to make it to office, we cannot be divided on every single issue right now. We need to relearn our friendships and freedoms, and privacies and deduction and research skills. Just because it's a video on Facebook doesn't mean that the whole story is told. Just be reasonable before going on a rant about how awful police are and how they should be banned. Think about it all for a second. How much more bloodshed of innocent people will there be before we all unite and make a change?