Wow. Wow. Wow. That is all I can say! This is a very hard blog to write. I am at such a loss for words but at the same time, I have so much to say if that makes any sense at all! I am in utter shock and disbelief that I am actually sitting here and having to write this blog at this very moment in time but I think that it is something that NO ONE should remain silent about, especially if you are as passionate about this topic as I am.
For anyone that doesn't know me, my father is a police officer at the Fernandina Beach Police Department. He is now, as of June 2016, a Sergeant; an 11 year veteran with his department. There are many roles that comes with being a police officer that people don't even begin to think about. Police officers do everything from investigate major crimes to remove a dead wild rodent out of the road. When someone sees something or something happens, no matter how major or minor, the police are the first ones that people call!
There has been an ongoing rise in police hostility across America the last few months, actually years but it has become exceptionally worse over the last few months. Our country is in turmoil. We need more help now than we have ever needed. We need help becoming one again, we need help loving each other but we must start with being able to love ourselves first, we need help finding peace and doing so the right way, we need help to deal with the struggles that we are facing and learn how to push through and overcome those struggles so that it doesn't continue to hold us down and prohibit us from being able to move forward, we need help seeking our purpose and figuring out our plan in which to utilize our purpose in a positive and meaningful way, we need help stopping hatred, we need help stopping racism, we need help stopping abuse, we need help stopping categorizing everything. WE NEED HELP! That is the bottom line. We have troops overseas fighting for us, yet we have more war right here among ourselves than we have ever had with anyone overseas. We have formed a world and a society full of people that would rather see division and separation verses coming together as one to make positive changes. We have created a society where the positive things get swept under the rug and the negativity is what gets broadcast via the media. We have created a world where people cannot agree to disagree and do so peacefully. We live in a world where integrity, morals, values, trustworthiness, honesty, and dependability is very scarce.
There is a large number of people whom are highly against the police right now and whom have ill intentions against them. There are people that want to harm them and cause chaos and trauma to them because of something that took place with another officer. There are a large number of people that categorize ALL police officers as crooks and "bad cops"! That is NOT the case. Just because something happened that you FEEL or VIEW as wrong, does not mean that it is in fact wrong. People act on impulse and they do everything but the right thing. Regardless of whether or not what took place with the 2 police-involved shootings that led to all the police ambushing recently was wrong or not, lashing out and attacking officers, destroying businesses, cars, streets, cities, towns, public property, etc is definitely not the way to handle it. Why would you destroy your own city? Killing other innocent police officers in states that were not even involved is not the way to go! Making it a race issue versus a right or wrong issue is not the way to handle it. If it was justified then great! If it is found unjustified then regardless of the skin color of the person who's lost their life, THEY ARE STILL GONE! There is still a mother out there that has lost a child and that is missing her child. There is still a child or children out there missing their father, someone missing their brother or boyfriend or uncle or nephew or cousin. The list goes on and on.
With that being said, the officers that are falling daily also have families that are missing a mother/father, husband/wife, brother/sister, son/daughter, niece/nephew, cousin, uncle/aunt, and so forth and so on.
Police officers are there for everyone, even though 99.9% of us are strangers to them. They are there for us rain, hail, sleet, or snow. They are there for us despite how long of a record we have. They are there for us no matter what time of night or morning. They are there for us even though we may be battling a drug or alcohol addiction. They are there for us even when they may have had a "less than polite" encounter with us in the past. They are there for us to keep us safe. They are there to protect us from danger and potential dangers. They are there to help lead us in the right direction when things are a bit hazy and we can't seem to find our way through this maze called life. They are there. Hand in hand. Step by step. They are normal people too. They have families too. They have kids too. They have grandkids too. They live in our community too. They shop at the same stores that we do. They eat at the same restaurants that we do. They take vacations just like we do. They have hobbies just like we do. They have feelings just like we do. They have fears just like we do. THEY ARE NORMAL PEOPLE!
Remember who is there for you when your car breaks down and you need help getting out of the flow of traffic, when your significant other/spouse is being abusive, when your child is missing, when your neighbor is being a nuisance, when you need directions to a certain location, when you get robbed, when you are a victim of sexual abuse, when you are struggling with something and you are having suicidal thoughts but you live to see another day because you didn't overdose or jump from that bridge, when your house/vehicle is broken into, who delivers bad news to families when loved ones are found dead, when someone with hostile road rage tries to run you off the road, when there is an ongoing issue in your neighborhood that you feel needs to be reported, when you're in a car accident, who is to credit when your child comes home and tells you that they learned about saying no to drugs in school, there is an animal stuck in a storm drain, when there is a wild animal dead in the middle of the road, when your child falls into a pool, when there is NO ONE else to stand up in front of the enemy and take that chance, a police officer is that hero that will and never ask for anything in return!
No police officer joins the force and hopes to have to draw and use their firearm. In fact, that is the one thing that they all hope that they never have to do, however, they are prepared for when the enemy decides to confront them that they will do whatever it takes to protect and serve their community and that they will keep us safe as well as their fellow brothers and sisters in blue and they will worry about themselves last. That is a lot of weight to carry around. They have hundreds and thousands and sometimes hundreds of thousands of lives on their shoulders that they carry around on a daily basis and nine times out of ten, they only have a fraction of seconds to make that quick of a decision on what they are going to do. That is a lot of weight to carry around. That is a lot of responsibility.
April of 2015, I got a very scary call at work. I got the call that I had always hoped to never get! I received a call stating that my daddy had been involved in a police involved shooting. I was told that was all the details that they had at the moment. This information was relayed to me via my grandmother because she wanted to tell me before I saw it through the media and really had a meltdown. She was on her way to the police station when she called me and I immediately lost it. I fell to pieces. I prayed and I asked God to please not let my daddy be shot. Please just let him make it home safely! About an hour passed and I received another call stating that daddy was okay and that he was the one that fired the shots. The story is a lengthy story, however, the bottom line is that the suspect attempted to steal a television from Wal-Mart and when he was stopped, he got violent and tried to stab the Wal-Mart employee with a syringe and they called 911 and my daddy responded, was in a high-speed pursuit and the suspect attempted to run my daddy over with his SUV and my dad opened fire into his truck so that he did not run over him, his fellow brothers and sisters, and so that he did not get back out onto the main road and put hundreds of other innocent lives at risk with his erratic driving. The suspect did end up living. The bullet entered at the side of the eye and came out around the temple region. He lost his eye and he was on life-support in critical condition for over a week but he is alive and has been sentenced to 20 years in prison with no chance of parole. Daddy was placed on administrative leave which is basic protocol, however, he returned to work 4 days following the shooting (after giving statements, etc) and when I heard that on the news, I called him and I was very upset. I was asking him why he was going back to work so soon when all of that had just happened and his words to me were this (and this has resignated with me since this day):
" Des, I am fine. 11 years ago, when I was hired on with the Fernandina Beach Police Department, I put my rand hand up, I was sworn in and I took an oath that I would put my community and my fellow officers' lives before my own and that if danger neared us, I would have their back. I am to protect and serve and that is what I did. I do not feel as though I did anything wrong and I do not feel as though the investigation will be found unjustified. I will tell you that this is by far what I ever hoped I would have to do and I hope that I never have to do it again but I was mentally prepared that this day could have come at some point during my law enforcement career and here we are. Just have to look danger in the eyes and overcome. I am not in fear of returning to work. I am not in fear of the public's reaction to the events that took place. If I was going to be fearful then I should not have become a police officer. I have given my statements, I have had the 4 days off that I needed to speak with the people that I needed to speak with and now it is time to put on my belt, my badge, and my boots and go out there and focus on making our community a better place. That is what it's all about!"
Those were powerful words. Those are words that will forever stick with me. Those are words that prove that our law enforcement officers do what every day people do not have the courage to do. Law enforcement is a passion, a love for people, a love for your community; not money.
At the end of the day, we have to stop killing each other and being so divided and racial. A very influential and inspirational person that I have been following always says, "I REFUSE TO SEE HATE LIVE WHILE LOVE DIES" and that has become my new statement in life. We should all view it this way. Another thing is to make sure that you tell the ones near and dear to you that you love them on a daily basis. Don't hold grudges, don't stay mad long, and don't put off 'til tomorrow what you could do today because tomorrow is never promised. What is promised is every current second that you are alive. Make the most of those moments. Keep moving forward and NEVER look in the rear view mirror. LOVE ALWAYS, even when it seems as though you are all out of love; you're not. Keep going. Someone out there loves you. Someone out there cares for you. There are officers dying daily. We need to stop losing our officers. This has gone on long enough!
What happened to the days that police officers used to be the faces that everyone wanted to see? People used to smile at the sight of their squad car or uniform? People would see their presence at a store, parking lot, apartment complex, neighborhood, school, church, park, etc. and experience a sense of relief and a sense of safety and security? What happened to the days that a police officer's presence used to bring peace to people? What happened to the days that people used to respect them? What happened to the days that people would turn TO them and not against them? Why is it so hard to love and so easy to hate when hatred has been proven to be mentally, physically, and emotionally harder? Why are groups as a whole targeted because ONE person did something wrong or was a crooked person?Why do we pick and choose which type and/or level of broken integrity we choose to recognize? What makes the police officer that "wrongfully" killed another human any worse than the convicted felon that shot into an occupied dwelling and/or vehicle and took the lives of an innocent child(ren)? Why is it that we can mingle upon other races until a crime occurs between 2 people of opposite races? Why does it have to be about black lives matter or white lives matter; why not all lives matter? Why is it that we are so divided by color yet, the biracial population is larger than it has ever been and is still growing? Why is the race card the first line of defense instead of analyzing morals and values and stopping the hatred long enough to really think about who is wrong and who is right? How do people teach their children to hate based on skin color differences and be okay with that?What does lashing out because of anger solve? Why do we destroy our own cities, towns and property? Why can we not grasp that we (the taxpayers) have to pay for the repair costs after they have destroyed it all? Is love REALLY that hard? Is love something that is lacking this much within our country? Why is it that as parents, we are here to protect, love, and nurture our children yet, when things don't go someone's way, murder and violence is the resolution but yet your hurting and someone else's child too by lashing out in that manner?!
All I am saying is that we need to stop being so hateful towards one another! We need to show more love. We need to make it part of our daily activities. Share with others what you did to show love that day. As I stated before, its not about bragging or boasting - it is simply using love and positive actions and characteristics to drown the negativity. That is the only way. Love will never run out. There is enough to go around and around. Even death cannot kill love! Continue praying for our officers! Please please please.
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