This a continuation of this article.
On the night of 7/5/16 I was watching Netflix and finishing my dinner. I washed my dishes sat down and opened Twitter. All I saw was #AltonSterling, the words black man, justice, and RIP. I knew what was up even before I read anything else. All I said was "when is this shit going to stop?"!
Alton was shot six times while pinned down by two officers and being tasered. The footage was caught from two angles. One initially by people in a nearby car which they had to duck down while the shots were fired and the actual shooting is heard not seen. Then in the morning other footage taken by the shop owner showed Alton being shot and even more gruesomely having a pool of his blood oozing out of him and splattered on the bumper of the car next to him.
Then his family read a statement concerning his death and calling for justice. In that video you see his 15 year old son uncontrollably crying and saying "I want my daddy!". Many people blame the problems of blacks on the lack of two parent homes in our culture yet here is video of a young man who is now forced to be the man of the house in a single parent home because of the lack of restraint by two cowardly officers of the law.
Then I am laying down to go to sleep and I scroll through Twitter to wind down and then what do I see? A video of a woman next to a man severely wounded in a car while a gun his being held on him by a police officer. This man's name was Philando Castille.
His girlfriend used Facebook's live feature to show the situation as it happened in order dissuade any erroneous description of the event.
Castille was asked to produce his driver's license to the officer. He was carrying a firearm as is his constitutional 2nd Amendment right, as many gun rights activists would decry (except of course when in comes to those Americans of color).
He had told the the officers that he did have a gun, legally, on his person and that he was going to get his license. The officer responded by opening fire on Castille while his girlfriend and 4 year old daughter were in the car. Instead of seeking medical attention the officers held his gun on Castille who at that point was dying, removed the child from the car and had the woman handcuffed and detained as Philando breathe his final breaths.
Many want to resolve that there is a war on cops. Are the bad cops? Yes. Are they all bad? No. But that is hard to decipher when incidents like this are happening and not enough police are coming out to admonish this disgusting behavior.
If someone at your job was going out of their way to do a poor job thus making your job that much harder would you not call them out on their lack of responsibility?
I work at a coffee shop. The other day a coworker of mine whom I hold as dear friend and have tremendous respect for had gotten loud and berated a regular customer, whose wife was also a regular. I had to confront my friend and told her what she did was not cool and it makes us look bad that we cannot hold our composure.
If I can do that from barista to barista why can a cop not come out and voice their displeasure in those officers action? Being a cop as any other job is a thankless job. You get more attention for doing bad than good, that attention is of course negative.
When we start to value the lives of everyone and get better policing it might not end all our troubles but is definitely a step in the right direction.
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