The rhetoric is getting tedious. The false cause and effect statements are getting boring. The arguments are meaningless and the majority of the opinion makers are uninformed. I am, of course, talking about all the claims of brutality surrounding each and every time a police officer is forced to take the life of a black person. If one follows the news as reported on main stream media and social media one would be inclined to think that the police are committing genocide on the African-American segment of our society. Allow me to elaborate.
Alton Sterling was not killed for selling CD’s. The police were not dispatched to the scene on a report that Alton Sterling was selling CD’s. The police were dispatched to a report of a man with a gun. On arrival a witness pointed out Alton Sterling as that man. The officers, for their own safety, attempted to secure Alton Sterling who made a choice to fight police. He probably made that choice since he had an illegal firearm in his pocket and knew, with his record, that he would be going to jail, maybe for a long time. Thus, he chose to fight the police, he chose to attempt to retrieve the pocketed weapon, and these choices led to his ultimate demise. On the other side of that coin, the police had no choice but to answer the radio call. The police officer has no choice but to approach Alton Sterling once he was identified as the man with a gun, and the police officer had no choice but to do all that he could to overcome resistance and effect the arrest. The police officer did make a choice however; he chose to live.
A “list”, recently read at a Black Lives Matter rally in Cincinnati, Ohio was a list of people killed by the police, but it was not a list of black people unjustly killed by the police. Had a list of black people unjustly killed by the police been read it would have been a very short list. If a list of black people unjustly killed by the police whereby the officer was not criminally indicted, it would have been an extremely short list. The point being, people do get killed by the police. It is a fact of life. People hardly ever get killed by the police when they do the right thing. A person who does as instructed (let me see your hands), a person who follows orders (keep your hands out of your pockets), a person who does not fight the police (Alton Sterling) a person who does not attack a police officer (Michael Brown) all live to tell the story. That seems to me to be a simple choice. Would one want to live to tell the story, or would one want to die so others can tell the story for them?
Quite frankly, I am sick and tired of it. I am tired of the whining, the brow beating, the finger-pointing and the blame making. It is time for people to start taking responsibility for their own actions and the consequences of these actions. If you choose to resist arrest and get killed, that is on you. If you choose to point a gun at a police officer and get killed, that is on you. It is time people accept responsibility for their actions and the rest of society stop accepting responsibility for those actions. Tax payers should not have to foot the bill for frivolous lawsuits, such as wrongful death, of an individual killed by the police because a police officer was put into a position of kill or be killed. Citizens should not have to be inconvenienced by being denied the use of streets and public right of ways because some feel mistreated and need to vent while marching and repeating inane slogans.
To put it simple, quit the crybaby routine and put your grown up clothes on, and act like an adult. Be responsible for yourself, that is how it is supposed to work.
Those are my thoughts, what are yours?
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