As many of you may know, after two separate officer-involved shootings in Louisiana and Minnesota, there was an attack on police officers in Dallas, Texas on Thursday night (July 7, 2016). According to WSOCTV, there were 12 officers and two civilians injured when a sniper opened fire on police officers during an otherwise peaceful protest against police violence. Five of those 12 officers were confirmed to have died as a result of their wounds early Friday morning.
I'm not claiming to know a lot about the incidents in Louisiana and Minnesota, but I will say that it's always a tragedy when someone's life is taken. What I do know, and what anyone with any sense should know, is that the officers who lost their lives in Dallas were innocent and had nothing to do with the incidents in Louisiana and Minnesota. They lost their lives in a senseless act of violence as a result of the growing hatred toward police officers over an issue of possible police brutality in completely different areas of the country. None of those five officers pulled the trigger on Alton Sterling in Louisiana. None of them had anything to do with the death of Philando Castile in Minnesota. Where is the sense in those officers losing their lives over something they had no involvement in? Where is the sense in those men being killed because they wear a badge?
In this article, I will not use the shooter's name. I will not add to his infamy. Instead, I will let you in a bit on what was lost in this tragedy. The officers killed were Michael Krol, Brent Thompson, Partrick Zamarripa, Lorne Ahrens and Michael Smith. Krol put on his uniform every morning and went to work knowing the dangers of the job because he just wanted to help people. Thompson was a father and grandfather who had just gotten married two weeks prior. Zamarripa left behind a two year old girl and had survived three tours in Iraq before joining the police force. Ahrens was a senior corporal with the Dallas police and Smith was originally from Port Arthur, Texas. All men left behind a family, friends and people who cared for them. People who now have to find ways to cope with this sudden loss. People who now have to explain to family members and children what happened to their loved ones.
You can blame guns. You can blame race. You can blame the creator of the t-shirt that the shooter was wearing. You can blame whatever you want, but none of that is the issue at the core of this matter. At the end of the day, it isn't about any of those things. It's not a gun problem. It's not a race problem. It's a heart problem. The people who carry out these attacks carry so much hate in their hearts and we cannot continue fighting violence with violence. When you fight fire with fire, you get burned and, America, we seem to be burning ourselves from the inside out. Let's not continue to destroy ourselves and instead start letting everything that is right with America drive out everything that is wrong with America.
"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." -Martin Luther King Jr.
