Police brutality needs to stop.

How can such a simple statement come with so much confusion? Police officers are supposed to protect and serve yet so many individuals in the United States do not feel safe when in the presence of a police officer. This is not to say that all officers are bad, but it is hard to keep hope that there are good officers out there when so many terrible ones are getting press. After all, if you're not an up-stander you are a bystander, and being a bystander is just as bad as being the perpetrator. We as citizens should stand up to this seemingly never ending police brutality.

Here are some quick yet increasingly important facts about police officers and police training:

1. The weapons on a police officer's belt include a baton, pepper spray, a taser, and a hand gun.

2. Officers are trained to respond with similar force to that they are receiving. This means that they are only to respond with deadly force when their life is in imminent danger. And if there is not deadly force they are to use a more mild weapon which they always have readily available in their belt.

3. Similar to the previously stated, they are trained to know that a gun is to only be used as a last resort and their goal is not to shoot to kill but only to shoot to subdue the suspect. They also are taught to fire in steps or stages and check in between firing to see if more force is needed.

All of those things seem to be ignored by far too many officers. There have been countless stories of people being wrongfully killed due to officer's brutality or downright lack of following procedure. Like many social and political issues in the United States, it is hard to believe that we are still talking about this and still desperately searching for justice and for a solution.

It wouldn't be right to talk about police brutality without discussing the Black Lives Matter movement. This is because most, if not all, victims of police brutality were black Americans. This cannot be ignored and needs to be stopped.

With the recent altercation involving police officers in Dallas being shot and killed at a Black Lives Matter protest, the movement is being immensely criticized. Social media is buzzing with hashtags like "All Lives Matter" and "Blue Lives Matter." However, what happened in Dallas should not be as strongly linked to the Black Lives Matter as everyone wants it to be. It is not right to blame the entire movement because then we are once again generalizing a population of people due to a small group or even one person within the population's actions. Now obviously all lives and police lives matter, no one's life should be viewed as unimportant or disposable, but that is what Black Americans are viewed as and it is unacceptable. These '"all lives matter" and "blue lives matter" movements cannot be advertised as huge and pressing issues because they discredit the Black Lives Matter movement. And the truth of the matter is that Black people are the group that has been continuously targeted and that cannot and should not be ignored. Also, police officers sign up for this profession knowing that it can very well be a dangerous job. Black Americans do not choose to be black, and even if they did, it would still not be appropriate, morally or legally correct to target them.

We are all waiting for a day where years have gone by and there hasn't been a story involving police brutality. Until then we must all rally together and do whatever we can to make sure bad cops have their justice served and officers that perform in the way they were trained to, get more recognition.