Hey there. You may not know me and that is fine. But I’m sure you have probably seen my family before. You see, I come from one of those families. The families whose sons, husbands, brothers, dads and uncles put their lives at risk in order to serve and protect the public. My cousins and I were those kids who would proudly raise their hand in second grade and tell everyone that our daddies were policemen and firemen. Just to have people give us looks. We were kids, we didn’t know exactly what our dads did at work. But we knew that they were our heroes and our worlds. When we were younger, we didn’t take a second to think that when they walk out of the front door to head to work, it may be the last time we would see them. And, of course, our mothers never showed us how they truly felt about what their significant others did. Why would they place that worry into the minds of their children. But you know it has to be there to some extent. Especially in these times. The times where the numbers of police officers killed in the line of duty is increasingly growing. So far this year, 26 have been killed. That’s 44 percent more than in 2015. It may not seem like a huge number. But that’s 16 families who have had to go through not seeing their loved one anymore simply because they are in a uniform, protecting that thin blue line.
What kills me is that there are people out there saying that all police officers are corrupt, are poorly trained and are racist. My uncles and their coworkers put their lives on the line to protect and serve their community. They go above and beyond the call of duty. The other day, I was talking to my cousin at work. She said that her dad had just gotten home from work and was sitting down with the family when all of a sudden he got a call and had to immediately go put his uniform back on and leave. The reasoning? Someone had tried to set a police officer’s house on fire. She made the comment to me that now she’s worried someone is going to try to do it to her house. And I can't even begin to count the number of times my father and uncles either couldn't come to family dinners on holiday's or showed up in uniform and then had to leave on a call. They give up so much of themselves and their time for the community.
I’m not saying that there are not any bad cops at all because there are. And there are some areas where the law enforcement is corrupt. But to say that all police officers everywhere are is simply wrong. Yes, black lives do matter. But so do the lives of the officers. So does the lives of everyone around you.
So again, hey there. You may now know me better. But you still probably don't fully grasp the fear my family lives in when our loved ones are at work. You never know when someone will snap and decide that your son, husband, brother and dad is the reason for all the injustice in the world and then takes matters into their own hands. You will never know the amount of times I've held my crying cousins because they heard about something that involved a police officer and their father was on shift. You will never know the fear that we have because one of the younger kids in the family wants to become a police officer. Because we know the dangers of it. You will never know how much we were told in school that we support the bad guys because of what our family does for a living. You will never know how much that thin line of blue means to us.
Most importantly, you will never know how important they truly are until you are in a position where the only one that can protect you is one of those in the uniform, wearing the badge that you wanted to bash on before.
My love, support and prayers are with the families of those who have fallen in the line of duty.
