Violence Against Police Officers By: Olivia Friedlander Police forces do not exist to express their feelings towards groups of people in our society. Police officers keep everyone safe in the counties they serve. If someone or something gets in the way of citizens’ rights or is threatening their well-being in anyway, a highly trained professional needs be there to step up. A police officer from Baton Rouge, Louisiana expressed what he and his co-workers feel through a Facebook post. Montrell Jackson wrote referring to the Dallas, Texas shootings, “In uniform I get nasty, hateful looks and out of uniform some consider me a threat. I’m tired physically and emotionally” (Newsela, 2016). Even though this officer feels somewhat aggrieved, he still goes to work, because he knows just how important his job is. The Sunday after Montrell posted this, he responded to a call about a man with an assault weapon in Baton Rouge, and ended up as one of the three police officers who were fatally shot. With all of the crime in our world today, what would it look like if we had no police officers? Pretty chaotic and dangerous to the harmless. The police, risk their lives to save others’ lives. Over the past 10 years, the amount of officers killed has been on average of 53 per year. According to FBI sources, the average for this time of year is 25 officers. This year, recent fatal shootings raised the mid-year total to 30 officers. The police around the United States are also accused of acts of hatred like racism.
Black Lives Matter is an activist group that is concerned with excessive force and racial discrimination within law enforcement. A recent protest began after Baton Rouge police shot and killed a man named Alton Sterling. The police had pinned Sterling to the ground before shooting him. Later, the Baton Rouge police were criticized for responding to the protests with excessive force, because they arrested nearly 200 people. Sterling was selling CDs outside of a convenience store and a homeless man persistently asked him for money. Sterling said no and eventually showed the homeless man his gun and said “I told you to leave me alone” (CNN, 2016). The man called 911 and when they showed up the action they took was necessary. There was an armed man who seemed willing to use his weapon the harm the public. Since he was not cooperating with the police they had to get Sterling under control before something tragic happened. If you were in a life or death situation and the choice was between you and the person trying to hurt you, wouldn’t you want someone to help you? To save you? No matter how devastating the situations today can be, it is essential to have police officers to rescue those in need.