Prompt
I wanted to grow up to become a law enforcement officer right up until I
watched a video of a cop literally murdering an innocent black man on the
street, and ultimately getting away with it...
Botner
...after abusing the trust of his office, the public, and the justice
system. And you can’t unsee something like that. I have an impulse to get
back to my kind of gun culture (I have no interest in owning an assault
rifle) because I don’t like the mindset that is starting to take hold where
guns are the problem when they’re not. We need to get our heads on straight
about where this is all going. Please don’t take my desire for peace away
because of my prejudices. I have friends who belong to different groups than
me and they’re great. But when we lump all those groups into the same
population, I don’t want to be part of it. It makes me want to question my
own bias a little bit because how can I be anti-gun when I grew up with
them? I have a friend who is a responsible gun owner. He owns his own gun,
is a hunter, and is an NRA member. We’ve been friends for years and I’ve
known him long enough to know his background. He wasn’t raised in a
religious environment (he’s raised his children as Jews) but he became
religious later in life. He’s still able to function as a Jewish man and
raise his children in that environment. He’s a pretty decent guy who hasn’t
been in...
Conclusion
...a lot of debates about responsible gun ownership. He avoids them. Like
me. I can’t avoid them anymore, though. Not with a new travesty seemingly
popping up in the news every day. We need to hold people accountable for
their actions, and cops should not be immune to this expectation. Today is
going to be awkward. I’m scheduled for another ride along. I live in a large
metropolitan area, which means I have a lot of different police stations at
my disposal, and I’ve been going to each one of them, to see what a day in
the life of an officer is like. They’re more different than you might think,
because they each have their own area to cover, and different officers
handle the same kind of situation differently. I’ve always loved it, and the
more experience I can get before the academy, the better. I don’t know if I
can continue to pursue this career, though. I’ve wanted this my whole life,
but everything changed when I watched that video. Don’t get me wrong, I
didn’t change my mind immediately; it’s been the outcome of a long period of
self-reflection, discussing it with my parents, and getting input from a
black retired police officer who lives three blocks down from us. I thought
about cancelling this last ride along—and it really will be the last, as I
have seen every other outfit within reasonable distance—but I chose not to.
It’s located in a dense urban area, not unlike the one shown in that
horrific video. I’ve decided to take this opportunity to ask the hard
questions, even if it makes me uncomfortable; even if it makes them
uncomfortable. There is still a slight chance that I’ll change my mind back
to the uniform, and I’ll be using this as my deciding factor. How this one
cop responds to my unapologetically unfiltered questions could sway me one
way, or the other. We’ll see...
No comments :
Post a Comment