Journeying through an ever changing world.

I'm so tired of the news. Aren't you? I know i'm not the only one who has gone as far as considering temporarily deleting SM during this time, and turning the TV off just for the sake of peace. Everyone is so opinionated and emotional right now, it's hard to feel like you're getting all the right facts. Everyone is either fighting over their opinions and what they feel to be "fact", or they're fighting just to be fighting.

Answer me this:

When does it end?

Where is the line?

When does this start getting old?

Does the human race ever get weary of dying on the same hills?

Aren't we smart enough by now to KNOW there is a better way?

I am 100% sure by now, even with most of us having the best intentions, that we're just looking for a fight. Now this will be a touchy subject for a lot of you, but hear me out, even if you've read this far and made up your mind that I'm wrong already, just hear me out. Give me that much.

George Floyd.

Yup. that's a widely popular name right now. I can only imagine the rush of emotion that name alone brings people when they hear it. That's right, you heard me correctly. EMOTION. Not unbiased fact or carefully researched information, just raw emotion, which has proven unreliable in times past. Emotion is one of the bigger causes of cloudy judgment and bad decisions.

You can google "George Floyd", and you'll get a bunch of information, from a bunch of different sources. You'll find that most published sources right now are pointing out information from two different autopsies and medical examinations that were performed, by different people, on George Floyd.

The first one that was done states that "Mr. Floyd died of a cardiopulmonary arrest while being restrained, by officers who subjected Floyd to neck, and back compression for an extended period of time. Other significant conditions found, not contributing to Floyd's death, were "arteriosclerotic heart disease, hypertenisve heart disease, fentanyl intoxication, and recent methamphetamine use," The report also states that "fentanyl toxicity can cause severe respiratory depression".

The second medical examination, held upon request and commissioned by the family, states that "the evidence is consistent with mechanical asphyxia as the leading cause of Mr. Floyd's death".

Now, regardless of which medical report you look at, the leading consensus is that Mr. Floyd's ultimate death was primarily due to asphyxiation, caused by the 4 police men who helped restrain George. Now, don't get me wrong, I am empathetic to Mr. Floyd and his family, and every other black person who has ever been given reason to fear the police or who has ever been harmed by a police officer. However, The black community as a whole, has had a history of taking any case they can get and turning it into a "police brutality" case.

Floyd was in fact killed by a small dispatch of officers for allegedly cashing in a counterfit 20 dollar bill at a nearby shop. But this was a few officers out of all the police out there. It is a well known fact that there are corrupt officers out there that should never have been given a gun, badge and authority, but that small percentage of cops does not constitute the entire police force, in all the U.S.

So, why do we continue to make out all police as the villains?

Here are some reliable statistics for you, from Officer Stalien, as well as his personal experiences as a black officer in uniform:

I remember the countless times I canvassed the area afterwards, and asked everyone “did you see who did it”, and the popular response from the very same family members was always, “To hell with the Police, I aint no snitch, I’m gonna take care of this myself. This happened every single time, every single homicide, black on black, and then my realization became clearer.

I woke up every morning, put my freshly pressed uniform on, shined my badge, functioned checked my weapon, kissed my wife and kid, and waited for my wife to say the same thing she always does before I leave, “Make sure you come back home to us”. I always replied, “I will”, but the truth was I was never sure if I would. I almost lost my life on this job, and every call, every stop, every moment that I had this uniform on, was another possibility for me to almost lose my life again. I was a target in the very community I swore to protect, the very community I wanted to help. As a matter of fact, they hated my very presence. They called me “Uncle Tom”, and “wanna be white boy”, and I couldn’t understand why. My own fellow black men and women attacking me, wishing for my death, wishing for the death of my family. I was so confused, so torn, I couldn’t understand why my own black people would turn against me, when every time they called …I was there. Every time someone died….I was there. Every time they were going through one of the worst moments in their lives…I was there. So why was I the enemy? I dove deep into that question…Why was I the enemy? Then my realization became clearer.

Complaint: Police always targeting us, they always messing with the black man.

Fact: A city where the majority of citizens are black (Baltimore for example) …will ALWAYS have a higher rate of black people getting arrested, it will ALWAYS have a higher rate of blacks getting stopped, and will ALWAYS have a higher rate of blacks getting killed, and the reason why is because a city with those characteristics will ALWAYS have a higher rate of blacks committing crime. The statistics will follow the same trend for Asians if you go to China, for Hispanics if you go to Puerto Rico, for whites if you go to Russia, and the list goes on. It’s called Demographics

Complaint: More black people get arrested than white boys.

Fact: Black People commit a grossly disproportionate amount of crime. Data from the FBI shows that Nationwide, Blacks committed 5,173 homicides in 2014, whites committed 4,367. Chicago’s death toll is almost equal to that of both wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, combined. Chicago’s death toll from 2001–November, 26 2015 stands at 7,401. The combined total deaths during Operation Iraqi Freedom (2003-2015: 4,815) and Operation Enduring Freedom/Afghanistan (2001-2015: 3,506), total 8,321.

Complaint: Blacks are the only ones getting killed by police, or they are killed more.

Fact: As of July 2016, the breakdown of the number of US Citizens killed by Police this year is, 238 White people killed, 123 Black people killed, 79 Hispanics, 69 other/or unknown race.

Fact: Black people kill more other blacks than Police do, and there are only protest and outrage when a cop kills a black man. University of Toledo criminologist Dr. Richard R. Johnson examined the latest crime data from the FBI’s Supplementary Homicide Reports and Centers for Disease Control and found that an average of 4,472 black men were killed by other black men annually between Jan. 1, 2009, and Dec. 31, 2012. Professor Johnson’s research further concluded that 112 black men died from both justified and unjustified police-involved killings annually during this same period.

Complaint: Well we already doing a good job of killing ourselves, we don’t need the Police to do it. Besides they should know better.

The more I listened, the more I realized. The more I researched, the more I realized. I would ask questions, and would only get emotional responses & inferences based on no facts at all. The more killing I saw, the more tragedy, the more savagery, the more violence, the more loss of life of a black man at the hands of another black man….the more I realized.

I haven’t slept well in the past few nights. Heartbreak weighs me down, rage flows through my veins, and tears fills my eyes. I watched my fellow officers assassinated on live television, and the images of them laying on the ground are seared into my brain forever. I couldn’t help but wonder if it had been me, a black man, a black cop, on TV, assassinated, laying on the ground dead,..would my friends and family still think black lives mattered? Would my life have mattered? Would they make t-shirts in remembrance of me? Would they go on tv and protest violence? Would they even make a Facebook post, or share a post in reference to my death?

I realized that they refuse to believe that most cops acknowledge that there are Bad cops who should have never been given a badge & gun, who are cowards and will shoot a cockroach if it crawls at them too fast, who never worked in the hood and may be intimidated. That most cops dread the thought of having to shoot someone, and never see the turmoil and mental anguish that a cop goes through after having to kill someone to save his own life. Instead they believe that we are all blood thirsty killers, because the media says so, even though the numbers prove otherwise. I realize that they truly feel as if the death of cops will help people realize the false narrative that Black Lives Matter, when all it will do is take their movement two steps backwards and label them domestic terrorist. I realized that some of these people, who say Black Lives Matter, are full of hate and racism. Hate for cops, because of the false narrative that more black people are targeted and killed. Racism against white people, for a tragedy that began 100’s of years ago, when most of the white people today weren’t even born yet. I realized that some in the African-American community’s idea of “Justice” is the prosecution of ANY and EVERY cop or white man that kills or is believed to have killed a black man, no matter what the circumstances are. I realized the African American community refuses to look within to solve its major issues, and instead makes excuses and looks outside for solutions. I realized that a lot of people in the African American lead with hate, instead of love. Division instead of Unity. Turmoil and rioting, instead of Peace. I realized that they have become the very entity that they claim they are fighting against.

I realized that the very reasons I became a cop, are the very reasons my own people hate me, and now in this toxic hateful racially charged political climate, I am now more likely to die,… and it is still hard for me to understand…. to this day.

- Officer Stalien

This not only further proves and clears things up, but it also goes to show that everyone protesting, black and white alike, are only harming themselves and their fellow officers in arms that have been there from the start, sworn to protect those very people that are now trying to harm them and their families. Burning their buildings down and looting through other businesses, and for what?

Nothing that is being done currently, is going to stop or get rid of corrupt cops, and it certainly isn't going to change what happened to Mr. Floyd. This was one incident, done by a few corrupt cops, and it's tragic. What we SHOULD be doing, instead of using this incident as an excuse to damage and steal from other people and businesses, and harm each other and our fellow brothers and sisters in uniform, we should be using this as an example of how to be different.

By looting, sending cars through buildings, and setting police cars and buildings on fire, you are becoming the very thing you're claiming to be fighting against, especially since you're all hurting your own race. Black's and White's alike.

This was never a race issue, but a human decency issue. It only became a "race issue" when people made it one. Do not get me wrong, racism does still exist in some forms, both subtle and not, both against blacks and all other races. However, this is not a case of racism, just a few corrupt cops, with ill judgment.

Any race in the world can take a misfortunate event and turn it into a case of racism, it's not that hard to do. You see what you look for the most, especially in people.

And as far as systemic racism goes... that implies that there is bias and racial discrimination embedded within our law enforcement systems, government systems, etc. Dictating how we view, and do things. Here's why that idea is so absurd. I like the way Robert O'Brien said it, "No, I don't think there's systemic racism, I think 99.9% of our law enforcement officers are great Americans. Many of them are African American, Hispanic, Asian. There is no doubt that there are some racist police, I think they're the minority. I think they're the few bad apples, and we need to root them out." And again, you are free to circle back to my story from Officer. Stalion. But to say that systemic racism exists, is to say that ALL people in our systems of authority are either racially biased, or being told to act in a racially biased manner, and that's simply ridiculous to suggest.

Sure, there are some racialy biased people in power here and there, and yeah it can cause bad things to happen to said minorities. But once again, as mentioned before, the few racialy biased, does not constitute the whole. I do believe the few should be held accountable for their actions, and some systems could maybe do with some updating, revision and reform, but these do not constitute the harm and murder of all law enforcement members, or their families. And how about all the innocent busniess owners you're stealing from and harming for no reason, just because you think you're "making change". What justification could you possibly have?

George Floyd's death, and any similar events in the past, are tragic and we DO need to work as a united country and people to make mends and do better. However, as far as the facts of George Floyd's death goes, take em as you will, but systemic racism does not exist, and therefore is not applicable, not with George Floyd, or any other case. The only thing this case proves is that there are still a few bad intentioned people in the world, and we need to work closer together to keep them out of positions of power. Statistics and personal testimonies don't lie, so why don't we stop slapping false labels on the battles we fight, and start being honest with each other. This is the only way we can truly stay united, and to win these battles, unity is of utmost importance.