Mrkim Report This Comment Date: June 06, 2020 03:14PM
"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, “Fuck 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 chicken
shit 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