dead people everywhere

I have to get something off my chest. I don’t normally talk about society and culture in posts here. But I’m kind of at a loss here.

Maybe you can help. Probably not. I’m probably opening a can of worms here.

If you don’t want to corral any worms today, STOP reading. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

I read yesterday that cops had killed 15 people the first 5 days of July.

Now, America is a big place, and many more than 5 people die on any given day (that’s totally sad right there), but 15 people killed by cops?

Can that even be true?

Yes. Unfortunately.

What’s worse? This isn’t some sort of fluke, or outlier. It’s not a blip.

America: On pace for 1,100 fatalities by cops

The Guardian reported here that, on average, 3 people a day die at the hands of the police.

Police in the United States are killing people at a rate that would result in 1,100 fatalities by the end of this year, according to a Guardian investigation, which recorded an average of three people killed per day during the first half of 2015.

That’s incomprehensible to me.

I don’t want to get caught up in the race issues. But they are real. Black people die at two times the rate of whites at the hands of cops.

None of this is to say the shootings aren’t–sometimes–justified. Maybe more than some times. I like to think that cops are like most of us: We certainly don’t want to kill anybody.

I, for one, would make a horrible cop. I literally would shoot first and ask questions later. I know my limitations. I want to go home to my family at the end of my shift. I am exactly who shouldn’t be a cop.

Plus, I don’t like dealing with the types of problems cops have to deal with. But it’s their job. They signed up for it. And I’m glad they did.

Two shootings have been caught on camera in the past few days. They are heart-wrenching to watch. We don’t know what happened leading up to the shootings, but man, I’d hate to be those cops. I’d hate even more to be the guys they shot, to be honest.

Maybe the cops did fear that their lives were in imminent danger and thus they had every right to use lethal force to defend themselves. The investigations may (or may not) shed light on this.

What to do?

One thing is clear and I hope we can all agree: The killing in this country is at an alarming rate. I, for one, would like to see the shootings stop.

I don’t have any answers. I’m just sad that we’ve come to this and I don’t see an end to it any time soon.