Let Police Do Their Jobs

Regarding “Two Compton Officers Slain in Traffic Stop,” Times, Feb. 23:

Who killed those cops?

You did.

This isn’t the crime of the century. They died, you killed them, end of story. Until the next one that is. But then, that too will be an easy one--same question, same answer.

I sit at my computer, listening to Native American flutes on my walkman, staring out at the vastness of the snow-capped Tehachapi mountains through my bedroom window, wishing I were back home in Texas and crying.

This is the only place I’m allowed to cry. I don’t cry at work, I’m a macho cop. I cry alone. I cry for my brothers. I don’t allow myself to cry for the children anymore. Were I to, I would be quite insane.

My heart is full this day. Why did another soldier fall, and for what? He will be forgotten soon enough by you, the people he swore to protect. You won’t remember his name a few weeks from now.

We won’t. We never do.

Someday, you will wake up. Someday, you will understand that it isn’t about racism. Someday, you will refuse to submit to the hollow cries of those that are draining the life from you. Someday, you will say enough is enough, let the cops take care of business like they used to. Like they did when we could let our children play in the streets, and we could leave our doors and windows open without the slightest thought of harm.

Like they did before first-graders, your very own first-graders, were seen playing with sticks, paper and pebbles--making believe those sticks were guns, the paper was money and the pebbles were rocks of cocaine.

There is no need for the wicked to fear us, because you have taken away our power over them, and they know it. Thus, you are at their mercy, day in and day out, watching your back at the ATM.

Unfortunately for you, however, we are slowly leaving you to fend for yourselves, migrating to friendlier territories.

We don’t care, we are tired, we have lost hope for you. We care about our families and our partners. We have grown tired of wiping your spit from our eyes every time we open a newspaper or make a traffic stop.

But for today, we grieve. We grieve for our fallen brothers and their families. We cry in the privacy of our own worlds that, unfortunately, are not as yours.

We don’t want your tears, we just want you to wake up and change your world.

K.A. ELLIOT

Lancaster