Evanston police officers do vital work to keep us safe. It’s time to celebrate their successes, not just condemn their failures. Police officers in Evanston work a week totaling to 40 hours a week. Yet we still disrespect them.

      Ronald Reagan said  “We are forever indebted to those who have given their lives that we may be free.” It was a comment on soldiers, Marines, airmen and sailors, but it now speaks about our police officers. In 2016, 135 Police officers across the country were shot and killed in the line of duty while 16 American Soldiers were killed in the war on terror. Our streets are worse than a war zone and you have a greater chance of living if you went to Iraq and lived on a forward operating base with a platoon of infantry Soldiers.

     Americans deserve to be and feel safe in our homes and in our cities. The idea of young people frequently  being mowed down by white police officers needs to be expelled. Of the 62.9 million Americans who had an interaction with police officers in 2016, only 1.4 percent reported having force threatened or used against them. But shootings do occur at a number that is far too high, or so it seems.

      This means that out of the 62.9 million people that interacted with police in 2016. There were 963 fatal shootings in that same year, that means only .0015% were lethally shot. Meaning that you have a higher chance of dying on a bicycle, 1 in 4,717 in your lifetime than you do during police encounters. Many police officers are avid supporters of constitutionally protected rights, they are mothers and fathers, husbands and wives. But more importantly, they are human.

      However, any officer who commits murder and takes a life not to protect their lives of others should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law; but don’t assume as soon as you see a headline about a police shooting that it’s unjustified, take in the facts, learn what happened and if the officer is a murderer, fight to get them imprisoned. It’s time to give police officers the same respect given to any other person. At the end of the day, the only thing that separates peace from chaos is a thin blue line made of men and women in uniform.