Over the past few years, the police have been made out to seem like they are against you. Individuals have taken to social media, protests and various other outlets to voice their displeasure with the police as a whole. I turned on the news tonight and saw someone holding a sign that read, “No good cops,” in a march. Are the police the problem? Or are individuals who label the whole police force as “evil” the problem?

The answer to that question is a little complex. No, the police force are not the problem. However, there are problems within the police force. There is a common misconception that people seem to have in the wake of every tragedy. This is that the person who caused the affliction represents the organization that he or she is associated with. This misjudgment is made on pure emotion and not logic. When I go out to eat and receive bad service, I’m not going to hold it against everyone in the food service industry. So why should people place every police officer under the same category as an officer who has killed an innocent citizen?

I think that everyone can agree that there are cops in the police force who do not have good morals and their actions are inexcusable to say the least. However, to think that there are “no good cops” is ludicrous. The people protesting the police should be protesting the actions of individuals and not the police as a whole. And members of the police force should do this as well. We all need to come together, police and citizens of the United States, and try to figure out how to fix the problem with police violence. People who paint all police as evil are just dividing the relationship between cops and citizens even more. In the aftermath of unjust police violence, citizens and police need to come together and stand in solidarity against the atrocity.

The fact of the matter is, there are good cops. Actually, there are a lot more good cops than there are bad cops. This is not an excuse for the actions of cops that choose to do unlawful things, however, they should be separated. I do not think that it is too much to ask for that citizens and police alike stand against unjust police violence. The police that are trying to do their job hate cops that abuse their power just as much as me and you. We need to stop looking at the police like they are all the same—because they are not. I know a lot of great people who have become police officers, because they want to help make the world a better place and protect their community. We have to start giving credit where credit is due, while simultaneously condemning individual officers who choose to abuse their power.

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