My Feelings About the Arizona Police Shooting

I figured this would be a sensitive subject, so I’m posting it here. I don’t really have a question. I just wanted to put how I’m feeling out there. These videos always get to me. The Philando Castile video had a particularly strong effect on me. The Arizona police shooting video that recently came out has had me upset for days. I think I’ve cried about it every day since I saw it. I never used to be scared of cops. I would get a little nervous, like I think most people do. But I wasn’t scared because I didn’t think I had a reason to be. Now I’m terrified of cops and do not trust them. I progressively got to that point, but this video was the straw that broke the camel’s back for me. I think I really projected me and my boyfriend onto the couple, because that could so easily be us in that video instead. My boyfriend runs a sci-fi convention, and owns prop guns. I told him to not take them out of the house. If he wants to bring them to the convention then he can put them in a box in the back of the U-haul, and then they don’t leave the inside of the convention center where it’s expected for people to have fake guns. One time he did have a fake gun on him in a Starbucks parking lot, and was pulled over by a cop for some reason. The cop had him get on the ground and everything. This was years ago, long before he met me. But when I saw that video all I could think was that that could’ve been my boyfriend.

One time my friend and I were driving home from getting dinner, totally sober, neither of us even own weapons. We stopped at a convenience store/gas station within walking distance of my house. When he was parking he pulled up a little too far, and bumped the pole they have at the end of the parking space. This cop turns his lights on and calls for backup. Then gets out of the car to come over to us. My friend being scared and nervous went to get out of the car, but he didn’t. The cop told him to stay in the car. He barely unlatched the door, so he didn’t actually get out. The backup cop that showed up literally made fun of him for calling backup for that. He was actually very nice. But these days that cop with some weird authoritarian power fetish for scaring a couple of teenagers who barely bumped a pole, may have killed us. These days that cop may have shot my best friend.

All I know is that I’m terrified of cops now, and don’t know if I’ll ever be able to trust them again. At least not in the near future. And that I’m never allowing my boyfriend out of the house or convention center with a prop gun.

My heart goes out to Daniel Shaver’s family and loved ones. He didn’t deserve that, and I’m so sorry that you didn’t get justice.

Sorry for the rambling. I just felt like I had to put this out there.

EDIT: I changed the title of the post to more accurately represent what it’s about. I didn’t intend to make it “all about me.” I simply wanted to talk about how it is effecting me personally and discuss it in general.