As I sit here watching footage of officers all over the country being spit on, threatened, attacked, called murderers and mercilessly berated by protesters, I find myself questioning my faith in humanity. I have spent over a decade of my life risking it to protect the very people who now spit in the faces of my brothers and sisters. I have taken murderers, rapists and child violators off of your streets. I have missed out on celebrating countless holidays and birthdays with m...y children, none of which I will ever get back. I have purchased gifts for a family that had every package under their tree stolen in a burglary on Christmas Eve. I have feared for my life more times than I can count, but never afforded the luxury of retreating from the danger. I have bled and cried and had the true horror that you inflict on one another permanently stamped in my mind, to carry around for the rest of my life. I have talked the knife out of a suicidal man’s hand, and removed a gun from a 12 year old boy’s waistband. I have broken my foot, broken my hand, and torn apart both shoulders. I have administered CPR on a dying child in my arms, and had to inform people of the loss of a loved one after having held their had and looked them in the eye as they took their last breath. And I nearly lost my life after being stabbed while saving an elderly couple from being murdered. Do I deserve to be spit on? Called a murderer? Have to stand silent as you scream “**** YOU!” in my face? Of course not, you say? You say I’m a “good one?” Well, let me tell you, I am not special. I am not unique. I am the norm. I am the job. -TM