17105 Ennis Trl. Rd.

Austin Tx   78717

11/8/16

Dear Mr. or Mrs. president. Police officers are important.

They protect us, the arrest evil people and even make us feel better in tough times.. But are they helping us or just some of us? That’s what many African Americans are wondering due to the recent shootings. Are the cops protecting some of us and targeting others? Maybe once or twice but now the number has gotten out of hand. It’s as if we hear about one of these shootings every week. How many times must we witness this kind of horror?

Due to the spike in African American deaths by police, many americans have lost faith that they will actually be protected. According to pew research center, only 38% of blacks have confidence that police will not use excessive force and just 37% feel that police will treat all races equally. U.S. police have killed at least 194 black people in 2016, according to a project by The Guardian that tracks police killings in America. According to the most recent census data, there are nearly 160 million more white people in America than there are black people. White people make up roughly 62 percent of the U.S. population but only about 49 percent of those who are killed by police officers. African Americans, however, account for 24 percent of those fatally shot and killed by the police despite being just 13 percent of the U.S. population. As The Post noted in a new analysis published last week, that means black Americans are 2.5 times as likely as white Americans to be shot and killed by police officers. This isn’t it though.

Many big names have taken notice too. Athletes like Colin Kaepernick have taken notice, giving this statement,"I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color," Kaepernick told NFL Media in an exclusive interview after the game. "To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.So has presidential candidate Hilaray Clinton who said "We have got to tackle systemic racism," Clinton said on "The Steve Harvey Morning Show." "This horrible shooting again. How many times do we have to see this in our country?" Lastly even our current president has taken notice who said “The data shows black folks are more vulnerable to these kinds of incidents,” during the Warsaw Marriott after arriving in Poland for a North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit. “We have seen tragedies like this too many times.”“There’s a big chunk of our fellow citizenry that feels as if because the color of their skin they’re not being treated the same,” he added. “And that hurts. And that should trouble all of us.”

Now many people argue that African Americans are not targeted but are really hurt because they are armed or acting erratically. However, according to mappingpoliceviolence.org/unarmed/, nearly 1 in 3 black people killed by police in 2015 were identified as unarmed, though the actual number is likely higher due to under reporting. On top of that police killed at least 102 unarmed black people in 2015, nearly twice each week. Lastly unarmed black people were also killed at 5x the rate of unarmed whites in 2015 and this number can only increase as time goes on if it doesn’t end.

This madness needs to stop now. Death after death, shot after shot. All too many people have died because of this racial divide we have in our country. It is not what someone looks like that matters. What matters is how they act at that moment. If they pull out a weapon, you have every right to shoot them, but you can’t murder them because of their skin color or race. So stop the rumors about African Americans, just because one does something wrong, doesn’t mean that all of them will do something bad. Every race has a stereotype but that racial profiling shouldn’t mean death. So please address this issue as quick as possible before we have even more shootings in our beloved country.