Dear Next President,

My name is Journae Jones and I live in Philadelphia. I attend Olney Charter High School, I've been attending there since the year of 2014. This is my Junior year of High School. During my High School years I have read more stories about police brutality than I would've ever expected. Doing research is very important to me because so many African Americans get murdered by police mainly for no reason. Also, because this issue seem to be growing everywhere within the United States. Knowing that at any time I can get killed by a police officer because of my race and for them just to be put on suspension with pay bothers me. Everyday I fear that anybody of my race, not only bother me, it also frighten me. My first year of high school I had learned about the death of Michael Brown, Darrien Hunt, Ezell Ford, Eric Garner, and Akai Gurley. There’s about several more African Americans that was murdered by police officers. We will never know the real reason for their murders. By this time you should know how corrupt and racist the system is. To the next President I want you imagine how afraid I am every time I leave out the house, or every time the news come on and I have to pray that it’s not someone I know on the news that was murdered by police officers. I don’t think I can take anymore deaths of not only my race, of all races. It hurts the most knowing that police officers is doing the most murders.

Let me tell you about a young African American male. His name was Michael Brown. He was 18 when he was brutally murdered by a corrupt officer named Darren Wilson. This event occurred August 9, 2014 in Ferguson. This event happened was on of the first crimes that I can remember with police brutality. There’s several stories for just this one incident, but not all would consider this so called incident an actual incident. Wilson statement is that the young man Michael Brown had charged at his car when told to get out of the street, after he began to chase Brown and they came to a sudden stop and Brown proceeded to pull out a weapon. Him pulling out a weapon lead to Wilson charging several shots in Brown way. Michael Brown's friend story was way different from Wilson's. Michael and his friend, Johnson, was told to get out of the street, then proceeded to drive by them and coming to a stop and grabbing him by his neck trying to pull him into the car. Michael was able to escape and began to run. When the first bullet hit Michael he stopped, which led Wilson to thinking that he had a weapon and fired again. Michael then turned around and put his hands up saying the words “ I don’t have a gun don’t shoot”. Johnson wasn’t the only witness who had similar stories. According to last times news there was several witnesses and also said that Michael put his hands up stating, that he didn’t have a weapon. Now that you have a vision of what happened that day, tell me if this is what you want to keep happening in your country, because this is just the first page of a book.

To begin with this argument I think you should know the amount of people who is murdered by police officers each year. According to think progress on average, about twice as many blacks are murdered by an officer each year. African Americans is not the only race experiencing police brutality. In fact, in the year of 2015, on average 581 Caucasian people was murdered by police, 306 blacks, 195 Latinos, 24 Asians, 13 Native Americans and 27 others, were murdered by police officers. In total, in the year 2015 we as a nation lost 1146 people. Now, just let that sink in. That was just the statics of 2015. This year, 2016 we have lost 793 so far. It sucks that I have to say that they’re not done killing people.

Imagine if police was trained better. Less people would be killed and officers can actually start to do their jobs. Instead of them doing the crime. If cops was to be trained better than they would know how to react in a frightening situation. Less people would stop being afraid of police. Our nation would then become better and bigger with the less police brutality. People wouldn’t have no fear of getting stopped by a cop. For one thing, if they was to fire the cops who committed a crime and made the other cops go through a better section of training. We would have better police officers and the good cops can stop being put into the category with the untrained bad cops. Basically what i’m trying to tell you is that we need better police training. Therefore we need to stop giving officers that aren’t worth the title of a police officer a title.

Just imagine the families that go through a heartbreak every time their son or daughter had got killed by a police officer. What should we do when the people that protects us are killing us? Who do we call? Why is it that police officers can murder someone, and not be arrested? Do you know what it feel like to watch a video of someone being murdered for just being black? I don’t think you know what it feels like to automatically get scared when police drive past you. I listened to the news,Judges, Chief of Command, The President and many more speak about the tragedies that we had to face with losing a someone due to police brutality. Changes was never made, time was the only thing that was put between the next murder of someone life. It’s not that i’m afraid of police, but i’m afraid of their actions and their power. By this time, I hope you notice that we need justice for Dontre Hamilton, Eric Garner, John Crawford lll, Michael Brown Jr., Ezell Ford, Dante Parker, Tanisha Anderson, Akai Gurley, Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice, Rumain Brisbon, Jerame Reid, Tony Robinson, Phillip White, Eric Harris, Walter Scott, Freddie Gray, Alton Sterling, Philando Castle, followed with hundreds more. Now that you see a few of the people murdered by the people we call police, does it hurts. It hurts my heart knowing that this list is not even over.

In conclusion, police brutality is something major that need to be faced because I don’t want to be a next victim. I don’t want to come face to face with a cop and have my life taking away for know reason. Police brutality should be pulling everyone's attention. Every race face police brutality, but just is too afraid to speak on it, because we know that’s us risking our lives. To whom ever my next president is please make sure police officers go through better training, and the ones who committed a crime is charged. Next President can you put a stop to kids reconsidering their future careers, because they are now growing up, and they can understand how crooked our nation is. Just imagine a future with cries of laughter instead of sadness. Can you picture a year going by without some being killed for no reason by a police officer, because truthfully I can’t. Changes need to be made now, the generations after me shouldn’t have to write about police brutality because hopefully it begin to cease.

Sincerely,

Journae Jones