A black police officer made a Facebook post that has gone viral following the recent Black Lives Matter protests across the country in reaction to the police shootings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile.
Jay Stalien, an African-American police officer whose Facebook post has been shared nearly 80 thousand times on Facebook seems to perfectly sum up many of the racial issues in America today. “I have come to realize something that is still hard for me to understand to this day. The following may be a shock to some coming from an African American, but the mere fact that it may be shocking to some is prima facie evidence of the sad state of affairs that we are in as Humans,” wrote Stalien.
Stalien discussed the often taboo subject of black-on-black crime that is a large problem in many parts of America: “I used to be so torn inside growing up. Here I am, a young African-American born and raised in Brooklyn, NY wanting to be a cop. I watched and lived through the crime that took place in the hood. My own black people killing others over nothing. Crack heads and heroin addicts lined the lobby of my building as I shuffled around them to make my way to our 1 bedroom apartment with 6 of us living inside. I used to be woken up in the middle of the night by the sound of gun fire, only to look outside and see that it was 2 African Americans shooting at each other.”
Using a term that has often been called racist or dismissive of black people that have been murdered by police, Stalien said that all lives matter: “I became a cop because black lives in my community, along with ALL lives, mattered to me, and wanted to help stop the bloodshed.”
Stalien described the countless deaths he’s seen in upsetting detail. “I remember the countless times I stood 2 inches from a young black man, around my age, laying on his back, gasping for air as blood filled his lungs. I remember them bleeding profusely with the unforgettable smell of deoxygenated dark red blood in the air, as it leaked from the bullet holes in his body on to the hot sidewalk on a summer day.”
“I remember the countless family members who attacked me, spit on me, cursed me out, as I put up crime scene tape to cordon off the crime scene, yelling and screaming out of pain and anger at the sight of their loved ones taking their last breath,” he wrote.
As a black police officer, Stalien wrote about how he received abuse from many of the people that he works so hard to protect. “I was a target in the very community I swore to protect, the very community I wanted to help. As a matter of fact, they hated my very presence.”
“They called me ‘Uncle Tom,’ and ‘wanna be white boy,’ and I couldn’t understand why. My own fellow black men and women attacking me, wishing for my death, wishing for the death of my family,” he recounted. “I was so confused, so torn, I couldn’t understand why my own black people would turn against me, when every time they called …I was there. Every time someone died….I was there. Every time they were going through one of the worst moments in their lives…I was there. So why was I the enemy? I dove deep into that question…Why was I the enemy? Then my realization became clearer.”
Stalien further outlined many of the crime statistics relating to black people in America, hard truths that many BLM supporters refuse to listen to:“Fact: Black People commit a grossly disproportionate amount of crime. Data from the FBI shows that Nationwide, Blacks committed 5,173 homicides in 2014, whites committed 4,367. Chicago’s death toll is almost equal to that of both wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, combined. Chicago’s death toll from 2001–November, 26 2015 stands at 7,401. The combined total deaths during Operation Iraqi Freedom (2003-2015: 4,815) and Operation Enduring Freedom/Afghanistan (2001-2015: 3,506), total 8,321.”
“Fact: Black people kill more other blacks than Police do, and there are only protest and outrage when a cop kills a black man,” he explained. “University of Toledo criminologist Dr. Richard R. Johnson examined the latest crime data from the FBI’s Supplementary Homicide Reports and Centers for Disease Control and found that an average of 4,472 black men were killed by other black men annually between Jan. 1, 2009, and Dec. 31, 2012. Professor Johnson’s research further concluded that 112 black men died from both justified and unjustified police-involved killings annually during this same period,” said Stalien.
Stalien ended his Facebook post with a final, solemn paragraph: “I realized that the very reasons I became a cop, are the very reasons my own people hate me, and now in this toxic hateful racially charged political climate, I am now more likely to die,… and it is still hard for me to understand…. to this day.”
Jay Staliens full Facebook post can be read here.
Lucas Nolan is a Journalism and Media student at Dublin Business School and a regular contributor to Breitbart Tech. He can be contacted via Twitter here: @LucasNolan_
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