Back the Blue
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TweetA few rotten apples doesn’t mean the whole barrel is bad. Isn’t this what people have told their children for generations? People are so ready to sink their teeth into the next juicy, most dramatic stories, but what about the forgotten ones? Who reading this recognizes the names: Joseph William, Dale James Woods, Clayton Joel Townsend, Chateri Alyse Payne, and Natalie Becky Carona? These are the top five names of one hundred and forty-seven police officers who fell in the line of duty in 2019. I encourage you to look it up yourself on, “Officer Down Memorial Page.” These are real people who died serving and protecting people like us. I’d never heard of them before going out of my way to research, because they were good cops who loved their job and loved helping people. For that they shall be forgotten. Officer Townsend was 26 years old and was taken away from his wife and ten month old baby. Officer Carona was my age, 22, and had been serving for only five months. Behind every police badge is a human being, with families and fears like the rest of us. They bleed, they make mistakes, they get up and fight harder the next day. They deserve our respect. They deserve our gratitude. They deserve to know that they are needed and wanted. So tell them. Tell them in person, in letters, anyway you can. If you support the blue, make sure they know.
Hannah Clark
