My message: Stop shooting innocent black people

Dear future president,

As a black male living in America, it is difficult to see how many of my people are getting killed or injured by gun violence. It sometimes brings tears to my eyes hearing about these tragedies.

I watch the videos of these men being shot and it is happening more often. If we keep on the path we are on, a black man will be killed every couple of times a month. It is not fair that someone and their family should have to suffer because of the color of their skin.

My dad was cop when I was younger and loved doing his job. He couldn’t keep doing it though because police violence started rise and more and more cops were either relieved of duty or put in jail. Someone my dad knew who was a cop was put in jail for this. My dad had to stop being a cop. This was hard on me and my family because I know how much he wanted to keep this line of work but couldn’t. So for a while he was out of work and it took a big toll on our whole family.

There is a way we can prevent this. There is a solution to everything and a solution that I think can work. Maybe we can teach the officers more about the value of life and the responsibilities of being an officer; not shooting until you know for sure the man/women has a weapon and is using force. Make sure they have a weapon because the last couple of times a black man was shot, they were unarmed.

This is a very huge problem that is growing. People are scared to walk down the street these days. This is not a position we should be in and it has to change.

Sincerely,

Braxton Taylor

Saint Genevieve High School

Panorama City, Calif.