Blog 5

          One of my biggest pet peeves is when people just assume all police officers and law enforcement officers are corrupt. Let me let you in on a little secret, they're not. These men and women risk their lives everyday to keep us safe, yet they are always the first to be blamed in every situation. Police involved shooting, oh, the police had no right to shoot that person (even though this person has killed other people and if that police officer hadn't, he/she probably wouldn't be alive today either.) Basically any chance the media or public has to blame law enforcement, they take it. Because of this we never hear the good things they do.
          In August of 2011, Officer Jeremy Henwood, a police officer for San Diego and a veteran who served two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, had his final moments caught on camera. While on duty, he stopped off at McDonalds to get lunch. While there, a 10-year old boy asked him for ten cents to buy some cookies. Jeremy, rather than giving this boy the ten cents, he simply bought the boy the cookies. He talked to the boy for a little while then headed back to his car. (This was all caught on camera.) Several minutes later, after Officer Henwood was back in his patrol car, he was shot in the head and died.
         Reading the comments made on this video angered me. While some people did say he was a good man and they were thankful for what he did, others used it as a chance to talk about how our government is corrupt and the shooter was black so why weren't people protesting it, Blah Blah, Blah. A man was killed and all people care about is the fact that our government was corrupt and the shooter was black.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4h_2vBVwUA

Blog 4

        In retrospect, Portland really is a safe city and my fear of it is completely irrational. Over the past 2 years, the average number of people murdered a year is 20, the average number of people raped a year is 245, and the average number of auto thefts a year is 3,405. Compared to New York, where an average of 419 people are murdered each year, 311 people are raped each year and over 8,190 auto thefts happen each year, Portland is a very safe city.

If you click on this link below, you can see the average crime rate in each city surrounding Portland.
http://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-Portland-Oregon.html

Blog 3

        There have been many times in my life when my friends have done things I would never do in a million years. One example of this is happened last summer. My friend and I were about to leave for the mall. We were sitting in her drive way waiting for her mom to come back out with a coupon for us. "Where is your car?" I asked her. She replied, "It's in the shop." I could tell there was more to the story simply based off of her face. I asked her why and this was when the story began. "I got into a car accident....I hit a parked car." "WHAT! Where, When, WHAT!"Here's the story:
       On a Friday night, my friend was driving home from Portland to Tigard, Oregon. She was driving through the Terwilliger curves around midnight when she saw a young man walking along the side of the road. Now if it was me I would have kept driving, not even considering stopping to pick up this man. However, this friend of mine did not think the same way I would have in this situation. Rather than to keep driving, this friend pulled over and asked the man if he needed a ride home.(Now I think its important to know, this friend of mine is an 18 year old newly high-school graduate, about to leave for college, girl.) The man kindly accepted the ride home. She drive him to his house, he got out and when inside, and as she was backing up she hit a parked car. Now I know nothing bad happened, besides hitting the car, but still.

Blog 2

         When I was a year old, my dad became a police officer for the Portland Police Bureau. I wasn't ever worried. His job didn't worry me, his stories didn't scare me. It wasn't until 5th grade when my dad was promoted to detective, the stories really began to scare me. This is when the stories went from minor traffic violations to people being killed or kidnapped we told. The story that sticks in my head is the story about a women throwing her two children off a bridge into a river. On May 23, 2009 a women named Amanda Jo Stott-Smith took her two children, 4 and 7 years of age, to the Sellwood bridge in Portland, Oregon. The Sellwood bridge is a highly traveled bridge in the city of Portland and like many others, we use this bridge to travel from once side of the city to the other. Every time we drive over this bridge, my dad like to say "Now imagine you're a 7-year-old and you we just woken up as you hit the cold Willamette River water. Then, in order to survive, you used you 4-year-old brothers dead body to stay afloat." This story has stuck with me for a couple of reasons. For one, falling off a bridge is a fear of mine and thinking of that happening to an innocent 4 and 7 year old is heart breaking. Second, I have a brother who is three year younger than me and the thought of losing him is devastating. Lastly, I think this story sticks in my brain simply because it is a horrifying image to imagine. A mother, who is suppose to love her kids, throwing them off a bridge and trying to kill them simple because she doesn't want her ex-husband to have them. 

Blog 1

         Growing up with a father as a cop or a homicide detective can make you constantly question what is and isn't safe in your everyday life. Am I safe in the city or town I live in? Are my Friday night plans going to put me into any dangerous situations? Is that person I just walked past going to threaten my life? I know, it sounds crazy, but when you grow up with a father who comes home from work telling you stories about people being killed, parents throwing their own children off a bridge or mentally unstable people walking around the city with knifes or guns who attack pedestrians when they walk by, then you would understand. This was what my life was like when I lived at home.