On Thanksgiving night, a mall in Hoover Alabama experienced a shooting. The mall cop on duty shot and killed Emantic Fitzgerald Bradford Jr., an armed 21 year old, whom he believed to be the shooter. While Bradford’s death was not necessarily an act of police brutality, it provokes the question of whether or not police are shooting first and thinking later.
The shooting left two wounded: an 18 year old and a 12 year old. Besides Bradford, there were no fatalities. The police station originally said that Bradford began firing back after an “altercation” with the 18 year old victim. Police shot him as he fled the scene. The police later revised their story to say that Bradford was involved in “some aspect” of the shooting, but that he did not fire the gun that wounded the victims.
In situations like this, as an officer, it would be hard not to just shoot on sight. But what if the cop that shot Bradford had shot a bystander instead?
In addition to this, there have been 362 mass shootings and about 47,472 gun violence incidents in the year 2018 alone. This is an insane number. How can we, as a country, hear this number and see news reports about everyday shootings and choose not to do anything about our gun laws? What does that say about us? What does that say about our country?
So far, all President Trump has proposed to do is arm teachers in schools. Pathetic. As the leader of our country, Trump needs to step up and assess the issue as to how these shooters are getting their guns, not placing more guns in schools to begin with. Having a gun is not the teacher’s job, Trump should try and prevent a shooting instead of arming teachers.
This just scratches the surface of the problems in our country. Shootings and gun violence should not be a norm in our society. The shooting in Hoover, Alabama was just one of many that have occurred, and it won’t be the last.