As I sit here trying to write this, I am at an utter loss for words. I know what I WANT to say, I just also know that those comments won’t elicit any useful response. Truth be told, I’m sitting here now, trying to put together a coherent thought that might, maybe, hopefully, strike a chord with kids who have demonstrated an inability to fathom anything outside of their own vapid, myopic world view.
I know, that in the end, 99.9% of those individuals who actually read what I have to say will simply chalk up my words to being yet another privileged white male; part of the “ruling class”, the “oppressor” or simply the words of an “uneducated, backwards thinking, hick”.
Yet knowing all of that, I cannot sit here silently. For too long, I’ve seen, heard, read comments like those recently posted by a group of students at the University of California, Davis and simply shrugged my shoulders; muttered to myself about how even idiots get to voice their opinions in America and wished to God someone would slap them.
So what’s so different this time one might ask? Truly, I don’t know.
Maybe it’s the simple fact that this group of kids showed such a lack of class I couldn’t even wrap my head around it and I felt they needed to be chastised.
Maybe it’s the fact that this self-appointed group of inequality warriors felt the need to interject themselves and their made up cause into a situation that had absolutely nothing to do with them out of some misguided, narcissistic need for attention.
Maybe it was the fact that I am tired of hearing left-leaning types, regardless of age, turn literally EVERYTHING into an opportunity to demonize Law Enforcement.
Perhaps it was simply the fact that I am sick and tired of seeing my fellow brothers and sisters killed and knowing that this war on us is a direct result of lies like this being spread by idiots like them.
Whatever the underlying motivation, I cannot remember the last time I was so angry at simple words as I was when I read what this group of UC Davis students puked out of their suckholes onto their social media page mere hours after a 22 year old young woman was brutally and senselessly assassinated.
I’m talking about the senseless killing of Davis PD Officer Natalie Corona.
To borrow a phrase from yet another group of classless, imbecilic and ignorant morons – “Natalie Corona. Say her name!”.
Say her name. She actually deserves to have your reverence, your respect, your admiration and your grief. Her young life was senselessly cut short.
Unlike that other guy, whose name I will not now, or ever say, she was killed NOT because she made poor life decisions. Natalie died because she followed her lifelong dream to protect her community.
Natalie died because she CHOSE to put herself, her life, in-between the citizens of Davis, California and those individuals who might prey upon them (to include those morons at the Associated Students, University of California, Davis Ethnic and Cultural Affairs Commission). Natalie died because she chose to be a protector.
I was there. Not when it happened, but shortly thereafter, when the City of Davis Police Department put out a request for outside law enforcement agencies to respond to their city to assist them after Natalie was shot and killed. I and several hundred of my brothers and sisters in blue responded.
Did I know Natalie? Nope. Never heard of her, never knew she existed until last Thursday night. We had never met. But I heard an officer had been shot and his or her agency wanted assistance. So a whole bunch of us from all over Northern California headed down there to help. We didn’t know the officer’s status; had no idea if he or she was dead or alive. All we knew was that one of our family had been shot and they were asking for help. So we went.
I was lucky enough to be teamed up with a veteran Davis PD officer and his fairly new, still going through the Field Training Program partner.
I spent the next several hours walking through a city I’d never done more than drive through, conducting yard-to-yard searches; checking every corner, every shed, every bush, tree, yard and every stinking garbage can, looking for the piece of trash that had just shot a fellow officer I had never met.
It turns out that the veteran officer had been one of Natalie’s Field Training Officers, or FTO as it’s known.
I learned that Natalie had been dealing with a vehicle accident, when the piece of filth, who was not even involved in the accident, came up to her and unloaded a handgun at her – COMPLETELY unprovoked, randomly…out of the blue. He shot and killed Natalie.
We would later find out he did so simply because he hated the Davis Police Department and was intent on killing a Davis PD officer…apparently, any of their officers would do, and Natalie presented the perfect target: Davis PD uniform, otherwise engaged and completely unable to defend herself from a surprise ambush.
More importantly, I got to know a bit about Natalie from her FTO. He told me about the hard-working young woman who had volunteered her time to the Department as a Community Services Officer (CSO) when the department could not afford to fund her position. Why? Because she loved helping her citizenry, loved being able to assist the officers of Davis PD and LOVED learning how to do the job.
I learned about a young woman who could make ANYONE smile, regardless of the day they had been having, what they had been going through or what they were dealing with in life, simply because she herself was so full of life, happiness and smiles.
I learned about a young woman who was every bit as at home speaking with an 85 year old grandmother as she was the town drunk; that regardless of who she was talking to, she could communicate with them, gain their trust, assuage their fears, make them feel safe, secure, understood and listened to.
In short, I learned about an amazingly incredible young woman whose life was cut short by an absolute waste of skin.
The night ended after that waste decided to off himself after law enforcement had closed in and surrounded him home. For obvious reasons, I didn’t sleep well that night. I thought of Natalie, of her partners, her FTO, her family (both blood and blue) and I thought about my own family, my wife, my kids….about the fact that this day and age, the reality that something could happen to me on-duty is far more likely than it was when I started 16 years ago. It was a long night.
The next morning I woke up to my Facebook page being flooded with pictures of Natalie. Someone had posted a couple of pictures of her that really touched my heart. One of them was her college graduation picture. There she was, in her gown, with an American flag scarf draped over her shoulders, holding a little black sign with a pair of handcuffs on it that said “Next Stop – Academy”.
The other photo I saw that struck me was one of her in a blue dress, holding another American flag, this one has come to be known as the “Thin Blue Line” flag. I was immediately struck by the fact that Natalie was beautiful, with an amazing, warm and engaging smile. She was obviously full of life. I suddenly understood what her FTO had been talking about when he said that she had a smile that could brighten anyone’s day.
But what really struck me was the date that she had taken posted the picture and the words she’d put in her status update. You see, that picture was taken and posted two years BEFORE Natalie ever even became a cop. She was still working as a CSO and going to college when she posted the photo.
Her words were haunting, in light of what had just happened to her. She wrote:
“I would like this photograph to serve as my gratitude for all those law enforcement men and women who have served, who are currently serving and those who have died in the line of duty, protecting our liberties in this great country #LawEnforcement #BlueLine #Thankyou #Lausphotography – Feeling thankful”
She posted this picture on October 21, 2016.
It was my wife who pointed out the fact that she had posted that picture some two years before she ever even worked as a law enforcement officer. The power of that realization slapped me square in the face.
I guess maybe that might be a large part of why it was so infuriating when I stumbled across an article that called out a student government association from UC Davis, a university in the very town in which Natalie worked; ergo, posted by some of the very ungrateful students she died protecting.
Reading what the article alleged they’d say was angering enough, but it wasn’t until I did a little more digging on my own that I became livid. I found their actual post, before they apparently deleted the post, mind you (although, they have yet to post any sort of apology), and what I read boiled my blood.
First, here is a screen grab of their callous post
What a pompous, sniveling, spineless little group of whiners. What is actually somewhat entertaining, quite frankly, is the very makeup of this group, which claims to cater to the “oppressed minorities” of the world…although they like to use the term “underrepresented”.
Their post began:
“First and foremost, we would like to send our deepest condolences to the police officer’s family.”
What a load of crap. Here’s the deal, kids – If any of you had the SLIGHTEST concern for Natalie Corona or her family, that is all you would have written. You would have left things at that. But you didn’t, you went on.
“We would also like to provide resources for students triggered by this event and the circulating images of a flag that has been popularized by the “Blue Lives Matter” crowd.”
I honestly still can’t figure out if I want to laugh, cry or scream at the mention that students can be “triggered” by the sight of a young woman holding a Thin Blue Line flag. What’s funny, is that these same poor triggered souls are the ones who get upset (triggered, I guess?) anytime they get referred to as “Snowflakes”…and yet, what better word to describe a group of people so pathetically weak that they need counseling, safe spaces and group therapy sessions just because they saw a picture online.
These fine young folks are the future of America? Yeah, we are definitely screwed. But I digress.
You are supposed to be the upper crust of educated society. You are students at a well-known and respected UC. And yet you display an utter lack of class. You are crass.
Worse still, is your sniveling victim mentality. That any of you can sit there and with a straight face make the assertion that the flag Natalie Corona is holding in her picture triggers, maligns or in any other way harms another human being is ludicrous. If it weren’t for the fact that you were deadly serious when you made that moronic assertion, I would laugh.
But sadly, you truly believe the drivel coming out of your own mouths. And in reality, I guess you must, for your entire world view has been spoon fed to you. Everything you believe, you have been told to believe. Worse still, by your very statement, you have proven yourselves to be COMPLETELY unable to formulate your own thoughts and opinions. You simply regurgitate the garbage you’ve been fed. You are shallow, you are pathetic.
I feel sorry for you. Hell, I feel sorry for all those you speak of who are “triggered” by mere images, who feel the need to assign a meaning that does not exist to said images in order to feel relevant in the world. I feel sorry for all of you; because one day, likely very soon, the real world is going to hit you in the face like a runaway Mack truck.
I’ve got news for you kids – In the real world, when being faced with real problems, no one gives a rat’s ass if your feelings get hurt. No one is going to stop the bus of life so you can have a break if you see something that upsets your sensitive little feelings.
No one is going to censor what you see or hear to protect you from getting your knickers in a twist. The world is not kind. There are people out there who will gladly do you harm for no other reason than because they like doing so and they can.
Then there are people out there like Natalie Corona – people who will selflessly put themselves between you and those who would do you harm because she felt it was her calling, her job, her purpose in life.
She BELIEVED that she was put on this earth to stand between your little candy asses and the predators who walk amongst us, looking for easy prey to devour – looking for sensitive little snowflakes like you.
You want to assign a meaning to the Thin Blue Line flag? It’s already been done. It already has a meaning, and ONLY ONE meaning at that – it is that Law Enforcement officers, who have since time memorial been referred to as “Blue”, ARE the Thin Blue Line of protection that stands between sniveling whiners like you and the two-legged wolves who walk amongst us.
Have cops always gotten it right? Absolutely not. By and large, the 1960’s were an abysmal failure on the part of law enforcement to do their jobs and protect people regardless of their race, color, origin or standing. But that is not the law enforcement of today.
You claim that cops see color as an indicator of one’s innocence or guilt, yet YOU are the ones espousing bigoted views, and I’m not just talking about your views on cops.
What I find even more laughable about your supposed war against discrimination is the fact that you go to a school that takes so much pride in being a “UC” rather than a “CSU”, that every year at the Causeway Classic football game, when UC Davis plays California State University, Sacramento, one of the number one chants you Aggies love to make across the field at your Hornet rivals is:
“State School! State School! State School!”
As if, for some reason, those students and players are inferior to you and your fellow UCD alums.
You want to talk about a bunch of entitled, elitist bigots? Look in the mirror. Where is your strongly worded condemnation for that activity my young social justice warriors?
Hell, there is more diversity on You Name It PD or Sheriff’s Office than there is amongst your group of social justice warriors. I work with people of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Hmong, Loa, Thai, Korean, Japanese, African, Vietnamese, Chinese, English, Spanish descent every day.
Each of them would give their lives for me and I for them. More importantly, each of us would give our lives to protect a total stranger, without EVER giving ONE SINGLE THOUGHT as to what race or ethnicity they are! Every single one of us would die for any one of you, even though, frankly, I really don’t like you that much right now. Because that is what we swore to do.
And yes, EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US identifies with that Thin Blue Line flag.
HOW DARE YOU try to diminish that and call that flag, or ANY of us who identify with it racist! Which of you is going to stand out there and risk your own lives to protect a group of total strangers, regardless of their race, color or ethnicity?
Just shut up already.
The bottom line is, you have a problem with the picture of Natalie Corona for one reason and one reason only – It’s all the rage amongst the left wing right now to hate on law enforcement and label the profession or anyone who supports it as racist. Period. End of Story.
And you know what? Despite the fact that you are all a bunch of insipid, inexperienced and ignorant young children who have besmirched a young woman for no other reason than because you want to appear relevant amongst your leftist peers, Natalie Corona would give her life to protect you all over again. So would every officer on the Davis Police Department; despite the fact that you don’t appreciate it and definitely don’t deserve it.
Shut your sniveling faces. You owe Natalie Corona’s family, blood and blue, an apology.
Let’s see if you possess the common sense to realize that and the decency to give it.
– Inbound Hot.