[b][i]I don't get it. What did he do? He was an African American. He was a cop. He protected his city, and the people within it, and what does he get? Hate. From people of his own ethnicity. From people that hate police officers for no exact reason. And then he was murdered by a lunatic... This idiot shot and slaughtered an innocent cop. Why? I don't get it. I don't. Rant over.[/i][/b]

The States needs a complete revision on its Police's training and (here comes the conservatives) gun control. When people don't have the potential to be as lethal, the police don't need to be trained in a way to counter it. British police will usually come across a knife if a suspect has a weapon at all, letting them keep their distance and try to negotiate and if the suspect gets too close, they will use a taser (even that comes with an investigation into the officer's right to use it). Suspects in the US usually have a gun, so if the police want to calm the situation fast and not die they need to shoot first. That aggression carries through to even the smallest of crimes and the tension escalates into the chaos we see today. Also not every cop killer is a BLM activist, especially when the cop you showed is also Black.

Gulf war veteran here. It's Called personal responsibility. Period. End of discussion. Yes I was mad getting back from a combat zone to work for minimum wage at a tire shop but I didn't blame the government. I blamed myself for not getting an mos that translated to a real world job. I was 11B1P. Airborne infantry. Jump out of planes and kill people. I should have reenlisted for another tour with a valid real world job equivalent. Mechanic, medic, anything. But I didn't. So instead of taking it out on the government I went to school and became a paramedic. Now 25 years later I own my own business. And the discipline that I learned as an infantry soldier is what keeps me working when I encounter problems or seemingly impossible odds. All lives matter. I served with black, white , native Americans, oriental, Hispanic , you name it. Blm is crap. There are bad cops just like there are bad pilots , bad judges , bad firemen, bad bank tellers , bad 7-11 clerks. But 99.9% of all people are good. Lumping any group based on the actions of a few is prejudice in itself. Personal responsibility.

So every black shooter is part of BLM now? The dude was a nut. "Long followed several conspiracy groups devoted to government surveillance and monitoring" Sounds like an anti government paranoid nut job. Who also claimed to be a part of Islam. Was he capitalizing on the protests? Most definitely. Does he stands for what BLM believes in? No.