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Alton Sterling is dead. Three law enforcement officers — Baton Rouge police officers Montrell Jackson and Matthew Gerald as well as East Baton Rouge sheriff's deputy Brad Garafola — are also dead. Another deputy, Nicholas Tullier, is critically wounded and fighting for his life. Too many people are dying. Have we reached a point were no lives matter?

&The violence, the hatred, just has to stop,& an emotional Gov. John Bel Edwards said Sunday (July 17), hours after a deranged gunman from Kansas City ambushed cops in an attack that also wounded two other officers. &We have to do better.&

The governor is right.

Baton Rouge is traumatized by the two weeks of violence. The racial tensions this city typically fights to ignore have angrily and tragically erupted, laid bare before a stunned nation struggling itself to deal with what's become a crisis for law enforcement as well as an increasingly hostile racial divide.




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We don't know yet whether two Baton Rouge police officers were justified in shooting and killing Sterling following an early morning altercation July 5 in the parking lot of the Triple S Food Mart. We emphatically know there was no justification for what State Police Superintendent Col. Mike Edmondson said was Gavin Long intentionally targeting and assassinating law enforcement officers.

No doubt, our city has come together to mourn the heinous killing of police officers. Sacrificing themselves to keep the rest of us safe is a debt we can never adequately repay.

To honor their memory and heroics, those protesting the circumstances surrounding Sterling's death and the larger issue of police interaction with the African-American community have temporarily gone http://wallinside.com/post-56188722-wake-county-sheriffs-business-office-detention-division.html . But the people from Baton Rouge leading the protests and calling for justice have made it clear they're not going away.

Some may scoff, but it's important that Blair Imani — an outspoken critic of the police who was arrested July 10 during protests of Sterling's death — helped plan a vigil this week for the three officers killed in the line of duty.

&All violence is wrong,& she told Rebekah Allen of The Baton Rouge Advocate. &Yes, I've always been against police brutality, but violence is wrong and this is not the right way.&

What's important is that it's not an either-or choice. It's OK to detest and protest the notion of police using unnecessary, excessive force while also deploring violence against police.

So where do we go from here? How, as the governor rightly suggests, do we do better?

Clearly, there's no magic solution. There are scores of tough questions on all sides but few easy answers. What seems clear is the need for open and honest conversations that undoubtedly will be http://arrest49finder.unblog.fr/2016/07/18/the-sheriff-has-the-obligation-of-protecting-life/ and painful. But there's no point in embarking on this journey of exploration unless every segment of the Baton Rouge community is willing to listen and, more importantly, consider the views of those who might believe differently. Will https://mug715fcchoganthyssen814.shutterfly.com/23 ? Honestly, I have no idea, but we've got to start somewhere.