We keep hearing the same refrain every time chaos erupts: “Police officers need more training.” And at some point, that excuse wears thin. Because while officers train for years—often putting their lives on the line—too many people refuse to acknowledge where responsibility truly begins.
You had eighteen years. Eighteen years to teach right from wrong. Eighteen years to teach respect for life, for property, for other human beings. Eighteen years to teach your child not to steal, not to attack others, not to burn down buildings, not to turn anger into violence. Law enforcement does not raise children. Parents do. Families do. Communities do.
Police are called in at the very end—when everything else has already failed. They show up in moments of disorder, fear, and danger that someone else created. They are expected to make split-second decisions in situations most people will never face, while being judged with the comfort of hindsight by those who were never there.
This isn’t about denying accountability where it belongs. Bad actions should be addressed. But pretending that every act of violence or destruction is a failure of policing, rather than a failure of upbringing, values, or personal responsibility, is dishonest. It shifts blame away from where it should rest and places it on those tasked with cleaning up the aftermath.
Police didn’t fail your child.
They met your child after the failure had already happened.
At some point, we have to stop outsourcing responsibility—and start owning it.
