 A week ago today, 22-year-old police officer Natalie Corona was shot and killed in downtown Davis. Welcome to Teens on Topic, I'm your host Emma Arnson, and today I'm joined by Issa Shake, Romero Cabanillas, Sarah Ouide. So this event kind of shocked the entirety of Davis, and I think it'd be really interesting to get at Teens perspective, so maybe how you heard about it, and what was your initial reaction. So a week ago today, I was in downtown Davis, specifically at Panera, I was there standing with a group of friends when we saw a bunch of police officers just zooming down the street. My car was parked right in front of the farmer's market, so I proceeded to go over there, and when I found a SWAT team surrounding a structure there, a building there, my car was parked right next to it, I decided to walk away and let them do their thing, and later on I heard that a police officer had been shot, and the news was, I would have never expected that here in Davis. I was originally at home, and my brother told me and my mom, and it was pretty surreal, it just didn't seem something that was real at the time. Yeah, I definitely feel the same way I heard about it actually through Snapchat, it was on some of the story, and I don't think the seriousness of the topic actually hit me until I attended her vigil on Saturday, and then that's when I realized there was an actual person who was killed. This isn't something I really think about that would happen in Davis, so I think the initial time I heard about it, I wasn't as shocked as I was later on. Yeah, so the internet was down in our house, I live in Sacramento, so I heard about the next day at school from somebody, one of my classmates who lived like a block away from where this happened, and it was pretty shocking the fact that a man on a bicycle killed such a young police officer, I couldn't really believe it until I had to log online and read the article, but it was pretty shocking that something in such a tiny town happened like this. The peculiar part is that the suspect had no correlation to the incident, as far as I know, he was just somebody on their bike, you know, who happened to be right next to the place where these three cars crashed, and the responding officer was Natalie Corona, and then he just proceeded to shoot her and shoot about 12 rounds, some of which hit, I believe, a firetruck and a student's backpack, which, you know, was pretty bad. I think it's pretty devastating that she was killed, not even for responding to like a serious thing, which would obviously be devastating as well, but that she was just responding to kind of a routine crash that I see a lot of people on the internet were like, well, you know, police officers, they should expect to be, you know, should take on the responsibility of being killed, but I think that still doesn't take away from the terribleness of the situation, so I think it's, I think a lot of people don't quite understand at least the reactions I've seen on the internet, the seriousness of the incident, and I think that's very weird to me. Yeah, what really shocks me, too, is that I read an article saying that they had taken away his, they had revoked his Second Amendment rights, they'd actually taken an AR-15 away from him, yet how did he have access to these other two guns? You know, I feel like they should have acted upon this, or they should have investigated and perhaps taken away these arms before he was able to use them. Well, I mean, according to the police, he got them in recent months, but the reason he got his guns taken away was because he worked at Cache Creek Casino and he punched one of his colleagues there, and so we don't know how he got them, but it's quite possible that he got them illegally. Yeah, I think that's definitely, I know a lot of people talk about gun control and the issue of, like, well, this is something that could happen if we, like, evoke Second Amendment rights, obviously we see this right now, that he was still able to have guns even though he wasn't legally allowed to, so I think that's another devastating piece of this story. I know we're discussing guns, but that's usually the debate that comes up when we see murders, but the crazy debate that we saw this time was with the statement from the associate of students of UC Davis, ethnic and cultural affairs commission, where they were basically, right, I can't remember how many days afterward it was, but they were talking about how police and symbols of police can be triggering to people of color, and I really didn't understand how that was appropriate at all. The associate of students present actually condemned their statement, but it's really stir up debate in Davis, I think, and around the country. Yeah, the thing is the shooter wasn't a person of color. I believe the person of color was, well, I know she, Natalie Corona was from Latina descendants, or descendants, so it's kind of funny because, you know, it's not on the news, oh, you know, a Latina officer was shot by a white male, no, typically it's the way around, you know, it's the cops, a white cop shoots a colored person, you see what I mean? It's kind of, it wasn't as big, they didn't portray it as big in the media as they would if it was the other way around, it's my opinion. I am actually kind of surprised that it wasn't as big on the media as other like events that I've seen because I think like this story is pretty devastating, just taking away from any other political aspects, a young 22 year old police officer was murdered, and I'm very surprised that it wasn't publicized. The fact of the matter isn't, within two and a half weeks we saw three different police officers around the country, another young police officer in Florida was killed, and there was also in California the Officer Roniel Singh was killed by an illegal immigrant, that was more in the national media because of the immigration context, but yeah, for something that is so impactful to our community, I don't think it's touched the national community that much. I think this is gonna bring awareness to Davis because, you know, the saying is Davis is a bubble, and I, you know, strongly believe that, but yeah, these things can happen here, so I hope some people realize that it's not, you know, Davis is not as safe as some people think it is. One kind of shocking thing to me was I saw a lot of apathy on the internet, I just saw some reactions to it. I know there's a lot of controversy over this issue, surprisingly, about the picture that was posted, often in correspondence to the news of her holding the, it was a bin blue line flag, and that's something that I think is very surprising that it took away from the actual death and kind of politicized it more than it should have been. Yeah, her family, at least what I've read, her family comes, her father was also a, he served in the police, and, you know, it really touched me as well because my father was also in the military, and he was a policeman in Honolulu, and I know he was definitely shocked and hurt because, you know, him being in the police duty, he's seen lots of terrible things such as this happen, and when, I don't know, it was truly heartbreaking. I think it's very interesting that people choose to politicize like going over like the Black Lives Matter and like the associated student club, I believe, of UC Davis, that they would go and try to take away from the thing because I understand that a lot of people, that it's a very serious issue, but I think that there's a time and place to talk about it, but right after this specific scenario is not a very appropriate time. Yeah, I think that's completely right, and let's talk about the photo. She was a 20-year-old, extremely young person, not much older than the people at this table right now who was proud of her work becoming a police person, and that's incredibly honorable, and the fact that we're now denigrating police as triggering to many Black and Brown people, I think is, it's really offensive. And especially, I don't think she meant it anyway, and the people that are taking it as a Blue Lives Matter, I know on the post I have her caption. She said that I would like this photograph to serve as my gratitude for all these 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. If you look at that, she clearly wasn't meaning for that to say like police are better, like police lives matter more. I think people are taking this out of context and trying to demonize her when she was good intention. And just to add in the majority of police think that way, even the people who are saying, who say Blue Lives Matter, whether they're saying it out of malice or hatred, or just respect for people who serve our communities, they're not saying that police matter more than Black people do. We're just saying that we're grateful for the people who serve our communities who protect us. The history of the thin blue line is basically, it's a symbol, the thin blue line is the blue line between the community and anime between criminals and their victims. And I mean, it's been criticized throughout history for saying that the police are separate from the public, but it's about police being the front line in our society is protecting us. I don't think it's something that you can just, especially in a situation like this, go out and just start talking about the thin blue line. I mean, we haven't talked about this at all, mainly in the debate, but we're now talking about it after the death of a 22 year old. So, shocking. I agree, it should be done great. I think we should take more of a human approach to it and look at it as people, look at them as people as well. Yes, we are civilians and yes, they are officers who enforce the law, yet after their eight hour shift, they're just normal people just like us. She would have gone back home to her family, had a meal, it would have been another regular day. I feel like you're saying something like their work isn't honorable, like they do go back to, I guess, their families, but during their work they're doing work Before you continue, I do want to say that I never said that their work is not honorable, I want to make that clear. My father was a police officer, I highly honor and I highly believe that police officers and military officers do deserve a respectable place here in the US, but go ahead and continue. The fact that we think of police is so bad because what I'm almost talking about earlier about how people were calling them pigs on Twitter and then calling Captain Xox last year, I know that I've always grown up with respect of police. I don't understand where this, I think of it as really new and this is the main issue that I have with the Black Lives Matter Movement is the idea that police are the demons of our society and not that they stand for good. There are flaws with every police body in the nation, but these are the best of our people. They're putting their lives on the line like Officer Natalie Corona did to protect us. Yeah, I think aside from the political part, something that I heard earlier this morning was that the alert system that is used at UC Davis, it's supposed to reach like thousands of people and when this incident occurred it tackled like less than half of, or it wasn't sent to like less than half of the people's phones and so I think that was a huge safety and security issue as well and so I think that this is just going to bring like a new wave of awareness for us all in terms of recognizing our own safety and recognize the safety of students and faculty at UC Davis as well. Yeah, I mean I definitely, when I was in Korea that I, as I said I didn't hear about it for any official source, I heard about it from Snapchat of all places, but I think that we do live in kind of a bubble in Davis as you said, but we're not worried all that much about our safety and I think that's, I don't think someone's going to come in here and shoot me, but it's definitely, I think, makes me realize more that it's not just a perfect place where no crime happens. I think it's yeah, it's typically taken for granted, you know, people believe, oh you know what, we're safe here or maybe even in other places they believe they're safe, but yeah you always got to take those precautions and instead of you know honoring police once they pass I feel like you should continue on and beyond and you know continue to support them even when there's no bad things going on with them. Yeah, I agree. One last question just in general, do you guys have any friends that want to join law enforcement and if that's affected them because it'd be interesting to see if there's like a new generation of people who want to be in the law? I personally I know someone who wants to be a firefighter, I'm not completely sure how this specific incident affected them, but I'm sure whether you know someone or you don't know them personally, I'm sure that this incident really resonates with them just because it it's the weight of your job, it's like the burden of your job and what you're carrying and how you move forward and I'm sure that it will definitely stay in the minds of those who want to enter the law enforcement. For sure, specifically I don't have any friends who want to enter law enforcement, but I do have a friend who wants to enter the Navy. I haven't really talked to him much about how this event has you know affected the decision, but I'm sure it has had certain level of impact. I think that youths all around don't seem to think of law enforcement in good ways especially in our bubble is a great term in our progressive bubble in the Northern California area, but I hope that this will help people to start thinking about police and joining police and how they are heroes. I do hope this event while tragic does have an impact and I hope that it will open discussions more about the relations between civilians and police as I know that's a huge topic, but I think that this hopefully might be able to realize that you know everyone's human and that both sides should, yeah. Well, thank you so much for you guys coming. This is a serious topic, but yeah, thank you. Tune in next time.