The Police Car

In 2002 alone, large state and local law enforcement agencies, those with 100 or more officers, received more than 26,000 citizen complaints about officers’ use of force. Among those complaints only eight percent had sufficient evidence of the allegation to justify disciplinary action against the subject officer (U.S. Department of Justice). These incidents occur frequently but what truly happens is never very clear. Witness reports don’t hold up with evidence, the victim has their recollection of what happened and the police officer has another. There is no concrete way to hold police accountable for their actions unless there is hard evidence to prove them guilty. This allows officers to use excessive force and not face any penalization from their department or in court.

She made sure to have my cousin, who is twelve, to keep a closer look on me that way she could help my grandparents get the food ready for the cookout. My cousins and I were all having a bike race to see who could get back to the campsite faster, I was a little behind and decided to take a cut through that I later found out was full of mud and leaves. I took a turn around the camper too fast and

In this negotiation, I played the role of the buyer of the car, Mazda MX – 6 from Francesco, who played the role of the seller. The task involved negotiating for the right price for the used car.

I’m not sure where to start this story, but i need to preface it with what happened about three months earlier. So the summer inbetween seventh and eigth grade my friends molly, gabi, and i all hung out on the fourth of july. The day before we drove up to Michigan with mollys mom amd bought a shitton of fireworks, more than we could ever need for one fourth of july. So the fourth of july goes great, but we have so many leftover fireworks Molly’s mom just tells us to store the rest of the fireworks in the tea drawer and shell use them sometime later. Now about three months later, it’s october 13th, Molly’s birthday. It was Me, Molly, Gabi, and some other friends who I honestly can’t remember the names of. We were all hanging out in her sunroom with the broken furnace so it was really cold.

As we walked on we started using roman candles to shoot at trees and street signs, and being stupid kids we got the bright idea to shoot them at each other. The game was short lived as we had the roman candles that would pop, so when my brother Tyler shot me; not only did it explode and catch my shirt on fire, but it also temporarily made me deaf with a ring in my ears for about ten minutes. At that point my brothers decided we should stop and head home. We turned around and began to head back, but we still had some fireworks left, so on the way back we began popping the rest, but we kept them away from the houses, and stayed near the hills and puddles and

Fireworks have been a symbol of America’s freedom ever since that Fourth of July in 1777. Something about the luminous streaks of light radiating from the sky mesmerizes Americans when they see it. There is no greater joy than to watch the red, white and blue stripes proclaiming to all, “America is free, and proud to be that way!” Now, however, that blood-tingling, heart-thrashing scenario is gone, stamped with a big red “X” by some bureaucrat. The eye-popping pyrotechnics are no more, all one has left to do on the Fourth of July is hold a stick burning at 2000°F. Sounds delightful, does it not? Why not talk some sense to the people of Illinois, especially

It all happened so quickly. One moment, a boy was waving to his friends, and the next, he was lying in the street. I heard the screech of brakes and a loud crash. The car’s windscreen was completely shattered. People were screaming and crying, and without thinking, I ran into the street, knelt down beside him, and called 911.

I was born in Laredo, TX but this wasn’t my home just yet. For the first six years of my life I lived in Nuevo Laredo. Being as I was very young at the time that I lived here I don’t remember too much, but one of the memories that I do remember is christmas eve. I can remember this day so clear and so vividly, because of how I felt that day. I remember being filled with joy as all my family was there, opening presents and having a great time. Everything was great until around midnight, at the time I didn’t understand why but no one was allowed to leave the house or be outside at that time. Strangely enough with this the music would get louder and everyone would ignore the fact that this was happening, but my curiosity has made me ponder many if not all things that happen in my life. We

This is the story of how I did this terrible event. It was a cold December night and we were having a giant party with our very close neighbors and friends at my house. At the time I was six years old and was all for having fun and not thinking about safety. As the party went on the parents were watching college football, eating pizza, and having an amazing time. All of the neighbors children were over and we were all around the same age so we decided to play tag were all the

One year ago on the fourth of July at my family's farm, ¨wha whoo ¨we said in excitement as we jumped in piles of hay.We would mess up a pile, then put it back together we would run, run ,run ,then jump as high as we can we would make team and whatever team won they would get a special hat to wear and we would fight about who won and who get the hat also. They would fight about cheating , I would tell them not to fight because it's the Fourth of July after that would laugh so hard and they would laugh at them self too . they would be so confused at me and look at me sideways.. My brother and all the younger kids would play in the grass with toys than one of the

December eleventh, 2012, started out as any other Tuesday did. After school, I left with my friend, Jessica, and her mom to go pick up her little sister, Sophia, planning to go shopping before heading to a doctor's appointment. When picking up her sister, we stayed to talk and eat popcorn with the family who had been watching her for about half an hour before heading to the

Growing up I had the best time celebrating the 4th of July with my Dad and Papa mostly because of one thing. Fireworks! Yes, this is the holiday to commemorate the adoption of the Declaration of Independence but it is also to celebrate our freedom to blow stuff up! Right? Or maybe that’s just me.

Following the parade, my family, along with our neighbors, roll our grills into the streets and have a BBQ celebrating with each other. Residents from

In 2014, I decided to have my mom a Mardi Gras themed 50th birthday party. Chris and I decided to drive to New Orleans on a Friday afternoon, the weekend after Mardi Gras, just to buy decorations for the party. We drove back on Sunday and, therefore, we spent Saturday sightseeing New Orleans. This may sound insane to most people, but we love spontaneous trips like this. Since this was my mom’s birthday party, naturally we asked her to go with us to help pick out decorations. We also asked Chris’s mom to go because we wanted to have a fun weekend with our moms. This was the first trip that we took with both mom’s together and how our travelling as an entire family started. The trip to New Orleans was also before the blog was even thought

There I was at 6 years old in a corner store with my 5 year old partner in crime cousin Alex. We put our bubble gum on the counter and paid for it with the money we took out of my aunt’s purse while she was in the shower. The cashier had asked where our parent was and instantly we lied and told her they were outside waiting for us. As my cousin and I were leaving the store chomping on our bubble gum like the big bad kids we were something froze us in our tracks. It was our aunt screaming our names: “JORDAN???!!!” “ALEX!!??” That’s when we both looked at each other and started sprinting back to my aunt’s house. As we approached her driveway where she was standing that’s when we realized we weren’t as big and bad as we thought. Our facial expression no doubt looked like we were waiting for the scary part to happen in a movie. Our aunt frantically asking where we went and who bought us the bubble gum, I had let my cousin Alex do all the talking. Boy, were we in trouble after she found out we stole her money and walked to the corner store without an adult. We