Chronicle Editorial

Coming together
     In these political times of heightened tensions and anxiety about our nation’s future, we often forget that each and every one of us wants the same thing: to live in a nation that is safe, prosperous and grants us the liberties we’ve come to know as the American way.
     With all the noise of controversies and harsh words for our differing political neighbors, we might have forgotten that the state of Iowa lost two good people in Des Moines Sgt. Tony Beminio and Urbandale Police Officer Justin Martin, in the early hours Nov. 2.
     With memorials held this past Monday and Tuesday, their murders remind us that we all are brothers and sisters, united in the same fight to achieve happiness, make a difference and return home to our families.
     Sgt. Beminio, 38, had spent 11 years on the Des Moines police force; prior to that, he was a school resource officer, walking the halls of schools and interacting with students. He spent time assisting with athletic programs.
     He was married with three children.
     He was ambushed that Wednesday morning, killed while responding to the call of shots fired on an officer several blocks away.
     Officer Martin, 24, for less than a year, having sworn in as officer this past January. He had spent his entire childhood dreaming of becoming a police officer.
     He was adored by many friends, and was with them three days earlier, celebrating Halloween.
     He was ambushed Wednesday morning, killed after 15-30 shots came through his window. Some say that he was dead before he knew someone was outside the car.
     Two officers. Two people. Two upstanding citizens who took and oath to care for others before themselves.
     Our state has lost two good people.
     Our president has been announced, after six months of muckraking and insults, of personal attacks and physical violence, of shaming and disgracing, of losing friends and making enemies.
     There have been six, long months of strife, anger and rage towards one another.
     But this loss shouldn’t cause us to take up arms, nor should it entice us to prejudice or malice towards anyone but ourselves.
     Maybe this act of violence was not a result of political campaigns, but it is most definitely an assurance that we have gone too far.
     This violence reminds us all how close to losing everything, we all are, and that in the end, we all want the same thing.
     We want to come home to our families, to our friends, safely, from a day of fulfilling, decently paying jobs, under the roof of a safe nation. That’s what we all want, right? To live a life where things that happened last week don’t happen.
     The sooner we realize that we all want the same thing, no matter the color of our skin, our gender, our wealth, or the company we keep, the sooner we can build a safer world. We shouldn’t’ strive to lock anyone up. We shouldn’t strive to disgrace each other. We should strive to have it our way, and only our way.
     These officers didn’t live like that. They strove to defend the lives of anyone and everyone.
     As we begin a new era, it would do us well to remember that.