Tuesday; October 9
When I heard that seven law enforcement officers had been shot in South Carolina several things went through my mind. The first was a sense of sadness for the officers, families, community and agencies that were affected. What a tragedy! As I began to process this from a cognitive perspective, I started to paint a mental picture of the perpetrator. Before the news released the information I had a couple of thoughts in mind about who might do something like this. I have to admit that I was shocked when a 74-year-old was arrested for the crime. I never saw that coming. As I thought about my thoughts I realized a couple of things. First, stereotypes may be easy but they aren’t always accurate. It takes little thought to “believe” something about someone – but, our pre-judged thoughts are often mistaken. The second thought was just how prevalent evil can be. People of all ages, genders, races and economic status ...