Happy Friday, everyone! I hope you all have had a good week, even during midterms or during one’s work week.

I was browsing through my regular sources to gather information and deciding what topic I would like to use as my jumping-off point for this week’s article when I noticed there was hardly anything except for sad, depressing, controversial or political news. While this may be relatively normal, while I was browsing this week, I was taken back by the massive amount of human-to-human violence that has occurred recently. We all are going through enough — starting to come out of the other side of the worldwide pandemic, dealing with job loss or extreme job adjustment, etc. — we do not need to turn on each other! 

I personally do not feel like hate crimes, shootings, burglaries, etc. have any place in society because more often than not, these are crimes that can be prevented. However, I understand that no society is perfect and there will always be evil acts wherever you may go. 

The first few things I see are things that involve violence. As I kept scrolling, I noticed that there were not any happy news stories. There were some of someone getting arrested for a crime they committed, but still, a crime had to be committed for someone to get arrested, thus making the news story better and making citizens feel safer, but still not something wholly happy. 

A police officer was shot Tuesday in Arizona while investigating a possible vehicle theft. Thankfully, police officer Brian Brugman is in stable condition. One of the two suspects was also shot during this confrontation, hospitalized along with officer Brugman, and the second suspect remains in police custody.

On the West Coast, the Emerald City Bible Fellowship in Seattle was open-fired Wednesday afternoon. The shooting occurred during a 40-person church meeting, but only one was killed. However, the person that was killed was a young man, someone’s son. Whomever shot this young man in a church is possibly identified but has not been taken into custody yet. 

In San Francisco on Wednesday, a 70-year-old Asian woman was attacked by a 39-year-old man without provocation. The man was beaten by this woman with a stick she was carrying. “San Francisco police said a 39-year-old man is being investigated for the attack and another one on an 83-year-old Asian man Wednesday, according to KPIX … The attacks come amid a spike in anti-Asian attacks across the country and a day after eight people — including six Asian women — were shot and killed in Georgia.”

It is impossible to define the motivations behind these acts of hatred. And while these are only a handful of the articles I found, it is few and far between to see some news with something on the more cheery side. I suppose the statement “if it bleeds, it reads” is really demonstrated here. I only hope that the news organizations around the country find a better way to balance the horrible stories occurring with something more positive and uplifting.