Rachel Heaton
The Paw Print
Over the weekend, the sports world was shocked by a saddening event within the Kansas City Chiefs organization. Twenty-five-year-old linebacker Javon Belcher fatally shot his 22-year-old girlfriend at their house before driving to team facilities and taking his own life in front of the team’s general manager and head coach. The couple is survived by their three-month-old daughter.
When something like this happens, it’s hard not to ask “why”? What went wrong and how did it get this bad? Sometimes I wonder how our world got into this position. Belcher certainly wasn’t the first to make this type of headline in the news, and he surely won’t be the last. Countless other athletes, celebrities, and everyday citizens have made the news for violence acts towards themselves and others.
It seems like these “tragedies” happen more and more often these days, and each time one hits, we all take a moment to talk it through and pledge our word that this incident has caused us to have a new outlook on life and that we will be better people. But only days later, we’ve turned back to our old ways until the next tragedy hits and the cycle repeats itself. How much violence and death will it take until we’ve finally learned our lesson?
And what is the lesson we should learn? We must learn how to end the violence and how to value each life around us. We also have to learn how to recognize when someone around us is hurting and learn how to prevent these acts of violence to occur.
Violence, especially domestic violence, occurs frequently in our society today. According to the Domestic Violence fact sheet released by the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV), 85 percent of domestic violence victims are women and one in every four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime. The NCADV estimates that nearly 1.3 million women are physically assaulted by a partner each year. It’s time we learn to recognize the problem and take steps to fix it.
We also must learn to appreciate the value of human life. Each and every one of us has worth. Though we all may have many differences, no one is more important and no one is unimportant.
If you are going through hard times and you’re struggling, get help. There are many people willing to talk with you or just listen when you need some support. Sometimes, it just helps to talk things out and get things off of your chest. Holding your thoughts in and suppressing problems won’t help them to be fixed. No one should have to lose loved ones because the right help wasn’t sought out or given.
This is a terrible and sad event for the families involved and for the Chiefs organization, but hopefully, this time, we will come to learn our lesson moving forward.
What’s Been Said…