It was a May 28th, 2009 Omar Edwards was confronted by two NYPD police officers, who observing that he had a pistol, opened fire on him, shooting him three times killing him. The response by community and law enforcement was immediate: something was wrong, as Omar Edwards was a NYPD police officer, a fellow "brother" in law enforcement who was accidentally thought to be a criminal by his colleagues. No one could doubt that shooting a fellow officer was unacceptable to the politicians and Law Enforcement community and an investigation was launched into how this happened. At the funeral, politicians and fellow offices lined up to give this servant a farewell fitting of a hero.
However, despite the protests, the condemning of the two Police Officer's actions in killing a fellow office, no one addressed the real issue of this tragedy. If this had been a civilian, someone who was perhaps licensed to carry a weapon or even someone who wasn't, no one would have thought twice of the officer's actions of shooting an armed civilian in New York City. No politicians or officers would have lined up at his funeral, let alone call for an investigation…show more content… Police often say that they were "defending themselves" as a right to shoot armed or unarmed civilians - a right many politicians and the police would deny civilians. In many of the major cities in this country, no one is allowed to possess firearms to protect themselves against criminals. We are expected to sit by the phone while our possessions are stolen, our wives and daughters are raped, our families killed - until the police arrive. When we do decide to defend ourselves, with an unlicensed or even licensed gun, we are often arrested, assumed to be guilty, or shot by the police for the very possession of that
