Ashlie: (00:18)
Welcome back to another episode of Tactical Living by LEO Warriors. I'm your host, Ashlie Walton.
Clint:
And I'm your co-host Clint Walton.
Ashlie: In today's episode, we're going to talk about how I believe the abundance of media and the accessibility of media has really desensitized us to a lot of the really sensitive matters that take place in this world. So just sit back, relax and enjoy today's content.
Ashlie: (00:49)
This morning after Clint, I got done working out, we drove over to my dad's house.
Ashlie: (00:56)
We live off of a dirt road and as soon as we turned onto the main road, we noticed that there looked to be three vans that in our minds look looked vary similar to that of the coroner. And right across the street from those vans was a police unit. We kind of brushed it off, wondered what it was. I made mention of the fact that it looked like the coroner and then I told Clint, I hope that there wasn't a dead body found that close to our house. We drove to my dad's. Clint went swimming in the pool with my nephew and as we were there, I got a text message from a friend telling me that there was somebody that was ran over and killed and he didn't know if it was by a train right by our house or if it was by a vehicle, but then we put two and two together and we realized that it really was somebody that had passed away. Usually my mind goes in a million different places. Usually the first place it goes is wondering whether or not there was a homicide, especially if it was that close to our house.
Ashlie: (02:20)
Later on after we got home, I started to read the article about what happened and the article was pretty brief. This had just happened at 5:30 this morning
Ashlie: (02:31)
And all that it said is that there was a pedestrian versus vehicle and the pedestrian is deceased, and I go on to read the comments and I noticed that there's a woman commenting about how tragic this is and that it appears that the young man that was struck by the vehicle was a friend of her sons and that he had passed away
Ashlie: (02:57)
and as I continue reading comments, I'm looking at how heinous some people are talking. They're making jokes about how a person shouldn't have been on the road…making jokes by posting pictures of like trains and what's that book with the, the train that really popular book? The Little Engine That Could…Anyways, it's not important. They're just posting a lot of things that are really taking away from the fact that somebody's life was taken this morning and evidently it was a very young person whose life was taken.
Ashlie: (03:43)
And seemingly, from the speculation at least, it seems as though this was an intentional suicide.
Ashlie: (03:53)
Where this particular stretch of road is, it's very easy for even a vehicle to get into a collision if you're not paying attention because there's quite a big, a big lift, I guess. A big hill that you have to drive over and you can't see what's on the other side until you're there. So it's very important to be aware of that and cognizant. And in saying that, there's a lot of people that don't regularly drive this road and those that do typically drive way too fast.
Ashlie: (04:26)
And I just, I couldn't believe the amount of disassociation for the fact that there was a loss of human life and how people think that it's okay to hide behind a computer or a phone screen to make up their own stories and then to not take into consideration that there's an actual son that was behind all of those messages. Somebody, probably a lot of somebody's lives were completely changed forever, simply based on something that happened this morning, be it intentional or not.
Clint: (05:03)
Let alone the fact of the vehicle that actually struck him because that's traumatic within itself.
Ashlie: (05:12)
Absolutely. I couldn't imagine. We drive this road several times a day usually, and that could've very easily been us.
Clint: (05:21)
Yeah, it's, it's crazy to see the response that everybody has in regards to incidents like this or even going into the mass shootings or you name it. Going into killing or someone losing their life in general. Nowadays, you just don't see this responsive sorrow.
Ashlie: (05:46)
Yeah, there's, there's no empathy that seems to exist and if there is, it's very little.
Clint: (05:51)
If you're not directly impacted by it, it's definitely not there.
Ashlie: (05:57)
I remember being, uh, probably about 14 or 15 years old and there was an incident where a young girl was driving in a vehicle and they got into a car accident maybe two blocks away from my house and things like that didn't happen as much it seemed. And in retrospect, perhaps it did, but because we didn't have anything except for like the channel seven news to be able to watch to pay witness when things like this happened, we didn't have the level of exposure to the reality of how often these things happen. And I do believe that these sorts of things are increasingly happening. And I remember it impacting me so much that it brought me to tears. And the friend I was with, I just asked if we can go to the market to just grab a rose. And I just went there and it was crazy to see the way that everybody that drove past instead of continuing, they just stopped. And as a community we all sort of congregated and just paid our respects to this loss of life.
Clint: (07:07)
You know, it's funny, I was thinking of the 9/11 terrorist attacks yesterday actually. You know, it's approaching very soon. And I was just thinking, I remember my response to it. I was a sophomore in high school at the time and it just was really tragic. I remember all the instances surrounding around that.
Ashlie: (07:35)
Yeah. And it just seems that when we have such a vast amount of these types of things that we come into contact with on social media and on television on a routine basis, we're seeing so much of it that that feeling you get in your chest of that humanity and especially when there's a loss of life involved. I think, I mean, I'll admit it too. I feel like there is this level of disassociation by being exposed to it so much and clearly. I just wonder as a police officer, being exposed to those sorts of things, especially in this city that you work where it happens so often, how has that changed your perception?
Clint: (08:19)
And it goes into, for me personally, it turns into the jokes. It turns into you have to disassociate yourself with those instances because of dealing with it so much, or I should say lack thereof of dealing with it. And my mindset has definitely shifted to the effect of not wanting to watch the news, not wanting to be on social media to see this stuff or see those comments and especially read the comments because people are so just twisted nowadays.
Ashlie: (08:57)
They're tough behind computers. They really are. And I couldn't imagine being the sister if that was one of my family members. And I mean, I think that it's, it's in our nature to want to seek out information when something like this happens and having that resource, you know, through social media to be able to do that. I would imagine it's a very common thing to do in the face of a tragedy. And so going onto these posts and reading the news articles and inevitably scrolling down and seeing what some of these people say about somebody that you cared about and loves so much…what if it was you as you sit there and listen? Could you imagine losing somebody in your life like that? And then to have these perfect strangers act like they know what they're talking about and then be so careless in regard to what they're saying.
Ashlie: (09:54)
Because like you said, they, they have this armor behind the screen. And of course if you were to come face to face with these people or even being in person with them, you would never talk that way. People do not speak to each other that way in person and in real interactions. So why do they feel the need to do it that way when they're behind a screen? It needs to stop. It's unfortunate and I know when President Obama was president, you know, Michelle Obama was trying a lot to really defend against the bullying and even our, our current White House administration is trying to do a lot as it pertains to bullying. And I can see how this just stems in a lot of different directions because we think of bullying and we think of these young innocent children who don't have their own defenses about them, but it goes further than that.
Ashlie: (10:56)
It's not just the young kids. I think that having comments like this is bullying in itself and I really wish that there were more strict regulations when it comes to the commenting process with the algorithm to weed out these people and teach them a lesson. I have to tell you as you sit there listening, Facebook does not care much for police. I will just tell you that based on many times that either myself or our social media team has tried posting things of relevance, nothing that violates the terms or the code of conduct as it pertains to Facebook. And we've been thrown in Facebook jail a significant amount of times simply based on the fact that they pick up on words such as police and law enforcement and they don't like it. And yet, they allow these types of comments to just grow and they take off like a virus because when one idiot decides to post something like that, other people think it's okay and they start to follow suit. And sure, there are a very few amount of defenders, but a level headed person doesn't want to get into some behind the screen argument and social fights over something that's as irrelevant as an idiot deciding to post such a bad comment about somebody in you know their death and it's too bad. It's too bad that right now this is the way that the wave is working when it comes to technology. And I feel like it's just another asset when it comes to the disassociation between humanity and technology. Really pulling the distance from that.
Ashlie: (12:50)
It didn't use to be this way. I remember the feelings. I remember what it was like to live in a world where we had to go look things up in a library. And of course, don't get me wrong, there are so many benefits for social media, but I also believe that there is an important amount of responsibility and I hope as you listen that you would agree with that and I hope that if you have kids, I couldn't imagine if we had kids and not sharing the importance of the responsibility of making sure that the person that you are behind the screen is the person that matches who you are in real life. That's important and when you lose that, that really disconnects who you are from your true identity and people can just play pretend and when they start to play pretend online, it makes me wonder how much of that is going to transpire into their real life. That's scary. When you think about it.
Ashlie: (14:05)
And as you sit there and listen, it's just my hope that any time that you are on social media, if you do see somebody acting that way, one simple tactic that I've used is by getting different websites, different telephone numbers as it pertains to bullying, and just simply saying, 'hey, listen, I think you can use this website right now' and leaving it at that. And when they click on that and they see that it's a proponent against bullying or against cyber threats or any type of media, social media disturbance, then that's really you being the bigger person. And when you're able to understand that there's a real person that exists behind every post, every article, everything you read, they love, they feel they hurt the same way you do, then you're really able to enjoy your Tactical Living.
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