Hands up, don't shoot, and I can't breathe.

The matter is continuing because it's important. Americans with black skin have had it very rough for a very long time. The police, while not of a single, uniform organization, have done many remarkable and honorable things over the years. It's tragic that these two communities have to be in conflict.

I'm not black, nor am I a police officer. I am wholly unqualified to pass judgment on this issue. Still, when has that ever stopped anyone?

This escalated when the proper authorities declined to investigate. That was a mistake. The public was not insisting on a conviction; the family, friends, and community at large were not asking for the officers in question to be thrown in a cell right away. They simply wanted the system to follow its proper procedure, for an investigation to occur.

From a purely pragmatic perspective, it was a mistake to not indict the officers. The matter should have been investigated.

There have been accusations of a police state, of martial law; at the very least, there has been an increase in anti-police sentiment, of a correlation between a badge and racism. While certain departments could probably see better representation in the communities serve, the backlash against police in general has been too vitriolic.

Likewise, there have been members of police departments across the country who have condemned anyone who expresses dissatisfaction with the way either high-profile case has been handled. I'm referring to the 'back-turning' incident on the mayor of New York and statements made by police spokespeople about athletes donning 'can't breathe' and 'hands up' t-shirts. This crusade against the protests, too, are an overreaction.

The matter has become too complicated to say we can fix all this with a proper investigation into the officers who ended the lives of these black men; however, the level of turmoil could have been avoided if those investigations had happened when they were supposed to.

Most of us are bystanders in this. I certainly am. The best we can do right now is not add fuel to the fire; support the federal investigations if you believe there was wrongdoing, and encourage the spotlit officers to be cooperative and forthright in their testimonies if you believe them innocent. The thing that none of us should do is lash out at those who disagree with us.

We can't undo what was done, but we can decide to quit making things worse. Let's do that, shall we?