Rachel Eliza Griffiths

My parents met in Washington, D.C.

They were both police officers, and that's how they met.

My dad was a rookie.

My mother was his training officer.

He asked her out for a date, and that's part of my birth story now.

And so, again, for me, it's that kind of real contradictory space of, you know, my parents were officers.

I have family members in law enforcement.

And yet it can be a same moment where I'm kind of getting body slammed to the ground.

And so, you know, that's just really complicated.

There's not an easy way to explain that.

And I'm unwilling to make some flat general statement about law enforcement.

Because I see the faces of my parents in their uniforms.

I see the faces of law enforcement who helped my husband and I when we went through just this worst time.

So it's very complicated for me.

And I'm sad now in that moment for those officers, whatever mourning they had or what they were going through, that they felt that that was the appropriate action in that circumstance.

You know, I was not armed.

I was not violent.

I was very weak and troubled, but I was not, you know, threatening.

I think it changed the course of my childhood.

When you have a loved one who is diagnosed with something like kidney disease, the trajectory of the family changes.