Black lives matter? Yes, of course. But that issue seems to have inspired the killings of Blue Lives. All lives matter, no matter what color: white, brown, yellow and black.

I am brown. I used to be blue. I survived that life, retired from it and went back to being brown.

I used to be a cop, a deputy sheriff in Florida. I worked as a jailer and as a road patrol officer as well.

During our gun range training, we were told that if we find ourselves in fear for our lives, we can use deadly force, pull out our sidearms and shoot several times. We practiced in shooting that way at targets, over and over, until it became second nature to us.

And over and over, we were also told to shoot only in fear for our lives. In self-defense only, in other words.

While working at this job, I also found out that most of the 911 calls we responded to – the violent as well as the petty crimes – involved blacks.

So, for us, cops, that fact got ingrained in our heads, that when we see a black man roaming the streets, we closely watched him. Right away, he’s a suspect. We checked him out. And depending on the “suspect’s” reaction and situation, that can escalate into a shooting.

Shootings were rare incidents during my time as a cop. Except in the gun range to shoot at paper targets and to clean it afterward, my sidearms never left my holster.

Black lives matter. Blue lives, too. But why all these shootings now between these two lives? It’s disheartening.

– Jesse Jose