Teachers back the blue

Whenever people see the blue stripe on the back of Rhonda Hamilton’s car, they may wonder if her window is damaged. Hamilton’s response is: “I’m backing the blue.”

Wednesday morning, Hamilton and more than a dozen teachers at Pilot Point Elementary School to take a photo wore gray T-shirts that read “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” on the back in support of local police. Teachers also had the back windows of their car striped with blue tape to support the Pilot Point officers.

“I think it’s good for the community to realize that this is a safe place,” said Hamilton, a teacher’s aide at the school. “We wanted to raise awareness in the community to show our respect and care for the officers that protect our community.”

Hamilton said she was motivated to raise awareness because of the shooting deaths of five Dallas police officers in downtown Dallas July 7-8.

Hamilton’s son, Aaron Hamilton, works for the Irving Police Department. On the night of the shooting, she texted her son, asking him to call her and say if he was OK.

“I just want to hear your voice,” she recalled telling him in the text. “A mama needs to hear her son’s voice.

“It was a very emotional time for me because he was out there driving around knowing what had just taken place.”

The Dallas shootings “solidified my thought that the people that quietly support the police needed to step up and show their support in public,” Hamilton said.

“Our peacekeepers do a job that most of us couldn’t do,” she said.

Hamilton said people’s perception of the police is wrong. She wants to do what she can to change their perception

“I just think that people need to see the police in a different light,” Hamilton said.

On a ride along with her son, Hamilton was impressed with how he interacted with the citizens of Irving.

“It’s quite amazing to see your son’s gift of gab,” she said. “It was awesome to see my son handle himself so well.”