I was not the person who had the badge or gun. I grew up in a family of law enforcement people, stayed married to someone in law enforcement for 25 years until divorce and many more in the family have chosen that career path.

My perspective on this situation is the combination of being a civilian having knowledge of law enforcement, as well as being a parent myself. I am sorry for the parents of Rachel Hoffman in the loss of their daughter. Especially to parents,the loss of a child is a painful and traumatic experience no matter what the circumstances, but there are always more family members hurt too, so let's not forget those folks as well.

The "Rachel's Law" however, is one of the most ridiculious laws passed in the State of Florida. Let's start by placing the blame where problems originate, which is the parents. If you had an open line of communication with your daughter as you should have, it was up to YOU to get that young lady the help she needed to stop using as well as selling drugs, so you failed. If you had been truly concerned about Rachel, as many times as she had been arrested before, why were you not taking any corrective action and screaming to the top of your lungs for "changes to the system" until she died?!?!? Laws should be passed that are pro-active to prevent these tragedies, not reactive, so I blame the Florida Legislative System as well for this situation. It's absurd to find fault with TPD, or any other police agency who is unfortunate enough to get involved in a situation, where if people would have been more responsible for their OWN actions....they would have never met!