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While I agree completely with you, many in the black community see themselves as one people from POTUS on down and the hand slappin' in the culture says "we can only trust one another". They also have a lot invested in this event. From the eventual civil lawsuit to the rebuilding of their community.
Watts serves a perfect example. After the riots they built a brand new shiny hospital to serve the community. Millions were given to improve the community. 30 years later that same hospital, King Drew for forced to close due to mismanagement and most employees (who were black) treating it like their own private living room. Patients died, alarms were turned off. It was a profound shame and loss for the community. The L.A. Times won a Pulitzer Prize for the story. I was working there temp during the last months. What I learned was the black community when given things without working for them...ultimately they fail. The reasons are complex but here in Ferguson that is the goal. We want more is the chant. We will act like animals until you feed us. It is a simple transaction really and with deference to how hard POTUS is working these days, it's an easy sell. Now also you have varying curfews and no real authority. In Watts you had soldiers with fixed bayonets. Now everyone is all "squishy". No one in the command structure has any idea really what to do from the governor placing then lifting the curfew causing confusion to the Highway Patrol in Church talking about "my black son". It's an embarrassment. Rant button to OFF.
What concerns me now is the hysteria might actually get a good cop charged with a crime just to appease the madness.
We talked with family in St Louis last night. One of our relatives works in Ferguson. What we were told is that basically, the folks in Ferguson (black and white) want this to go to the Grand Jury and are appalled at the rioting and looting.
Whether this is a fact, or not, I have no way of knowing, but our relative told us that the majority of the people doing the marching and "carrying on" are not even Ferguson residents, which has been very upsetting to the people who do live there. People are coming in buses from other areas of the country and prolonging the misery.
This is why this country is in such a mess . . . people just making up their minds without knowing the facts.
All cops are racist haters.
All black men are victims.
Case closed.
And from the other perspective, all cops are heroes, and all young black men are criminal thugs.
My perspective on this case so far is this....we have a big kid with an obvious violent streak, probably the "bad ass" of his neighborhood, who thought nothing of robbing an physically assaulting someone.
And we have a cop who shot him 6 times it the middle of the street. I don't know that the cop had a big ego and a chip on his shoulder and overreacted, or was actually under attack from this kid. 6 shots on an unarmed person who you could easily run away from sounds excessive to me.
The facts remain to be seen, but I'm not seeing any "hero" here. In that aspect, it reminds me of the Trayvon Martin case. 2 wannabe tough guys who crossed each others paths, one ending up dead. In cases like this I think the guy with the weapon has a lot more responsibility to avoid conflict.
Includes the dispatch finding out about the shooting on the news. I believe they call the Ferguson department to see if they know about the shooting and Ferguson doesn't know either.
Goes to show they had no intentions of trying to revive him.
There's also more videos of the incident.
Interesting report from Johnson. Unless the other videos are revealed it may come down to the cops word against these eyewitnesses. Who will the grand jury believe. A decorated cop or a street thief.
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