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http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/columns/bill-mcclellan/mcclellan-memo-to-the-world-we-re-fine/article_2572f7a5-d177-52da-8797-e6ae072c5d69.html
The longer this goes on the more it looks like there may not have been any 'right' side to this awful incident. Photos have been released from a store security camera from a different incident which may, I repeat, may indicate that the late Michael Brown was not the innocent kid his parents and friends have claimed.
The one thing that struck me as this story developed was that the protests have spread no further than Ferguson. As the article above points out, Ferguson is a rather unexceptional suburban city in a county that has about 100 small cities and towns. And I personally learned from this article that the protests are largely self-confined to a small stretch of one main street.
While I rode the school bus to high school on a freeway along the north edge of Ferguson for four years, I probably haven't been in Ferguson proper since I was in grade school. My mother used to shop once in a while at a tiny old-fashioned department store on that street you probably seen on TV. It went out of business when the first shopping center in north St. Louis County was built not far away in a different suburban city.
My opinion of the police forces of the small cities of St. Louis County is not very favorable. The officers tended to be poorly trained and more than a bit careless about how they went about enforcing their tiny domains' statutes. It was surprising to hear that in this day and age, Ferguson with about a 50% African-American population only has two or three black police officers out of about 50. It wasn't Ferguson officers, but one day I was very tempted to call the State Highway Patrol to tell them about city police from a different St. Louis suburb that had parked blatantly illegally on a state highway to set up a speed trap. Apparently I wasn't the only one who noticed because the Highway Patrol did show up in the brief time I was there and they chased the local cops away. The St. Louis County Police officers, those in brown uniforms in any of the videos you may have seen, in my experience were much better trained and more reliable. I understand that the County Chief of Police had been replaced recently and judging from the past few days perhaps they need to rethink the appointment.
The longer this goes on the more it looks like there may not have been any 'right' side to this awful incident. Photos have been released from a store security camera from a different incident which may, I repeat, may indicate that the late Michael Brown was not the innocent kid his parents and friends have claimed.
The one thing that struck me as this story developed was that the protests have spread no further than Ferguson. As the article above points out, Ferguson is a rather unexceptional suburban city in a county that has about 100 small cities and towns. And I personally learned from this article that the protests are largely self-confined to a small stretch of one main street.
While I rode the school bus to high school on a freeway along the north edge of Ferguson for four years, I probably haven't been in Ferguson proper since I was in grade school. My mother used to shop once in a while at a tiny old-fashioned department store on that street you probably seen on TV. It went out of business when the first shopping center in north St. Louis County was built not far away in a different suburban city.
My opinion of the police forces of the small cities of St. Louis County is not very favorable. The officers tended to be poorly trained and more than a bit careless about how they went about enforcing their tiny domains' statutes. It was surprising to hear that in this day and age, Ferguson with about a 50% African-American population only has two or three black police officers out of about 50. It wasn't Ferguson officers, but one day I was very tempted to call the State Highway Patrol to tell them about city police from a different St. Louis suburb that had parked blatantly illegally on a state highway to set up a speed trap. Apparently I wasn't the only one who noticed because the Highway Patrol did show up in the brief time I was there and they chased the local cops away. The St. Louis County Police officers, those in brown uniforms in any of the videos you may have seen, in my experience were much better trained and more reliable. I understand that the County Chief of Police had been replaced recently and judging from the past few days perhaps they need to rethink the appointment.
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But what is the cop guilty of? Something surely. But was it ignorance? Deep seated prejudice? Panicking when a calm head was needed? Sadly there are always shades of grey and news reports from media who make a profit from making things sound as bad as possible are never going to give us any real answers. Maybe the FBI will figure it out, maybe they will just report whatever they think is the tidiest package politically.
There have been two instances here in Phoenix in the last year or so where families have called the police for help with family members who were known to be mentally ill, only to have the police shoot to kill. It didn't make international news even though the victims were minorities. You have to believe it was because there were no riots, no looting.
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