OregonWriter14
Really Experienced
- Joined
- Jul 21, 2014
- Posts
- 148
- 1992, Los Angeles:
- Rodney King, a Black man, gets beat up by White cops.
- The White cops are acquitted by a jury of mostly (10 of 12) White suburbanites.
- The Blacks of Los Angeles riot and -- ready for this? -- burn and loot mostly Black, Asian, and Latino neighborhoods, killing 50+ people, the majority of whom were Black or Latino, not White.
- Really?
- 2014, Ferguson:
- Michael Brown, a Black man, is killed by a White cop.
- In response, the Blacks of Ferguson riot and loot -- yes, you should expect this -- mostly Black neighborhoods.
- And now a second man has been shot because he brandished a fire arm at a cop who -- with total justification -- shot him, a killing that was caused by the rioters, not the cops.
- Really?
And how do the people of Ferguson justify continuing that lawlessness after video is released of Michael Brown bullying a store owner half his size after being confronted for stealing just a few minutes before being shot.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying that the shooting was justified. Like the rest of the world, I don't have enough information to assess whether or not it was a "clean shoot".
But then, that's my point. No one -- particularly the people currently destroying their own neighborhoods in Ferguson -- has enough information at this point to justify any response other than demanding answers. How are they going to feel if the autopsies -- 3 of them -- all show that Brown's hands were not up when he was shot, that the bullet trajectories and powder burns (if any) show that his hands were stretched out before him, as he tried to seize the police officer's weapon?