Some thoughts on Furgeson, Police, and such matters

There's a saying that the person who cries wolf one too many times, is ignored when the actual wolf shows up.

Crying victim, when one is not a victim leaves absolutely no sympathy when one ends up truly being a victim of whatever it happens to be. I'm afraid this is something that happens far too much in the African American community. Are their situations of race relations that happen? Absolutely! Are their situations where police abuse their power? Absolutely! But just because something happens does not automatically mean that one is victim of racism or a form of abuse.

Rioting and looting makes you (and everyone else) look horrible, what change does that cause? Other than giving the police and authorities more reason to use power, I can't think of any justice that happens.

Look, it's a tragedy when anyone dies...regardless of whether they were guilty or innocent...it's not within our nature to rejoice at the death of an innocent person. (Unless by some way there's a type of mental problem)...in particular if the person is young....we imagine that person to be our kids, or someone that we know, and we wonder, what if it was them.

Just like in the Trayvon situation, there's a media that puts agenda over substance. Nobody waits for the facts and reports on speculation...(which this isn't to say that speculation isn't a good thing)...but the speculation needs to be corrected when the facts come out for the case. And I blame BOTH the conservative and liberal media sources.

I can't say it's justified to shoot a person 6 times to stop an aggressor...but the need for a person to be able to defend themselves is always justified. Did the officer act in disproportion to what was necessary? I'd say so...(the two shots in the head were probably too much)...Did the officer have a right to defend himself from being attacked? Absolutely!

People are showing somethings about Michael with distasteful things...what that has to do with the particular date of interest, we don't know...and it should NOT be assumed that these issues had anything to do with the events of that day. What was known is that he was involved with a robbery...he was illegally walking on the street for which he was stopped.

The man broke the law....I can most certainly agree that he didn't deserve to die, but I'm not out to absolve anyone from anything in this situation. Both sides could have acted differently and this would not have happened.

The rioting is flat out ridiculous. Since when does destroying your own community make things better? It would not surprise me if the rioters were planted as to create a situation of unrest. It seems there were peaceful protesters until a few nutjobs showed up. But it's interesting that at the conservative rallies you don't see this type of unrest....why is it that unrest happens at those places of liberal persuasion more often than not?

But I must say there is something that does concern me big time....the militarization of our police....It's not that I don't believe that there should be access for extreme situations (I do) or even that the police need to be armed (most certainly they do)...the issue is that police do not need to be handling things like military operations. Recall, didn't we have a separation for this and many other reasons, when military were openly going into homes. (Fortunately it's against the law without proper warrants (but hey, since when did THAT stop the government?))

As I've said, there are situations that very well require the police to have this kind o gear, but those in general are few and far between with respect to the whole. Just like any other people or organization there are temptations for corruption and abuse of power, and these should be minimized.

If someone is unarmed, there should not be a need to shoot them a ton of times to get them to stop doing what they are doing...(key word should) now, someone being 6'4 290...obviously it is going to take a greater deal of force to stop the massive object. (a = F/m), so while I do not justify the death of a person, or even the measure taken to stop him, I see why a ton of effort was made. Now I don't know the height and weight of the officer in question either...so it makes for interesting situatio.

Julie at her blog Connecticut Catholic Corner has some good thoughts on why we should keep our police well armed, and I tend to agree, but I also believe that it's important that power not be used corruptly.

Pax Vobis