Here are some unpopular thoughts and musings I have been having about Ferguson. It could just be because I have been watching The Wire (Season 3!), but anyway I don’t hear this on any media and I think it gets the closest to the truth.
- Michael Brown got his justice. He attacked a cop, in his car, after robbing a store. He then charged that cop. He never put his hands up, that is just liberal agenda based media spin.
- I don’t feel that sorry for his parents. Sure it sucks they lost their son, no one should have to though that, but it seems pretty clear they did a bad job of raising him and keeping him away from bad elements. Ferguson isn’t west Baltimore or Watts or Compton. He had options and choices. Sure, they were hard but there was opportunity. He didn’t appear to take advantage of any of them.
- Cops are a tight nit brotherhood. They go through a lot and really only have themselves and their families that care about them. It is not an easy job, especially today with forces like defense attorneys and the Al Sharptons of the world keeping them in check. This is a necessary check though. We as a society give these people massive power. It must be held accountable.
- This is why when a cop is killed they go rabid. One of their own, one of the only people who care about them has been killed. They go all out, a lot more than if you or me was killed. Perhaps it just because they are desensitized to us getting killed but not their own. Is that a good thing? No. Is that a reality we need to judge things by? Yes.
- I ranted about the militarization of the police here before, but it is still a problem. The Police Military Industrial Complex feeds these incidents and raids. Most of it is in vain due to a failed war on drugs and an overreaction to the war on terror. These are things people don’t want to think about, preferring to just make it black and white (on either side.) but it is not. This is a complex problem with root causes no politician wants to face because it opens them up to attack. They think the American people can’t be rational about this. Perhaps they are right.
- Prosecutors and police are like Peas and Carrots. They go hand in hand. You can’t build a successful case as a DA without the cooperation of the police. They need the evidence and the testimony of the police. They cannot step outside those bounds and be seen going after a cop. That is a sure way to kill your career which is based off networking. Most DAs want to run for office, as a DA or a judge. Good luck getting elected if you cross the police. Even if they leave and become defense attorneys they need connections with judges inside the system to win cases. Burning those bridges to prosecute a cop who you know is innocent? Not likely.
- And that brings us to the Grand Jury. Most Grand Juries are shams used by prosecutors to get a trial. They are short and only show the prosecutor’s side. Not this one. The DA did his best to show all the evidence, acting really as a defense attorney for Officer Wilson. He was not trying to get that case to trial. By him being fair and showing all the evidence he did his side a massive blow. Was it justice? Perhaps, but it was outside the way of things are done and the system we have setup. It looks great to the media and the pundits because they can spin it pro cop.
- Would Officer Wilson have won a trial? Hard to say, but based the evidence we have, it looks like it. He was denied this chance to defend himself in open court. He was also spared months of heartache and huge financial bills. He avoided the finicky nature of a jury and the chance he could have been convicted. Which would not have been justice. You have realize the circus this trial would have been and what he would have gone through. It would have been a nightmare for him.
- So in the end the right result was reached, but it was unfair and biased and that is the way our system works. Even as we try to make police accountable huge forces work against that and they have a lot of money and resources. There number one weapon though is the ignorance, especially of white America, of what the system really is and how it really works. People don’t want to know these details, they want to think of police as Andy Griffith, but the reality is far, far from Mayberry.
