One of the saddest aspects of the affair—whether or not the policeman is guilty of anything—is the ignorance of the people concerning a matter such as this. The protocol is to put the policeman on administrative leave, gather the facts, turn them over to the prosecutor, who will take the case to a grand jury for a determination as to trial or not. The grand jury will make a decision and the matter will be settled. If the case goes to trial, charges will be brought and the judicial system will be engaged to discover guilt or innocence. Simple.
The so-called protesters in Ferguson demanded that the policeman be arrested and jailed, virtually within minutes of the shooting. He will be arrested if the grand jury determines the possibility of guilt and be given the opportunity to make bail like any other arrested person. This process could take months or even years as in the notorious Trayvon Martin case in Sanford, Florida, in 2012, in which the accused (not a policeman) was found innocent.
On 19 August in St. Louis about 2-3 miles from Ferguson, another black man who had made two trips into a store to steal things was accosted by the police and killed after he had threatened them with a knife. He was acting erratically at the time, according to media accounts, and may have been high on something or other. There was a fairly large gathering at that location of “protesters,” also, but there was no violence and none reported since then. The professional troublemakers like Jackson and Sharpton may show up for their photo-op, but St. Louis is not like the suburb of tiny Ferguson of 21,000 population, so inciting mischief may not be as attractive there.
Ironically, Holder added to the divisiveness already in place on the day a “leak” from the prosecutor's office (or somewhere) noted that Brown managed to break one of the eye-socket bones in Wilson's face and severely beat him before disobeying an order to “freeze” before lunging toward the officer and inviting the shots that killed him, none in his back. Holder, the country's top law-officer, did not visit with Wilson (total lack of support), but visited Brown's family. He and Obama both got in on the “outraged act” in the Trayvon Martin case in Sanford, Florida, in 2012, leading the public to believe that Martin's killer was white when he was actually a Latino.
The tragedy lies in the fact that Obama was supposed to “bring the country together,” a foolish mechanism used by most politicians out of power; however, Obama was in power when reelected in 2012. During the Obama/Holder era, the country has become so divided along racial lines that one wonders if this has been the plan of the two men all along. If so, they have succeeded, and Holder's trip having to do with a generic local murder case to which he's assigned at least 40 FBI agents is proof.
In a recent speech, Holder whined that Americans are cowards of some kind, perhaps not having the guts to face their racism. He was referencing only whites, of course, since racism does not exist in the black community. In another recent performance, he claimed that Obama's political opponents (especially evil republicans) operated on racist principles (or non-principles), not on the basis of statehood. It's this kind of garbage (hate-speech) that actually fuels racial hostilities across-the-board and is beneath contempt.
The looters made out in Ferguson (the main reason for the protesting), ruining, burning businesses and otherwise robbing store-owners of their sustenance. In this, they emulated Brown. What goes around comes around.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
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