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A cardinal in the grass. Just because.
One of my university colleagues came in the other day to find her copy of my book IMMORTAL MUSE inexplicably on her office floor rather then on her bookshelf where she'd put it. I told her that her office was obviously inhabited by a poltergeist critic.
I’m finding the news about the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO extremely disturbing. The behavior of the Ferguson police department, in my opinion, deserves condemnation. The release of the convenience store video allegedly showing Brown robbing the store, especially given the fact that it’s being released four days after the fact and in conjunction with the naming of the officer involved, makes it appear that the Ferguson PD is playing “blame the victim” and trying desperately to shift attention away from Brown’s death.
The truth is that it doesn’t matter if Brown robbed a convenience store or not, any more than it matters if a victim of sexual assault was dressed “provocatively.” Brown was unarmed. Even if he was guilty of stealing a box of cigars from the store (still unproven), he didn’t deserve die for that. A fleeing, unarmed suspect doesn’t ‘deserve’ to be fired upon as many times as he was, or at all. Nor does it appear the officer was aware that Brown was a suspect in the robbery, in which case Brown’s terrible offense was that he was walking in the middle of the street.
Even more strange is that while the Ferguson PD has made public all the documents related to the convenience story robbery, they still haven’t released anything official regarding the shooting at this point. We don’t _know_ what the officer involved has said. We don’t know how many shots were fired; we don’t know how many times Brown was hit or where. We’ve heard from eyewitnesses; we’ve yet to hear from the officer or his attorneys or the police department as to their version of the events. What we have seen is that the Ferguson police department likes to play amateur soldier with Big Military Toys, and that when they do, they’re entirely abusive and end up ratcheting up the tension rather than relieving it. We should thank whomever had the wisdom to bring in Capt. Ron Johnson of the Missouri Highway Patrol, who has been a beacon of sanity in the chaos.
What will relieve the tension is transparency. What will relieve the tension is open communication. What will relieve the tension is giving the public whatever facts are available rather than holding them back. At this point, though, it may be too late. No matter what’s said now, after the events of the last four days, positions have polarized, too much time has passed, and believing the truth of any of it is going to be difficult.
Right now this absolutely reeks of cover-up by the police and I completely understand the frustration of the citizens of Ferguson. It’s possible, I suppose, that this was just abysmal handling of a critical situation by the police, but heads need to roll from the top down, starting with a police chief who appears to be tone deaf to what people are asking him.
It’s difficult for me to conceive of any scenario where Brown deserved to shot down. I don’t care if he stole some cigars, I don’t care if he was verbally abusive to a police officer, or if there was some physical contact with the officer. It would have cost the officer nothing but time to let Brown run away in that moment, to call for back-up, and arrest him later if that was found to be warranted. But the cost now--in trust, in police/community relations, in simple compassion for other human beings -- is past all measure.
The truth is that it doesn’t matter if Brown robbed a convenience store or not, any more than it matters if a victim of sexual assault was dressed “provocatively.” Brown was unarmed. Even if he was guilty of stealing a box of cigars from the store (still unproven), he didn’t deserve die for that. A fleeing, unarmed suspect doesn’t ‘deserve’ to be fired upon as many times as he was, or at all. Nor does it appear the officer was aware that Brown was a suspect in the robbery, in which case Brown’s terrible offense was that he was walking in the middle of the street.
Even more strange is that while the Ferguson PD has made public all the documents related to the convenience story robbery, they still haven’t released anything official regarding the shooting at this point. We don’t _know_ what the officer involved has said. We don’t know how many shots were fired; we don’t know how many times Brown was hit or where. We’ve heard from eyewitnesses; we’ve yet to hear from the officer or his attorneys or the police department as to their version of the events. What we have seen is that the Ferguson police department likes to play amateur soldier with Big Military Toys, and that when they do, they’re entirely abusive and end up ratcheting up the tension rather than relieving it. We should thank whomever had the wisdom to bring in Capt. Ron Johnson of the Missouri Highway Patrol, who has been a beacon of sanity in the chaos.
What will relieve the tension is transparency. What will relieve the tension is open communication. What will relieve the tension is giving the public whatever facts are available rather than holding them back. At this point, though, it may be too late. No matter what’s said now, after the events of the last four days, positions have polarized, too much time has passed, and believing the truth of any of it is going to be difficult.
Right now this absolutely reeks of cover-up by the police and I completely understand the frustration of the citizens of Ferguson. It’s possible, I suppose, that this was just abysmal handling of a critical situation by the police, but heads need to roll from the top down, starting with a police chief who appears to be tone deaf to what people are asking him.
It’s difficult for me to conceive of any scenario where Brown deserved to shot down. I don’t care if he stole some cigars, I don’t care if he was verbally abusive to a police officer, or if there was some physical contact with the officer. It would have cost the officer nothing but time to let Brown run away in that moment, to call for back-up, and arrest him later if that was found to be warranted. But the cost now--in trust, in police/community relations, in simple compassion for other human beings -- is past all measure.
.