"After police in Kenosha, Wis., shot my 21-year-old son to death...

[Whiskeytide]

... outside his house ten years ago — and then immediately cleared themselves of all wrongdoing — an African-American man approached me and said: 'If they can shoot a white boy like a dog, imagine what we’ve been going through.'

I could imagine it all too easily, just as the rest of the country has been seeing it all too clearly in the terrible images coming from Ferguson, Mo., in the aftermath of the killing of Michael Brown. On Friday, after a week of angry protests, the police in Ferguson finally identified the officer implicated in Brown's shooting, although the circumstances still remain unclear.

I have known the name of the policeman who killed my son, Michael, for ten years. And he is still working on the force in Kenosha.

Yes, there is good reason to think that many of these unjustifiable homicides by police across the country are racially motivated. But there is a lot more than that going on here. Our country is simply not paying enough attention to the terrible lack of accountability of police departments and the way it affects all of us—regardless of race or ethnicity. Because if a blond-haired, blue-eyed boy — that was my son, Michael — can be shot in the head under a street light with his hands cuffed behind his back, in front of five eyewitnesses (including his mother and sister), and his father was a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who flew in three wars for his country — that’s me — and I still couldn’t get anything done about it, then Joe the plumber and Javier the roofer aren’t going to be able to do anything about it either."


Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/08/what-i-did-after-police-killed-my-son-110038.html#ixzz3AryHKq8D

It's Politico - so, you know... but it was interesting.

It makes me wonder if the first problem might not be black v white (though, certainly, that's a huge problem), but instead blue v not blue.

[villager]

1. or 1% versus the rest of us. LAPD stopped me a lot more when they thought I was poor

...especially when I was driving a bent-fender car for awhile.

Usually on chickenshit things -- "you didn't signal a lane change," or whatever they could make up.

They were doubtless disappointed to find a middle aged white dude inside, and no clouds of reefer smoke billowing out, thus making them work harder for the night's shakedown quota.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. Blue vs. not-blue is at least some part of it, I think.

And it's been that way for a long time. I used to know a number of cops about 25 years ago because of my work and some personal relationships. Although on a one-to-one basis they seemed like pleasant, nice people (if you were their friends, or friends of friends), I was told in so many words that to them, the world is divided into two classes of people: cops and assholes. In other words, if you are not a cop you are at least presumed to be an asshole. That presumption is, of course, much greater (virtually irrebuttable) if you are also black or other person of color and/or a resident of a poor neighborhood. If you are white the presumption that you are an asshole still exists, but is lesser - unless you are a "hippie," that is to say, a member of some group that is demonstrating against some "establishment" thing. The cops expect their authority to be respected.

So, we now have this toxic stew of racism, cops-vs.-everybody else, and the more recent militarization of the police, both in terms of equipment and mindset. And that brings us to Ferguson, and god knows what will follow.

[Whiskeytide]

3. "...and god knows what will follow"

That's what most concerns me. I'm afraid we're at a tipping point. Unrest is going to start breaking out around the country when these events occur. And they will occur. The question is, will the authorities yield to or be responsive to the voice of the protests? Or put them down?