[In the name of the welfare state narrative], Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin have to be victims, not aggressors.
Still, the truth is that they were victims. Not victims of a mythical white power structure-the concept is laughable as applied to either [the Walter Mitty-like] George Zimmerman or Darren Wilson. And certainly not victims of a racist judicial system. On the contrary, in both cases America's court system rendered the right verdict under tremendous pressure to bend the truth to political expedience.
Rather, Martin and Brown were victims of an African-American culture in which the family has been pretty much destroyed, government checks have largely replaced employment, education is disparaged, criminality is respected, and racial animosity is a sign of authenticity. That culture...has been an utter disaster for millions of young black men like Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown.
Decency evolves: You are a former prosecutor. With several witnesses describing what clearly would have been a crime and the potential defendant seeking to exonerate himself, was there really an absence of the relatively low standard of probable cause to believe a crime had been committed? Do you really think the prosecutor was trying to establish probable cause, or was he simply fishing for a no bill? Is Officer Wilson's insistence that 300 pound Michael Brown struck him hard in the face consistent with the barely visible redness and abrasions depicted in the photos after the incident?
I think the case was indictable. I also think the wiser choice, fully within the prosecutor's discretion, was to leave it to a cross-section of the community, present them will all the evidence and fully drafted possible charges, then abide by their decision. I congratulate both the prosecutor and the grand jury members for not being intimidated by either the conventional liberal outrage at the prospective defendant, nor the threat (later carried out) of violence in the community.
I have been depressed, but not surprised, by the extent to which the activist defense bar has shown its true cops-are-Satan colors by its instantaneous and complete departure from its usual stance of indulging every presumption in favor of the putative criminal.
Bye-bye due process, hello hang-'em-high. It's enough to give hypocrisy a bad name. If those on the prosecution side publicly snarled this much at a potential defendant, the defense bar, in its former incarnation anyway, would be outraged, and properly so.
Inner city black culture has become increasingly anti-authoritarian/ anti-social to the point of self-destruction. This is the result when young black men are taught to confront and challenge an officer's lawful instructions.
ON the other side of the ledger,I believe a review of the current continuum of force model is advisable. I always thought that only sufficient force to stop the threat was justified. Somewhere over the last 30 years, the use of deadly force has become perhaps too easily justified?