If a police officer had been gunned down in broad daylight in the middle of the street by a young black man, the suspect's name would have been released within minutes, charges would have been formally filed within hours and the suspect would have been taken into custody as soon as humanly possible.
Since it was a young black man gunned down in broad daylight in the middle of the street by a police officer, it is now days later and the suspect's name has not been released, charges have not been formally filed and the suspect has been put on paid vacation while the police department runs through sequential conflicting versions of the story it is putting together until it has everyone worn out and confused enough not to burn the city down when it announces "we've determined that the un-named police officer was acting according to department policy."
Like the pigs (equivalency definitely intended) in Animal Farm said, "all animals are equal -- but some animals are more equal than others."
Tamara noticed this morning that the victim lived in Canfield Green, an apartment complex that we considered moving into a couple of years ago. If you've never been to Ferguson, don't take the media portrayals of it as "ghetto town" seriously. It's a nice, normally peaceful, lower-middle-class suburb (apropos of the race-baiting, it's not "as black" as the town I lived in for 12 years, 4 or 5 miles to the south). I've driven every last one of Ferguson's streets and probably sold ice cream to the victim when he was a young kid.
Ferguson is the kind of town where it takes a lot to get a crowd out on the street facing down armed thugs with badges.
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