Another black man shot and killed in North St. Louis County probably isn’t going to help matters:
An armed man was shot and killed by police in Berkeley, Mo. on Tuesday night, police said. The shot man was black, according to media reports.
The shooting happened a few miles from Ferguson, where a white police officer fatally shot Michael Brown in August, sparking months of civil unrest.
St. Louis County police spokesman Sgt. Brian Schellman said a police officer saw two males at the side of a gas station while conducting a routine business check at about 11:15 p.m. He approached them and one of the men pulled a handgun and pointed it at the officer, Schellman said in a statement.
“Fearing for his life, the Berkeley Officer fired several shots, striking the subject, fatally wounding him. The second subject fled the scene,” Schellman said.
While I don’t believe, as Dan Gainor apparently does, that the protests are a measure of a “war on police”, I think it’s beyond doubt that some of the protestors are indeed engaged in such a war.
And when public figures speak out in support of the protestors trying to pick and choose among which protestors you’re supporting is fruitless. As I said yesterday, violent criminals move among the protestors as fish swim in the sea.
<“…. violent criminals move among the protestors as fish swim in the sea.”
And, when you have too many people in the crowd committing acts of violence that go on without any consequences, such as being arrested, you eventually can end up with “inmates running the institution” kind of mayhem. Already in NYC we’ll hearing how inroads and reforms are being set back decades by too much leniency being shown towards protesters’ inappropriateness, as well as failing to walk a fairer middle line in defending justified police conduct.
This kind of incoherent “justice” saturates what happened in Ferguson. Even in the case of Michael Brown’s supposed “friend,” Dorian Johnson, who was with Brown when he lifted merchandise from a convenience store, then hyped the encounter with Wilson and perjured himself, he has now been given a job (rather than a day in court) with the city of St. Louis, hired under a state grant — having absolutely no accountability for the criminal roles he played earlier in the Ferguson episode. It’s all kind of amazing, IMO.