<p>Wow! I go out for the evening to come back and find that someone forgot the first rule of shovels while under the influence. </p>
<p>On a more serious note . . . protests both peaceful and otherwise have no bearing on the shooting of Michael Brown. People could “burn the city down” as was suggested was happening earlier and it would not impact the rightness or wrongness of killing that boy for the crimes of stealing cigars or jaywalking or talking back or whatever it was that people are blaming it on. He is dead. He is not out in the street busting things up. The bad judgement of others in the wake of Brown’s death cannot become some kind of retroactive justification for the shooting. </p>
<p>This is not a matter of guesswork or opinion. I will give you the unequivocal answer. Yes. Drunk driving is a crime. I cannot believe I’m sitting here watching someone defend drunk driving.</p>
<p>You said you’ve been driving for 22 years, so you’re at least 38 years old. Based on the speciousness of your arguments, I had the impression that you’re 19. But you are thirty friggin eight years old, and cannot see what’s wrong with drunk driving. You need to get some professional help.</p>
<p>I can’t speak for others, but that is not what I think. I think the officer for some reason snapped. Maybe he had a fight with his wife or his boss. Maybe he just got assigned to this part of Ferguson, and wasn’t used to the mouthy black kids. Since, as you say, the Ferguson PD doesn’t exactly have a stellar record in dealing with its black residents, maybe he picked up that attitude at the station. But what seems certain is that a white police officer used excessive force to stop an unarmed black kid. </p>
<p>LasMa, what kind of help? I don’t drink and drive anymore. I’m lucky nothing bad happened (aside from about $8000 in fines and legal fees) when I was caught (or any other time).</p>
<p>What do you do to blow off stress? That would be a good start.</p>
<p>The question is how did we decide as a society that black males are by nature scary? If the bar for shooting an individual is a feeling of being threatened then it’s just open season on black males based on nothing more than the idea that they could be dangerous. That is a very low bar in a society that still struggles with racial prejudice. We can’t just go around making preemptive strikes against everyone who scares us for no reason other than a preconceived idea of who they might be.</p>
<p>If we completely forget about stealing cigars, pushing someone around, whatever happened before he was put in the car…and consider that the possibility that a number of shots were fired inside of the car because there was a struggle for the police officers gun (or at least the cop THOUGHT there was a struggle for the gun)…does the possibility of what followed make sense? Do people actually think that the officer calmly shot him in the back, and then after he (supposedly) stopped, turned around and put his hands up, he purposefully and calmly executed him?</p>
<p>I think there are some cops who are power crazy and complete jerks, but I really don’t think there are many who would purposefully do this. Fear and adrenalin are powerful things. We give these cops so much power and responsibility, at such a young age, just like soldiers. It alarms me.</p>
<p>$8000 in fines and fees doesn’t raise a red flag for you??? When was the last time you drank anything and then drove?</p>
<p>You know, I used to use alcohol to blow off stress. In fact, I’m a recovering alcoholic. I drank heavily from freshman year in college until the age of 30. At that point, I realized it was making a wreck of my relationships and my health, and that alcohol was controlling my life. When the day came that I realized I couldn’t go a single day without it, that was the day I decided I needed to get free of it before it killed me (and possibly someone else). I haven’t had a drink since then, going on 30 years. </p>
<p>To blow off stress, I have done all kinds of things over the last 30 years. Exercise and yoga, long walks, hanging with loved ones and pets. Journalling has been really helpful at various times. And once the alcohol was gone, I started paying attention to my diet and my sleep. Trying to stay in balance makes a big difference in being able to handle stress. Plus, not being either drunk or hungover all the time enabled me to address stressful situations much more constructively.</p>
<p>Yes . . . yes I do believe that he shot Brown in cold blood. I don’t care if he was afraid or adrenalized. He is supposed to be a professional and he wasn’t in a combat zone. He was an armed man in an SUV confronting 2 unarmed teens on foot about nothing in particular. I do not believe that there was a struggle for the gun, but either way there would have been no chance of a struggle and no shooting if the officer hadn’t drawn it.</p>
<p>It’s like the struggle for George Zimmerman’s gun. If I was walking home and a grown man was following me closely and accosted me and it turned out he had a gun I would run or struggle for the gun - whichever seemed more prudent at the moment. My struggling for the gun to save my life would not constitute a justification for killing me.</p>
<p>In this case to struggle for the gun at the car door would be just stupid and counter intuitive. It would go completely against training and self preservation. </p>
<p>busdriver . . . I don’t know if you fall into the same bad habit of reading comments on local news outlet web sites, but in the short period that Marshawn Lynch was accused of assault these same kinds of knee jerk ugly comments were instantaneous. For the record, he was sequestered in the team hotel under curfew and bed check rules for training camp when he was accused of assault and property damage for some incident at 2am (not sexual assault). Good thing for him the team could prove that he was at the team hotel and he was cleared, but that didn’t stop the public from saying really horrible things about him where thug was just the tip of the iceberg. I am up and out early and I often wonder who has the energy to be that vitriolic at 4:30 am. However, there are people out there who seem to be just primed and ready to pounce and be proved right in every ounce of hatred that they have.</p>
<p>I’m a bit younger than that and I don’t usually do much texting. Never really cared to do it as many others do.</p>
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<p>Take 1-3 mile walks every 2 days or daily whenever possible, listen to music…especially fast-paced punk/pop-punk, play electric guitar, hang out with friends and family whenever possible, read history/poli-sci books/journal articles/dissertations, read novels, discuss/debate current events/history/politics/etc, take pictures of natural/street scenes, etc. </p>
<p>I do enjoy drinking occasionally and have had 5-6 drinks on occasion…and not just beers. Only buzzed twice in my life. Afterwards, I’d take public transportation home. </p>
<p>I was reading this piece which I found to be quite profound about fear and I rand across a horrifyingly sad and tragic incident that happened only last week. Words fail . . .</p>
<p>With that I think I’ll just trust that my Teutonic/Celtic looking boy will make it home safely tonight and head to bed. I am feeling very fortunate to be able to say that. :-< </p>
<p>Interesting that the same groups who are presently criticizing the Ferguson police for being over-armed, over-reactive and heavy-handed, are the same groups that derided the gun-rights people for being paranoid about the potential for an abusive State… </p>
<p>I have been pulled over by traffic cops several of times in my 40+ years of driving, and I’m guessing I’m not alone. A question for the white posters here: When you’ve been pulled over, did you have a pretty good idea of the reason? I know I always have. That is not the experience of black drivers.</p>
<p>Bass is college-educated and wealthy, but is still harassed as if he’s a street thug on a rampage:</p>
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<p>He continues:</p>
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<p>… which is ample cause for suspicion in the eyes of a virtually all-white police force.</p>
<p>The article concludes:</p>
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<p>For the white posters here: What if you, and everyone you knew, were frequently and routinely pulled over for no reason? How would you react to that? </p>
<p>Similar to Post #573, it is also interesting that the same groups who are so careful not to call Brown a felon are the same who openly use the word rapist for male college students.</p>
<p>The chastising of posters who use the word felon is 180 degrees different than the treatment of many college males who also were never charged or convicted of the felony of rape, yet they are labeled rapists; rapists are felons.</p>
<p>What is even more interesting is that posters were told that by not calling uncharged and unconvicted college male students rapists that they are supporting the rape culture. I wonder if not calling a robbery suspect a felon is considered implicit support for the burglary and strong-arm robbery culture?</p>
<p>When my now 23 year old son was a teen, he frequently went out with HS friends to the local wing joint, bowling, movies, mall etc…before he left, I would hug him and say a prayer. That he would return in one piece. A group of young black me in a car can be an invitation to police. Remember the case of the black college males on the Jersey Turnpike many years ago? It’s quite early & the details are fuzzy but I can still see them face down and handcuffed. </p>
<p>When my son hops into the car to drive or as the passenger, he will often times forget to buckle up. I always stress how he can’t do anything to bring unwanted attention by the police. Even a seat belt stop could turn into tragic events for him. </p>
<p>It’s a sad reality that we live with. </p>
<p>Someone mentioned up thread about having a newborn baby placed in your arms…bright futures etc…one of my first thoughts after being told “It’s a boy!!!” was this…What kind of discrimination will be face as a black male? Sad isn’t it? With all that huge box of joy, came so much fear for his well being. </p>
<p>@Lasma,</p>
<p>We call is DWB or WWB. Happens all the time. It’s a fact of life. </p>
<p>NewHaven, it is a fact of life for black Americans, especially men, but it is so far removed from white Americans’ experience that they find it hard to believe. Some won’t believe it, or don’t understand why decades of this treatment lead to the rage we are seeing in Ferguson. But i think much of white America is having its eyes opened, and is shocked and outraged.</p>
<p>And yes, it is very sad that your first thought upon meeting your baby boy had to be fear for his future safety. That is an indictment of all the Ferguson PDs all over this country.</p>
<p>How can they understand if it has never happened to them as a whole? I bet many will never understand what we face. Even the woman who was walking barefoot on the freeway in CA was beaten by cops…really? I would bet a blond haired, blue eyed woman would have been whisked to safety, not brutalized. </p>