Here come the racist trolls. God, you people have no shame.

Great article, Larry. At least some of us have a heart.

Good article. Die, racist filth.

..it may take me weeks to years to eke out some cogent thoughts and intelligent sentences on this, and i love you for trying. may i add that considering that the disenfranchisement of black youth is so deep and widespread it's a wonder that the tinderbox of unrest didn't spark and implode in other parts of the country. no.. not a wonder. it's a miracle that there hasn't been more 'riots' as there were in the 60's.what frightens me is how much worse will it get for that to happen or as james baldwin said it what about 'the fire next time'?

I don't think it's wrong to criticize the "overt" nature of the reaction. In some sense, everyone played a part, a part seen time and time again without change. The crying mother. The candles on the street. The out of town leaders streaming in to lead marches, and ask for donations.

What does it do?

The approach must be different. My theory is that people living in downtrodden communities would benefit from much more police presence rather than less. For every gangbanger, there are 99 thirteen year old kids trying to walk a few blocks to school without getting shot or coerced into joining. Where's the armored personnel carrier when that is happening?

Look at our own South King County. While so-called "leaders" touted the great Washington State Dream, this place has been an open air shooting gallery and mental ward. I long for artillery to be dragged up and down the streets until the psychopaths have all been driven away or jailed!

In the long tradition of Microsoft, instead of fighting the police, I say Embrace and Extend and turn your communities into safe prosperous middle class suburbs where such things as this never happen.

Supreme Ruler Of The Universe, think about that for a moment. You are blaming the fact that police shoot and kill unarmed people, almost always non-white people, on there not being enough police? When the police are the ones gunning unarmed boys and men in the street, more police will solve nothing. If anything more police means the culture of impunity, of might makes right, of solving the most minor of altercations with a hail of gunfire, that seems to permeate police departments across the country, would only grow, would become even more impenetrable.

The answer is not more police, that's a bad idea. A cohesive answer to this problem should take up many pages, books worth, but there are a couple things that absolutely need to happen.

1. Police officers who shoot unarmed people should be arrested, and then investigated. That is the course of action that would be taken against any other person who definitely shot an unarmed person. They would be arrested, police would investigate and accumulate evidence, a case would be built on both sides, and the officer should face trial by jury. Investigating internally, before deciding whether to arrest the officer, leads nowhere, and anyone who believes it can or would has not been paying attention.

2. Stop blaming the victims. Just a girl in a mini-skirt isn't asking to be raped, isn't insinuating anything about her character outside of that she likes to wear mini-skirts, no man, because he is black, native, latino or whatever, is insinuating that he is criminal or desires to inflict harm. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a racist, plain and simple.

3. Admit, since we are dealing with a culture of toughness, that shooting an unarmed person is something only a coward would do. The police who have shot John Williams, and Edward Garner, and Anthony Baez, and Michael Brown, and the hundreds of others we never hear about, are all cowards. So scared for their own life, with no evidence that it was even in danger, they shot these men repeatedly to save themselves. It's disgusting, ridiculous cowardice, and there is no excuse for it.

These are just a couple things that could happen, and relatively quickly. Eliminating centuries of stereotyping, vilifying, scapegoating, disenfranchising, and just straight up abuse, that have left so many groups of people in this country with an uphill battle to even break even with one group of people who, as a culture, have had everything handed to them, i.e. actually changing things fundamentally, is going to take much, much longer.

One elaboration: Arresting and then investigating would also send the message that police departments take the shooting of unarmed people seriously. What happens instead, always investigating and never arresting, sends just the opposite.

:Do those people not realize that our most eloquent, respectable leaders were all murdered in cold blood, all in their suits and ties?"

What the hell does this mean? I'll give you King, killed by some deranged cracker, but who killed Malcolm X? What other leaders? Who else exactly are you talking about? Jess? Sharpton? Garvey? Nope. Who are all these murdered leaders? And don't go on about Evers et al., I mean leaders in life. Who?

Maybe it "feels like" you haven't moved an inch. But what do you think? You really think blacks are where there were 150 years ago? 100? 50? And who is this "you"? Are blacks some monolith that all moves one way or another in unity? Because to me that would suck. But, sadly, it seems to be largely the case.

He tried to grab a police officers gun. I'd unload on him too.

Since everyone else is jumping to conclusions I might as well too. Keep blaming institutional slavery dumbasses, I thought you knew by now that what the pubic school and what Hollywood taught you were wrong.

@12 Fred Hampton Motherfucker!

@8 I'm starting to think that you're a cop. The cop-apologism and your handle "supreme ruler of the universe" just scream it. More cops, especially when the cops we have are attacking, shooting and killing us, is not the answer. If it was, that's what the people of Ferguson would be screaming for. The answer is making cops fucking accountable or getting rid of them entirely. I'd rather have no police than police who are free to hurt myself and others with impunity.

As long as cops are above their own law, they are completely at odds with their community. I hope they sleep well knowing that it's not just the criminals that hate them.

@8 I'd also like to point out that your theory has been tested. The war on drugs was a huge police clamp-down that in a very large part focused on gangs. The war on drugs was a catastrophic failure. More policing is NOT the answer. Never has been. It's not the gangs that force kids to join. It's the lack of opportunity and options. That's why kids in wealthier neighborhoods don't turn to gangs. It has very little to do with police presence.

More police presence, rather than proactively addressing the issues that cause young people to turn to violence, destroys communities.

In a small shopping center near where I spent my teen years, there was a small police station which was placed there is response to pretty widespread drug activity and general presence of shady and criminal people, and a good deal of minor violence.

Yet, that type of thing continued unabated.

They recently removed the police station and in its place put a Rita's, a chain of ice cream/smoothie stands.

Almost overnight, the criminal activity vanished and never returned. Turns out that when law abiding people and children occupy places, the criminal element moves on.

Functional, active communities are the answer, not cops.

@8 What fucking planet do you live on? There are no bad neighborhoods in Seattle. The whole city had 29 homicides in 2013, six of which were committed by police.

Good read Larry. Thank you.

And because I can't help myself:
JBITDMFOTP

Billy Chav can't see past his own worldview. "I'll give you King" he says - wow, how generous. It's not about where we where, it's about where we should be you insufferable fuck.

Juche just needs to DIAF already.