What did that Panera Bread do to Michael Brown?
Congrats, drive-bys. You demagogued a local crime story for months and months. You did all you could to inflame emotions. You did a countdown to a grand jury verdict. (Get those molotov cocktails ready …) And you succeeded in further tearing apart a community. Job well done. You can now drive on to your next target — while the local people clean up the mess you agitated.
While I was a drive-by, I spent a lot of time covering both ends of the criminal justice system — the investigation and the ensuing court proceedings. I noticed something very interesting in the work of my fellow drive-bys — they regularly report stuff to their viewers / readers that the judge has ruled the jury is not to consider. So, the public absorbs those reports, and is stunned when an unexpected verdict comes back. (But, but, but The Today Show said … )
This morning, we got a lot of reporting on the grand jury in Missouri failing to indict the police officer in this particular shooting. We got a lot of footage that looked like the Palestinians vs. the Israelis on any given day. As an after-thought, one drive-by station aired comments from the local prosecutor, who mentioned that all of the eyewitnesses changed their stories when they went under oath. They admitted they really didn’t see much of the incident, and were repeating what htey heard on the street. It’s one thing to tell GMA something. It’s another to talk to a grand jury under oath.
Juries — trial juries and grand juries — are also given specific standards to meet and specific questions to answer in reaching a decision. (Is there evidence, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the defendant intended to do X?) If there is any doubt, you MUST vote to acquit. If all but one juror votes to convict, you have a mistrial — no conviction.
But the drive-bys don’t bother explaining to their readers / viewers these details. *They might get in the way of generating the violence, chaos, vandalism, and angry speeches that make such great TV / copy.*
We’ve seen this traveling circus before. They did it before with George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin in Florida. 
I am not blindly pro-cop. I have plenty of friends in law enforcement. I know there are a lot of folks in that field who are committed to doing good. I know – as in many fields – there are also some bad apples. While I was a drive-by, I did some investigative work on a corrupt North Carolina sheriff’s department. (What do I mean by corrupt? Oh – -things like individual officers seizing stuff during drug interdictions and keeping the booty, instead of giving it to the schools like the law says. Cops getting paid for private sector jobs while also being paid by the county for their police jobs. “Renting” law enforcement windbreakers, cop cars, handcuffs, and police-issue firearms and credentials to non-law enforcement folks to go do God-knows-what.) During that reporting, I got tipped off that the sheriff in question put up a bounty of $10,000 to any of his officers who could bring me in on a “resisting and obstructing a police officer” charge. (In other words, kick my butt and then throw me in a cell.)
That didn’t stop me. I ended up wiring my car for audio and video recording. I saw a lot of deputy vehicles — marked and unmarked — in my rear view mirror while driving around town.
My work arguably — confirmed by some law enforcement sources — spurred a federal probe that led to federal charges for the sheriff and one-third of the department.
But in this case in Missouri, we’ve got an incredible tragedy. The community has been trashed. The officer’s life has been ruined. The people on that grand jury will likely have to go into hiding to avoid the leftist crazies. For all of the hollering about the Ferguson police, you’ve still got a black community trapped in poverty-infested, crime-ravaged neighborhoods. You’ve still got black preachers on-the-take and a Democrat Party still keeping these people poor, dependent and angry at whitey.
The leftists in DC and in Missouri will tear this police department apart further. The cops in the field will be further ham-strung in their ability to do their jobs. The drive-bys get their ratings, but our society, culture and country lose big.
Obama and the Democrats are giving us a pretty clear picture of what living in a third-world country looks like. This is their plan for America. Decent citizens will have to arm themselves for protection.
I was thinking of honoring Michael Brown by looting a 55″ TV but was wondering how you go about getting the extended warranty?
You obviously have no future as a looter, dear coop.
Pros would haul away two TVs at once in the John Deere Gator that they also swipe. No extended warranty necessary.
By the time two TVs crap out, Al Charlatan, Obama, and JustUs Holder will have incited another round of mindless anarchy, during which the professional looters can swipe two more TVs.
You’d better stick to being a wimpy old dailyhaymaker troll, Gramps.
The pictures in this account from a major British newspaper are even more disturbing:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2849080/The-city-burned-Shop-shop-destroyed-night-rage-Ferguson-agony-owners-locals-turn-laugh-pick-leftover-beers.html
The Democrat governor of the state was incompetent here. He had to anticipate something like this. Why was the National Guard not out in overwhelming force with fixed bayonets? An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Ferguson spawns wider insurrection http://fergusonresponse.tumblr.com/ much of it funded by Stimulus money laundered by the Administration to the offspring of ACORN. This is community organizing for violence. This is failed liberal culture on parade. What Obama-Holder are shooting for is widespread violence staging for martial law.
This problem is easy to solve. I have. Just KILL your TV. There is no good reason not to. Also stop reading or writing about the DriveBys. Really it will only hurt for a little while. Like a drunk who quits drinking, you get your life back. Try it.
It’s difficult to see how anything good can come out of the Ferguson mess. The division is overwhelming, and rational comment is a rare commodity.
So many stupid statements have been made and the actions of the Brown family, their attorney, the governor of the state, and the media have been despicable. One can only think nothing less than the lynching of Wilson would have satisfied most of these folks.
It certain is questionable why the National Guard was not used to protect the private property and businesses on Monday night. The failure to do so has poured gasoline on the fire as it provided an opportunity for the lowest common denominator to show the world how low they can go…including the stepfather of Brown.
The stereotypes have been reaffirmed for many as racial lines have been drawn firmly in the sand. In so many levels it appears the inmates are in charge.
Most of us are waiting for the other shoe to drop. After all, one can’t let a good crisis go to waste.
Obama and Holder shaped the explosive conditions in Ferguson over a three month period. The produced an on-demand racial powder keg that Obama can access / activate / modulate whenever he wants to divert attention from one or more of his other criminal activities. They’ve created a pressurized relief valve in Ferguson and many other subsidiary places across America. Alynski dominates, while the Demokrat Party sits there, with Chuck Shumer suddenly realizing that his Party is no longer relevant or useful to Obama’s objectives. That is a very dangerous place to be. Like the GOP, the Demokrats have become a walking cadaver and therefore expendable. The judiciary serves the despotic ideology. It is now America’s grassroots against Obama. Guess who is going to win in the end.
Obama has arrogantly asserted his dictatorship with his amnesty decree, an action much like Hitler’s Reichstag Fire. Unfortunately, our GOP ”leadership” in Congess is as weak and incompetent in fighting back for democracy as the democratic parties in 1930s Germany.
Our country has become more divided in the past 6 years than at any other time since the Civil War. The mentality in the US has been so dumbed down that they can’t see the handwriting on the wall. The blacks are being set up by this administration so they can be replaced by the illegal immigrants who might still buy into the ” Hope and Change” and “Transformation” of America. My advice is to stay locked and loaded because one might have to protect their property in the near future. God Bless America and the true Patriots of this once great nation.