Make My Day

There are times when my inner right-wing nutcase, the one I hate to admit is there, comes out. Last night, watching the destruction in Ferguson, MO, was one of them.

The authorities there had a long time to prepare for the release of the grand jury’s decision on whether to indict Ferguson cop Darren Wilson for the shooting of Michael Brown last summer. We heard all about their plans, including the activation of the National Guard, amid complaints about the militarization of American law enforcement. A lot of good that militarization did, as rioters burned police cars and buildings and looted stores -- and responding firefighters were shot at. This trained force couldn’t – or wouldn’t – stop them.

I’ve heard some of my friends say of last night’s destruction, “Well, it’s only property, it can be replaced.”  No, it’s more than that. In some cases, livelihoods were involved. It’s one thing to trash a chain auto parts store, perhaps, but it’s another to destroy a locally owned business. Both are wrong. Most of us can intuit the difference between real protesters and those who take advantage of situations. The cops should be able to do that as well.

We can certainly debate the wisdom of the decision to take this case to the grand jury in the first place. But the prosecutor was right when he said this group of people took their time and weighed their decision carefully. It could have taken hours. It took weeks. Maybe they came down the wrong way, but that’s part of the system we have agreed as a civilized society to go by.

If I were in charge, I might have waited until the next blizzard or other spate of bad weather enveloped the Midwest before releasing the decision, assuming that were legal. But where was law enforcement when it was needed? What kind of a message is sent when it seems to stand by and do nothing? And in many cases, get paid overtime for it?

Maybe the police train for the wrong things in these cases, dispersing huge crowds instead of dealing with a few crazies, I don’t know. But please forgive me if my right-wing demon wants to see something bad happen to those who take advantage of situations like this.  Just once.