#FergusonFAIL

So that happened.  It was kinda expected that a cop would not answer for shooting an unarmed teen all because of (insert our nation's racial fears here).

What horrified me and what still sticks with me is how that prosecutor was so eager to blame everyone BUT the guy who pulled the trigger and killed someone.

McCollough blamed social media for angering up the protesters calling for some form of justice.  No.  The protesters have been marching and calling for justice since before any of us were born.  They've been marching and rising up for justice ever since the chains were put on them as far back as the Roman Republic.  This is still Jim Crow.  This is still political leaders calling "Segregation Forever" and South Carolina's Declaration of Keeping Our Slaves and Redlining and Ghettos As Policy and This Land Ain't Your Land.  This is still the heavy chains of racism that 400 years of this nation's history from colonies to empire has not removed from its own people.

McCollough: the grand jury "gave up their lives" to deliberate on the matter.  NO.  The only one who gave up his life here was Michael Brown, that unarmed teenager.

Call Brown what you want, haters, that he was a thief or a thug or any other kind of racist label you can put on him.  The one label that speaks to the facts is "unarmed civilian".  The one label that speaks of Michael Brown is "dead on the street with an entire clip emptied into him."

The labels "excessive use of force" and "deadly force" and "fearmongering" should apply as well.

Meanwhile, we've got cops shooting kids who are running around with toy guns.  We've got cops bullying bystanders, and bullying families at traffic stops, and just plain old bullying.  At what point does the intimidation efforts go from harassment to assault?  Whenever the cop feels threatened.  At which point there's nothing the rest of us CAN do except watch as the legal system washes their hands of the misconduct and carries off the bodies.

Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?  Who guards the guardians?  Who polices the police when the police are the lawbreakers?  Because while the letter of the law may protect these trigger-happy bullies among the enforcement profession, the spirit of the law - the purpose to SERVE AND PROTECT the citizenry regardless of race or gender or age - is pretty much dead on the streets alongside Brown.

Lemme caveat: obviously, not every cop is bad or a bully.  A lot of them are doing their jobs and checking themselves in check.  It's the fucking bad apples abusing the rulebook, and then a goddamn culture of complacency - the Thin Blue Line of "Us vs. Them" - that blemishes the entire profession of being a cop.

I've had that quote at the top of my blog banner since the first round of protests in Ferguson: We should be rolling lighter than this.  In our own cities, in our own communities, among our families.

We should be doing a better job upholding Justice For All.