In the violent aftermath of the robbery and assault by – then police shooting of – Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., I can offer some advice to looters: Be sure not to forget to also steal those AAA batteries for the flat-screen remote. It is frustrating to get home and not have them.
To be fair, at least when you loot a TV you don’t have to fight off that store clerk trying to hard sell you on the extended warranty.
Police shootings are not a major issue. There were 12 million arrests in the United States in 2012 and, according to FBI statistics, there were 420 police shootings during those 12 million arrests. The plurality of those shot — 42 percent — were white. Blacks were shot in 32 percent of cases and Hispanics 20 percent — about in line with crimes committed. But shootings happened in only 0.000035 percent of arrests. They are not a “crisis.”
Police are not targeting black males. My father was a policeman. Do you really think he wanted to go into neighborhoods known for crime, gangs and drugs to arrest someone? Would you? If there is a problem (and it may be a reason crime is high in these areas), it is that police are not aggressive enough because they fear for their own lives and fear being persecuted by a leftist media and merchants of race-hatred.
Some 90 percent of the protesters in Ferguson were from out of town. Many were white college kids burnishing their liberal cred to impress their professors. The authorities would not shoot them because they owe the government at least $90,000 each in student loans, and the feds wouldn’t let them off the hook that easily. The imported whites organized protests, and the locals looted, just to prove that the races actually can work together.