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Friday, November 13, 2026Nov 13

Opportunity out of tragedy?

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photo A barber at Queen’s Royal Touch Salon & Spa in Ferguson, Mo., sweeps away glass from broken windows Tuesday after overnight protests.

What good can come out of what’s bad in Ferguson, Mo.?

After all of the misplaced violence over the exoneration of a white policeman in the shooting of a black teenager in the St. Louis suburb dies down, a realistic road must be paved — not just in the town in which the incident occurred but across the country in cities where a similar incident might provoke a similar powder keg.

• Such a road should not be one in which the words “murder” and “killing” are thrown around when an officer follows proper training in taking action the officer believes necessary.

Such inflammatory but false words have been all the rage since the death of Michael Brown on Aug. 9. No one spewing such words — for instance, “You can get away with murder as long as it’s a black person,” uttered by Chattanooga’s Ash-Lee Henderson, an organizer for Concerned Citizens for Justice — witnessed the incident or sat on the grand jury that considered the evidence.

Indeed, when such words as those are said, all reality goes out the window. They’re a proverbial stop sign to reason and should be discarded by anyone who hears them.