The thing about the riots in Baltimore (which is largely a media contrivance – as in Ferguson, there have been more peaceful protests than riots, but who wants to watch a peaceful protest on TV? That’s just a bunch of people walking. Even the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is more interesting than that, and that’s about the most boring television possible. People watch that just hoping that one of the balloons will fail spectacularly), but I digress, allow me to begin again….
The thing about the riots in Baltimore is that they could have been avoided. There was plenty of warning that they would happen. Not necessarily in Baltimore, but somewhere.
There were riots in Ferguson, but the problem was not only not solved, it was not even addressed. The policeman who killed Michael Brown did not stand trial.
So, cops across the country felt free to continue to kill. The policeman who shot Tamir Rice, a 12 year old boy, was not charged with a crime. The Cleveland Police Department did not say they were going to reform their hiring practices and try not to hire any more people who’d been fired from other police departments for being batshit crazy.
The 70 year old police deputy who killed a man because he didn’t know the difference between a taser and a gun was charged with manslaughter, I think, but the judge said it was O.K. for him to go ahead and take his vacation to Bermuda, because he had that all planned before he killed somebody. So, police everywhere knew they could kill and it wouldn’t mess up their vacations or anything.
It’s almost as if the police thought there would NEVER be riots over this.
I’m not condoning looting or burning buildings but let’s put the blame where the blame belongs. On the police. They need to be charged with murder whenever they murder somebody. Or there will be more riots.
How to Avoid Riots Like Those in Baltimore, in Future
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