DÉJÀ VU IN MISSOURI

          The meme started out as sweet, tender 18-year-old Michael Brown about to enter college, murdered by police in front of many witnesses despite no discernible motive.  National uproar and civil disturbance ensues.

            The family of the deceased hires Benjamin Crump, the lawyer for Trayvon Martin’s family who engaged a high powered, well connected PR firm to turn that shooting into a national cause celebre, which they did with enormous success.  By the time the truth came out, most of America seemed to still believe that the deceased was a harmless, innocent victim of racism murdered by a monster who deserved to be lynched. That meme seems to be getting a repeat in Missouri.

            Only days later, do we learn how savagely the officer was beaten by the physically huge man he shot.  And that very shortly before the incident, the innocent college boy had performed a strong-arm robbery at a convenience store, caught on surveillance video. (This, of course, would not do, so last night looters ravaged that particular convenience store.)  It has been reported that that Facebook images of Brown exist, flashing gang signs indicating membership in one of the nation’s most feared street gang, the Bloods.

            Countless people already invested in the police brutality meme cry that this late news must be a cover-up.  They do not realize the long-standing ethos of law enforcement that says, “We don’t try our cases in the press.”

            There is still much for us to learn about what happened in Ferguson, Missouri that day. Results of the autopsy and toxicology screen have not yet been released. Location of entry wounds and trajectory of the bullets through the body will tell us things, and it would be interesting to know what if anything was in Michael Brown’s system when he turned from the “gentle giant” his family described him as, into the hulking monster throwing the store clerk around in the surveillance film shortly before he was shot by police.  I suspect there are dashcam images or i-phone video that the public has not yet seen.

            One lesson that has clearly emerged so far: the longer the accused wait to put forth their side of the story, the more damage will be done to their cause.  An accusation unanswered is seen by the general public as a plea of nolo contendre. 

            And this morning, CNN reports that storeowners, feeling that police aren’t protecting them from looters, are standing outside their shops in Ferguson with “machine guns.”

            Another lesson of déjà vu, I suppose…

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