"But it's OK! He was a thug!"

You've probably heard that there's a little bit of unrest in Ferguson, Missouri. It's right outside of St Louis, and there seem to be some unhappy people there.

See, according to eyewitnesses, a cop confronted the teen, then shot him. The details are a little sketchy, but according to eyewitnesses, the cop told the teens to "get the fuck off the street," started to drive off, and then came back, shouting something to the effect of "What'd you say?!?" And then Michael Brown was shot.

Like I said, the details are sketchy, because, obviously, the cop had a different story than the three eyewitnesses. A lot of the people watching this story from a distance were thrilled when the police released video showing somebody who looked kind of like Michael Brown stealing a box of cheap cigars (Swisher Sweets, if you're curious), because, obviously, Brown was a "thug," and the cop was a hero.

(That's something else: why is it that black teens are now "thugs," if they might be linked to any type of crime, even a misdemeanor? I don't see that word applied to a lot of white kids. Is this like people calling Obama "arrogant" for doing his job as president? Since they aren't saying "uppity," that makes it OK, right?)

There's just one problem with that narrative: the cop in question, Darren Wilson, didn't know that Brown was allegedly involved with any crime other than jaywalking. The police chief has admitted it.

So, the question remains: is it OK for the police to shoot unarmed teens, as long as they can tie them to a crime later?

I can't see any way that might be abused.

A violent man will die a violent death (Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching, ch 42)

So I was on Facebook, because I'm old and it's no longer fashionable. And I came across this post.

And that sounds like a terrible thing, right? A guy, murdered in his home by rogue police officers - that's a travesty of justice!

Yeah, it sounds pretty bad, until you look into it. But that's part of the problem with the internet - people post stories, and other people believe them without looking up the details.

Now, before I start, let me point out that I oppose police brutality. I understand that there is police overreach, and that criminal acts have been and will be performed under the cover of a badge. I mean, hell, I live in Albuquerque - I'd have to be an idiot to think otherwise.

The thing is, this one isn't like that. Not according to the available evidence. The police were, in fact, sent to the wrong address. But only after they arrived did things go straight into the crapper.

Waller exited his residence and entered the garage with a handgun showing. Police did not know if he was a resident or a suspect.

Investigators said that the Hoeppner gave Waller repeated commands to drop his gun, but the homeowner did not comply. According to the officer, Waller responded with "Why?" and "Get that light out of my eyes."

Hoeppner added that Waller eventually put his gun down on the trunk of a car. As the officer moved in to retrieve the weapon, Waller scrambled to pick it up, and then pointed it at the officer. The report said that this is when Hoeppner fired his weapon six times.

Waller wasn't an innocent man - he was a paranoid nutjob with a gun. And he felt that he had the right to point that gun at the police. Sure, they were at the wrong location, but they were doing their job. And what, exactly, are the police supposed to do when confronted with armed lunatics brandishing firearms? Lie down and bleed?

The NRA wants you to believe that an armed society is a polite society, and that the only defense against a bad man is a good man with a gun. But they're wrong. Because what is the defense against a good man with a gun? Or an armed man who believes he's good?

If Waller hadn't been a Second Amendment cultist, nothing would have happened. But he felt that he was had the right, and the knowledge, and the training, to act as some kind of lone vigilante protecting his homestead. So instead, he committed suicide by cop.

The only tragedy for Waller's family is that they didn't talk him down off the ledge; you have to wonder how long he'd been cleaning his guns and muttering angrily to himself. But the real tragedy is for Officer Hoeppner, who had to face the choice of killing a man or being killed himself. He made the right choice, but now he has to live with it.

If Only They'd Just Tased Him, Bro

According to physician Catherine Wilkerson, she made the mistake of attempting to save a man's life, and now might just go to jail for it.

(That link, by the way, is a particularly biased writeup of the story. You might be able to get a more even-handed version from Michigan Live or the Ann Arbor News, but those links tend to die pretty fast.)

The official description of the event is fairly straightforward. Blaine Coleman is a Michigan activist who regularly protests on behalf of the Palestinian cause and against Israel. He was attempting to disrupt a speech at the Michigan League by Georgetown University Prof. Raymond Tanter regarding the American policy in Israel. He was escorted outside to be arrested. While there, he complained he couldn't breathe and appeared to fall unconscious.

According to the report, Wilkerson was "verbally abusive" to the police and paramedics who treated Coleman, and that was why they arrested her. The building manager, Jeffrey Green, said that she was protesting, yelling at the police, and that her behavior was "more of an emotional reaction than a physician's reaction."

Dr Wilkerson's description, widely available on the internet under the title Scenes From A Cop Riot, seems to differ slightly from the official view of her actions.

She wrote that the cop, who was much larger than the protester to begin with, had the man pinned down and was crushing him against the floor with his knee backed by his full body weight. Dr Wilkerson felt that the protester would not be able to inflate his lungs in that position, and when the protester stated that he couldn't breath, she identified herself as a doctor, and instructed the cop to turn him over immediately.

The cop turned him onto his back. I saw that the victim had a wound on his forehead and blood in his nostrils. He was unconscious.

Reiterating numerous times that I was a doctor, I tried to move to where I could assess the victim for breathing and a pulse. The cop shoved me, until finally, after my imploring him to allow me to render medical care to the victim, he allowed me to determine that the victim was alive. But he refused to remove the cuffs despite my requests. A person lying with hands cuffed beneath his body risks nerve damage to the extremities and, moreover, cannot be resuscitated.

The protester remained unconscious, and the paramedics were called in. But Dr Wilkerson didn't feel that the paramedics were any better than the cops.

When the patient didn't respond to a sternal rub, one of the paramedics popped an ammonia inhalant and thrust it beneath the patient's nostrils. If you're interested in what's wrong with that, google Dr. Bryan Bledsoe… and read his article condemning this dangerous practice. That it's "just bad medicine" is sufficient to make the paramedic's actions unacceptable, but what happened next made my blood curdle. He popped a second inhalant and a third, then cupped his hands over the patient's nostrils to heighten the noxious effect. "You don't like that, do you?" he said.

Trying to google the article by Dr Bledsoe she mentions, This Procedure Stinks [Ammonia Inhalant Use], won't do you much good: although you can track it to the March 2003 issue of the Journal of Emergency Medical Services, it doesn't even seem to be available on Dr Bledsoe's own website. However, the basic conclusions are available here.

Although she was forcefully restrained by the police, she was neither handcuffed nor arrested. But two months after the protest, and one week after she filed a police brutality complaint (she claims to require physical therapy for the injury she suffered at the hands of Ann Arbor police officer Kevin Warner) she was charged by the Washtenaw County Prosecutor Brian Mackie's office, at the request of the UM police, with two attempted felonies—one against Officer Warner and one against the EMS personnel.

Although her cause is gaining support on the internet, is this a case of an overly-officious doctor interfering with law enforcement? (After all, this isn't the first time she's had issues with authority.) Is this another example of law enforcement going over the top?

I suspect that the real truth lies somewhere in between.

Let's look at the news

As my two regular readers might have noticed (and I'm only married to one of them, to the best of my knowledge), I usually prefer longer blog entries with multiple links, occasionally comparing or contrasting news items that I consider related in some way.

It's simple. By concentrating on this "long-form blogging" rather than the brief blurbs most bloggers go for, I can feel better about my sheer laziness in only posting an entry roughly once per week.

Not this week though. I found two unrelated stories this weekend that I'm going to heckle. That's just the way it is, sometimes. First of all, the reason I have no plans to move to Utah any time soon.

You have to admire any story that starts with:

Utah County Republicans ended their convention on Saturday by debating Satan's influence on illegal immigrants.

I mean, come on. For an opening line, you just can't beat that.

The group was unable to take official action because not enough members stuck around long enough to vote, despite the pleadings of party officials.

You kind of wonder if "embarrassment" had anything to do with that...

Don Larsen, chairman of legislative District 65 for the Utah County Republican Party, had submitted a resolution warning that Satan's minions want to eliminate national borders and do away with sovereignty.

In a speech at the convention, Larsen told those gathered that illegal immigrants "hate American people" and "are determined to destroy this country, and there is nothing they won't do."

And he's right. They'll pick lettuce for pennies per day, they'll collect your garbage, and generally do jobs that nobody else wants for less money than any American would accept. Anybody who tries to claim that they're "stealing jobs from Americans" needs to show me a list of Americans who would accept those jobs, at those wages.

"Illegal aliens are in control of the media..."

Excuse me? Not even Univision... ah, never mind.

...and working in tandem with Democrats, are trying to "destroy Christian America" and replace it with "a godless new world order -- and that is not extremism, that is fact," Larsen said.

(Excuse me while I misquote an American doing a bad Spanish accent.) You know, you keep saying that word "fact." I do not think that word means what you think that word means.

While I realize that Larsen probably doesn't consider "Roman Catholic" (the religion of most Mexican immigrants) to be equal to "Christian" (they are, after all, godless idolators under the sway of the Antichrist in the Vatican), it does give a somewhat limited definition to his concept of "Christian America."

At the end of his speech, Larsen began to cry, saying illegal immigrants were trying to bring about the destruction of the U.S. "by self invasion."

"Self invasion"? They're invading themselves?

I suspect that he started to cry because he'd finally realized what an idiot he is.

One speaker, who was identified as "Joe," said illegal immigrants were Marxist and under the influence of the devil.

"Marxist"? This just gets better and better, doesn't it?

Another, who declined to give her name to the Daily Herald...

Again, "embarrassment," perhaps?

...said illegal immigrants should not be allowed because "they are not going to become Republicans and stop flying the flag upside down. ... If they want to be Americans, they should learn to speak English and fly their flag like we do."

So if their ship is taken by pirates, they won't be able to use the standard international symbol of distress?

Senator Howard Stephenson, R-Draper, spoke against the resolution, saying Larsen, whom he called a "true patriot and a close friend," was embarrassing the Republican Party.

Finally, somebody who makes a little sense.

"This only gives fodder to the liberal media to give negative attention to the Republican Party."

Too late.

Larsen was allowed to finish the debate with a one-minute speech.

"If the Democrats take over the country, we will be dead, and we will have abortion and partial-birth abortion and the Republican Party will go into extinction," he said.

OK, let me get this straight. We'll all be dead, right? So how will we be getting abortions at that point?

And isn't the "Republican Party will go into extinction" bit a little redundant at that point?

But these mental giants couldn't manage to not embarrass themselves even when they switched to other subjects.

(Enid) Greene (state Republican Party chair) said she was disappointed in BYU professors who protested Dick Cheney's visit to campus, calling them "self-appointed intellectuals."

OK, folks. Be real. These guys were hired as professors. Yes, they're "intellectuals." Isn't that what you want as a teacher?

But they definitely don't qualify as "self-appointed." If anyone, BYU and the Dean of Faculty appointed them to that position, right?

But while that was my favorite story this weekend, I've got to pass along this little gem.

Two police officers pleaded guilty Thursday to manslaughter in the shooting death of a 92-year-old woman during a botched drug raid last fall. A third officer still faces charges... The charges followed a Nov. 21 “no-knock” drug raid on the home of Kathryn Johnston, 92. An informant had described buying drugs from a dealer there, police said. When the officers burst in without warning, Johnston fired at them, and they fired back, killing her.

Fulton County prosecutor Peter Johnson said that the officers involved in Johnston's death fired 39 shots, striking her five or six times, including a fatal blow to the chest.

He said Johnston fired only once through her door and didn't hit any of the officers. That means the officers who were wounded likely were hit by their own colleagues, he said...

When the plainclothes officers burst in without notice, police said, Johnston fired at them, and they fired back.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Yonette Sam-Buchanan said Thursday that although the officers found no drugs in Johnston's home, Smith planted three bags of marijuana in the home as part of a cover story.

So they're some real winners, right? Fine, upstanding knights in blue. (And really bad aims, too.)

But let's ignore the fact that a bunch of unidentified men broke into her house, and Ms. Johnston was only protecting her home. (Shouldn't the NRA be all over this story?) She was 92 years old! Let her get baked once in a while. At her age, she's earned it.

But that isn't the punchline. This is.

The case raised serious questions about no-knock warrants...

Well, duh! But it gets better.

...and whether the officers followed proper procedures.

Yup. That's would be the question, all right...

Louisiana and racist cops. And Cheesy Poofs, for that matter.

Tomorrow, there's going to be a news conference about the racist sheriff of St. Tammany Parish. But is it just an overreaction? Is the sheriff racist, or just misunderstood?

Well, first of all, crooksandliars.com has a lot to be proud of, since nobody was paying any attention to this story until they brought it to the attention of America. We have a video of the sheriff of St Tammany Parish, Jack Strain, making the following statement.

"Now I don’t get into calling people names and all that fact, but if you’re gonna walk the streets of St. Tammany Parish with dreadlocks and 'Chee Wee' hairstyles, then you can expect to be getting a visit from a sheriff’s deputy."

That seems pretty open. Obvious, even. The sheriff is planning to specifically target people based on their haircut. Haircuts mostly worn by black people.

Gee, I don't see how that could possibly be considered racist...

And after John Amato's blog (crooksandliars.com - pay attention, people!) brought this to America's short attention span (on the sixth of July), suddenly the story makes the Associated Press (on the eighth of July).

And now, Annie Spell, one of the only white branch presidents of the NAACP has a relatively high-profile press conference on the subject.

To be entirely honest, the sheriff managed to confuse me a little. Having lived in N'Awlins as a kid, I know that "Chee Wees" are a cheese snack, pretty much like Cheetos. Well, OK, Chee Wees are puffed, and Cheetos are... collapsed, I guess. But if I said that they're like Cheez Doodles or Cheese Curls, I wouldn't get nearly the universal understanding, would I?

OK, so I could have gone for the cheap pop-culture reference and said "Cheesy Poofs," but that would have been a cop-out, wouldn't it?

Anyway... (crap, I knew I had a point here... what the hell was it? Oh, right...) Anyway, I have absolutely no idea how the cheesy snack food became a slang term for a hairstyle, but there it is.

So Annie Spell will be holding a press conference in Covington, Louisiana, in front of the sarcastically-named "St Tammany Parish Justice Center." If you happen to be in the neighborhood, go there.

But this isn't the first time that we've had problems with law enforcement in Louisiana and their racist attitudes toward Katrina survivors. At this stage, very few people remember a little, almost ignored story from the days of Hurricane Katrina. But while the right wing was trying to blame New Orleans natives for not evacuating (despite the fact that 26% of New Orleans residents didn't own cars - yeah, I know, it's shocking in the dawn of the 21st Century, but it's true), nobody remembers that people who tried to evacuate on foot were stopped, threatened with guns, and forced to walk back into the flooded city.

If you have any questions on this incident, direct them to Arthur Lawson, chief of the Gretna Police Department. Perhaps he has an explanation for this unchristian behavior on the part of his officers.

Hey, I'm just being fair and balanced here. We report, you decide.