The answer isn't to stop respecting all police officers, or to assume that any allegation of police misconduct is true. Even officers involved in suspicious killings, like the one in Ferguson, Missouri, deserve a fair hearing from the public. No one knows for sure what happened when Mike Brown was killed, and while the reaction of local police to protesters does not inspire confidence, the objective ought to be an impartial, accurate investigation by a credible, independent party.
Alternate title "White Privileged Conservative Sees the Tip Of the Iceberg in the Face of Incontrovertible Evidence" It's nice to see some of the anti big government crowd come around and I applaud them overcoming their bias but you had to have your head in the sand to not understand that the police are and have been out of control for as long as there have been police. Grew white and middle class. My parents taught me to at the very least be very wary of the police (from Mom) and in the extreme to hate and fear them (Dad). I was told from an early age that I should never talk to them and if I got in trouble with them to demand that they call my parents and refuse to say anything until they showed up. I guess maybe my parents noticed things like the civil rights movement or did things like read the papers and notice the gross excesses of police both local and national. It's inexcusable that conservatives have not a clue. I guess this guy has never been treated disrespectfully by the police but it's been more the rule than the exception in my experience, both when I've been a witness, a victim and a suspect in criminal activity. I don't know why I'd feel any desire to respect people I watched sexually harass my mom during tragic stops, hold me on my knees with my hands laced behind my heard for while holding guns to me for a long stretch of time when I maybe committed a misdemeanor (no charges), aggressively accused me of committing crimes in my neighborhood while I sat on my stoop reading the NYT with no evidence of wrong doing. Maybe we should assume the guilt of the officer when they gun down a person because every other part of the system will assume his innocence or bend over backwards to make sure he suffers no adverse consequence. With the things I've seen cops do, the disrespect and deceit I've seen them engage in, and the purposeless violence I can only imagine what it's like to be black.The answer isn't to stop respecting all police officers, or to assume that any allegation of police misconduct is true.