A Suspect Matching the Description

Unless you’ve been living in a closet this past week or landed from a distant planet then you’d be ignorant to news stories of racial tensions and rioting over an unarmed young Black person, Mike Brown, being shot and killed by a White police officer in Ferguson, Missouri.  Major news networks were quick to pour gasoline on the event, something they are very good at, spreading racial tension to the breaking point across the nation; protests, vandalism and looting broke out as angry mobs of Blacks did their best to prove that the Rule of Law only applies to other segments of our society.

This morning we learned that there apparently (*apparently used instead of allegedly) is more to the story, much more than had previously been released. 

Turns out Mike Brown, the young unarmed Black youth who died at the hands of a White Supremacist cop just looking for someone to kill, was apparently (*) a prime suspect in a ‘strong arm robbery’.  Mike Brown was listed by name in the original report along with a physical description which matched what he was wearing when a confrontation with police happened within half a mile of the robbery.

It is not my purpose to continue the practice of ‘Trial by Media’, something the main stream media lives for.  Letting the courts determine the outcome is so, what’s the term…old school.  So much of the original energy that causes folks to break things, set fires and generally act with mob mentality is lost by the time facts are brought into the discussion.  It’s much easier to work the leftist agenda of transforming America when there’s a ‘Crisis’, isn’t that part of the rules for radicals?

No, today I wanted to share something which happened back in the mid 70s when I was a young police officer working in Houston.  My partner and I were assigned to work the 3^rd Ward, a mostly Black community just outside of downtown.  A robbery occurred and the original unit responded and arrived in remarkable time, putting out a description over the radio of a young Black male suspect wearing a green football type jersey.  The suspect had not used a weapon but had roughed up the owner of a small convenience store owned by a Korean family while taking all the cash in the register and putting it in a brown paper sack.  The suspect fled on foot in a northerly direction.

Well slap my knee; we just happened to observe a young Black male wearing a green football jersey running down the street in that general area and he had a brown paper sack clutched in his hand.  We approached with caution and placed him under arrest, cuffing him and placing him in the back of the patrol car.  The sack contained some crumpled up bills, probably the fruits of the crime, as we headed back to the store to get a positive identification on our suspect. 

Here’s where it got a bit odd; the Korean store owner wouldn’t identify the suspect in our patrol car as being the one who had just robbed him.  All of the sudden the green football jersey wasn’t the same and the suspect didn’t have the same dark colored skin.  In short, the Korean store owner didn’t have the courage to finish what had been started and wanted to avoid retaliation.

My partner and I wrote down the suspects name for our report and let him go, handing him the brown paper sack full of money we’d taken away from him.  The Korean store manager asked for the sack of money; but since this wasn’t the fellow who’d robbed him we had no reason to deprive the ‘rightful owner’ of his property.  Creative or sloppy police work; your call…

What has this to do with the mess up in Ferguson?   I’ll leave that to someone who is much smarter; but it has something to do with a double standard in race relations that has been foisted on our society for as long as I can remember. 

Instead of holding individuals accountable for their actions we have permitted a goodly portion of one race to hide behind the color of their skin, their Black hyphenated America.  We could place the blame on their parents, school teachers, ministers or a host of others to include government with all the entitlement programs intended to bring about Social Justice; but in the end the blame has to be laid at the feet of the individual.

If we operate under the delusion there are no consequences for our actions interesting things happen. 

Take for instance being stopped by a police officer for a minor traffic violation; if you have the mindset that nothing you do will affect the outcome of this fairly common social interaction you’d be sorely mistaken.  My partner and I used to get a kick out of  pulling over the proverbial ‘pretty young thing’ who drove under the impression her looks made her exempt from traffic laws like stopping at red lights and stop signs. 

Upon walking up to the car she’d offer a smile as if it were the same as a driver’s license.  When we’d start writing the ticket she’d remind us, “You can’t write me a ticket”, which sometimes was followed by our pen and ticket book being flung at us.  When asked to step out of the vehicle we anticipated, “You can’t arrest me”, which generally led to, “You can’t put handcuffs on me”…and you wouldn’t believe the language we heard from the back seat on our way downtown.

Now, if you would, insert the Race Card and see how much more complicated that situation gets.  I’m so grateful to have retired and no longer subjected to that kind of crap. 

But that doesn’t help race relations which have steadily eroded in certain sectors of our society.  The solution is really very simple, not easy, just simple.  Teach your children to respect others, to be good citizens and follow the law.  Avoid the appearance of doing wrong, dress properly and with dignity in order to present the best view of yourself when in public. 

There would be a negative way of saying the same thing.   Don’t go around with your pants hanging down below your butt and stop hanging around gang-bangers or you’ll end up in prison or in an early grave.  Don’t back talk your parents or anyone older than you and for heaven’s sake, when a police officer addresses you have the good sense to be on your best behavior so don’t act a fool or do anything to provoke a confrontation.

I’ve ramble on a bit and those needing to hear this, well, it won’t do any good.   The ‘suspects matching the description’ offered here are too far gone; but I’ve been mistaken before, let’s hope I am this time.

This article has been cross posted to The Moral Liberal, a publication whose banner reads, “Defending The Judeo-Christian Ethic, Limited Government, & The American Constitution”.