Why am I not at all surprised that a white cop who shot a black kid to death got off scott clean? Honest to God, if it was the other way around, and the cop was black and the kid was white, that cop would have immediately been terminated from the force, tried for murder, and probably be facing a death penalty himself. Just like George Zimmerman: if he was black and Treyvon Martin was white, Zimmerman would rotting in jail now.
I could get on a whole thing about this, but my question is, what happened to tasers, stun guns, and pepper spray? I'm not going to go on either side of the race issue here, but if the cop knew the scuffle was going to escalate, why not
stun the victim and capture him? The kid was unarmed. There was excessive force, but two wrongs
never make a right no matter what rationalization they give. We have these non-violent means to take down unarmed men, and if pepper spray is good enough for a completely non-violent group of anti-corporate protesters sitting completely still, it's good enough for stunning an unarmed assailant. The kid could have been apprehended while stunned easily if he were as guilty as they say he was. But heck yeah, the cop was unnecessarily brutal. Someone's lying, and the very least he should have been fired, and sweeping changes should have been made to prevent this sort of thing happening again.
The George Zimmer thing was a little different because
he willfully disobeyed police orders, and he has a history of aggressive behavior. At the very least, he should have been drummed off the neighborhood watch. The fact that neither men even faced a slap on the wrist is what's disturbing.
But my point is, it's one thing that people are going to be angry that this happened and they're going to do angry things. That's not acceptable, but
neither is gloating over it and celebrating the death of someone. That's ghoulish! There's a difference between righteous anger and being a freaking school yard bully. We can trot out the "Stamp out Bullying" initiatives all we want, but it's not going to stop grown-butt men from acting like petty children. That's why politics in this country is so bullcrap insane (like said e-mail's Slackbot recieved from her own family). No maturity, no rational thoughts... the angriest, stupidest, loudest voice wins. And profits.