As though the last fifty years have meant nothing:
With each passing day, the police in Ferguson, Missouri, look more like the gang that couldn’t shoot straight — except, perhaps, when aiming at an unarmed black teenager. The details of the confrontation that prompted that shooting remain unknown, but the inept response to it has been plain for all the world to see.
Yesterday, the Ferguson police chief backtracked on the commitment he had made to release the name of the officer who on Saturday shot and killed 18-year-old Michael Brown, who apparently refused the officer’s order to move from the middle of the street. The chief cited death threats made against the officer and the department. Those threats, while despicable, were predictable. The chiefs about-face only fuels the belief — prevalent among protesters in Ferguson, and widespread among blacks elsewhere — that the police cannot be trusted.
Via Ferguson Shows How Not to Police @ Bloomberg View.