PROSECUTORS DON'T PROSECUTE WHEN POLICE KILL

I was more than a little nervous as I approached the soul food restaurant to speak with my mentor, the greatest of all ghetto philosophers, Cleophus Leroy Jackson.  I was afraid he’d be so angry over the recent failures to indict policemen who killed unarmed black males that he might not even want to talk with me or, worse yet, , turn his wrath on me. 

“Hey, College Boy,” He grinned when I walked in.  “Come have a seat, he waived his arm expansively, welcoming me to his booth.  Gingerly I stepped forward.  “You seem to be in a good mood.” I said meekly.  “I thought you’d be angry about the Ferguson and New York cases of cops getting off without even having to go to trial.”

“Man, I caint begin to tell you how upset I am about that.  We are gone have to deal with those situations on an ongoing basis, not just get mad for a few months and go back to everyday life.  But even if the outcome is wrong, I really get excited whenever I see excellence at work in any arena and the defense attorney in Ferguson was absolutely amazing!  I mean, even though he tried to hide it, you could tell how enthusiastic he was about finding ways to contradict the prosecution witness before the grand jury.  He was almost gleeful when he took all that time to break down how and why his client, Darren Wilson, got off.  Later on we found out he had his assistant, Kathi Alizadeh, give the grand jury an outdated, unconstitutional statue that helped the policeman.   I don’t know how the prosecutor let them get away with it, but the dude and his staff were brilliant.”

The defense attorney? I asked sheepishly.

“Yeah, the whole thing was brilliant.  But I never knew defense attorneys had so much clout.  I thought it would have been the prosecuting attorney who would come out and read the decision of the grand jury.  But the defense attorney had the prosecution so bamboozled they didn’t even ask the grand jury for an indictment!  Perry Mason wasn’t that tough!   Instead of the prosecutor coming forward and telling whether or not there would be an indictment, the defense attorney came out and bragged on how he got the officer off without an indictment. 

Do you remember the defense attorney’s name? 

Yeah, it was Robert McCulloch.  Why?

He was the prosecutor.

“Never mind.”

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The reactions to these highly publicized murders of black folks by police have highlighted how truly complicated issues have become in America.  The issue of white police beating and killing black folks is highly racial, yet a large minority of the protesters on behalf of the black victims have been white and other non-blacks.  Conversely, we can always depend on certain Negros, like Charles Barkley, to uphold the killing of black folks.  We can always depend on racist white folks and Fox News to uphold the killing of black folks.  We have seen former New York mayor, Rudolph Giuliani, along with Sean Hannity and many of the usual suspects spew their racist nonsense regarding these events.  But we have also seen Fox conservative stalwart, Bill O’Reilly, and GOP House leader, John Boehner come out strongly against the random execution of black folks by police. 

Maybe the issue isn’t as complicated as white vs. black and conservative vs. progressive.  Sometimes, just maybe, the issue comes down to right and wrong. 

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