OK, this is going to make everyone mad

Here's my take on Ferguson and the subsequent police controversies. If you're sensitive to racial justice issues, it will probably make you mad. If you lean conservative and think we pay too much attention to race and not enough to law and order, it will probably make you mad.

Here goes anyway:

1. I think African Americans have some legitimate grievances about the way they're treated by the criminal justice system in the US. Study after study has shown that African Americans are more likely to be arrested and more likely to be convicted for the same offenses. And once convicted, they get more severe sentences for the same offenses. There is no credible data to contradict this. African Americans have ample reason to be upset.

2. The Brown-Wilson case is not a good example, or a good test case, of those grievances. The most inflammatory accusations against Wilson, such as he shot Brown in the back, are contradicted by autopsy evidence. Other inflammatory accusations, such as Brown was trying to surrender, appear to be more based on second hand rumor than first hand eye witness accounts. As far as I've seen, nobody testified under oath that Brown was trying to surrender.

3. Anyone, of any race, who reaches into a police officer's car, no matter what the race of that officer,  punches the officer, and tries to take his or her gun, is very likely to be shot. I can't really argue with this.The forensic evidence does support Wilson's account in this regard.

4. It's emotional and inflammatory, but ultimately pointless, to count the number of bullets fired in a police shooting. To paraphrase Tam Keel, there's no such thing as a situation that justifies shooting someone just a little bit. If the situation justifies lethal force, it justifies continued use of lethal force until the threat is definitively stopped. I have a fair amount of experience shooting human-sized animals, watching their behavior after being shot, then opening up their bodies to assess the nature of their wounds. Even after receiving a lethal gunshot wound, enough oxygen remains in the system for 10 to 15 seconds of intentional action. In the context of a lethal attack, 10 to 15 seconds is an eternity. I once shot a deer that proceeded to jump a 6 foot fence and run 200 yards before falling over. When I opened that deer's chest cavity, the heart was completely destroyed - all four chambers wide open. So I have no difficulty imagining a violent attacker being shot 10 or 15 times before they're stopped.

5. It's emotional and inflammatory, but ultimately pointless, to emphasize the fact that Brown was not armed with a firearm. A punch thrown by a 290 pound man is an attack that is likely to result in grievous bodily harm - which justifies the use of lethal force. If that man is trying to take a gun away from you, it's a potentially lethal attack. Again: punch a cop, try to take his/her gun away, receive lethal force in response.

6. The grievances of African Americans are systemic and institutional, not the direct result of anything Wilson did. We do need change, but putting Wilson in prison because of what he symbolizes is precisely the same lynch mob mentality we'd like to eradicate. 

7. The NYPD cops who turned their backs on DiBlasio did no favors to their own case. This is not professional behavior. I am not aware of any job, anywhere, that you get to make a big public display of disrespect to your boss, and still be employed the next morning. If there are any other examples, they have to be union jobs. Conservatives who cheered this childish display, think about this: you're cheering the same kind of entitled, accountable-to-nobody union attitudes that you usually profess to deplore.