Protestors Are Not Encouraging Violence Against Cops

People are looking for someone to blame, and I understand. There is literally no good reason for the shooting of two NYPD officers working in Brooklyn this past Saturday. Officers Ramos and Liu were just doing their job, keeping a neighborhood safe, sitting in their cars. Why they are dead defies any logic that a good and decent person can accept. That their children and families have to go on after this breaks our heart.

Let me just offer a scapegoat that actually makes sense- the shooter. The evil, no-good person who shot his girlfriend, then took a bus to New York City to kill cops. He's responsible. He did it. He basically did it without any accomplice that we have heard about so far. He did it completely on his own, using only his own mind to come up with a maniacal, sick, disgusting plan. He is the villain here.

To accept that is hard for most of us. We want some higher explanation. We want to blame someone worse. Some are turning that energy towards the Mayor, for his unwillingness to "smack down" the protests after the death of Eric Garner, and his willingness to appear at a press conference with Garner's widow, widely seen as criticizing the police department. Some are turning this energy towards the protestors themselves, saying they are "inciting violence" and "defending a petty criminal." Some are trying to blame the President and Attorney General, I guess for saying peaceful protest is okay, but basically with no rhyme or reason to their childish outbursts. People are blaming Al Sharpton and other civil rights leaders as well, for "hate speech."

A mature adult rejects all of these. The truth in this case is that the killer is the person responsible. He was not a party of the protest movement, he is not someone particularly emotionally charged by the killing of Eric Garner or anyone else. He was a lone wolf who was hellbent on causing pain. The same people who want to reject this, and blame the protestors, are the same people who would call mass-shooters "lone wolves" that had no tie to other gun owners, a sort of irony in all of this. The truth is very self-evident here though, and it's apparent in the actions of those saying the protestors are to blame.

There is a concentrated effort by some to make the protestors look bad. In Baltimore, a Fox affiliate is getting caught in the act of doctoring films. In truth, there is an entire push to show that protestors are chanting for the death of cops, which is simply a doctored, made-up lie. There are a few bad people out in the protests, as there will be when hundreds, and even thousands take to the streets to make a point. They don't represent the movement, nor are they a fair symbol of the movement.

Eric Garner is dead. Michael Brown is dead. Tamir Rice is dead. Dontre Hamilton is dead. Tyrone West is dead. The reality is that in every one of their cases, a District Attorney decided that they were at fault, not the person who killed them. Every. Single. One. There is a reason for these protests. The reason is just. Calling into question the inequity of the system is not the same as calling for violence. The repeated attempts to paint the protestors as dangerous and violent is neither correct or just.