Late Night Fires

Holiday Season Officially Kicked Off at Home with the Wife's Nativity Scene

Some holiday planning went awry yesterday when the full knowledge of the impending Wednesday snow storm was unveiled.  Wednesday before Thanksgiving is bad enough but when you throw 8” on snow on the roads with all the flatlanders from down south trying to travel through the area a recipe for disaster is born.  For that reason I’m driving down to New York City after work today to retrieve my daughter and Wing Man.  It’ll make for a long night but it’s almost nostalgic from a military career with many a late night spent driving across the country to be with loved ones over the holidays.  Today is also the day Wing Man will be packing all their earthly belongings into some California bound pods – so they deserve a break.  Luckily they’re both excellent company to keep me awake for the trip back.

My Wife's Stand In and Hard to Start Ride

Another factor for the decision was the lack of a four wheel drive vehicle tomorrow.  I turned in the evidence of my compete idiocy to the body shop yesterday and it’s supposed to be ready late tomorrow.  They gave me a small red Corolla to bide me over.  I’ve already received a complaint from the spousal unit who couldn’t figure out how to start the rental (2 years with keyless system will do that to you).  She’s used to the much larger damaged Highlander.  She says I’m going to have to keep working because she needs the big car.

The Ferguson decision not to prosecute the police officer came out last night.  The crowd ignored the Michael Brown’s family’s request to protest non-violently and used the excuse to burn part of the town down.  Race relations in the US have come a long way but there still needs to be more dialogue.  Exposing racism to the light of day always causes it to wither and die because it just doesn’t make sense.  Obviously there was a significant undercurrent of problems in Ferguson before Brown’s fateful day with the police.  His death served as a focal point for those undercurrents.  My hope is that once the rage has spent itself and the perpetrators of those crimes are prosecuted there can be an honest dialogue.

The family decries the evidence presented about Brown’s actions on that day as trying to assassinate his “character”, as if his actions had nothing to do with his death.  I can fully understand a family’s anguish at the loss of their son but I’m trying to look at it objectively which only the passage of time will permit for others.  Brown is portrayed as a “child” but he was in fact a very imposing physical specimen who’d already committed a strong armed robbery shortly before his death.  He was obviously “childlike” in his belief his size and “angry young man” attitude granted him thug like appeasement from the rest of society. 

There are many other, much more suspicious police involved shootings that the agitators (including the activist in chief) could and should have chosen to highlight the very real problem of police involved shootings. This was not the one to do it with so the important discussion is pushed further down the road by the violence the agitators fomented and then lauded.  I’ve included a summary of the testimony provided by Officer Wilson which combined with the other evidence provided was enough for twelve people from Ferguson to make the decision they did.  Judge for yourself:

“The evidence was released by the St. Louis County prosecutor Monday evening after the grand jury declined to indict Wilson.   Wilson said he had heard that someone had stolen cigarillos from the nearby Ferguson Market just before he saw two young men walking in the middle of the street, disrupting traffic.  He said that after he asked the two to move onto the sidewalk, one said, "F*** what you have to say," as they passed him. "When he said that, it drew my attention totally to Brown," he said. "It was a very unusual and not expected response from a simple request."  Then he noticed that Brown was carrying packages of cigarillos, which had been reported stolen, he said. He called for backup and then backed up his car to cut them off, he said. When he started to open the door and called to Brown, the young man responded: "What the f*** are you gonna do?" he said.  The officer told investigators that when he tried to open the door, Brown slammed it shut. "He was just staring at me, almost like to intimidate me or to overpower me," Wilson said. "The intense face he has was just not what I expected." Wilson said he tried to open his door again, telling Brown to "get the f*** back," but Brown grabbed the door and slammed it, then ducked his head inside the open window. "I don't remember seeing him come at me, but I was hit right here in the side of the face with a fist," Wilson said. "I think it was a full-on swing, but not a full shot."  When Brown turned to give the cigarillos he was carrying in his left hand to the other young man, Wilson tried to grab his right "to get out, to have some type of control and not be trapped in my car anymore," he said.  "And when I grabbed him, the only way I can describe it is I felt like a 5-year-old holding onto Hulk Hogan," he said.  As the two struggled, with Wilson seated inside the car and Brown leaning in through the open window, he tried to get his mace canister but couldn't reach it, according to the officer's account.  "I thought I was already compromised enough. I drew my firearm, I pointed at him," Wilson said. He said that when he warned Brown he was going to shoot him and told him to get on the ground, the teen grabbed the gun and said "You are too much of a p***y to shoot me." "When he grabbed my gun, he twisted it, pointed at me and into my hip pelvic area," he said. "I know his hand was around my trigger finger which was inside the trigger guard, and when he grabbed it he pushed it down and angled it to where it was like this in my hip," Wilson said. "I was guaranteed he was going to shoot me."  Brown had "completely overpowered" him, Wilson said, but he was able to twist the gun around and get a shot off, and then another, but he didn't know what he had hit. "It was a, just one of these to get him off me," Wilson said.  He said he radioed for more patrol cars, then yelled for Brown, who was running then, to stop and get on the ground.  Brown stopped, but he didn't get down, Wilson said.  "When he stopped, he turned, looked at me, made like a grunting noise and had the most intense aggressive face I've ever seen on a person," Wilson said. “