So Michael Brown got high, robbed a store, then attacked a police officer...

[Galapogos]

Here's some racism for you: people losing their goddamn minds and rioting because some idiot robbed a place and tried to beat the shit out of a cop who told him to stop standing in the middle of the road and got shot in the process.

That's not accurate though. People rioted initially because to them it looked like a white cop shot an unarmed black guy in an area where there's already plenty of racial tension. You're looking at this with the knowledge someone has weeks after the shooting with a pretty good idea of how it actually went down due to forensics reports and a compilation of statements.

For most people, the riots after a while were no longer about the shooting, it became something else where they're angry with the police themselves. Not necessarily for this recent incident but it sounds like things have been festering in this city due to the way their cops have handled themselves for a long time. Plus, there's the way they've handled themselves during the riots. They're either not well trained or have shown tendencies to abuse their power.

The point is, Michael Brown was the fuse, the riots later on were no longer fueled by that one thing. I would dare to speculate that if you lived in an area where there wasn't some seriously bad history between the police and the residents of that town there wouldn't be near enough anger to fuel riots like that even if it was a 100% illegal shooting caught on camera.

[spoonitnow]

That's not accurate though. People rioted initially because to them it looked like a white cop shot an unarmed black guy in an area where there's already plenty of racial tension. You're looking at this with the knowledge someone has weeks after the shooting with a pretty good idea of how it actually went down due to forensics reports and a compilation of statements.

Maybe people shouldn't riot when they don't know the facts of the case? I mean, when some shit goes down and I don't know what happened, the first thing I do is not burn down someone's business and loot the fuck out of people.

[Galapogos]

Maybe people shouldn't riot when they don't know the facts of the case? I mean, when some shit goes down and I don't know what happened, the first thing I do is not burn down someone's business and loot the fuck out of people.

They definitely shouldn't, but rioting isn't a rational response pretty much ever. It's emotional and with the way it sounds like things were in that town before the shooting it was just the incident needed to push things to the point of people being angry enough to riot.

Think about a guy who's just lost his shitty job, his wife just left him for his brother, and his dog just died. Then he gets a parking ticket and punches the meter maid in the face. You shouldn't punch a meter maids in the face for something as trivial as a parking ticket, especially since you got it for breaking the law, but the buildup from previous shit makes it hard for you to step back and be reasonable.

(ya my analogies suck but I think that one's good enough?)