The Ferguson grand jury got it right

Black communities have many legitimate concerns about police abuse, but trying to cram all those problems into one microcosmic incident has had tragic consequences.

Yet, let’s concede that prosecutors punted and allowed Wilson to walk because they were either racist or incompetent or terrified. Let’s concede that the grand jury capitulated to will of the prosecutor. Even if that were all the case, we still wouldn’t have an out-of-control cop callously gunning down an innocent, defenseless black man, although that happens in the United States far too often, and all too often there is no indictment. But there is no proof that racism played a role in this shooting or into the lack of an indictment. Unless all the scientific evidence in the case is wrong, it’s fair to say that Brown was a clear aggressor and, at the very least, put himself in a perilous position. To indict Wilson as a way to mollify a community that’s faced other injustices would not be just. It would be the opposite.