No, the only time people get worked up is when police are involved. This point of view always makes me mad, and this happenstance was no exception. I'd have leapt across the table and whipped the guy's butt, except that, as everyone knows, I can't fight. But I'm not going to let the matter drop, because I suspect many of you agree with the guy at the party. Police are not supposed to think or behave the way criminals think and behave.
Police exemplify law and order on the streets.
But more than that, police are instruments of public policy. And if a segment of the public expresses concern about police behavior, the rest of us had damn well better listen. The rally, organized by the All People's Congress, was held to demand justice on behalf of Eli McCoy, the West Baltimore teenager who was shot and killed by Housing Authority police officer Kenneth M. Dean III after the victim of a purse-snatching identified McCoy as the suspect. According to newspaper accounts, Dean thought McCoy was reaching for a weapon. Witnesses claim the young man had surrendered and was on his knees with his hands in the air when the officer shot him.