Quote:The protesters could not have picked a worse trio of characters around which to build a cause.   Michael Brown- robbed a convenience store, punched a police officer and tried to take away his gun.  Then the guy in NY- he'd been arrested a dozen times.   This time he decided he didn't want to be arrested.   Cop probably shouldn't have overreacted, but then again, the guy was resisting arrest for committing a crime and he knew he was committing a crime.  And then this one- guy pulls a gun on a police officer and gets shot.   And in addition to that, they let Al Sharpton become their spokesman.   Talk about shooting yourself in the foot politically. 

 

My point is, what the protesters need to do is win the public over to their side.  So far, all they've done is repel the very people who can help them win this battle politically- the mass of people in the middle.   Do they really expect people like me to side with a guy like Michael Brown against the police?  

 

There's a huge backlash growing against these protesters, and they have brought it on themselves.   I'm not saying their cause isn't just.   That is a different conversation.   I'm saying the protesters have lost the political battle.   The great mass of people are not persuaded.   They are repelled. 

 

Interestingly enough, the case which should be the most sympathetic for the protestors is the one receiving the least attention. It also happens to be the one in which the family shunned Sharpton.

 

Akai Gurley was an unarmed man who was shot and killed in a stairwell by a rookie NYPD officer who himself said the shooting was "an accident." (Source: http://nypost.com/2014/11/21/police-fata...-building/) Apparently the gun accidentally fired when the officer tried to open a door while holding the gun in one hand and his flashlight in the other. Reports from the NY Daily News say that after Gurley was shot, the officer and his partner went incommunicado for 6 and a half minutes, meaning they failed to call in the shooting. They did, however, reportedly find time to text their union representative. NY Daily News also reports that the two officers weren't even supposed to be in the building where Gurley was shot. (Source: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/broo...-1.2034219)

 

Gurley's family then fought back against Sharpton, preventing him from getting involved in the case. (Source: http://nypost.com/2014/12/05/cop-shoot-v...-sharpton/ )

 

You would think Gurley's case would be the one the protesters focus on, as it seems to be the most egregious. The Brown case had a lot of discrepancies and the evidence tends to agree with Officer Wilson, Eric Garner did resist arrest prior to his death, and now Antonio Martin pulled a gun on the cop who shot him. All of those cases have a lot of factors that support the officers, so obviously the protestors will face pushback on those cases, just like you (ytraM) point out. But the Gurley case, from all that has been reported so far, seems to have very little going in the officer's favor.

 

Yet, as your post shows, the Gurley case is not one of the cases getting all the attention. (Note: I'm not trying to single you out here ytraM. I'm just using you as an example because your post listed 3 big cases as based on the protests and news reports. So it shows what the media and protestors are focusing on, which is not the Gurley case.) I think this raises an interesting question regarding Sharpton and his involvement though; is all his publicity worth it, even though he brings so much negative baggage and attention from his reputation + antics versus not having him involved at all?

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