"Trooper charged in slaying," reads the headline on The Detroit News article.
"Trooper pays price for Detroit's incompetence," read the headline on another article.
A Michigan State Police trooper shot a man who approached in the middle of the night with his hand behind his back... after the man disregarded the officer's command to show his hand and stop. The scene is captured on tape.
It turns out the man was not armed.
Flash back to Iraq. Soldier kills unarmed man in a building where shots had been fired toward the troops. It's dark and dangerous. The scene is captured on tape. The soldier is charged with shooting the wounded man who the soldier thought might detonate a bomb.
In both cases, men were sent into uncertain, dangerous situations and expected to make decisions instantly about their safety and the intentions of those facing them. If their decisions were faulty, they were then treated as criminals by those who could review the situation at their leisure... in safety.
Question: at what point will those young men simply stop responding to those calls to action in those uncertain situations? The City of Detroit has once again seen an official act rashly... no, stupidly. The City will suffer as a result... suffer more, that is.
