Theme:– Operation C.R.U.S.H. Against Gun Violence, Bias and Clouded Vision

How to explain to parents the killing of their child for no reason? In the eyes of the shooter it’s because he thought he saw a gun. In the eyes of our culture it’s because the kid was black. In the eyes of the law/jury it’s in Stand Your Ground. So a guy with a hoodie buys “WhatsApp,” while Davis’ family asks, what’s up?

That’s the dilemma with the recent hung-jury factor in the Jordan Davis trial. They couldn’t agree on the first-degree murder charge. But, on the other charges that didn’t involve death, they could agree. It makes no logical sense but more importantly, the Stand Your Ground law doesn’t even make gun sense.

Michael Dunn did more to inflame a situation than to contain it. Remember, he was at a gas station where you’re not allowed to smoke much less smoke-out someone’s life. The Stand Your Ground provision in the law is a bad cocktail because it doesn’t even make legal sense to shoot first and verify later.

Those trained in law enforcement are schooled on taking-up a position of safety where possible in the event their life is threatened. Typically in an active shooting situation you’ll see them taking cover. In the Davis case, Dunn took cover after the shooting by going home, ordering pizza and not calling police.

Dunn suggests he was lost in the moment. So he didn’t think about notifying authorities. Forget the legal sense and gun sense for a second. His explanation doesn’t even make common sense. What would cause him to come-up with such a crazy excuse? Maybe it has to do with personal/system biases.

His fiancée’s testimony and written statements from Dunn make reference to his racial views. Plus, we might need to consider whether the system gives similar ‘benefit of the doubt’ to unarmed black boys as it does to the armed or unarmed of another racial background. If not, then something’s gotta change.

Zuckerberg’s Facebook keeps pushing the tech frontier. They’re always looking to expand their business. The Stand Your Ground experiment seems to be doing just the opposite. It may be giving people “the cover” to kill emerging potential. This isn’t the way to expand the benefit of equal protection under the law.

Footnote: Personal fears/biases and some system inconsistencies that go un-checked cause black boys to get caught-up in two ways or waves. It’s like the ocean wave that washes-up stuff on the shore being treated as trash and the ocean undercurrent that drags stuff back being treated as forgotten.