omerta

Back to the Wabash Avenue bridge.  You would think if you were shot and you were dying you would want to finger the culprit, likewise if your boyfriend was dying you would want to do the same.  But it often happens that folks don't.

It could be that the shooting was the result of some illegal act and the victims don't want to say anything because they are involved and don't want to have to admit that.  Or perhaps the shooter is some very dangerous hombre and they don't think the police would be able to defend them if the word got out that they were snitches.  Or maybe they are practicing omerta.  They don't trust the police at all, they see them as the enemy and there is no way they are going to cooperate with them.  

Six years ago Laquan McDonald was shot and killed.  He was probably high or something and he had a knife and he wouldn't put it down.  He hadn't stabbed anybody and the cops had him surrounded trying to get him to put it down and then this new cop showed up and shot him dead.  Shot him sixteen times.

The shooter, Jason Van Dyke, was a bad apple, I think we can all agree on that.  Well we can agree on it now, but it was a few years before the truth came out.  The reason it took a few years to come out was because all of the twenty-something cops lied about what went down.  The only reason it finally came out was because there was a video that showed that Laquan had never lunged at anybody which is what all twenty something cops said.  

The mayor and his cronies were aware of the video but they found this or that reason not to allow the public to see it.  But eventually it did get out.  Van Dyke is facing heavy charges but most of the cops are skating.

Remember Omerta?  It is often decried when like those folks on the Wabash Avenue bridge invoke it.  But as you can see the cops practice it too.  And this is going to make it all the more unlikely that Black victims are going to talk to the cops who they can see are united against them.  

So here's the thing. Those Black Lives Matter folks, they have a just cause, they have a just reason for demonstrating.

Does that mean they have a right to cause that ruckus in the northwest, or to topple the Columbus statue here in Chicago?  I don't think so.  But more on that in a couple days.