It was sadly inevitable that the inflamed rhetoric of people chanting for justice – based on supposed eyewitness accounts of the death of the so-called “unarmed teenaged” in Ferguson which were disproven by irrefutable forensic evidence – has in some way led to the assassination of two New York City police officers. That’s not to say that what just happened in Brooklyn would not have happened anyway, but clearly the perpetrator felt strongly enough to post on line his promise that two white police officers must die for every black person killed at the hands of the police. With every mentally disturbed person in our society in possession of a gun – or able to secure one quickly – the chants of “No Justice, No Peace!” can easily be interpreted as a call to retaliation or revenge. “No, no, that’s not what we meant by our slogan,” say the protesters. What then did you mean? You put the words out there, to be interpreted however the hearer wishes to interpret them.  These tragic events are nothing new. Police officers – human beings, don’t forget – have been shot and killed for years for no other reason than that they are police officers, representatives of society’s attempt to keep its populace safe and secure. No one puts on the uniform of the police without being aware that, by doing so, they have become a target to many. No one puts on the uniform of the police without being aware, as well, that there are as many handguns in the United States as people and that it takes but an instant for a gun to be pointed out them and fired.

Now, can anyone be surprised that police officers fear for their lives whenever they find themselves in confrontation with the deranged or with those who have likely committed a crime?

Who In His Right Mind Would Want To Serve the Community?.

(The writer served as a Trial Attorney with the United States Department of Justice 1976-1980 and conducted a number of grand jury investigations into police shootings that led to death.)

So many people – well-educated people – are misinformed about so many things regarding the grand jury investigation of Darren Wilson. One writer, typical of many, falsely attributes the grand jury decision not to indict Officer Wilson as a reflection of “the tragically low value our society places on the lives of young black men.” Yet there is no evidence that the decision not to press charges against him had anything to do with racial bias as opposed to the evidence. The same writer attributes the outcome to the way that Robert McCulloch “led the grand jury [i.e.] in a manner that seemed designed to indict the unarmed [Michael] Brown.” The accusation ignores the point that Mr. McCulloch did not involve himself with the grand jury other than introduce the two assistants district attorneys.

The real complaint of those unhappy with the grand jury decision is that, instead of jurors hearing only those witnesses who would condemn Officer Wilson, regardless of the inconsistency of their testimony to the physical evidence, the grand jury actually heard all of the eyewitnesses, as many as could found and subpoenaed. Contrary to the apparent belief of these critics that the only proper function of a grand jury is to pass along indictments so that “truth” can be determined at trial, the grand jury in our country has long been an institution where crimes are investigated, and the grand jury is expected to put brakes on potential prosecutions when adequate evidence of a crime does not exist. That is certainly the situation with respect to Officer Wilson. For a crime to have been committed, there must have been credible evidence to negate his testimony that he feared for his life. The mere fact that a witness walks into a grand jury room and purports to tell the truth does not mean that the witness is credible, and witnesses whose testimony is starkly contradicted by physical evidence have no credibility. If ten witnesses swear that Officer Wilson stood over Mr. Brown’s back as he lay on the ground and fired repeatedly into his head, but the autopsy report shows that no such thing happened, a grand jury is not required to return an indictment.

The power of the grand jury to protect against arbitrary criminal prosecutions was so fundamentally important to our country that it was embodied in the Bill of Rights. The Fifth Amendment provides in pertinent part: “No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury …” The Fifth Amendment does not say that grand juries should ignore the distinction between what is credible and what is not and therefore indict regardless of the facts so that the “truth” can be determined at trial.

It further troubles me greatly that almost every account of the shooting specifies that Mr. Brown was an “unarmed teenager.” The uncontradicted testimony is that Mr. Brown assaulted Officer Wilson, punched him repeatedly, through the open window of Officer Wilson’s squad car. A fist of a 289-pound man, teenage or not, delivered from the leverage of height, is a weapon, whether or not it’s a firearm. Any law enforcement officer knows that he can be killed or incapacitated by a physical blow from the fist of an enraged man to the head.

The uncontradicted testimony is also that Mr. Brown tried to grab Officer Wilson’s gun and had in fact forced the barrel of the gun to point at Officer Wilson himself. By constantly referring to Mr. Brown as “unarmed,” commentators on this tragic story are making light of the mortal danger that Officer Wilson was in when he shot at Mr. Brown. Law enforcement officers are sadly killed time and again when their antagonists strip them of their guns. Some data indicate that between 2000 and2010, at least 51 officers were killed by alleged perpetrators who used the officer’s own gun. Four officers were thus killed in 2011, and one officer thus killed in 2013. Every police officer is aware that this is a risk every time he or she steps onto the street and is trained to guard against this risk.  So as Mr. Brown charged Officer Wilson – the physical evidence is clear that he did – Officer Wilson most reasonably feared for his own life. Anyone who says otherwise has obviously never been in that position.

In the aftermath of this affair — and in light of the comments of those who feel that justice was not done and that the only possible justice was to charge Officer Wilson with a crime – who in their right mind would want to become a police officer?

An unfamiliar voice stabs at my heart

Begging me to drop everything and run

Faster than a bullet to my son’s school

Or quicker than automatic guns can

Deaden the life of a beautiful girl

Or before the innocent smiles fade

As they face down into hot pools of blood

I drop the phone, my fingers numb, and stoop

To make sure I’ve heard correctly the news

That sears into my brain, stripping my soul

It’s hard to avoid sentimentality on the evening before putting down a beloved dog. Something there is that wants to explain, but all of us who’ve ever owned such a pet know what it’s like, which doesn’t bear repeating.

Sandy at this moment has no idea that she’s within her last 24 hours of life and, ironically, seems happy enough, having lain outside for most of the day because it’s cool, quite good dog weather. Nor does her friend, our other Belgian terrier Danny, understand he’s about to lose his best friend, and even if he could understand, he’d hardly comprehend why. Tomorrow at 1:15 pm we’ll walk Sandy the three blocks to the neighborhood vet and there say goodbye. Amazing, we don’t think she’ll be unable to walk the three blocks if we take our time, although she might have some pain in her hind quarters.  Her back legs hardly work at all anymore, and she suffers when she tries to get up and cannot, legs splayed out under or behind her. It’s something no pet owner ever wants to see.

Danny will probably be jealous that Sandy’s getting a walk and he’s not. The three of us – Laurie, our daughter Jean, and I – will come back without her, sad of course, and Danny will think that Sandy’s just coming later; then, over a period of days, Danny will adjust to Sandy not being around (we hope), and soon he may recall her only in his dreams. Would that her owners be able to adjust as readily.

I’ve been working on a story entitled “Key West” and sharing drafts with my wife and daughter and a friend. Little did I expect that these three important people in my life would so uniformly tell me that my story “wasn’t my best effort,” as my daughter tried to put it tactfully. It seems that my main character, Eli, is not a very nice person, and the story stays in his head throughout its 3700 words. I have been taught that stories about unpleasant people can be good stories, but that the protagonist must have some redeeming characteristics, something that will make the reader care about him even if he’s not the type of person one would select as a companion. Well, I thought that’s what I’d done in my story, but apparently not.

So now what? Either I need to invent all kinds of additional redeeming characteristics for Eli and work them into the story or have the other main character, Eli’s son, put his father in his place. Or, as my wife has asked, “What’s the point of this story, anyway?” The point was to try to entertain. Instead, in all three readers, I have evoked feelings of anger or disappointment. Why anger? Because the obnoxious main character has a dim view of poor people and those without a college degree, because the well-bred son uses the term “ain’t” when talking to his dad, because Eli tries to push his son into moving towards a more middle-class role in the world. Why disappointment? Because the story doesn’t end with a bang but with a whimper. 

The great thing about having people read your stories who will be honest is that it gives you a chance to do better before releasing the story to the unforgiving public. “Remember what the reader wants,” I need to keep telling myself and then applying my energies to that end.

Why are dogs?

I’m not looking for the scientific answer, although evolutionary biology is certainly part of the puzzle. I’m thinking, rather, of the emotional answer.

Our ancestors needed close friends of different species. They needed scavengers to pick up and eat their garbage, thus keeping other, more dangerous, carnivores away. They needed fuzzy little companions to pet and to talk to without threat of being answered. They favored the cute ones who wagged their tails. They wanted some extra warm bodies around on those cold nights.

They say that necessity is the mother of invention. That’s an expression that wasn’t meant to explain why dogs, but it works. We invented dogs because we needed them. On a larger scale, our needs helped to create life.

So when is long-distance running exactly like football? Well, never, except when the weather is terrible.

 I’ve just started running road races this past September, most of them with my daughter. It’s been a brutal winter, yet a scheduled race is almost never postponed because of the weather. Let it be freezing, raining, snowing, hailing, sleeting … whatever. Still, there will be hundreds of people of all ages who appear, ready to run, the elements be damned. Now, if that isn’t just like football, what is?

 It started on Thanksgiving weekend at the Turkey Burn-Off Five Miler, where there was ice to run over. Then it continued in mid-December in Rockville at an 8k race when there was even more snow and ice to avoid … except that one couldn’t avoid it at all, except by running in the street and subjecting oneself to the risk of dismemberment by car. Then, cold and ice continued to flummox me at the New Year’s Day 5k. It warmed up a bit in mid-January for a four-mile race in Silver Spring, when we only had to dodge the incessant rain. That was actually one of my best races. (I will skip the five-mile race in Olney when the only problem was cold.) Then the cold continued for the 12k at Lake Burke on March 2 (one could see parts of the lake frozen), except my daughter tells me it got nice near the end. Sure, but how many big puddles did I have to run through first and how many times did I need to run on slippery mud to avoid those puddles? That was 82 minutes of bliss, I must say.

The corkers, however, were this past weekend. I ran Sunday morning’s 10k at Seneca Lake State Park entirely in the rain — and at my speed, that’s spending almost an hour and ten minutes in the rain, not counting all the time before the race — and with a strong, biting wind in my face for half the race. However, that was nothing like the ten-mile race my daughter ran yesterday afternoon in Frederick, with rain, snow, and hail, the temperature dropping to 34 degrees, the wind picking up in ferocity.

Yes, the runners I encounter seem to thrive with adversity. They’re going to run regardless, and the worse the weather is, the worse all the running conditions are, it seems the happier are the contestants. I just have to bend my mind towards that.