Thanks Brian (I hate anonymous comments unless they are for comedic purposes).

I actually agree strongly with your comment about the use of deadly force. The problems are two-fold. First cops are trained only to shoot to kill, dead center chest or between their eyes. They are also taught to unload their chambers. I believe there should be an option where an officer is given discretion to take a suspect down, be it due to mental illness, or it being a young kid or if the officer can be confident that one appropriately placed bullet should end the threat.

The problem is that all that stuff is easy for us to talk about sitting behind our computers, much more difficult to implement in real life where a cop may be dealing with a once in a lifetime situation happening at the speed of light. Changing those policies will undoubtedly result in more dead cops who have made a mistake in judgment. Plus, once that cop is given that discretion, we will have every two-bit lawyer on earth suing over the cop's poor judgment every time a perpetrator is killed. There has to be some way of avoiding killing people in such circumstances. Then again, I believe Michael Brown was shot once and it did not stop his aggression.

What is clear to me is that the reason Michael Brown died is not racism, but that the infusion of race makes this an explosive situation and prevents getting to the real root of the problems, which is how we raise our kids.

If you ask most black kids in America right now, they would probably tell you that Michael Brown was killed because he was black or because the deck is stacked against young black males. The clear truth is that Michael Brown died because he attacked a cop. If everything else in this case stayed the same except you changed the color of the cop's skin to black, we would have never heard about this case. If you changed the color of the perpetrator's skin to white, we would have never heard about this case. It would be cut and dry. The make-up of Ferguson's police dept is a concern that should be addressed, but not anywhere even close to being a reason for Michael Brown's aggression towards a police officer.

The fact that media types and activists go on TV insinuating that the perpetrator's actions could have any justification makes them guilty of creating an environment that leads to the deaths of more young black males, the overwhelming majority of whom are killed by other young black males.

The President once made a comment about how Trayvon Wilson could very well have been "his son." Michael Brown could NOT have been Barack and Michele Obama's son. They would not tolerate that kind of behavior. Michael Brown could not have been my son. There is not a chance that anyone I raise would ever hit a cop in the face trying to avoid getting arrested for stealing something.

We have to teach young black kids that if they engage in certain behaviors, it will ruin their lives. I feel that young black kids deserve the same quality of parenting, mentoring and teaching with which I provide my son and daughter.

Racism is real, unfortunate and declining generation by generation. That is not, however, an excuse to provide young blacks kids with a lower quality upbringing than with which I provide my son and daughter.

Especially when the dissatisfied subset of the community is actually not the minority, but rather the majority and could simply vote for change. A majority that exists in a democratic environment but suffers from their own inaction is not an oppressed group, but rather an apathetic group.

To be honest I understand Vic's intent. He is pointing out the stupidity of destroying private property of their neighbors who have no relationship to the entity that they are protesting. While I don't believe that in this situation it is fair to be angry at the government, I could understand situations where revolt against an oppressive government could be the only option. For example (and of course I wouldn't recommend this), if a local government enacted an asset seizing program such as Nassau County's camera speed zone/right on red budget revenue generation programs where the government systematically, arbitrarily and without discretion started taking money from its people "Nottingham-style" and started filling government bank account totals like a pinball machine, one could see the legitimacy of starting to destroy such equipment used to pilfer money from its own constituency since the politicians and courts are too wrapped up in the benefits of the system to change it.

Yes, Erik, but what you are suggesting as correct turns those people into Robin Hoods and supports anarchy. In most cases, it is simply practical to follow the law unless you are protecting loved ones. So maybe Nassau county residents should drive slower and stop before taking a right on red. It Is hard to achieve anything from inside a cage.

It is ok for you to be offended, but important to remember that my tone about this case does not judge black youths or cops across the board. It is specifically based upon the facts presented in this case. The Eric Garner case is absolutely a result of a bad cop implementing poor procedures and illegal tactics. Part of the problem is when people invest themselves in a cause or a feeling so much that it prevents them from looking at the facts in the case. I reserved judgment on this case until the facts were disseminated from the rumors and lies. This was originally portrayed as an innocent kid who was shot with his hands in the air after surrendering (you kind of presented it the same way, he was only unarmed because he failed in his attempt to forcibly take the officer's gun form him). We now know this characterization to be untrue. We know now that he was not 150 feet away, we know that that he was an adult, we know now that he had just committed a violent crime against a storeowner, we know now that he physically attacked a smaller police officer giving the officer every reason to believe that his life was in danger.

Your points about society, our justice system and racism are all true. However so is my point that putting these issues at the forefront of this case endangers young the lives of other young black kids. If we can't speak about parenting, how kids are raised and the positive/negative impacts of such on their lives, how are we supposed to help these kids.

Your wife has a unique perspective on this, but it is not the only perspective. She is probably a wonderful person who does her best all day long to try and get kids back on the right track. However, if we're being honest, by the time people get to your wife, the horse is already out of the barn. I don't want to limit our solutions based on the challenges that your wife faces every day. Nothing would be a greater tribute to your wife's daily contribution than to help reduce the number of people she needs to help.

We have gotten to this place in society where we are told that we can no longer hold people accountable or comment on their life choices, for the way they raise their children. That in itself is wrong and threatens to condemn parts of our society to a downward cultural spiral. I believe that these kids deserve better than we are giving them. We have no trouble telling people that if they don't eat properly and exercise, that they will get sick, become obese and die earlier. Why is it wrong to start talking to our parents and communities and telling them that if they commit crimes and make bad parenting and life choices, it will negatively impact them and their kids. It is NOT racist to place this responsibility on people living in urban communities, the way we accept it on ourselves. It IS racist not to think they are able to handle that responsibility the way we do.

I have no problem with people protesting for change. Of course it is harder growing up black. Of course I can't understand that. Nobody can unless they are black. Everybody is always going to be a product of their experiences. Of course young black kids aren't going to listen to someone like me. That is why it needs to be black leaders that stand up and change the culture in which these at-risk children are growing up. There are plenty of black American families that successfully raise great kids. I can absolutely say that these kids would not attack a cop because he asked them to walk on the sidewalk or because he caught them shoplifting. I grew up in a very gentrified suburban community and I specifically remember my father adamantly saying that no matter what ever happens, you do not ever fight with or resist a cop. Yes, I know that neither my father nor I are black. Nonetheless, I know with complete confidence that my father's advice is 100% correct for every single kid growing up in every community no matter what color they are. Nobody can make a case for anything else being good advice. That doesn't mean that we are perfect or that nobody ever makes a mistake or screws up as kids, but it does mean that this hostility against law enforcement and the subsequent conflicts can prevent young kids from getting second chances to overcome their mistakes.

We can always sit back and say, "you don't really know about this and you don't really know about that." The fact that the vast majority of young black males grow up in broken homes is without question attributing directly to their probability of negative outcomes. We can lie about that and ignore it all we want, but all we are doing is abandoning these kids by doing so.

Human beings don't thrive because of compassion, they thrive from leadership. Leadership certainly requires compassion, but compassion without leadership and guidance is nothing more than self-serving enablement.

If white and black Americans alike continue to sit back and absolve people who grow up under challenging circumstances of responsibility for their actions, they are not being compassionate, they are acting in a self-serving manner, they are avoiding the problem. They are not part of the solution, they are part of the problem.

Because we saw him on tape steal a box of cigars and when the store owner tried to stop him, he came at the store owner in a manner that clearly indicated violence. He also according to multiple witnesses seriously, physically assaulted a police officer.

I will also clarify that my statement regarding a dislike of Michael Brown is probably a reaction to the dishonest way in which he was presented to us originally by the media and the repeated lies by his friend who was with him throughout the incident. I obviously didn't know him personally, but imagine seeing/hearing someone you did like commit these actions. Do you still think you could describe this person as someone you would "like."

Yet again, there are people who would judge me negatively for saying that I dislike him.

Not only is it true that no officer wants to use their gun, but they actually use it so rarely that the idea that they should have perfect judgment in a split second situation caused by a violent perpetrator is a an incredibly high standard. I know that Suffolk County is not Ferguson, but the average cop in Suffolk County uses their weapon less than 1.0 times in their entire lifetime. That's roughly one instance over a span of what 20+ years. They are trained quite well to be ready when that occurrence should arise, but they are still human beings and they live and work in constant potential life threatening danger. There is absolutely nothing that justifies engaging violently with a police officer.

If I'm not mistaken, prosecutors also try to avoiding taking on cases that they don't think they can win, correct?

Please tell me you are kidding...Obama's nomination for Attorney General is the prosecutor who brought the Abner Louima case to the headlines. You can't make this shit up! Talk about a direct link to the racial arsonists.