Dreadful event. No question. Kyle shouldn’t have been there but he was. A town he knew was being looted and burned to the ground by opportunists. What would you do to defend your town, your local businesses from wanton destruction?

I’m not capable of shooting another human. Kyle evidently was. The video of his fear-ridden behavior in light of adults chasing him isn’t pretty. It also has nothing to do with the cause of Black Lives Matter. There’s panic, there’s fear, there’s a mob.

The attempt to twist this into some weird white supremacist narrative is seriously warped.

I want good police, well trained, to patrol the streets and neighborhoods and protect the vulnerable from those who would do harm. Isn’t that the essence of the social compact? I don’t want to have to arm to ensure I’m safe. If police are demonized and we lose the rule of law, what’s left is the rule of the jungle. Is that really preferable to our current system, warts and all?

Let’s build a better system on the core of the rule of law, equally applied. Each of those phrases can use more scrutiny, but scrutiny and reform is better than tossing it in the trash bin and creating a free-for-all on the streets.