Readings on #Ferguson #MikeBrown #GrandJuryVerdict

The National Guard arrived in Ferguson last night presumably to keep calm in the streets. Would it not send an even more powerful message for those officers to guarantee the safe passage of thousands of children to school?

Grand juries nearly always decide to indict. Or at least, they nearly always do so in cases that don’t involve police officers.

The grand jury decision on the Ferguson case was in keeping with a longstanding pattern: Police officers rarely face prison time after a fatal shooting, as the Los Angeles Times reported last week. One reason is that intent is hard to prove ‘beyond a reasonable doubt,’ prosecutors tend to see police as allies, and jurors are inclined to be sympathetic to law enforcement.