It is difficult to judge a jury’s verdict from news reports. There is a vast difference between sitting the court room hearing all the testimony not hearing things that are reported and repeated to the public and coming to a conclusion based upon the fragments in reporting but with all that said to me it looks like they came to the right conclusion, guilty on all counts.

While some of my conservative friends try to dismiss race as any factor in police misconduct and some of my liberal friends seem to see it as the only factor, I try to have what I hope is a more holistic view.

To me there is no doubt that race and racism is a factor, an important one, but far from the only element that contributes to the terrible outcomes in the manner in which our nations police’s its population.

Another vital element is the legal precept of ‘Qualified Immunity’ which shields so many police officers from the consequences of their actions. If actions are free from consequences that there is no incentive to correct future behavior.

The culture of policing in this nation is also a factor in its abuse. Police do not behave as public servants but as an occupying force. The very concept that citizens are referred to as ‘civilians’ reenforces the mindset of an invasive military force. Coupled with the self-segregation and the ‘blue code’ of silence and you have a powerful cocktail for high-handed abuse.

But police culture is a sub-culture of the broader American culture and that is a major contributing factor as well.

American culture is violent. We engaged in violence more often than other western cultures, we celebrate violence in a media, we idolize its practitioners, it is no surprise that American Football is far more popular here than international version, so is it really that surprising that our police forces are also exceptionally violent? The police, for all their self-segregation and isolation remain products of our culture a culture whose dominate myth is the lone man taming a vast wilderness with violence.

There are no easy, fast solutions to our troubles and the road ahead remains difficult.