Truth Revolt has both the details, and this video:

Essentially, the police are alleging that their suspect (20 year old local Jeffrey Williams) is a known Ferguson protester who has participated in several demonstrations. They’re also saying that the suspect is claiming that he was aiming at somebody else at the time. Which is… novel, as defenses go. Essentially, the best-case scenario here then for the Ferguson protest movement is that one of their demonstrators was simply trying to murder someone else, only the cops got in the way.

While we’re on this subject generally… it would probably be a good idea if you folks read my friend and RS colleague Leon Wolf’s analysis of the Department of Justice’s Ferguson report. Not least because he actually read the original report, which is not the most common practice in This Thing Of Ours. I’m mentioning it because Leon’s final point – “It is possible to condemn unjust and oppressive policing and also the unprovoked murder of police, and it is indicative of societal sickness caused by excessive partisanship that makes us unable to see that” – is both one that I agree with, and one that may be obscured by today’s revelations.  Because the problem here is that, indeed, unjust and oppressive policing is being used by provocateurs to, well, provoke violence and murder.

I have precisely zero expectations that the Activist Left will actually do anything about the latter, in their attempts to score political points with regard to the former; which means that those of us who are concerned with both police overreach and politically-motivated violence by radical would-be revolutionaries are going to have to do all the heavy lifting, here.  And as usual.  Which is not particularly fair, but then that’s par for the course when your side is the one with all the grownups.

(Image via Shutterstock)

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: No, seriously, all of the grownups:

"Acknowledgement nine months ago would have kept that from happening" – actual taunt by Ferguson protester after murder attempt last night.

— Moe Lane (@moelane) March 12, 2015

When your first impulse at seeing somebody shot in the face is to sneer at them for it, you are not a mature individual.  And yes: that happened.