I have so much faith in Obama that I think the whole Henry Louis Gates Jr. arrest fiasco will be cleared up when the police officer, the professor and the President of the United States have a beer together at the White House.
There is no such hope for Shem Walker, a man I never met, who was shot to death by a cop on his own stoop 12 blocks from where I live in Brooklyn. He is my neighbor.
Undercover cops dressed as drug dealers loitering on the stoop of Mr Walker’s elderly mother. Mr. Walker told them to move. They did not respond. So he pushed them off his elderly mother’s stoop. That’s when one of the undercover cops fatally shot Mr. Walker in the chest. Mr Walker died. The undercover cop required two stitches.
These two scenarios have been playing out in my imagination for days.