If suspect Ismaaiyl Brinsley proves to actually be the person who ambushed and killed New York police officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, he is a murderer.  It is as simple as that.  It does not matter if he did it because he sincerely felt that Eric Garner and Michael Brown did not receive justice because the grand juries did not indict the police officers responsible for their deaths or he was a sociopath, psychopath or for any other reason.

To kill two innocent police officers because it was police officers who killed Eric Garner and Michael Brown is to be no better than police officers who would discount the life of someone because of the color of their skin and kill them for no reason other than that.  Therefore, what Mr. Brinsley did is nonsensical because that kind of thing is what the protests are about.

There have been too many Black people and too many white people young and old who have come together and marched peacefully in the streets of many cities around this country in the names of Eric Garner and Michael Brown to have those names and efforts besmirched by an act of murder.  I refuse to accept even the thought that the preponderance of white people in this country does not want equal justice for all Americans.

I do not believe that the young Americans who are the catalyst of these peaceful protests and the foundation of race relations for America in the future believe that they should paint a broad-brush view of all white people as a result of what has transpired thus far in the Eric Garner and Michael Brown cases.  The rainbow of colors of the people participating in the peaceful protests support the fact that people of all colors want equal justice for all people.

There is no doubt that people of color and white people have our differences; but it is because by virtue of the history of our country and the deep-seated biases that we carry as a result of that, that we wear virtual blinders that make it all but impossible for each to see the other’s perspective.

I do not know if under these circumstances it is possible for us to achieve a level playing field but I do know that if we fail to work together and try we will never know the true answer to this thought; it is meant to be a question as well.  Surely at some time or another if this is a thought-provoking question that has not actually been verbalized by our elected leaders, it is far past time that it should be.

In the meantime, all of those who are truly protesting in the name of Eric Garner and Michael Brown should stand up and speak out about the killing of these two innocent police officers.  The killer might have evoked the names of Eric Garner and Michael Brown to try to justify what he did but what he did was wrong.  And everyone should call what he did by its true name; murder.

What he did was vigilantism.  He anointed himself judge, jury and executioner and then carried out his sentence.  He was an unwanted vigilante and what he did, did not honor Mr. Garner and Mr. Brown, it dishonored them.

Eulus Dennis