A Handful Of Little Cigarillos

The store owners Michael allegedly shop-lifted have said they didn't call 911. Can that be true?
I can't blame the owners for saying that now, though. The Ferguson police seem to be paralyzed
without military armor, tanks, and long guns.
Did they used to arrest shoplifters without killing?
How were the cigarillos priced?
Some on the news were saying 50+ dollars, but that seems extreme. They are normally sold
individually for about a dollar, and not many at a time are able to be reached by the public.
One of the principal problems in Ferguson linger from generations past when it comes to neighborhood stores in cities.
Once black people left southern plantations it became more and more impossible for them to implement much of anything regarding opening businesses in their own communities.
Yet, people from abroad who can barely speak English get all sorts of breaks, tax and otherwise,
to set down right in the heart of black neighborhoods as owners of all types of stores.
Black neighborhoods tolerate these stores with a good measure of resentment on a day to day basis.
In Detroit, black men had a hard time showing Mid East store owners they couldn't operate here with
any sort of safety if they could show no respect for black women.
These store owners learned eventually, the hard way, that they couldn't call every pretty girl
"sweetie" or "honey" five or six times during a transaction.
In Detroit, banks ignored black commercial ambition. We had two choices- teach store owners how
to survive here, or do without stores.
But black communities are not happy in the first place about these two stark choices.
We had Mayor Young, though, for so many years, though, that the culture of the police is humanized here.
If a young black man is killed here, it is likely by someone with whom he has developed a bad
relationship.
Police arrest people who jay-walk, or steal.
When arrest isn't feasible, a warrant is issued.
Even suburbs here tend to police by citation and warrant.
I wouldn't say it's pleasant, because a person can get stopped for a tail light,on his way to the first day of a new job- then find out from that that he has a live child support warrant in his police files.
Normally, if a person isn't committing a violent crime, policemen will say, "You'd better get that taken care of soon." A policeman who notices an armed robbery on you will call for back-up and try
to affect an arrest.
Detroit doesn't have a wonderful crime reputation. However, if a suspected crime is a non-violent offense, our system is set up so that it would be nearly impossible for a person to get killed over it.
What Ferguson has to worry about now, though, is that if the insurance companies abandon businesses in their city, business owners will pick up and leave. Who could blame them?
If that happens, that town, and its police department will die.
A city of 20,000 residents can't generate enough earnings revenues to stay viable if those residents
have no places of businesses to keep people employed, unless all the residents are professionals.
We aren't looking at a town full of minority professionals in Ferguson.
What can the city do now?
I can't say. But they have no police department. If they can get accustomed to that fact, maybe they
will be OK.
If all else fails, move here to the city of Detroit.
We are not allowed our own officials here any longer. Still, we have a legacy of black men staying
alive. And we are fighting.