THE WRONG FLAG

Demonstrations continue across the country, protesting the Grand Jury's decision not to prosecute the cop in Ferguson, Missouri. Lots of angry people out there, blocking roads and freeways, taunting the police.

Champions for Michael Brown.

They use his name, spray it onto the fronts of businesses. He's their hero, the new poster boy for police brutality. The symbol of racism in America.

Problem is, he's not.

It reminds me of a demonstration for immigration reform that took place in Los Angeles a few years back. Lots of folk in the street, waving the Mexican flag.

People pointed out that was a pretty stupid thing to do. And they got the message. Next time out, they waved the American flag.

Today's protesters need to learn that lesson. They have an important cause, a vital cause. Racism in America absolutely must be fixed.

But they're waving the wrong flag. Michael Brown is no hero. He's just a thug who fought a cop to avoid arrest for the crime he'd committed minutes earlier. He had plans, was going to college. He knew an arrest now would mess up everything. So he fought it. He had no right to do that. And he was just making matters worse.

At the end, he may have tried the same tactic that had worked in the store. We all saw him on the video, menacing a little guy, coming at him. Out in the street, the cop also backed up when Brown came at him.

But ultimately he had to shoot. You can't let somebody come toward you like that, armed or unarmed. In fact, unarmed is even worse. It defies reason.

You have to shoot unarmed people when they advance at you, despite knowing you have a gun. You simply can't let them get their hands on you.

Brown's mother keeps repeating her son was murdered in cold blood in broad daylight. Well, she's the mother, and mothers never get this stuff right.

We know from the forensic evidence that whatever happened, it wasn't done in cold blood. Not Brown's desperate attack on the cop, and not the cop's final response. Michael Brown was the ringmaster of that circus from start to finish. He made his choices. Bad choices, all of them.

He's not a hero. Stop waving his flag. You're only hurting your cause.