CLEVELAND

Things are heating up in Cleveland, following the acquittal of a white cope who helped end a massive police chase of a car containing a black couple who refused to comply to an order to stop.

The cop apparently jumped onto the hood of the car and fired fifteen times into the windshield. The car was also hit by other officers, some 137 times altogether. The judge seemed to say it was impossible to say whether the guy on trial killed the couple--or even hit them himself. (I have to assume the wounds were through and through, or ballistics would answer that question.)

A relative of the couple said she could see that the dead folks had made a mistake in fleeing the police, but that their action was not a capital offense. They didn't deserve the death penalty.

I believe she's missing the point.

If you jump in front of a cop and wave a knife in his face, you're likely to get shot dead. Despite the fact brandishing a knife is not a death-penalty offense.

You have to allow for the possibility the cop might fear for his own safety and act accordingly. He also has to consider it's his job to deal with you and your knife. If he lets you stab him to death, that leaves you free to go off and maybe stab somebody else.

If a cop has a moment to think, and room to move behind him, he might draw his weapon but back up, ordering you to drop the knife. Yeah, that sometimes works.

If you're driving along the road and a cop car lights you up, you need to stop. Failing to do so suggests to the cop you have something to hide. Maybe a weapon.

Run from the cops, they will chase you.

The longer you evade in a vehicle, the more cop cars you accumulate behind you. We see this on TV almost every day.

Trying to get a two-ton chunk of rolling metal to stop ain't easy. And that thing can kill people. If the black couple didn't have a gun, you can't say they didn't have a weapon. The car itself is a weapon.

As I understand it, there were something like a hundred cops surrounding that car at the end of the pursuit. Lot of adrenaline out there, guys pumped up, ready for action.

I think it would be an oversimplification to say they all fired at the car out of hatred for black folks.

But don't get me wrong. I'm not saying white cops can't be a bunch of racist assholes. Of course they can. I'm just saying we can't be absolutely sure that's what happened in this case.

Protesters, of course, know different.

And that attitude of certainty fuels the problem. It is not impossible the black couple failed to stop because they were worried what a bunch of white cops would do to them if they did.

This is an atmosphere ripe for escalation. Black folks confront white cops trying to get them to over-react. Cops are getting assassinated in their cars.

Everybody is acting on what they are convinced is rock-solid evidence of incontrovertible truth.

Being human, we're almost completely wrong about all of it. But we can't help it. We're wired to get things wrong and not to notice we're doing it.

The other Cleveland story stoking the heat: The kid shot dead with a "toy" gun in his hand. Folks want action taken against the murdering cops.

First, take a step back.

That gun was a "toy" in only one sense, that it was incapable of firing real bullets. It looked exactly like a semi-automatic pistol. No orange end piece on the muzzle, the way the law requires. It might just as well have been a real but unloaded gun.

On the news I've heard it referred to as a plastic pellet gun. It's not clear if reporters mean the gun was plastic or that it fired plastic pellets. The latter, I suspect. A plastic gun might not be able to handle the pressure necessary to fire a pellet.

On the CBS network news, Scott Pelley likes to call it a "toy pellet gun."  As opposed to a real pellet gun? I don't think there is such a thing as a "toy" pellet gun.

The item is always labeled a toy, but only occasionally is it shown on the screen. In the approximately two seconds that elapsed between the time the cop car arrived and the fatal shot was fired, it would be impossible to tell if the gun was real or not. Cops have to assume guns that look real are real. And full of bullets. It's the only safe and reasonable thing to think.

Will the mother get prosecuted for letting her kid roam the city with what looked exactly like a real gun?

Don't hold your breath.

She's lucky: Her kid was black and the cop was white. Now that's the only issue on the table. Her part in this tragedy will never come under scrutiny.

The cops also made a mistake that day. They pulled up too close to the kid, which meant their response had to be super fast. The kid was right there, walking toward the cruiser. There was no time for the cops to take cover, giving the boy a chance to drop the weapon.

Cops need new technology. They need sci-fi style "phasers"--set in the default position to stun. Knock a guy out and you can disarm and cuff him at your leisure. The phaser should be a cop's primary weapon. Any gun that fires lead slugs should be held in reserve. See a threat, draw the phaser and put the bad guy on the ground.

The technology of policing can always be improved. That's easy. The hard part will be to get humans to stop being so stupid. That'll probably take forever.

Or at least, until we stop being human.

CATS AND DOGS

If you're a dog lover, prepare for a swat on the snout with a rolled-up newspaper: It is my experience that cat lovers are more tolerant of dog lovers than the reverse.

According to dog lovers, owning cats is a vaguely perverse activity. Crazy old women are typically surrounded by cats, not dogs.

(It may be that dogs are too needy to survive in those conditions.)

Dogs, on the other hand, are considered manly. When an up-and-coming drug lord wants to advertise his authority, he buys a ferocious Rottweiler and equips him with a spiked collar. The only cat appropriate to the big man's circumstances is a full-grown tiger or the equivalent.

I notice that cats are treated with a certain level of meanness in our society. On TV sitcoms, when an object is thrown out the window it is not unusual to hear an unseen cat complain with an abused yowl. It's considered funny when a cat is clobbered by an old boot or rusty pair of scissors. By our laughter we seem to be saying they deserve it.

(We also laugh at comic drunks--forget whatever hell he or she creates at home for the family. We demand absolution for our crass statements and actions by reminding the audience it's all a joke. The rule is you can say anything as long as you follow it with: "Hey, I'm just kidding!")

It's true, dogs can be more easily trained to perform tasks. Some even rush off on command to grab a beer out of the refrigerator.

Dogs also pay more attention to us. If you point at something, a cat won't look to see what it is. Instead, he'll come up and sniff your finger.

It's also said dogs are more affectionate. I think it depends on the dog in question. Some cats are very companionable and affectionate.

But I've strayed from my point. Cats and dogs have various features, and those who love them have their own. I just think dog lovers are, without good reason, overly harsh in their attitude toward cat lovers.

Our society seems to back them up. As usual, without apparent reason. But hey, it's what we do here. I guess it's a good thing cats don't give a crap what you think of them.

EBOLA-ROLA

A recent edition of the PBS program Frontline examined last year's ebola outbreak in Africa, which is just now drawing to a close. Here are some things I learned:

It likely began in Meliandou Village, Guinea, in late December, 2013, when some boys killed a treeful of infected bats and ate them. Yum.

At first, nobody understood what was happening. Folks were dying of fever in bloody pools, which should have been a hint. But because there had never been ebola within a thousand miles, that disease was not considered. And why would you, when there was such a good alternate explanation staring you in the face.

Witchcraft.

A man who watched his wife and children sicken and die, one after the other, knew he was cursed. In the end, as his wife bled out, he declared: "The village is killing me!"

But he survived. The three women who cleaned up the blood all died.

A traditional healer was brought in to check out the situation. He assembled the entire village population, including the sick, and pronounced the place infested by ghosts. Unfortunately, whatever he proposed for a solution failed to do the trick. The disease continued to spread. People continued to die.

Doctors Without Borders got involved, but when one of their spokesmen declared the outbreak an "unprecedented epidemic," Guinea's Minster of Health scolded the organization for spreading panic. The Doctors were off the reservation, not following the party line. The government wanted only laboratory-confirmed ebola deaths reported, which naturally limited the scope.

The disease crossed into Sierra Leone.

Rumors spread: There was no ebola. White doctors were killing Africans with an injection. Perhaps folks misunderstood the use of a syringe in collecting blood samples. Many who were tested for the virus were sick at the time and subsequently died.

Whatever the reason, fear sent the infected in every direction, further spreading the disease.

In early April, a catastrophe. A popular healer named Mendinor died of ebola. She was so talented, even ghosts followed her around. She could talk to the dead.

Tradition dictated the way her highly infectious body was to be handled (and handled is absolutely the right word). Lots of up-close-and-personal manipulation: washing, redressing, hair braiding, and so forth. Numerous people came together to do the work. It was an honor.

Her funeral was captured on cell-phone video. This healer was a superstar in the region and a great many people turned out to pay their respects—principally by caressing the deadly body. It is estimated several thousand folks followed that woman into the ground.

But the burial procedures were absolutely necessary. The villagers knew that if you don't prepare a body properly for the next world, the dead will come back as ghosts and haunt everybody.

Turns out this sort of "knowledge" has a big downside.

Doctors Without Borders continued to do what they could, but this thing was spiraling out of control. A new hospital could be built and overwhelmed on its first day of operation.

The central hospital of Sierra Leone was dedicated to ebola, but it soon became a death factory. People staggered in and died. Nurses died. Cleaners died. The rumors began to spread.

A woman claiming to be a nurse bustled into a crowded marketplace and began "confessing" there was no ebola. The doctors, she said, were just cannibals looking for food. Doctors and nurses fled. A mob approaching the hospital had to be dispersed by tear gas.

The disease spread to Liberia, then Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa. The World Health Organization declared an international emergency.

In Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, a slum called West Point was sealed off to prevent the spread. A school was converted into an isolation center, where the sick and the well were confined together to see what would happen.

More rumors: The outbreak was an attack by outsiders designed to kill poor Africans. The isolation center was overrun by angry rioters who trampled across the bloody floors in bare feet as they looted the place of mattresses and sheets. The contaminated booty was put to use at home, with poor results.

Finally, the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta got involved. But by then it was already too late...and to some extent unnecessary. What everyone had been counting on, what had always happened in the past, finally occurred: The disease began to damp down. The number of new patients dwindled.

In all previous ebola outbreaks, matters had moved quickly to devastate small villages. Those emergencies ended in mere weeks because the disease was so rapacious it chewed its way through the available victims in a hurry.

This time it was different. In the end, what saved West Africa was largely a change in the attitude of the people. They stopped caring for their sick. They ended traditional methods of dealing with the dead.

What they'll do next time is anybody's guess.

Will traditional "knowledge" reassert itself? Will villagers declare the new, disrespectful method of caring for the dead a plot to strip Africans of their tribal heritage?

Ebola is a virus. You can't see it, touch it, or smell it. You can't even catch a glimpse of it in an ordinary microscope. The reality of this thing is so slippery its next to mythological.

So if you absolutely have to believe in some invisible entity, why not stick with the malicious ghosts that populate local stories. Traditional healers will certainly back you up if that's the way you want to go.

People are more comfortable with the "knowledge" they grew up with. They are especially suspicious of corrections coming from outsiders.

A woman who lost three of her six children prayed for God to intervene. I don't think that's ever actually worked, not once in the history of the world.

But that's just me.

When I'm dealing with a deadly virus, I believe in bleach and plastic and the isolation of patients. I would strive to keep my bare hands off the dead and dying. Leave supernatural critters out of it, I say.

Others recognize that the ebola virus is God's own tiny creature, placed on earth to do its holy work. These folks prefer to let events play out as God intends.

Good luck with that.

RUNNING WHILE BLACK

Here's another comment coming from the Freddie Gray incident:

The newly-elected State's Attorney recently contradicted the police, saying the knife in Gray's pocket was a folding knife, not a switchblade, and perfectly legal to carry. The arrest, therefore, was bogus. (Baltimore PD denies her assertion about the knife.)

Still true, however: Gray ran from the police after making eye contact with them.

Why?

Did he think his knife was illegal? Was he worried he was in violation of some other law? Or was he warned so often by his parents to stay away from cops that he panicked?

In black families, even little children say they are afraid of the cops. (But they say it with a smile.) I have to believe these kids have yet to have had a bad experience with the police. I have to believe they are simply parroting the native sentiment in the house, as expressed by parents and older siblings--who perhaps have had bad experiences with law enforcement personnel.

In so far as Freddie Gray ran from the police because his parents warned him he'd have to, the subsequent events take on an even more tragic tone.

In a recent television interview with Gray's relatives, one older fellow used the expression "running while black" to explain what happened. He said it wasn't a crime.

Is it possible he thinks white cops don't chase after white guys when they bolt? That's weird.

Cops are like junkyard dogs. They'll chase anything that runs from them.

And there's a reason for that: Running from the cops is inherently suspicious behavior. Black or white, it suggests you have something to hide.

But aren't some white cops racist? Of course they are.

Humans are born racist. It's a defense mechanism: distrust of strangers. The only person you're really safe with (and you're not) is your mother. Even dad is suspect.

It's not a question of whether cops are racist, the important thing is how they act. And that's a matter of training. And the prevailing cop-house attitude.

Beyond racism, cops are dedicated perpists. Cops hate perps. And all civilians out there are potential perps.

Which is why cops chase anything that runs. Black or white. It just makes sense to them. Cop-sense.

And we all have to live with that.

MAKING IT HAPPEN

The fearful events in Baltimore are, let us hope, winding down. Six cops have been indicted for their actions in the death of Freddie Gray.

Now we just have to sweat the unintended fall-out.

Folks protested the man's death, both peacefully and not so peacefully. "No Justice, No Peace," they said. Well, it appears we're on the path to justice. (It's not a lock, of course. Look at the first Rodney King trial.)

My worry is that a lot of the protesters may conclude their actions were solely responsible for getting matters rolling, for placing this case before the Law and getting the beast to climb off its ponderous ass.

What if folks decide nothing would have happened otherwise?

And I don't just the peaceful demonstrations, but the destruction and burning and looting.

Now that this violent activity has apparently borne fruit, are we to see similar action in the future, performed by those who think they've discovered the best way to get things done?

If you only think you know how the machine works, you may be doomed to operate it incorrectly forever after.

Don't forget: Human beings are expert at thinking they know how things work. We invented delusional thinking.

It reminds me of the tyke who's shown the sunrise by his father. Rightly impressed, the kid says: "Do it again, Daddy!"