I want to trust that the jury and those seeing the evidence had good reason to not agree that this is a crime. However, I don't. There is far too much shit flying around this epic clusterfuck. Politics, race, riots, high profile, extreme media attention, etc.

I don't know.

It's tough. If he isn't actually guilty, it isn't right to indict or convict one man as a recourse for / response to all the problems with the system, especially when it comes to the system and minorities. However, cops and prosecutors do it all the time. It's called "setting an example."

We had teenagers downloading music on Napster being fined millions. We have teenage "hackers" being locked up for 500 years for being part of a DDOS.* Guess what? My dad found out what Napster was, deleted that shit, and lectured my brother and me for hours in fear that we would be fined a bazillion dollars after that.

Recently in my town, we had a couple beach houses fined on the 4th of July for parties. There has always been city rule / law thing that says you can't rent your strand house on holidays for the sole purpose of hosting massive parties. People do it all the time. So this year they fined people. Next year far less people will do it. Two years ago, they cracked down on the red cups on the beach after we were featured on a Cops style show. No one has red cups anymore because everyone heard about the couple people who got a felony dropped to misdemeanor sit-the-night-in-jail charge.

Setting an example does make a difference. The real difference is, in these stupid examples, everyone is doing it and everyone is actually doing it rather than everyone is doing it and this single high profile case he may or may not have done it.

*I know these aren't 100% accurate or the best examples. Someone else can call me out on this and find some sources.

**Is it just me or did I take way too much nyquil?