Let's not be too flippant here. It's a rare day you'll find me defending a police shooting; we're commenting here on an event that I'm sure all sides see as a needless, preventable tragedy. Nonetheless, I've been to the bank that got held up in North Hollywood. I've ridden through the neighborhood where eight cops got themselves in a crossfire over a blue SUV with a couple Mexican women in it were mistaken for a black truck with a cop in it. And I've been told "everyone has a bad day" by an LAPD cop as a justification for why Fruitvale happened.

Your mistake is "basically." Your mistake is "meatheadedness." Your mistake is wanting this to be a simple problem with a simple solution - "Americans need to be less stupid." "Cops need to be less racist."

Nobody is the villain in their own movie. Turning off your empathy doesn't help you understand anything. Last night, cops in Chicago shot a security guard for doing his job because last week a cop got shot doing his job. Racism is a problem. White guys are a problem. Fear is a problem. But there's racism, fear and white guys in lotsa places. What sets the US apart is the likelihood of walking face-first into a military-grade arsenal.