Ferguson protests a platform for unhelpful voices: James Varney

Protesters defy police, take to the streets of Ferguson
Against a backdrop of flood lights from police tactical vehicles, protesters stand their ground in the middle of West Florissant Avenue in Ferguson. (AP Photo/St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Robert Cohen)
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on August 21, 2014 at 11:17 AM, updated August 21, 2014 at 5:16 PM

Shortly after Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon announced "vigorous prosecution" was in order for the Ferguson police officer who shot and killed a black teenager there the police organizations swung into action.

The president of the Missouri Fraternal Order of Police, interviewed on Fox News, said Nixon's remarks left him "very disappointed."

The FOP is "open for a very thorough investigation, but we're very concerned about the due process rights of Darren (Wilson)," Sergeant Kevin Ahlbrand said. "Justice needs to go both ways."

That strikes me as a sound sentiment, but a bit tone deaf to what's happening.

Isn't the belief that 18-year-old Michael Brown didn't get due process or justice at the root of the protests against his death? The crux of the matter is the perception Brown and other black people do not get the presumption of innocence that is every American's right.

Unfortunately, these core issues and significant perceptions get lost in the posturing that always overshadows tragic events. Al Sharpton is a prime example. I lived in New York when his lies and race-baiting about Tawana Brawley coarsened discussion of important issues and put three states on edge.

So why can't we keep Sharpton off the television and ignore him?

There are reports now that the largely and thankfully irrelevant Ku Klux Klan is sticking its dunce caps into the mix. There are other dim bulbs shouting that Brown got what was coming to him because he's seen shoplifting on video.

So why can't we keep those clowns and those mean spirits out of the newspapers and ignore them?

No one benefits, nothing improves through raucous cries for a bad cause.

The opinions of convicted cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal aren't needed in Ferguson. Neither, for that matter, are the voices of those who think the cop in Ferguson who threatened to kill a protestor shouldn't be fired.

Ferguson could set a dangerous example. That is because too much attention is being given to elements whose chief argument seems to be that to even the score, so to speak, Wilson should be stripped of the same dignity and rights that were supposedly denied Brown.

No good can come of that. Springing O.J. Simpson in the murder of his wife Nicole and her friend Ronald Goldman may have made people feel good for a brief time, but it did nothing to advance the cause of justice.

When passion predominates, no one is impartial. That's why both Bob McCulloch, the local district attorney, and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder are seen as suspect by one side or the other, when the presumption should be that each plans to do his job.

Consider this: If the goal here is to improve both the manner in which law enforcement deals with the black community and the perception the black community has of that effort, extremist elements not only miss the mark, they obscure it.
James Varney can be reached at