It is tempting to feel that such vigilantism would be a just counterattack, assuming it is appropriately and proportionately measured. A chilling volley by a virtual, non-state, lone-wolf actor that could strike at any time seems like a just recipe.
Of course, it's troubling to think that police can start or stop writing a ticket, as if it's some sort of spigot, to express their rage. What other public servants have that sort of tool at their fingertips?
But if the police are doing this, there are some benefits.
The news media has been hard at work tracking down the handful of protesters and others who did or even wrote something violent in order to stereotype the entire Black Lives Matter movement as violent. And when there isn't something, the news media has resorted to doctoring footage.
L.A. has long maintained an image in America as a progressive, cutting-edge, and trend-setting environment. So it should come as a huge shock that regarding the treatment of children in the juvenile justice system - Los Angeles may be the most backward major metropolitan area in the nation.
The real test of a community is not its immediate reaction to grief -- but its tenacity. Even after a shooting that rocked us to the core, we can't turn inward. Even after plummeting into a vortex of grief, we can't turn isolationist. Even after numbness, we can't turn away.
To secure a conviction, it requires proof that Hernandez knowingly participated in the crime with the requisite mental state required of first-degree murder. There's the ruse that may or may not make Hernandez a free man once again.
I've heard free speech isn't free, and Brandon Duncan, who raps as Tiny Doo, has learned that the hard way.
Police have a lot of power. What they don't have is a lot of accountability. That needs to change.
The purpose of terrorism is, of course, to terrorize, and they are succeeding at that. Hundreds of thousands have now fled Iraq and Syria as a result of ISIL's unparalleled violence and mastery of social media. One has to ask: who would be susceptible to their recruitment?
Although I don't make routine stops to read every story that pops up on my screen, for some reason that day, I did.
In the adult system, resource-poor kids are sitting ducks for prosecutors, who are notorious for overcharging the indigent. The adult jail conditions are so dire they place additional pressure on kids to give up and plead guilty to jacked charges.
Human traffickers target vulnerable members of our society, cruelly exploiting them for forced labor or commercial sex, depriving them of their rights and dignity, and using intimidation and fear to hold them in servitude right here in the land of the free.
I've started passively collecting examples of items and products that trivialize stalking. I don't seek out this stuff, it seems to be just out there in the world. Greeting cards, coffee mugs and so much more.
During these last two years, #JusticeForEthan has evolved from the demand for answers regarding one man's death to the rallying cry focused on the need for change. Despite all that has been lost -- and it is far too much -- there is now a spotlight on where changes need to come.
What we're doing isn't working, justice-wise, order-wise, sanity-wise. The state of Illinois is bankrupt and yet its jails are full to bursting, at a cost, per occupant, equal to or greater than the cost of luxury suites at its ritziest hotels.
The criminal law punishes and deters. It is also supposed to implement society's moral values. One is that justice is blind: to race, to class, to politics. Nominee Lynch will have the opportunity to end the fuzzy thinking that underlies deferred prosecution agreements.
Some of the current proposals may deserve consideration but they would have greater long-term impact and meaning if they improve transparency within the criminal justice system more generally and are not limited to cases just involving police.
If we turn to each other with a readiness to share resources, live simply and practice fairness, perhaps it will find a way to end cruelties as wrongheaded as this prison system.