Ferguson, Missouri at a Walmart in Albany, Oregon

In the days after Darren Wilson shot Michael Brown to death, news reports were overwhelmingly about the police response to protests. Indeed, some of these protests were violent and may have deserved aggressive police tactics.

And so, after a grand jury did not indict Wilson, violent protests again became front-page news. But this time, the protests were viewed as pathetic on the pages of my Facebook feed. Most criticism was directed at the protesters and the use of violence.

Some criticisms compared the Ferguson violence to the O.J. Simpson acquittal, saying, "White people did not riot over the O.J. verdict..."

This kind of comparison is not only way off point, but is also bigoted and fundamentally incorrect. Nicole Brown Simpson's "people," white people, were not persecuted as slaves for centuries. Nor do they live under an umbrella of abuse and stereotype. The simple fact is, blacks are targeted as thugs by police. And more importantly, police are biased and trigger-happy.

The simpler fact is this: Police forces across America use their power arbitrarily and with extreme bias.

Albany Police investigate a problem shelter.

Albany, Oregon could become Ferguson in an instant. And it almost did, just a few months ago. In August, an Albany police officer fired her weapon at a "suspicious" car parked at Walmart. After a month-long investigation, Linn County District Attorney Doug Marteeny stated that the shooting was justified.

Marteeny's explanation, along with police statements about the sequence of events, has more holes than a gopher-ridden farm field.

The police claim that the patrol was engaging a "suspicious" car in a remote area of Albany's Walmart, and that the occupant of the car was acting "nervous, erratic, and agitated." Police say that the suspect was pounding the steering wheel and yelling. Yet, the report goes on to say that she concealed her hands and threw "something" out of the window.

At that moment, the officer fired her duty weapon, hitting not the suspicious suspect, but rather the top of the car's door frame. The D.A. stated that the suspect was "lucky she wasn't killed." The real fact is that Albany citizen's are lucky that they weren't hit when an officer fired her weapon randomly at a "suspicious" suspect. There were two cops there during this incident, and the other officer, a 12-year veteran, did not fire his weapon, which only shows that bias and incompetence are much bigger problems for American police, than are suspicious suspects.

Homeless minorities are frequent targets for police.

American police have become militarized and paternalistic. Law enforcement is armed to the core with military weapons and a hunger to annihilate anything in their path. The only way to fix this travesty, is to strip the police of the arbitrary power and replace it with what law enforcement was designed for: public safety.

In a recent town hall in Albany about homelessness, an attendee criticized the city for wanting to spend $200k on lighting for a riverfront path that is home to a number of homeless. The criticism focused on police tactics and abuse.

Albany City Manager Wes Hare, responded by denying those allegations and encouraging "ride-alongs" with police. Hare makes $180k a year to spout inaccuracies about Albany Police. The local cops are indeed abusive and excessive.

We should have no doubt, that the suspect at Walmart should have been approached and documented, but not shot at. Her mental health, homelessness, and drug addiction, should in no way be a reason to shoot her car, or her for that matter.

We do not know why Darren Wilson shot Mike Brown. We do know that neither is much of a character model for anybody. And we know that as a people, we accept shooting thugs and Walmart meth addicts. We have transformed our police into old-west gunslingers, abusing whoever they see fit, sometimes resulting in fired weapons.

And often resulting in death.

An Albany Policeman doing job as a Public Servant.