Rhetoric risk: Those who stoked fires set stage for criminal response

No matter how it is spun -- and you will notice that not too many people are spinning.

And no matter how much justification and mea culpa you hear -- and there is not that much of that either -- the bottom line is simple.

Two police officers are dead -- gunned down in their cars in New York.

The suspect said his actions were "retaliation" for the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner.

There are plenty of people to blame for this one -- the out-of-control protesters, the media-hypers and those who have simply decided that there is a widespread and systemic predisposition in U.S. police forces to kill unarmed blacks.

There are some, the NYC police union chief in specific, who are blaming the mayor, Bill de Blasio, for his comments after the Garner incident -- specifically that he told the public that he told his son to be wary of the police.

The union representative says the mayor and Attorney General Eric Holder did not call for calm, cool heads or demand fairness and support for police officers who risk their lives every day to protect the city, but, instead, condemned them unilaterally as trigger-happy racists.

And he is right, they did -- by omission of the leadership required in cases like this.

But although their actions were less than responsible, neither de Blasio nor Holder is responsible for the murders that have occurred in the last few days.

Those are the fault of the criminals who picked up the guns.

And just as it now should not be assumed that every black American supports such actions, so, too, should the mantra be dropped that police are after young blacks.

Both posits are just as unfair.

To really address the issues that have prompted these attacks, we must really talk about fears, prejudice, institutional racism and the factors that lead some young men to crime in the first place. We have to talk about who is doing the crime -- and what to do about those who wear a badge dishonorably.

All that requires real discussions that set race and preconceptions aside -- and a determination to find a common ground.

That won't come with incendiary speeches meant to pander to a demographic or reactionary T-shirts that fuel fires and prompt those who do not have all the facts to draw conclusions.

When you have the latter rather than the former, you put people at risk. And that is what happened this past week -- and we should make darn sure that, as a nation, we take steps to be sure it never, ever happens again.

Published in Editorials on December 23, 2014 11:33 AM