> It also has drawn the attention of national black civil rights groups
> who said the beating, footage of which has aired repeatedly on
> national television here, fits a pattern of police brutality going
> back years.
I think that NAACP and other "black civil rights groups" would spend their resources more effectively if they focused on changing the behavior of certain black males instead of crying "wolf" each time these males get in trouble with the law. I understand that there is a lot of racial prejudice in this society, but these males work very hard to keep that prejudice alive by serving as examples of it. I think that the "black leadership" utterly failed to recognize and change that behavior. Instead, they put their heads in their asses trying to blame "the man."
When Kweisi Mfume was on Baltimore City Council and later represented the 7th Congressional district - he was a highly respected no-nonsense politician, and even after that he did an outstanding job reforming the NAACP. But he seemingly failed to transform the knee jerk reaction of the black establishment, which is manufacturing excuses and blaming everyone around them (the ridiculous attempt to sue the gun industry is a case in point) instead of working to change behavior that fuels racist stereotypes. The only leader who seriously tries the latter is Louis Farrakhan - but his ideology is too obnoxious to my taste.
Wojtek