Saturday, April 20, 2013

From Boston's darkest day, to their finest hour...



Looking at the tape, in the aftermath of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s capture, it reminds me of the night Osama Bin Laden was captured, with joyous College Students yelling out: USA, USA, USA!

Still, in the tape from the makeshift memorial taken tonight, you also can tell Boston has finally given itself permission to grieve. Thus, we can finally take a moment to really feel the loss of Krystle, of Lu...and Martin.

Only now, Sean joins them.

This was unquestionably Boston’s finest hour.  This was bigger than the Red Sox in 2004.  Bigger than the actual Boston Tea Party.  In a time when, in response to the worst of humanity, the people of Boston had every right to do the same to the people who did this crime.

Somehow Boston didn’t fall into that trap.

Even though I was watching the whole time, I’m still not certain how they did it. They probably don’t know how they did it either.

We just watched in Los Angeles, during the Christopher Dorner fiasco, a city totally lose it’s @#$%. Cops fanning out in a panic, chasing pink rabbits down invisible holes, chasing bad clues, shooting unarmed innocent civilians who looked nothing like Dorner.

Boston when through something a hundred times worse...and they didn’t lose it. They kept their cool, because for five straight days...all they wanted, all they thought about was finding these guys.

Not finding them, and then they gonna--...like the LAPD would do.

No. Just...find them.

Find those bastards.

Then the moment came. The moment came because it was earned through leg work, shoe leather, sweat equity, not might, brawn or overwhelming firepower. The Police closed down what they needed to close down. They sifted through what they needed to sift through. They talked to who they needed to talk to, and when the moment came, they even asked for help.

Granted, not everything was perfect. The cordon they set up to catch Dzhokhar was a block too short, allowing him to stay hidden most of the day. But when the moment came, when they were needed most, the people of Massachusetts got their man. They got him alive, and got him on his way to jail.

The Boston PD, the Watertown PD, the Massachusetts Staties, the FBI, didn’t hurt any innocent people along the way. They only people they hurt were the people who committed a massive crime. The people they arrested, they talked to, and when found they had nothing to do with the crime, were let go.

As an African-American, I so want to love the Police. I try. I always look out for them. I always want them to be well paid, and their families taken care of. But what inevitably happens, they do something stupid, like a Diallo, or shoot up innocent people chasing Christopher Dorner, or shoot nine people in New York City trying to get one guy...and I lose faith in them all over again.

But Boston restored it.

Monday there was a crime.

Wednesday they solved it.

Friday they arrested the people responsible.



God love you glorious Irish Bastards.

See you next Patriots Day, when I have the distinct feeling it’s going to be a National Holiday, for at least one year.