The Ice Cream Shooting

All 35 witnesses, according to the Enquirer, support the version of events put forward by the police: Qayyim Moore began shooting at cops with a .22 handgun after they first tried to talk to him about some ice cream that had allegedly been stolen from a convenience mart. Nineteen bullets later, following a foot chase, Moore was dead, and people are wondering how such a senseless tragedy could take place.

At Cincinnati Blog, Brian Griffin is wondering why no local bloggers have anything to say.

Well, what can you say? I suppose it's possible - with a great deal of distortion - to turn this into some kind of racial issue, with the cops playing the role of goose-stepping fascists. But that would require a mind-altering amount of dis ingenuousness given the aforementioned facts of the case, as they are currently known. When the cops want to talk, and you run away and begin shooting at them - nobody should be surprised when they shoot back, regardless of the pigmentation or cultural heritage of any of the participants in the transaction.

The more staggering issue, of course - is why this happened in the first place. There is a possibility that Mr. Moore had mental problems, and an autopsy will determine if drugs were involved. If that turns out to be the case the total uselessness of his death won't be ameliorated; but knowing that mental illness was a factor will be slightly better than chalking this up yet again to the ultra-violent nihilism that is the product of socially incohesive, daddy-free poverty - a problem often seen in neighborhoods like Price Hill - and one which few people are willing to acknowledge, much less address with any compassion or intelligence.

We have become comfortably numb.