The despicable shooting — “an ambush,” one official called it — of two police officers in Ferguson, Mo., during a protest early Thursday morning is yet another challenge for those inclined to embrace stereotypes.
The vast majority of protesters appeared as horrified as the rest of America by the savage and unprovoked gunfire on police, who were simply protecting public order at a lawful demonstration. The protesters are not complicit in the crimes, even indirectly, whatever some demagogues might suggest.
This challenge to stereotypes flows both ways, of course. Those who in recent months have been most agitated about the killing of young black men by police nationwide sometimes paint with a broad brush regarding general police complicity. But the reality is that the vast majority of police are not brutes, either.
The tragedy in Ferguson comes at a particularly bad time as the police chief resigned Wednesday and the department was potentially poised to embark on a new direction. Its well-documented problems, fleshed out in a Justice Department report, will still need to be addressed.
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