A small Missouri town, Ferguson, has become a metaphor for harsh police action.

A young man is dead. He was shot to death by a police officer as he was walking down the middle of the street.

And oh yes. There’s a racial component here. The young man, Michael Brown, was African-American; the police officer is white.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/15/us/missouri-teen-shooting/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

We heard reports of Michael, who was unarmed, robbing a store. Turned out the report was false. But even if it was true, is shoplifting a crime that merits a death sentence? The answer is obviously a resounding “no!”

The Ferguson police department has been inept in its response to the protests that erupted. The cops responded with a military-style show of force. Fortunately, the local police have given way to a Missouri state police captain, Ron Johnson, who’s become the face of the law enforcement response.

Yet another national discussion about police response to a young African-American man has erupted. It should go on, reasonably and with intelligence.

I’m a little late getting into this discussion. A lot has happened in Ferguson. Emotions are as raw there as they were in Sanford, Fla., when Trayvon Martin was shot to death by George Zimmerman.

What did Brown do to provoke the officer to shoot him? Did the officer think the teenager was armed, even though he was shot when his hands were in the air? Will the officer face criminal charges?

Race relations always remain in a tenuous state in the United States. They’re good, then they turn bad. Cooler heads prevail. Then another incident explodes. Here we go again.

The incident involving a single small-town police officer should not reflect the nation’s outlook. Let’s hope, at least, that it stands on its own.

Meantime, let’s get to the facts.