Dear Editor;

The following is a prayer, he or she submitted in class in a public school in Minnesota.

NEW SCHOOL PRAYER

Now I sit me down in school

Where praying is against the rule

For this great nation under God

Finds mention of Him very odd.

If scripture now the class recites,

It violates the Bill of Rights.

And anytime my head I bow

Becomes a federal matter now.

Our hair can be purple, orange or green,

That's no offense; it's a freedom scene.

The law is specific, the law is precise.

Prayers spoken aloud are a serious vice.

For praying in a public hall

Might offend someone with no faith at all.

In silence alone we must meditate,

God's name is prohibited by the State.

We're allowed to cuss and dress like freaks,

And pierce our noses, tongues and cheeks...

They've outlawed guns, but FIRST the Bible.

To quote the Good Book makes me liable.

We can elect a pregnant Senior Queen,

And the ' unwed daddy, ' our Senior King.

It's ' inappropriate ' to teach them right from wrong,

We're taught that such ' judgments ' don't belong.

We can get our condoms and birth controls,

Study witchcraft, vampires and totem poles...

But the Ten Commandments are not allowed,

No word of God must reach this crowd.

It's scary here I must confess,

When chaos reigns the school's a mess.

So, Lord, this silent plea I make:

Should I be shot; My soul please take!

Amen

This brave soul is praying for so many of us. How many other students, parents and teachers struggle silently in their hearts to live happily according to the just Commandments given us by our all loving Creator.

This open prayer is clearly a critique of Communist oppression due to the continuing loss of our constitutional identity and rights granted by the sovereign authority of Our Creator, whose children we are, no matter how alienated we are at present.

Let us remember the Life at Conception Act in Congress and awaits our simple majority vote and so restore the Constitution.

Amen.

Thank you,

John Mann

Lanesboro, Pa.

It's Ferguson with a twist. This time it really happened. Walter Scott, an unarmed black man fleeing from white police officer, Michael Slager, is fatally shot in the back five times. The incident was recorded on video so there's no doubt that's exactly what happened.

The rush to judgment was more like a stampede to see who could get there first. The press won. They played up the white/black angle of the main actors. The North Charleston police chief came in second. Officer Slager was sacked, imprisoned without bail, and charged with murder. Third was the public whose condemnation of Slager was all but universal.

There's a famous quote by Einstein, “Things should be simple, but not too simple.” However, this episode is too simple by half.

To get a different prospective on what happened, let's replay the story back to a time when most readers of the Transcript were in their twenties or thirties and see how the same event leads to a radically different outcome.

It's 1985. It was a sunny Saturday morning that April 4th in North Charleston, South Carolina. Office Michael Slager pulls over a Mercedes-Benz with a broken tail light. Slager approaches the car and politely asks the driver for his license. The driver, Walter Scott, complies. Slager goes back to his patrol car to run a check on the diver's license and license plate. All this is recorded on the patrol car's dash cam. The incident is notably mundane.

Suddenly, for no apparent reason, Scott bolts from his car and runs. Slager immediately gives chase on foot. At this point they are out of view of the dash cam. About one minute later a bystander continues with a video recorded on his cellphone.

Slager and Scott are on the ground wrestling for the officer's taser. The taser discharges but no one is hit. Scott regains his footing and continues to run. Slager draws his weapon, “Stop or I'll shoot,” he shouts. Scott immediately stops. To continue running risks injury or death. The suspect is cuffed and charged with resisting arrest.

What's this! Scott is alive and well. Slager is congratulated for the arrest. The racial aspects of the case are hardly noticed. And the arrest is only of local interest.

Why the stark difference in 1985 compared to 2015? It's the fleeing felon rule.

The fleeing felon rule was established sometime prior to the 13th Century in England. For two hundred years (1776 to 1985) in the United States it was the basis for laws governing an escaping felon. The principle states that any person suspected of a felony and is in flight is subject to the use of deadly force by a police officer, victim, or bystander.

The rule was honored not only for the safety of the community but to induce a suspect to surrender peaceably rather than to allow him to escape and continue his criminal activities.

The fleeing felon rule made good sense, but not to the Supreme Court of The United States. In 1985, they struck down a principle that had stood tried-and-true in the U.S. for two centuries. The Court ruled that “The use of deadly force to prevent the escape of all felony suspects, whatever the circumstances, is constitutionally unreasonable.”

The was the end of the fleeting felony rule.

For the cop on the beat it meant that if a suspect was apprehended, he would size up the officer and either submit to arrest or take his chance and run. The officer might just as well be armed with a water pistol and running shoes.

So what have we? Walter Scott is dead. Perhaps he knew that turning his back and running was physically risk free. Legally, he was correct. But Officer Slager shot and killed him, illegally. Now one man is dead and the other man is in custody facing a murder charge.

Scott and Slager are more victims of the Supreme Court's 1985 6-to-3 decision overturning the fleeing rule than they are of legal violations.

But the story has one more twist.

Charging Officer Slager with murder one in South Carolina requires premeditation. Obviously, this was not a premeditated crime. What about murder two? Since there was no intent to kill, that charge, also, will be difficult to prove.

Slager has a very good chance of beating the murder rap and walking out of the courtroom a free man. Then what? Ferguson?

Sincerely,

Bob Scroggins

New Milford, PA