It sounds like there was a pretty terrible incident recently in a part of S Minneapolis that has a lot of people pretty scared, and has them advocating loudly for maximal spending on policing, no matter the human and financial costs.

I empathize but disagree with these folks.

I want to tell a similar story from my own life.

Within a few months of moving into my home in Cooper with my then partner, waaay back in '06, there was a really horrific incident that happened just blocks from my house.

A young couple - just like us - was sleeping at home. Two guys broke in, seemingly thinking some prior residents still lived there. The guy got up, found a knife, confronted the intruders, and was shot and killed.

Like I said, horrific. And really scary for us to hear about!

But the police were not able to prevent this murder. A sworn force of 750, 888, or 3,000 would not have been able to prevent this murder. There may have been upstream interventions that might have prevented this murder, but I don't think law enforcement is one of them.

That young guy's death is still haunting to me. Wrong place, wrong time. He didn't deserve that pain, and neither did his partner. It's horrifying.

And making that kind of incident into an argument for perpetuating an unjust system is hoping two wrongs will make a right.