Shanek, I understand you're a bit staunch in your views, but just take a step back here, ok?
You can't train police to have x-ray vision. There is no training in the world that will help a cop distinguish between a real and a toy gun in the middle of the night. Remember Laser Tag when it was popular with the kids? I recall some cop shooting a kid who was holding that and running around at night.
Now, I'm not saying that banning toy guns is the answer. Hell, that Laser Tag gun looks different enough from a real gun that it probably wouldn't have been affected by any such ban. The cops, however, are still the same. They are responsible for split-second decisions, and you simply cannot train them on how to detect plastic from metal at a distance in the dark.
You really have only one of two options. You mourn the loss of the child and absolve the cops for an understandable, but tragic, mistake. ◊◊◊◊ happens. Or, you condemn the child for proving Darwin correct for running around in the dark waving a toy gun and ignoring police demands to drop it. Personally, I would be reacting in the manner of the latter form.
Shanek, you also can't seem to understand that what the white Libertarians want from the black Harlem residents is face time on the tube. Of course they want something from them, it's called exposure. To claim that they want nothing because they're giving away toy guns is asinine. They get media attention and exposure in the political limelight.
To also claim that it wasn't racially motivated is incredibly short sighted of you. They weren't in any of the affluent white neighborhoods handing out toy guns, were they? No, they were in Harlem handing out toy guns to black kids. Not white kids, not Jewish kids, not Arabic kids. Black. It was a targeted stunt to gain the most and best media exposure, and the media loves racial tension.
As far as using the children, well yeah. They both were. I think a valid argument would be that there were no politicians walking around with video cameras showing white hands taking toys guns away from children. There weren't any televised stunts of white politicians handing out board games to black kids. But, you've got myopic white guys walking around doling out toy guns to black kids with television camera crews in tow. Apples and oranges. They're both fruit, but decidedly different.
