THE FERGUSON EFFECT: You at least have to give the Coast Guard an “A” for effort. Too bad it didn’t work. I’m referring to the team of badass special ops the Coast Guard dispatched from Long Beach on April 8 to throw down against members of the Santa Barbara Yacht Club as they partook of their traditional Wet Wednesday race. We are led to believe that the Coast Guard was merely intent on enforcing a 500-yard buffer around the latest of 27 behemoth cruise ships that will anchor offshore this year. Some Wet Wednesday racers have charged they had mounted machine guns pointed at them by Coast Guard crew. For the record, the Coast Guard insists all mounted machine guns were pointed skyward at all times.
The event was unusual for a lot of reasons: No one remembers the Coast Guard providing this protection to a cruise ship before; no one ever heard of a 500-yard buffer before; and no one working the waterfront was notified by the Coast Guard that the 500-yard buffer had become law of the land. We are to believe that escalated concern over possible terrorist attacks precipitated this incident. There are more people in a given cruise ship, reporters were told sotto voce, than all the people killed during 9/11. The term “soft target,” likewise, has been much bandied about. I get it; three weeks ago, the ersatz city of Solvang, with its picturesque windmills — no, it’s not a town of miniature golf courses — was put on Red Alert in response to an alleged threat by the terrorist group ISIS. It turns out one of 100 U.S. armed service members ISIS put on its death list had family in Solvang. The idea of evildoers from ISIS going to the land of aebleskivers — apple-cinnamon balls dipped in pancake batter, deep-fried, and drizzled with liquid cheesecake — would be hilarious unless, of course, it was your name on the list. Solvang hadn’t seen so much law ’n’ order heat since last fall when four Bakersfield bunco artists sought to put counterfeit $100 bills into general circulation by placing multiple orders for aebleskivers.
It should be obvious to all that the Coast Guard was really attempting to subvert the escalating national dialogue now erupting over excessive use of force by police agencies. It’s become the story. You can’t pick up a newspaper or turn on the news without seeing yet another victim — pulverized, shot, or both — of what’s clinically referred to as “contagious violence” by law enforcement officers. That’s what happens to people — like 25-year-old Baltimore resident Freddie Gray — who make the mistake of running from cops. Initial accounts indicate that Gray’s spinal cord was 80 percent severed and his larynx crushed because the cops he encountered don’t like it when suspects try to flee. Gray, who had been popped twice recently for minor drug crimes, became the latest fatality incurred for “running while black.” If you’re white, it all started with Ferguson. If you’re not, all this qualifies as old news. Either way, thanks to smartphones, no cop can give out a parking ticket now without the occasion being memorialized.