Beyond any probe of the Brown shooting, it’s not impossible that with discussion increasingly focused on sentencing reform, the war on drugs, and police militarization in general, criminal justice issues could gain traction more broadly. Ezra Klein:

Something very dangerous has happened here: we have let the people and the system that’s supposed to protect our communities become a threat to some of them. This is not tenable in a democracy; you cannot have the men and women who carry guns be seen as enemies by so many of the people whose taxes pay their salaries.

We are again entering a period in American politics where criminal justice is a central issue. But this time, cops and prisons and sentencing laws aren’t the answer. They’re being seen as the problem. And politicians on both sides of the aisle recognize it…A lot has gone wrong in our criminal justice system. It’s time to fix it.