Okay, so this Brooklyn woman’s on the news today, saying “The cops shot my boy! He wadn’t armed or nothin!” It went down like this: She and her son get into an argument over who can use the phone. It gets ugly; the boy starts brandishing a knife. The woman’s boyfriend, also in the apartment, dials 9-1-1, says “He’s got a knife! I’m gonna have to shoot him if you don’t get down here!” Cops arrive on scene. They shoot the boy, who according to cops, was still armed with knife. Boy is taken to hospital, where he dies.

I find it extremely offensive to listen to this Brooklyn woman making the cops out to be villains, while painting a halo over her obviously mentally-unstable family.

“You think they come to protect people. This was a family dispute. They had no reason to kill him,” she said to the New York Post.

If this was strictly a private matter, why did her boyfriend have to call police? Why did he have to plead for help? “He’s got a knife! I’m gonna have to shoot him if you don’t get down here!” Is that secret code for “Hi, we’re having a family dispute. No reason for you cops to swing by?”

Maybe it’s because I’m not Al Sharpton, and I don’t plan to run for political office in the near-future. But I don’t think the NYPD are so incompetently trained that they have to shoot an unarmed suspect in order to bring him down. Yes, someone was killed that night. But judging by the boyfriend’s messages to police—which included “Gonna kill this motherf*cker. He cut me and he’s trying to stab his mother”—the boy probably represented a legitimate threat when the cop arrived.

IF LIFE WAS FAIR, the NYPD would respond to the grieving mother in the following manner: “Hey lady, you don’t want us to interfere in your domestic disputes? Next time you call us, we won’t bother showing up.”

OH GOD, THE BRITISH: According to a recent poll conducted in Great Britain, the death of Princess Diana was a more important historical event than—remember, this is the British talking—World War II. Anyone else a little uneasy with having these blokes as military allies?