"I dont like cops, but I dont think that they deserve to be shot in the back either"

Maybe "in the back" was the wrong phrasing. How about "I dont think cops deserve to be shot and killed"

In any event in response to :

"the classic "straw man" argument. It presents Mumia as [possibly] a rather unreasonable gentleman who goes beyond a pardonable mild dislike of police... anyway, it paints him as someone who goes beyond a mild dislike of cops and instead is a violent individual prone to fits of blinding homicidal rage in which he will ambush innocent police officers and shoot them in the back unprovoked...

This is not my position at all. You are reading quite a bit into my sentence. The racial climate was very tense at the time - Mumia's brother was being assaulted and Mumia may/may not in the course of defending his brother shot the cop, that is all I am saying. If he did shoot the officer, charge of Involuntary Manslaughter or even first Degree Murder carries a penalty that could afford the opportunity for the person who committed the act to be RELEASED. That is my point.

". But someone who didn't know anything about the case might take your anti-shooting-cops-in-the-back-in-cold-blood statement as an indication that there is compelling evidence that Mumia abu-Jamal did just that, which there absoutely is not"...

Here again G-Man you distort my words in an effort to make a point - IF someone (police) was assaulting another (Mumia's brother) who had their back to you, and you ran up to defend the person you had the intentions to defend, and while doing that a gun was discharged - that does not make the act/crime "Cold-Blooded"