Modern Racism: Officer Wilson Walks

[Nyro]

What? Are you implying the 2 teens were protestors because they were clearly not and it isnt stated in the article. I literally don't see how your reply is relevant. D: In fact, his murder sparked protests against violence towards Bosnians...I dont think you read this article, haha.

@Kanzler, social media tends to have tons of unbiased, first-hand sources; people that are literally there when things happen & can share information, photos and videos to millions of people.

20 family members and close friends protesting is hardly a movement, and these kids did do it because of the ferguson garbage. Watch and quote me on this I guarantee they find a link to the violence in ferguson and this man being killed know why? The teens saw a white man and said "lets kill whitey".

 

[Entermaid]

@Kanzler, social media tends to have tons of unbiased, first-hand sources; people that are literally there when things happen & can share information, photos and videos to millions of people.

Social media = unbiased???

All testimony and perspectives have biasness, that is a degree of ignorance to other perspectives.

Court systems strive to reduce, not eliminate, biasness in testimony whereas social media has mixtures of conjecture, flat-out lies, half-lies, and fairly accurate accounts.

Social media is rampant with misinformed and significantly biased individuals. It may be true that some of the accounts are accurate and have a certain degree of objectivity, though how does one sift through the information overload and pick out the accurate details and stories from the false ones in the sea of voices, and, in some cases, anonymity. Further when social media has competing viewpoints, claiming first-hand non-biased accounts, how do we decide and pick a bandwagon so to speak? These accounts have the potentiality to be made in a way to rally a target demographics based on appealing to simple heuristics such as race, class, religious, political viewpoints, sexual orientation, ect.

If anything social media is manipulative/divisive and counter to the epistemic/dialectic function of dialogue since there are no restrictions, rules, mediators, or some third-party control or structure being adhered to. Further, the goal of people who go onto social media isn't always to inform, evolve opinions, and discuss to achieve better understanding, it's to spout an opinion/perspective with no regard to the dialectic function.

 

[Keiran]

It also has a bunch of really biased, second-hand sources, which is why you have to be careful with social media when talking about touchy subjects. Some of it is good, some of it is just flaming/trolling.

Well, this should be obvious...and care should be taken with mainstream media as well.

 

[Kanzler]

What? Are you implying the 2 teens were protestors because they were clearly not and it isnt stated in the article. I literally don't see how your reply is relevant. D:

@Kanzler, social media tends to have tons of unbiased, first-hand sources; people that are literally there when things happen & can share information, photos and videos to millions of people.

Sources without context can hinder understanding. People that were literally there when things happen can also contradict one another. Furthermore, social media is the last place I'd go to look for unbiased sources, as first-hand as they may be. My understanding is that going to social media for news updates only exacerbates the selection bias because, well, most people are frankly lazy and look at what's easily accessible, not examine other perspectives. Even if everything happens to be first-hand, a person's understanding of the issues can be obfuscated by the subjective interpretation of the source itself, the lack of context in weaving all sources together, and the potentially biased selection of sources they view, even if these sources themselves are ostensibly unbiased.

What I think is missing from the discussion is an understanding of the legal context of police shootings (which should replace statements such as "I think the police should do this/that"), legal context of how grand juries decide to indict (which should replacement musings about how "suspect" or not McCulloch was), comparisons of the Ferguson riots to other riots (which should replace unsubstantiated opinions such as the riots were big/small) - essentially more-or-less objective "facts", if you will. I don't believe eyewitness accounts are reliably objective because of the reasons I listed in the above paragraph.

I'm saying this now: I honestly don't know what else to say because I'm 1) Canadian (so even if I wanted to pursue law I wouldn't be bothering to figure out how you guys run things south of the border), 2) busy, and 3) realize that my understanding of the context is rather limited. I'm trying to ask questions so that some of us who are more familiar with the issues at hand can share their understanding.

Well, this should be obvious...and care should be taken with mainstream media as well.

The issue here is that people don't take care about where they get their information. At least with mainstream media, the information is presented in some kind of context so that while it might be patently biased, I can at least say "okay the author interpreted x issue in y way" and understand where the article is coming from - it gives me something to work with. With social media I can disagree because I don't think their message is true, but that's all I can really do with it, there's no real substantiation of the arguments.

also hnngggg @Dark Avenger

that is presented much better than what i could produce

 

[pokecole]

Imma ask you a simple question. What would you do if someone 200+ pounds shattered your face, tried to steal your gun, wouldn't obey orders, and charged you to take you down? This isn't about whether he deserved to die or not, it was a matter of life and death. The officer did what he had to do. If Brown wouldn't of charged him he'd still be alive today and if Wilson wouldn't of killed Brown he'd probably be dead and nobody would know about it because the media only targets white on black crime. Granted he'd be incarcerated but he'd still be alive. Brown was a thug just like the rest of the rioters in Ferguson, it's a black majority area that's gang affiliated. Brown was far from an innocent man, he had a rap sheet.

@Clairissa, so true. If the officer was black and Brown was white nothing would of happened, look up Dillon Taylor, it's a perfect example. The media and Ferguson just wanted their 15 minutes of fame and they got it.

The officer was medically examined and was found to have a bruise. That's not exactly getting your face shattered. If he was hit hard in the face to the point where he was truly afraid of death, he should have either some messed up teeth, broken jaw, broken nose, anything more severe than a bruise. Let alone saying he was hit twice, it just seems unlikely.

We have no evidence saying he tried to steal his gun, that he wouldn't obey orders, or charged and tried to take him down. NONE. You're just going off what someone who is very likely trying to cover their own ass is saying. I'm not saying he is in the wrong or is lying, I'm just saying that it is more likely that him out of anyone would lie. You can't just take someone's word in this world, even for something trivial, and sure as hell not for murder.

 

[Nyro]

The officer was medically examined and was found to have a bruise. That's not exactly getting your face shattered. If he was hit hard in the face to the point where he was truly afraid of death, he should have either some messed up teeth, broken jaw, broken nose, anything more severe than a bruise. Let alone saying he was hit twice, it just seems unlikely.

We have no evidence saying he tried to steal his gun, that he wouldn't obey orders, or charged and tried to take him down. NONE. You're just going off what someone who is very likely trying to cover their own ass is saying. I'm not saying he is in the wrong or is lying, I'm just saying that it is more likely that him out of anyone would lie. You can't just take someone's word in this world, even for something trivial, and sure as hell not for murder.

Wait you think a police officer is more likely to lie then a guy that help another guy rob a store and assaulted the clerk? Ok, now I know this convo has gone south.

 

[Nah]

Wait you think a police officer is more likely to lie then a guy that help another guy rob a store and assaulted the clerk? Ok, now I know this convo has gone south.

Police officers are human too, and therefore can lie about things. Not saying he did lie, but you can't automatically assume that Wilson is not lying at all just because he's a cop.

 

[Nyro]

Police officers are human too, and therefore can lie about things. Not saying he did lie, but you can't automatically assume that Wilson is not lying at all just because he's a cop.

Of course not but he said "more likely" and that is an assumption based on personal bias. The "friend" stole also, did nothing to stop brown and is an accomplice (these are facts btw). Secondly the court called into question the friends previous juvenile record.

I am sorry call me whatever you will but a guy that stole and was an accomplice to a crime IS NOT what I would call trustworthy exactly. I am not stupid I know there are bad cops out there, hell probably more then any of you being as I lived on a reservation in my youth and Native American agents tend to be very corrupt but to say this particular cop is less trustworthy then someone with a background is a little out there.

 

[Kanzler]

I think this is a helpful article and I'm writing a biochemistry essay right now so I don't have much to say and here you go:

Why police are rarely indicted for misconduct

On Monday evening, St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert P. McCulloch announced that a grand jury decided not to indict Ferguson, Missouri, police officer Darren Wilson for the Aug. 9 shooting death of unarmed teenager Michael Brown. The announcement concluded a tumultuous summer of mass protests against police violence and racial discrimination. Although the decision will be a disappointment to many, those who follow prosecutions of police for use of excessive or unwarranted force say a decision not to indict Wilson is unsurprising.

There are major legal, institutional and social impediments to prosecuting police. Thousands of officers are involved in shootings every year, resulting in about 400 deaths annually. However, successful criminal prosecution of a police officer for killing someone in the line of duty, if no corruption is alleged, is extremely rare. Even when officers are convicted, the charges are often minimal. For example, Coleman Brackney, a Bella Vista, Oklahoma, police officer who was convicted of misdemeanor negligent homicide in 2010 after shooting an unarmed teen to death while in custody in his cruiser, went on to rejoin the police and was recently appointed chief of police in Sulphur Springs, Oklahoma.

Structural barriers

There are significant structural barriers to successful police indictment or prosecution. For one, investigations are usually conducted by a combination of police detectives and investigators from the prosecutors' office. Prosecutors tend to take a greater role when there is a reason to believe that the shooting might not be justified. However, they must rely on the cooperation of the police to gather necessary evidence, including witness statements from the officer involved and other officers at the scene. In some cases they are the only living witnesses to the event.

The close collaboration between police and prosecutors, which is an asset in homicide investigations, becomes a hindrance in police shooting cases. In most cases, the prosecutors' reliance on the cooperation of police creates a fundamental conflict of interest. As a result, prosecutors are often reluctant to aggressively pursue these cases.

Moreover, the local elected district attorneys often want to avoid being seen as inhibiting police power. Even in communities where distrust of police is common, no prosecutor ever got thrown out of office for defending the police. At its core, the public sees the DA's office as a defender of law and order and expects these officials to uphold them.

The way prosecutors handled the Wilson case illustrates this conflict of interest. It took prosecutors months to collect and present evidence to the grand jury. While this has the appearance of thoroughness, it also has the effect of creating a public cooling-off period as short-term demands for prosecution become muted. The radically different approach of the St. Louis County DA is telling. Typically, prosecutors make a short presentation to the grand jury in which they call for specific charges to be considered and then put on their best show of the evidence to see if it passes muster. Indictments occur in more than 90 percent of cases, owing to the low threshold of probable cause and the one-sided nature of the proceedings. In Wilson's case, however, the DA said he planned to provide the grand jury with all the evidence and allow them to decide, without any prompting, whether an indictment was justified and for what offense.

The American public and its representatives need to realize that there are better ways to prevent crime and serve the community than licensing excessive police force.
The DA hoped to accomplish two things. First, this approach allowed him to absolve himself of any responsibility for the outcome. Second, it served to confuse and undermine the confidence of the grand jury. Normally, the jury is given clear guidance and overrules prosecutors only in extreme cases. By giving the jurors a wide variety of conflicting evidence and little framework in which to evaluate it, the DA is opening the door to a he said/he said dynamic in which they may err on the side of caution and avoid an indictment.

Legal hurdles

There are also huge legal hurdles to overcome. State laws that authorize police use of force, which are backed up by Supreme Court precedent, give police significant latitude in using deadly force. In the 1989 case Graham v. Connor, the Supreme Court ruled that officers may use force to effect a lawful arrest or if they reasonably believe that the person represents a serious physical threat to the officer or others. This means that police may use force over any resistance to arrest and that if the resistance escalates, officers may escalate their force. The court also said that the totality of circumstances must be judged with an understanding of the split-second nature of police decision-making.

Furthermore, in Missouri and many other states, even a perceived effort to take an officer's gun justifies the use of deadly force. Therefore, in judging the reasonableness of the officer's actions, the jury may consider factors such as the alleged perpetrator's size and previous actions as well as the officer's training and guidance. All this creates numerous avenues for justifying police action based on the officer's reasonable understanding of the situation rather than a more objective post hoc assessment.

Juror mindset creates yet another challenge to successful indictments and prosecutions. Grand juries and criminal court juries consist of local residents. Even in periods of heightened concern about police misconduct, most citizens retain a strong bias in favor of police. Popular culture and political discourse are suffused with commentaries about both the central importance of police in maintaining the basic structural integrity of society and the dangerous nature of their work. In addition, the legal standard for judging police misconduct calls on jurors to put themselves in the officers' shoes, further strengthening the tendency to identify with the police.

Race relations

Another important dynamic in police prosecutions is the state of race relations in the United States. Despite the rhetoric about being a postracial society, racial divisions and bias remain omnipresent in American society and nowhere more than in the realm of criminal justice. There is abundant evidence of jury bias in a variety of racially disparate criminal justice outcomes, including false convictions, application of the death penalty and drug convictions. Research shows that whites have a generally more positive view of the police than blacks do. The sad reality is that white jurors are much more likely to side with police, regardless of the race of the officer and the person killed. This was seen in the Rodney King prosecutions in California, in which a mostly white suburban state court jury did not convict four Los Angeles Police Department officers in the severe beating of King after a high-speed car chase, despite the incident's being videotaped. (The jury acquitted three of the four officers and deadlocked on a charge of excessive force against one officer.) A more diverse federal jury later found two of the officers guilty of violating King's civil rights.

Regardless of what happens in Brown's case, there are no simple fixes for these problems. Advocates such as the Rev. Al Sharpton have called for a federal prosecution. Even if federal officials get involved, they must bring a different kind of charge, related to civil rights violations. While this legal twist of logic has been an important check on failed state legal processes going back to the civil rights fights of the 1950s and '60s, it is not a substitute for local criminal prosecution, especially in an era of heightened resistance to federal legitimacy.

Internal administrative accountability is sorely lacking. In "Jammed Up: Bad Cops, Police Misconduct and the New York City Police Department," Robert Kane and Michael White show that police rarely face internal disciplinary charges for use of force. Recent reports from Philadelphia and Seattle show that even when officers are subject to discipline, the majority of such cases end up being overturned by arbitrators or courts as a result of extensive due process protections for police officers.

Instead, states should create a police prosecutor's office, or blue desk, that is more removed from local politics. While relying on state attorneys general has its own challenges, the outcomes are likely to be viewed as more legitimate. These blue desks could become repositories of expertise on police prosecutions. Even if tied to state politics, they might be better able to insulate themselves from accusations of overly aggressive prosecutions as well as charges of not supporting the police.

Laws on the use of force need reform. Police shootings were much more common in the 1970s when regulations about the use of force were even looser. In response to public outcries and rioting in the 1960s and '70s, local police began to tighten up regulations and offer training to officers, resulting in significant reductions in shootings. The 1984 Supreme Court case Tennessee v. Garner institutionalized some of these changes nationally, including making it unlawful for police to shoot a fleeing suspect. Since then, however, the courts have mostly expanded police authorization to use force.

Finally, the U.S. needs to dial back the dramatic expansion of police power over the last 40 years. For example, the growing prevalence of paramilitary SWAT teams and the ongoing war on drugs have significantly contributed to excessive use of force. In part this happened through the combined direct enforcement practices of these two types of policing. But they also contributed indirectly to a larger ethos of militarized patrolling that equates policing with the use of force and a war footing. The public and its representatives need to realize that there are better ways to prevent crime and serve the community than licensing excessive police force.

https://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/11/ferguson-police-misconductdarrenwilsongrandjury.html

 

[pokecole]

Wait you think a police officer is more likely to lie then a guy that help another guy rob a store and assaulted the clerk? Ok, now I know this convo has gone south.

I don't recall saying that he was more likely to lie than anyone. I said it was more likely that he would lie than under normal circumstances, as human nature tends to lean towards saving our own behinds. Don't mistake and judge me for it.

EDIT: I can't read. I did say that, but I didn't really mean it that way. English...
I meant that if everyone was on equal terms without history that the person trying to not get convicted would be more likely to do something like lie. The kid really doesn't have a whole lot of reason to lie, everyone already knows he's guilty of whatever they charge him with; he's not going to end up saving himself by telling any lie.

Also, my thinking someone who wants to save their self is just as much personal bias as you thinking someone who has robbed a store or assaulted someone is likely to lie. Just because you side with the law doesn't mean you are right.

 

[Nyro]

I don't recall saying that he was more likely to lie than anyone. I said it was more likely that he would lie than under normal circumstances, as human nature tends to lean towards saving our own behinds. Don't mistake and judge me for it.

EDIT: I can't read. I did say that, but I didn't really mean it that way. English...
I meant that if everyone was on equal terms without history that the person trying to not get convicted would be more likely to do something like lie. The kid really doesn't have a whole lot of reason to lie, everyone already knows he's guilty of whatever they charge him with; he's not going to end up saving himself by telling any lie.

Also, my thinking someone who wants to save their self is just as much personal bias as you thinking someone who has robbed a store or assaulted someone is likely to lie. Just because you side with the law doesn't mean you are right.

No one knows who is "right" because both sides had witnesses who the jury was asked to "ignore" basically on the premise that they were obviously making up lies. It all came down to evidence as only 3 witnesses in the entire case even remotely seemed credible. I mean you had people saying he was shot in the back "under oath" AFTER both autopsy specialists said otherwise and THEN you had a witness say Brown was armed also. Both sides had absolutely ludicrous testimonies and that is because for a supposed possible indictment "murder" case this thing was rushed. Due to the fact of all the emotions and protests.

 

[pokecole]

No one knows who is "right" because both sides had witnesses who the jury was asked to "ignore" basically on the premise that they were obviously making up lies. It all came down to evidence as only 3 witnesses in the entire case even remotely seemed credible. I mean you had people saying he was shot in the back "under oath" AFTER both autopsy specialists said otherwise and THEN you had a witness say Brown was armed also. Both sides had absolutely ludicrous testimonies and that is because for a supposed possible indictment "murder" case this thing was rushed. Due to the fact of all the emotions and protests.

I would agree with this. This is why cops, especially in suburban areas, need to be supervised more carefully. Otherwise they have the ability to do whatever because they have no evidence that says they did anything wrong. Again, I'm not saying he's guilty, but I'm saying that if he is we wouldn't know otherwise. That's why we need more supervision.

 

[twocows]

I think this is a multi-faceted issue and I think it's worth addressing each facet.

1. I don't know enough about the particular circumstances of Officer Wilson and Michael Brown, and honestly, I don't think anyone else does either, no matter how much they think they do. So far, there's no video of the incident, and all accounts of the matter are second-hand or from Officer Wilson. In a court of law, that would be called "hearsay" and not admissible. People on both sides are (possibly unconsciously) focusing on the bits that fit the narrative they want to see and ignoring the stuff that conflicts with that view. I have no idea where the truth is, it could be that Officer Wilson was a complete tool who shot a harmless kid, it could be that Michael Brown was being extremely hostile and attacking Officer Wilson, or the truth could be somewhere in between. It doesn't matter, because there's no concrete evidence and thus I don't think I have anything worthwhile to say on it and I don't think anyone else does, either.

2. The police reaction after the fact was absolutely unprofessional and completely unnecessary. It was poorly handled at every stage and disrespectful to the community and ultimately, I think the police response is partially to blame for a lot of the rioting that eventually ensued.

3. I'm extremely unhappy with many of the protesters. There are the obvious malcontents who like to capitalize on any chaos and the people who don't try to stop them, sure. Those are obvious. But there are also the people who are causing other harm to people completely unrelated to the situation. Doctors and emergency workers trying to get to work being blocked by protestors purposely blocking major intersections. People who are just trying to run a business being targeted for trying to make a living. This whole "boycott Black Friday" thing was pretty representative of how bad the protests have gotten. If the problem is the police and the criminal justice system, why boycott unrelated businesses? These protests aren't even about anything important anymore, it's just people trying to cause problems for other people because they're mad. I have a terrible opinion of most of the people protesting right now.

4. The court case. I don't really know enough about that situation to say anything useful one way or another.

5. The media has capitalized on this whole issue and played it up, which has exacerbated the riots and caused a lot of suffering. But then my opinion of most major news networks was already so low it couldn't really go any lower, so whatever.

 

[Kyrul]

3. I'm extremely unhappy with many of the protesters. There are the obvious malcontents who like to capitalize on any chaos and the people who don't try to stop them, sure. Those are obvious. But there are also the people who are causing other harm to people completely unrelated to the situation. Doctors and emergency workers trying to get to work being blocked by protestors purposely blocking major intersections. People who are just trying to run a business being targeted for trying to make a living. This whole "boycott Black Friday" thing was pretty representative of how bad the protests have gotten. If the problem is the police and the criminal justice system, why boycott unrelated businesses? These protests aren't even about anything important anymore, it's just people trying to cause problems for other people because they're mad. I have a terrible opinion of most of the people protesting right now.

I'm a National Guardsman that just got released from Ferguson after spending over a week there. You are very correct about people causing others harm in matters completely unrelated to the situation. Most of the situations we had to call in were unrelated to the protests, like this one dude who attempted a drive by. The good news is that pretty much all the protests are peaceful now. It was just a bad situation made worse by the media. I wouldn't lose faith in humanity yet though. On Thanksgiving night a few of the protesters brought us leftover Thanksgiving food while we were on patrol and I'm supposed to be the 'bad guy' in all this. Most of them are good people.

 

[Yoshikko]

You know, any other time this wouldn't even NEED a video or "further investigation". This has nothing to do with evidence. This thread is nothing but people trying to avoid the fact that America's justice system is screwed up and racist. There are already countless of rebuttals against every possible argument in favour of Darren Wilson presented here because it's simply impossible to defend him. HE KILLED A MAN. You can't get more simple than that. You really can't discuss this. There is no ambiguity here, it doesn't matter what the circumstances are, Michael Brown was unarmed and did NOT pose a threat to Darren Wilson. He is (as countless others) a trigger happy racist with permission to kill. Besides that he broke countless of other policies which should have gotten him in trouble but didn't (i.e. not filing a police report, wiped the gun, etc). Seriously, you can't defend him. There was a crystal clear video in Eric Garner's case and did that help him? No. It wouldn't have mattered if there was a video and a 100 witnesses saying the same thing.

The thing is you people forget the guy DID commit a crime, NO ONE can deny that he was caught on video. So no matter what he was NOT an innocent child. Not only did he commit a crime but but even if you do not agree he attacked the cop he still did assault the store clerk that is a FACT and on video THEREFOR he committed a VIOLENT crime. An innocent child does not commit a VIOLENT crime.

LMAO, the store owner can ****ing deny it and he DID. Oops that still doesn't matter though because like I said that's not what it's about to you people. The store owner said long ago that the person in the video was NOT Michael Brown, and Darren Wilson HIMSELF admitted that he didn't even know of a robbery. Seriously, pathetic.

"No one knows who is right!! What is "right" anyway?! I mean he killed an unarmed boy that begged for his life but like, he robbed a store!!!! Even though the store owner said it wasn't him! I'm still gonna believe it's him because I'm ignorant and racist! Because I'm desperately grasping at every possible excuse I can find to justify his murder!!!"

 

[twocows]

You know, any other time this wouldn't even NEED a video or "further investigation". This has nothing to do with evidence. This thread is nothing but people trying to avoid the fact that America's justice system is screwed up and racist. There are already countless of rebuttals against every possible argument in favour of Darren Wilson presented here because it's simply impossible to defend him. HE KILLED A MAN. You can't get more simple than that. You really can't discuss this. There is no ambiguity here, it doesn't matter what the circumstances are, Michael Brown was unarmed and did NOT pose a threat to Darren Wilson.

I could not possibly disagree with you more. You're right about one thing, it doesn't get any more simple than this: he killed a man in what he claims was self-defense. There are only two circumstances in which killing someone is legitimate, and that's one of them (the other being defense of others). If he's telling the truth, then he literally did nothing wrong.

The question is whether what he did was actually justifiable self-defense, and at this point in time, I'm not convinced either way. You claim that an unarmed person can't be a threat to an armed person, but that's simply not true at all. An unarmed person can easily be a threat if (a) they don't know or don't care that the other person is armed, and (b) the armed person is unwilling to use their weapon. Is that what happened? I don't know, and nobody else does either, no matter what they say. There's simply not enough evidence to affirm or deny his defense.

However, in the US, you are innocent by law until proven guilty. And that's one law that I agree with on principle, and not just in this case, either. That principle is ethically (our system should serve to protect the innocent wherever reasonably possible) and logically (the burden of proof in any argument always rests on the party making the affirmative claim) sound.

I find it unfortunate that people are so quick to cast judgment in cases where they weren't there. Where will they be when the tables are turned, when they or their loved ones are in the chair or all over the media for something they didn't do or did for what they believe are ethically justifiable reasons? The principle of "innocent until proven guilty" is far more often applied in cases where a person or persons of power (such as the government) is accusing someone of less power. It's a righteous and fair principle that has served us very well and I agree with it thoroughly.

He is (as countless others) a trigger happy racist with permission to kill. Besides that he broke countless of other policies which should have gotten him in trouble but didn't (i.e. not filing a police report, wiped the gun, etc). Seriously, you can't defend him. There was a crystal clear video in Eric Garner's case and did that help him? No. It wouldn't have mattered if there was a video and a 100 witnesses saying the same thing.

I find your lack of empathy concerning. You're not even trying to understand it from his perspective. You act like he was prancing down the street with a flaming cross and cackling evilly while shooting innocent black folk in cold blood. That's not what happened. Did events unfold how he said? Possibly, but probably not; he is probably embellishing the story a bit for obvious reasons.

But that doesn't mean he did what he did out of spite or hatred or whatever. There are a thousand things that police officers can do that are self-serving: grift, extortion, etc. What Officer Wilson did couldn't possibly serve himself; in the absolute best case, he'd still have extra work, a worse reputation, and get absolutely nothing positive out of the whole situation. I think you'd have to be crazy to think he did it out of spite or whatever. This action was very obviously something done out of fear or panic. I don't question that assessment even slightly. What I do question was whether that was a justified response for a trained police officer in the situation. And to know the answer to that, I would have to know how events actually unfolded, and that's something the public (myself included) does not know at this point.

 

[Kameken]

You know, any other time this wouldn't even NEED a video or "further investigation". This has nothing to do with evidence. This thread is nothing but people trying to avoid the fact that America's justice system is screwed up and racist. There are already countless of rebuttals against every possible argument in favour of Darren Wilson presented here because it's simply impossible to defend him. HE KILLED A MAN. You can't get more simple than that. You really can't discuss this. There is no ambiguity here, it doesn't matter what the circumstances are, Michael Brown was unarmed and did NOT pose a threat to Darren Wilson. He is (as countless others) a trigger happy racist with permission to kill. Besides that he broke countless of other policies which should have gotten him in trouble but didn't (i.e. not filing a police report, wiped the gun, etc). Seriously, you can't defend him. There was a crystal clear video in Eric Garner's case and did that help him? No. It wouldn't have mattered if there was a video and a 100 witnesses saying the same thing.

LMAO, the store owner can ****ing deny it and he DID. Oops that still doesn't matter though because like I said that's not what it's about to you people. The store owner said long ago that the person in the video was NOT Michael Brown, and Darren Wilson HIMSELF admitted that he didn't even know of a robbery. Seriously, pathetic.

"No one knows who is right!! What is "right" anyway?! I mean he killed an unarmed boy that begged for his life but like, he robbed a store!!!! Even though the store owner said it wasn't him! I'm still gonna believe it's him because I'm ignorant and racist! Because I'm desperately grasping at every possible excuse I can find to justify his murder!!!"

Spoiler:

It truly scares me how black and white some people think the world is. This isn't a comic book, and the police aren't Batman. In real life, if you think this way around someone who has reason or desire to kill you, you die. To imply that a man, especially one like Michael Brown, is unable to cause harm without a weapon is not only objectively incorrect, but insulting to those who have had their lives threatened or taken in a similar manner.

Stop pretending like you know more than trained professionals about something that happened to people you don't know in a place you probably have never been. That goes for pretty much everyone here. Unless he does it again, it'd be worse to lock up a man on the off chance that he did do something like this for the racism, than to let him go free with the scare he's certainly had over the entire situation.

 

[Kanzler]

I think the takeaway message for the average joe on a personal level is that if police give you a lawful order, you comply. Maybe you'll die, but if you don't comply you'll die harder. Police shouldn't be shooting people dead on a regular basis and that's on them, but everybody has to uphold their bit of the equation.

 

[Sir Codin]

I think the takeaway message for the average joe on a personal level is that if police give you a lawful order, you comply. Maybe you'll die, but if you don't comply you'll die harder. Police shouldn't be shooting people dead on a regular basis and that's on them, but everybody has to uphold their bit of the equation.

The problem here stems from the fact that not everyone has the same opinion on what a "lawful order" is.

 

[Yoshikko]

The problem here stems from the fact that not everyone has the same opinion on what a "lawful order" is.

Actually the problem here is racism and stems from the fact that WHITE people can shoot up a theatre and bomb a city and still be taken in ALIVE without a single scratch on them, but when a black person allegedly robs a store he deserved to be murdered by police. And Darren Wilson admitted that he didn't even know anything of a robbery and he was stopping Michael Brown and his friend for jaywalking. And when five eye witnesses say the same exact thing about Michael Brown running away from the officer. And still being shot. And the official autopsy supports this like..... or were Wilson's "injuries" that convincing??? This is the last thing I'm gonna say on this and I'm not even gonna respond to Kameken sorry. At least I know who to avoid on here now!!