Assuming that Brown started his run at Wilson from 100m away, I am not that impressed with the difference between Wilson shooting Brown in the front, and Slater shooting Scott in the back. Slater and Wilson both opted for a quick, deadly solution, probably because that is what they were trained to do. Slater didn’t want to chase Scott. Wilson didn’t back up or run behind his SUV or fire at Brown’s feet.
I feel that Wilson would have been justified in shooting Brown during the struggle for Wilson’s gun, but not as he actually did.
So, while not trying to re-investigate and re-argue the Ferguson case for the umpteenth time, the evidence in the two cases are very very very different.
There was a thread here a while ago that went through all the evidence brought forward to the grand jury and it largely validated Wilson’s testimony. The Feds also looked into it and didn’t find enough of an issue to take it further. That’s enough evidence for me to believe that Wilson acted ok. You can link all the opinion pieces you want but I need to hear a reasonable explanation on why the Feds left it alone to believe that Wilson could be culpable.
The SC case has no bearing on the Ferguson case except that maybe people are making more of an effort to video the police in action (which I think is largely a good thing). Without Ferguson there might not be a video for the SC case.
That the feds didn’t do anything isn’t dispositive, since they’d be looking at it with a very particular lens aimed toward a civil rights violation, which is a far different bar.
There was more than enough evidence to charge and prosecute. The prosecutor chose a particular, extraordinary path to address the grand jury and got the expected answer given the evidence presented and the manner in which it was presented. Ultimately, we will never know whether a jury would’ve seen fit to convict Wilson of a given charge or charges.
Who knows what will happen in the expected civil lawsuit against the police dept. and Wilson individually.
Officer Wilson claimed that Brown ran 20-30 feet away from the car, then charged 10 feet towards him. Sounds scary. Except that Brown’s body was found 150 feet away.
Well, I just saw the Slager’s dash cam video of the incident. Looks like Scott pulled over willingly enough. I could see his left brake light worked, but the right one was out of frame so that may have been the one that was out.
Both the officer and Scott appeared to be handling the incident well until the officer went back to his car, we assume to check up on the vehicle registration and any outstanding warrants for Scott. Shortly after that we see Scott open his car door and run out of the frame. We don’t see the officer again, but I assume from the increase of wind noise on his mic that he gave chase and left his car door open.
There may have been some shouting heard at the end, I’m not sure. But no physical confrontation was seen.
Can you see the passenger in the car in the video? I hear there was a passenger.
At any rate, I think it is what people have speculated and relatives have intimated: Scott was worried about their being a warrant out on a back child support issue. Rather unfortunately, people do stupid shit all the time … even when they’ve done nothing wrong (bolt). A recent court opinion touches on the topic (buried in the opinion) about at what point(s) a person might feel free to leave (even if that leaving equates to bolting):
Holy crap, they had to know the helicopter was there, and yet they acted like it was a contest to see who could land the most punches or kicks. Guys ran up a full minute after he was down (and he was clearly complying before the first punch was thrown, lying face down with his hands behind his back), and just started beating on him.
Up until recently, I’ve always bought into the thing about 99% of LEOs being good guys. But if that sheriff’s dept is typical, that number needs a severe adjustment.
ETA: on second thought, there was a lower-flying helicopter that probably belonged to the dept, so maybe they didn’t realize the news copter was there, since its noise would have been drowned out by the lower one.
Is that how most cops act when they think nobody is watching? Between this and the cop in SC planting the taser next to the guy he shot, it hasn’t been a good week for LEOs.