I, too, doubt both parts of that. Seriously. The one thing in this case that is obvious, at least to me, is that people on both sides of the debate of whether Wilson was right or wrong reached their conclusions based on little, if any, actual evidence.
Many of the protesters said, from the beginning, “If there is no indictment, Ferguson will burn”. It looks like they were right. They absolutely ruled out the possibility that Wilson may have have been justified. Based on nothing more than rumors.
Wilson backers defended him in a knee-jerk fashion. I was a homicide detective (now collecting a pension) and one of the more important things I learned was not to reach conclusions without evidence to back them up. I allowed for the possibility that Wilson was wrong but, upon hearing his version of things (second-hand through the girlfriend’s friend or whoever it was) I thought, “That is an entirely plausible scenario”. And, if it were true, justifies the use of deadly force in the manner in which it was used.
It appears that the presentation to the grand jury was thorough and the grand jurors found no probable cause. That is what grand juries do. They have nothing to do with assigning value to lives.
Are some cops racist? Absolutely. Have some cops killed/beaten/abused/framed completely innocent people? Yep. Is there a chance Wilson acted properly? If you believe the protesters, talking heads, pundits and the BrainGluttons, the answer is an unequivocal “NO!” Because they were there and saw exactly what transpired.
One thing that Americans will not be so aware of is the disparity between death by cop in the USA and elsewhere.
In the UK any shooting by the police of any individual makes the top headline in the evening news. In 2011/12 there were five instances of police even opening fire. Two people died.
In the USA in 2011 the were 168 people killed by police gunfire. So many people were targeted and not shot that adequate records are not available on the internet.
So there is a problem of Gun Culture, Police Culture and Inter-racial culture (Ferguson as a largely African American community was policed by a largely white police department).
Didn’t seem like it to me. He seems like an arrogant asshole who thinks he can walk into a convenience store, take what he wants, leave without paying and just shove aside the owner protesting the robbery.
Your take on whether or not that’s an “ordinary black citizen”? Mine is that the vast majority are law-abiding, honest, hard-working and decent.
Having worked in poverty stricken black areas, poverty stricken white areas, and a handful of countries throughout Europe, Asia and South America, it’s my personal observation that most black communities have a higher percentage of the above.
There are race-based crime statistics maintained by the FBI, but it may be too much of a tangent to bring those up here. You can look them up if you are interested in attaching numbers.
I’m well aware of the statistics. For some reason you said that these criminals are “too common” among black communities, as if other communities have just the right number of such criminals.
No. We don’t all know that. In fact, none of us know that. YOU imagine that to be the case.
And, pray tell, how does a cop, white, racist or otherwise, direct one bullet to find an organ in the body that will cause death and another one to just lodge itself in some muscle or fat? Please, tell me about these magic bullets!
Der Trihs - Unless I am missing something, it seems that the prosecutor put on witnesses who say all kinds of things not in the officer’s favor - Brown on his knees when shot, Brown standing still and not moving toward officer, Brown shot in the back and so on. If this was intended to be a whitewash rubber stamp proceeding why put on witnesses whose testimony conflicts with your goal of no indictment?
Are you of the opinion that there is no chance Wilson acted properly? If so, what do you base your opinion on?
If Michael Brown had been white, yes, he probably would have been shot. That is a likely consequence of attacking a cop and trying to steal his gun. The overwhelming response from those few people who heard about it would have been “yeah, jackass, that’s what happens when you assault a cop.” And that would have been the end of it.
Yes, trials are there to determine whether there is proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused committed a crime. But Grand Juries are there to determine if there is even probable cause to proceed to a trial. In this case they said “No”.
What is your theory on why the prosecutor put on witnesses that contradict your premise that he wanted to whitewash the case. And you didn’t answer my question - do YOU think there is a chance Wilson acted properly?
I guess the contrary : that given the importance of the case, the jury thought long and hard about whether it should indict or not, instead of casually indict just because it was asked to and the charge wasn’t patently absurd, as they would have done otherwise.