Please read until the end if you want to make comments off of this post. This investigation was botched in so many ways. The original post was everything up to my signing, and the update follows. ________________
Well, here we go. The decision has been made by the grand jury of Missouri to not indict the cop, Darren Wilson, who shot and killed Michael Brown. Unlike Ferguson, I'm not shocked. The justice system doesn't always make the right decision, but in this case, with the evidence that was provided, I honestly believe they made the right call.
It was only a short time after the shooting that I had countless arguments with friends and friends of friends advocating for the side of Michael Brown. I also had a really interesting conversation with my father before all of the evidence came out. My father and I are devil's advocates--more in the way of looking at both sides of the situation, or literally putting ourselves in the shoes of both parties: Brown and Wilson in this case. I love these conversations, because it really gets the mind rolling. This post will describe most of that conversation, and then I'll conclude with my own thoughts on the issue. I'm using this conversation, because in order to make the most sense of it all, we threw out any of the witness testimony, which just so happens to be what the grand jury did, too. Funny, huh?
"There's NO WAY Michael Brown was killed justifiably!" I yelled at my father as he looked on from the kitchen. When it comes to these kinds of topics, yelling/charisma can sometimes provoke effectively even if, at the time, you have no idea what you're talking about. This was not one of those times.
"Take race out of the equation for a minute," my father retorts calmly, "Let's say that Michael Brown is a 300 pound white man who is lunging at you (I'm about 150). At this point, you know he could be dangerous since you just heard over the radio that a store was being robbed by said individual."
"BUT HE WASN'T WHITE!" I always loved shooting down my father's devil's advocate rhetoric, because he uses it all the time. That said, he really helped me see a different POV here.
"Just listen to me for a second: I don't think this is a race issue," he said. Then he re-explained his previous points. "If you legitimately feared for your life while someone was charging you, would you take the risk and not shoot a potential threat?"
"Well, yeah!" I exclaimed, "but why not shoot for the knees/legs? And if you're a cop that does the job right, you wouldn't have shot him 8 or so times!" As a side note, I later learned that cops are trained to shoot at the chest. I understand that's where the most mass is, but that doesn't tend to be an un-fatal area to shoot someone. Although they are trained that way, I'm still not thrilled with that answer, but the truth is the truth. I digress...
"He was too close to shoot at the legs!" my father rebutted, taking some of the potential evidence he did find--this evidence was used in the grand jury trial. "And apparently, Michael Brown was reaching for the officer's gun!"
"Aren't there other ways, though!? Couldn't the officer have used his taser?" To this argument, I also learned that not all officers carry tasers. Then I asked why, and was answered with "government funding," and then I subsequently hated everything. It's almost like, "Oh, we'd rather have a better chance of killing someone than subduing them, interesting."
"You keep talking about Wilson. I want YOU to try to be HIM for a minute. Answer as if it was happening to you." My dad is always such a smart ass with this shit. As you can probably tell, he's really good at it. He never lets you deflect or deviate. He tries to keep you on his train of thought. Is it annoying as all fucking hell? Yes, absolutely. But I definitely learn this way. It hurts admitting that, but it's true.
"I would've..." I paused. I remembered hearing that he may have been on drugs, too, so that started swirling through my head. "...well I did hear he was on drugs, but at the time I wouldn't have known that!" Coming to that mid-thought epiphany, I continued, "I still can't say I would have shot him 8 times!"
"But what if he punched you in the face, like one report said, disorienting you. What now?" My dad moved his Queen to E5. It wasn't checkmate yet, but I was drawing dead. Then my dad acted it out without me being ready. He quickly got out of his chair and lunged at me as if to punch/attack me. "Times up," he said. Checkmate. In that moment I would have thought to grab anything and use it. Your mind really gets stimulated when you're in the heat of a physical altercation, and many times we forget what that feeling is like until it happens. In almost an instant, your pupils dilate, your palms start to sweat, you shake from adrenaline, etc. Even the best cops feel this way sometimes. Not all cops are prepared for an attacker even if, as citizens, we feel like they should be.
"I...I may have shot him until he stopped." If Michael Brown was as close as they say, I might not have even had the chance to draw the gun unless I already had it drawn. It was said, even in the official reports, that after being shot, Brown didn't stop charging. I know there are some missing puzzle pieces, like the medical examiner not having batteries for his camera, and the officers leaving Michael Brown's dead body in the streets and uncovered for several hours. These things definitely seem incriminating for the Ferguson police dept., and perhaps that should have been dealt with; however, those are separate issues.
To conclude, even though I agree with the decision of the grand jury, I cannot rule out that this wasn't a race issue. I'm not saying that it was, but it's still hard to rule out that potential. The way everything was handled from top to bottom doesn't make any sense. It was handled so poorly that either the Ferguson police dept. is ridiculously ignorant or seriously racist. Honestly, the former would make me less uneasy. With that said, this does not give the citizens of Ferguson the right to ignorantly freak out. This is NOT how issues are solved. They need to understand that the justice system played out and worked the way it was supposed to. I know the decision is unfavorable for them and many of those who feel like there is a direct link to race with the killing of Michael Brown.
There was a famous quote given by Jon Stewart about race back about a week or so after the shooting. He said, "Race is there and it is a constant. You're tired of hearin' about it? Imagine how fucking exhausting it is living it." This HAS to be taken into consideration when things like this are happening. Those of white decent can never understand what it was like growing up as a minority of any kind. You can't. You might want to; you might try to; but you can't. In any given situation there are two sides to the coin. We, along with our justice system, do our best to determine every angle (at least I certainly hope so.) Sometimes that system fails, and we all get really angry about its failure, but things do change in failure. I hate that this happened, but think about how thorough that dept. is going to be from now on with every police-to-civilian altercation. Answer: super thorough. After things calm down, I very much doubt that Ferguson, and even many police depts around the country, will let anything like this happen again. At the very least, their protocols will change. That's my hope.
- PatInTheHat
After reading the autopsy reports, both public and private, firearm examiner, and a slew of other now-public documents, I'm even more conflicted than before. I'll post the link to them, and then you can decide for yourself, but there seems like there is practically NO way that Wilson could not be indicted. I mean, the evidence IS RIGHT THERE! The private autopsy report shows 12 BULLET WOUNDS, while the public one only shows FIVE!? Which is it?! If you're going to throw out the witness accounts for having varying stories, YOU MIGHT AS WELL THROW OUT THE AUTOPSY REPORTS, TOO!
It's really hard to comment on every aspect of the things that I'm reading. The witness journal is really strange, too.
I also just read Wilson's recorded interview the very next day. And although I'm ticked that he shot the gun so many times, it really seems like he may have been telling the truth, and he sounded scared shitless.
Please read some of these reports, at least:
http://apps.stlpublicradio.org/ferguson-project/evidence.html
I'm done trying to make sense of this. It's a fucking shit-storm.
Please give me your comments, I'd actually love to hear them. Everything written in this post is not to offend anyone. This whole case is full of conflicts, so please forgive my swaying, but this is how I learn. Thanks.
___________________________
I've really enjoyed hearing from multiple point of views about this issue, so everyone that has taken their time to message me or talk in person about this, I say "Thanks" to you.
One of the things that I definitely overlooked that was said to me last night is that no matter what the outcome of the Darren Wilson case, the system is MORBIDLY flawed. Whether Brown was black, white, asian, mexican, etc. if you're able to unload a whole clip into a person without any repercussions than that's a problem. I also think there needs to be better ways to subdue a suspect. The fact that certain police depts allow their police to carry guns but not a taser is beyond my comprehension. This stance, in and of itself, should incriminate the system. I'm not sure why the government would give authorities a weapon with better potential to kill than subdue other than the idea that they'd rather kill than subdue (or at least, rather give authorities that option).
Lastly, peaceful protests AGAINST THE SYSTEM I'm all in favor for. I will not advocate violence. I understand the struggle the oppressed have faced over the course of our nation's history, but violence is not the answer. Still hoping real positive change can occur in the wake of this unfortunate event.
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