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Officer Not Charged In Michael Brown Shooting
An anonymous reader writes: A grand jury in Missouri has decided there is no probable cause to charge police officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown. "A grand jury of nine whites and three blacks had been meeting weekly since Aug. 20 to consider evidence. At least nine votes would have been required to indict Wilson. The Justice Department is conducting an investigation into possible civil rights violations that could result in federal charges." Government officials and Brown's family are urging calm in Ferguson after the contentious protests that followed Brown's death.
And they can't possibly ever be wrong.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
In 1995 I was in Dusseldorf, Germany, taking part in a large peaceful protest that occurs annually there. It's a march through the centre of the city, all mapped out in advance. Police in full riot gear were on hand, as they are every year. Thousands of them, brought in from all over the country. The previous year, some shitheads had started rioting, and some shops were looted. As we marched through the streets, I remember noticing bystanders gathered along the planned route, just watching the march. Nothing unusual there. Except that there just happened to be particularly large clusters of bystanders, mainly young man, watching the march from right in front of each liquor store and electronics store that we passed. I found that to be an interesting coincidence.
Unfortunately for the "bystanders", that year's march remained peaceful, so they didn't get the opportunity to cash in.
"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." -- Albert Einstein
12 shots, 12 hits to the torso.
A thoroughy justifiable shoot.
Not.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
As far as I know, the American police used to use a lot more blunt force -- flashlights, billy clubs, night sticks, beavertail saps, sap gloves -- to subdue people.
Over the past few decades, and especially since Rodney King's beating, blunt force seems to be off the menu. It has been somewhat replaced by the Taser, but their cost and the increasing awareness of the risk of death seems to have blunted (sorry) its use.
I wonder if the elimination of blunt force from the police toolkit has somehow led to a situation where "if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail" kind of a situation, where the police have come to see many situations that may have in the past been responded to with blunt force instead getting treated as a situation to shoot.
Physical confrontations without the use of an alternate weapon often boil down to wrestling matches which can quickly become a pulled gun or a struggle for an officer's gun, and many times a physical struggle is justified as a reason to shoot.
None of this to say that people weren't beaten for unjust reasons, but they also weren't killed, either.
When cops carried blunt force weapons they also knew how to use them in a way to inflict pain in a way that gained submission but also in a way that avoided major injury, since major injury didn't necessarily work in their favor. They seemed to have a spectrum of force available instead of a binary choice of shooting or not shooting.
But the fatal one that occurred 150 feet away from the original scuffle, after Brown had surrendered?
Except your fantasy version of events didn't actually happen. Multiple (African American, no less) witnesses (whose stories didn't change once asked real questions) came forward of their own volition and explained what happened. Brown didn't surrender. He didn't have his hands up. And he did charge at the cop again after assaulting him the first time.
Running from a police officer is not an offense worthy of public execution without trial.
But punching him in the face, trying to lay hands on the officer's gun, and then turning around and charging at him seconds later after being told to stop IS grounds for a guy (who'd just been slammed back into his cruiser and punched in his face) to feel threatened when a 6' 270-lb guy rushes him. I'd like to see your reaction. Arms out for a big hug, probably?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.