It is painful to admit this, but Officer Wilsons training as a police office and his use of lethal force was absolutely legally justified. The bottom line here is that Michael Brown went for Officer Wilsons gun and you just cant do that and expect to be given the benefit of the doubt. Lets keep in mind that Mr. Brown tried to overpower Officer Wilson. The evidence shows that Mr. Brown tried to take away and use Officer Wilsons weapon against him after punching him twice in the face while Officer Wilson sat in his patrol car. I mean, really, who punches a police officer in the face and then reaches for his gun regardless of what may have been said? Thats totally unacceptable. Two shots from Officer Wilsons hand gun were fired inside the police car when Mr. Brown reached for Officer Wilsons gun and the physical evidence supports this conclusion. What is questionable in my mind is when Officer Wilson chased Michael Brown after the initial confrontation. Clearly, it was Officer Wilsons training as a law enforcement officer that compelled him to do so. Police officers are trained to confront suspects and thats what Officer Wilson did. The question is whether or not Officer Wilson was justified in shooting Michael Brown who, as far as we know, was unarmed during the second part of the confrontation. The critical part of that question is whether or not Michael Brown posed any kind of threat to the Officer Wilson that could reasonably be interpreted as potentially lethal. I think the answer to this question is yes based upon the behavior displayed by Mr. Brown and as corroborated by the physical evidence. Mr. Brown had already reached for the police officers gun once before, he had punched him twice in the face and he made it pretty clear from his actions that he had no intention of following Officer Wilsons commands. That being said, lethal force was probably not the only available option to Officer Wilson in this instance. Sure, Officer Wilson could have stayed in his vehicle, he could have waited for back up and he could have let Michael Brown run away. But what if Michael Brown had hurt someone else or what if another officer had come across Michael Brown after the confrontation with Officer Wilson and what if those individuals had been hurt? We will never know. What we do know is that Officer Wilsons law enforcement training compelled him to give chase and to confront Michael Brown and the rest, as they say, is now history. Maybe this incident will serve as a case study in how to use ones judgement as a police officer to assess critical situations and to de-escalate rather than to bring situations to a head. Its a tragedy, its incredibly unjust, totally unfair and awful in so many way it just makes me sick. It makes me ask what was going through the mind of Michael Brown at that point in his life, what was his life experience at that point and did the totality of his circumstances as a young African-American male living in a poverty and crime riddled area of the State of Missouri put him in a position to suffer this injustice? I think it did and I think that the only time we, as Americans, tend to ask ourselves about the plight of our fellow human beings is when tragedies that involve racial injustice like this one in Ferguson happen. We cannot continue to be NIMBYs anymore. We need to do something as a society to make these kinds of incidents stop. May Michael Browns soul and may his family find peace. I will pray for him and for all of Ferguson.
Posted on: Wed, 26 Nov 2014 02:56:38 +0000
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