A private autopsy commissioned by the Brown family showed that Michael Brown, 18, was shot six times by Officer Darren Wilson of the Ferguson, Missouri police department. Two of those shots were to the young man’s head. The Ferguson police department has released details about Michael Brown’s personal history, as well as (evidently) the news that Wilson had been taken to the hospital after killing Brown. No details on the extent of his injuries, but evidently they weren’t anywhere near as serious as those he inflicted on that young man for the crime of walking down the street.
It comes as no surprise that Fox News and other gutter press outlets have latched onto this little tidbit about Wilson. That’s their form of “race card” journalism, playing to the more than sixty percent of white Americans who feel there is no racial component to this killing. But just as a thought experiment, let’s suppose for a moment that Wilson got slugged a few times by Brown – however unlikely that may be. A cop has the authority to use force in self defense. But six shots at a distance, at an unarmed man? And two to the head? How is that self-defense?
What are we supposed to think when this man is shot six times and left to lie in the street for more than four hours? This is Jim Crow style policing. We may never know precisely what happened in that encounter two weeks ago, but we know the mindset within which it was allowed to happen. I have to say, I am skeptical of any police reports on these types of incidents. We have cell phone video of the St. Louis shooting, and it does not comport with police statements about that incident. The police shot nine rounds in about five seconds. The 23 year old man, who had a history of mental illness, did not have his knife arm raised He did not lunge at the officers. He looked to be between 6 and 8 feet from them.
If they felt threatened, maybe a shot to the leg? Is that out of bounds now? Is shoot to kill the only possible response to a mentally unstable man with a knife?
Perhaps when they are black. When they’re white, apparently they warrant counseling. What the hell is this if not the new Jim Crow?
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Still, the U.S. military action will continue in Iraq, sans dramatic justification. Neatly done. And we will continue to provide arms to the people fighting those other people we provided arms to. There’s a foreign policy for you. What’s even more worrying than that, though, is the degree to which our military have been providing arms, armored vehicles, and advanced tactical gear to police departments across the country, like the one in Ferguson, Missouri. In the wake of the seemingly arbitrary police killing of teenager Michael Brown, this mostly African-American community looks reminiscent of Soweto, South Africa, during the bad old days of Apartheid.