<p>Is it possible that both Wilson and Michael happen to share the same very “dominating”, “strong ego” personality partly because of their larger-than-normal physical size/strength? A lot of policemen are larger than normal in both their physical size (this is often needed in their line of job) and their ego (this may not be a good thing.)</p>
<p>I notice in my personal experience that, a higher percentage of men who are big or tall choose the “easy way” to overpower or even intimidate other people (occasionally in a demeaning manner) in a conflict just because they can. This is especially true when they were growing up in a rough environment (and when they were not large enough yet as young children, other people might often rough them up.)</p>
<p>We know Michael is huge and Ferguson may be a rough neighborhood. Wilson is larger and taller than the average person (but not as huge as Michael) but his policeman role may push him toward being on the more “dominating” side of himself when he is on his job even when he may not be so when he is not on his job (for the very last point, it is a very wild guess in my part, completely not a fact.)</p>
<p>I don’t know about that considering I’ve seen plenty of shorter folks join police forces and the military for similar reasons in history and IRL. </p>
<p>The father of a childhood classmate who was a 20+ year Marine, Vietnam vet, and former drill sergeant at Parris Island was very domineering and loud…despite being barely 5’3". He was well-built and had an intimidating air about him. </p>
<p>I’ve also seen plenty of LEOs who were as short and intimidating in NYC and elsewhere as well. </p>
<p>NYC has too many good jobs (many are willing to pay a premium to live close to it, just like many good and large cities, mostly on the coast.) In many other states (e.g., in the heartland of America), policemen and firefighters could be considered as “fit” /above-average jobs by people with the strength but do not have other even better job choices (can not afford the “expensive college education” as kids of many CC parents. (I heard there is a physical strength test for a firefighter job.)</p>
<p>Not sure whether I wrote above is relevant. But I wonder whether a person with a certain personality tends to choose this line of job (in the case of Wilson) or commit this kind of crime (in the case of Michael Brown - how many people will choose to rough up and challenge a policeman who carries a gun in his line of work?)</p>
<p>A black man is 21 times more likely to be shot by police than a white man. </p>
<p>21 times!</p>
<p>There’s plenty of reason why some of these people riot. Some may be hooligans just out for some fun. But it seems to me many others have simply had ENOUGH. They’re seething angry and with good reason. And they’re not mature enough to know that ultimately, what will change anything is not rioting – but law. </p>
<p>Luckily for us all, the vast MAJORITY of the protests have been peaceful and will lead a drive – I hope – for real change. Change in the way police are trained, and held accountable for their actions. </p>
<p>Actually, for a large segment of NYC area residents, having a job with the NYPD, FDNY, etc is considered a good stable job with high risks…but a nice pension if one stays for a certain number of years. If one stays a certain number of years, one can get a nice pension and then land a second job with a suburban PD in Long Island or other nearby suburbs with higher pay and another pension if he/she stays in long enough. </p>
<p>Another bonus to this is many police and firefighters actually live in the NYC area suburbs on Long Island and elsewhere so the second job means being closer to home in a perceived safer locale. </p>
<p>That doesn’t mean it’s a struggle of equals. The cop has a lot of weapons in addition to his large size and, let’s say, strong ego. He has, first, a firearm. After the shooting, he has the police department which will close ranks and never ever ever admit that a shooting was unjustified. He has the local and/or state prosecutor on his side, as we saw especially blatantly in this case. And he has public opinion, the assumption on the part of most people (but [especially</a> white people](<a href=“62% Ferguson Whites: Shooting Justified”>62% Ferguson Whites: Shooting Justified)), that the cop is always telling the truth about the incident. </p>
<p>It’s no accident that in these cases, it’s virtually always the big strong black guy who ends up dead, and virtually always the big strong white guy who is never held accountable.</p>
<p>Here is the problem I have with the mom saying that Wilson had already decided that he was going to kill someone that day. Why didn’t he shoot Dorian Johnson? Regardless of whether you think Wilson should have shot Brown I would think if he was really set on killing someone that day he would have shot at both of them. </p>
<p>I find it interesting there’s so much more scrutiny over parents of a certain race who make statements in the midst of great anguish and pain over losing a child whereas other parents of a different race would be given much more sympathy and less harsh critical judgement for doing likewise. </p>
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<p>One reason for riots in history as now is the perception among those rioting that the society, its law and its enforcement structures is run in a manner that not only doesn’t work on their behalf, but also at the very best…ignores their needs and worse, actively abuses them/their community. </p>
<p>I keep reading the implication that Brown was a threatening big guy. </p>
<p>But Brown and Wilson ARE THE SAME HEIGHT AND WEIGHT. So I don’t buy the argument that Wilson was so frightened by this “big thug.” They were equals, but one had a gun - and used it. </p>
<p>IMO the reason this specific case has blown up like it has is because the police left Brown’s body, uncovered, in the middle of the street for 4 or 5 hours. They never approached him to see if he needed aid. They wouldn’t let his mother near him. They simply let him lie there, in the middle of the street in a crowded urban area with hundreds of people looking on. The police chief had no explanation for this. No one has had an explanation for this.</p>
<p>And in fact, there is no possible decent explanation for allowing a dead human being to lie on display in the street for hours. A dog would have received more respectful treatment, and IMO that’s exactly the point. This was intended to send a message of profound contempt to the people of Ferguson, and boy did they hear it loud and clear.>>>>>>>></p>
<p>Earlier, I commented that the height and weight differences were present, but so minor as to make Wilson’s statement of his being like a boy holding down Hulk Hogan to be ridiculous at the very best.</p>
<p>I also cited my own experience of accidentally knocking down an older cousin without even realizing it while playing a spirited soccer game during my undergrad years despite the fact he’s over 2 inches taller than me, heavier than me by 75 pounds, and much more well built/athletic than me. </p>
<p>We literally ran full-tilt straight into each other from opposite sides of the field and I only realized what had happened when in the next moment, he’s the one on the ground and I was still standing without having felt a thing. Ended up helping him back up. </p>
<p>"NYC has too many good jobs (many are willing to pay a premium to live close to it, just like many good and large cities, mostly on the coast.) In many other states (e.g., in the heartland of America), policemen and firefighters could be considered as “fit” /above-average jobs by people with the strength but do not have other even better job choices "</p>
<p>This is the strangest post ever. You people are so weird about “the heartland,” like the inhabitants come from another planet. This could have happened anywhere. Every city has a Ferguson/ like area, either within or out of city boundaries. </p>
<p>“But Brown and Wilson ARE THE SAME HEIGHT AND WEIGHT. So I don’t buy the argument that Wilson was so frightened by this “big thug.” They were equals, but one had a gun - and used it.”</p>
<p>No they aren’t. Brown was a good 70 pounds heavier. </p>
<p>Anyway, the forensics show that Brown grabbed the gun. When you grab a cop’s gun, all bets are off. </p>
<p>"no accident that in these cases, it’s virtually always the big strong black guy who ends up dead, and virtually always the big strong white guy who is never held "</p>
<p>I think you mean the big strong black thug. </p>
<p>“It is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard.” </p>
<p>Another speculation here: Do policemen tend to be on the aggresive side because of the rough environment they are in? </p>
<p>I heard at one time that policemen in, say, South Korea, mostly are not allowed to carry “real” guns and their major crime rate is much lower than ours. Very few gun violence there. If a gun violence happens in a rare case, they send in soldiers - they have plenty because of their big/bad neighboring country. There may be even many US soldiers permanently based there.) Their police is not generally equipped to handle criminals with guns. But their suicide rate is much higher than ours. (And I heard that their people do not respect the law as much as we do in general. and their police do not care about minor crimes - there are plenty of traffic violations there, much more than we do, I think.) It is said that most people in S Koreans even do not respect policemen (and law in general) as much as we do (they respect teachers/professors who help “mold their young generation” more than we do - they like to emphasize and talk about right/wrong in the context of morale/characters rather than in the context of laws.) likely due to a historical reason (the policemen were consideres borderline “traitors” who helped the “enemy” to oppress their own countrymen - the Japanese colony government which was hated by almost all back then.)</p>
<p>I also heard that the policemen in Japan really have many troubles in using guns and handling violent criminals because they do not have enough experience with it. However, when there was a disaster in Japan (nuclear melt-down), they had no major crime/riot unlike we had in New Orlean. (But, hey, they had an economic depression that has lasted almost two decades by now! Each society has its good and bad.)</p>
<p>Pizzagirl the fact that there was forensic evidence that Brown grabbed the officer’s weapon really is a key piece of evidence that seems to be lost to many people.</p>
<p>“The limitation of riots, moral questions aside, is that they cannot win and their participants know it. Hence, rioting is not revolutionary but reactionary because it invites defeat. It involves an emotional catharsis, but it must be followed by a sense of futility.”
Martin Luther King, Jr.</p>
<p>It is pretty evident that some are determined to look for any reason to discredit the story of the officer and question the process of the grand jury. If that includes clinging to stories that have proven to be utterly false or not corroborated by witnesses, so be it. If that includes setting aside a stack of evidence that never shows the officer to misrepresent how things evolved, so be it. All that seems to matter is to build up a narrative that, while being true in many occasions, simply does not apply to the shooting death of Brown. </p>
<p>If we want dialogues to be fruitful, we should attempt to segregate the facts from the fiction. Young blacks are indeed targeted by law enforcement, and this because the history is not on their side. Minorities are the largest statistical population in the jail system, because they are judged more harshly, and … do commit more crimes, starting with the type of pettty crime that Brown put on display. We should never forget that the accumulation of small crimes becomes part of the culture, and that this contributes to the constant “expectations” that young black men are up to no good. </p>
<p>Our country does have a problem, but it is not one that will be solved by the likes of Sharpton or the … parents of Brown who incite to more violence. It will be solved by addressing the roots of the problems via social and education engineering. For all I know, the same people who violently oppose the powers of affirmative action in education might be the same ones who lament the death of a misguided young men who was purported to be on his way to a college but could not stop himself to rob a convenience store for a small indulgence of cigarillos. </p>
<p>The best way to solve the problems is to encourage more disadvantaged kids to emulate the right kind of models. That is why we need more black men in college than in prison. That is why we have to VEHEMENTLY condemn the actions of Brown and describe as they were: and that means recognizing that his actions were plain wrong. Simply stated, the minorities in this country deserve role models worth emulating, and pretending that Brown was a victim of a system gone awry or, even worse, is an insult to all the children who hope to grow out of a life that keeps them down. And an insult to all the grandparents and parents who try so hard for their kids to do the right thing and stay out of juvenile trouble.</p>
<p>If there is a message that ought to be learned from this shooting, it should be about what NOT to do in similar circumstances. Brown did not have to rob a store and did not have to resist arrest violently. He could have been home preparing for the next steps in his life. He made the decision to engage in behavior that some might condone or find acceptable. </p>
<p>The tragedy here is that the reactions to what might have been a tragic escalation are a lot worse than the death itself. It just set the clock back by months and years. </p>