<p>@EPTR "So we should all just sit back and accept any officer’s story when he states that he was in fear for his life? "</p>
<p>No, that is why you have witnesses testify, forensics, medical examiners and a grand jury.</p>
<p>My point is that we were not sitting on that panel and hearing the testimony and reviewing the evidence. Nor were we the ones out on that street attempting to police a high crime area known for gangs and violence. We don’t live in a police officers world where our lives are at risk every day.</p>
<p>People read a few press reports and react with their emotions claiming the officer wasn’t in fear for his life and fired because of the boys race. How do they know that??? I think the people who sat on that panel and Officer Wilson himself are the best people to opine on whether he feared for his life. And the grand jury had the opportunity to evaluate the credibility of Wilson’s testimony. Which is why he testified in the first place.</p>
<p>After all was said and done the jury felt that Wilson acted within the limits of the lethal-force laws. Having heard all the testimony and reviewed all the evidence, are these people not qualified to render a decision?</p>
<p>Does any one believe that the events had happened after no indictment will not happen if officer is acquitted?</p>
<p>In other words, other than spending a lot $$ to go through trial, the outcome will be exactly the same. </p>
<p>Many legal experts said on TV, the prosecutor should only asks for indictment if he/she is confident that they could win the case. </p>
<p>There are 43 pages of discussion here. I don’t see any way one side will agree with the other. I would image we would had the same discussion had there were a trial and the acquittal. </p>
<p>Well, yes, I guess that some of the debate is exactly about whether they were capable of rendering an impartial and informed decision, considering the apparent bias of the prosecutor and the misinformation fed to the grand jury concerning police shooting a fleeing suspect.</p>
<p>So you have the “correct” evidence and “information” presented to you by an unbiased authority and are prepared to go on the record stating Officer Wilson did not fear for his life?</p>
<p>You stated that there was debate about whether the jury could render an informed decision because of the bias of the prosecutor and because of the “misinformation fed to the jury.” Yet from your previous posts you are convinced Brown did not charge Wilson and was retreating when shot. So, you can render an “informed” opinion based on what? You read press accounts like the rest of us. Why should I put more credence in your conclusions than on the conclusions of the people who actually sat on the jury? Do you have the “better” or more “unbiased” evidence that somehow did not make its way into those 70 hours of testimony? </p>
<p>True. But do we know how many additional shell casings were found on the scene from shots Wilson took that missed? Just because he wasn’t struck while running away doesn’t mean he wasn’t. And several witness accounts said he was.</p>
<p>2-3 shots missed. I am sure they looked into the missed shots and mentioned it somewhere in the report. Bullet casings are clustered together pretty much. It seems reasonable to me to conclude they were fired about the same time. But let’s say it’s not and assume the worst case scenario and say those 2-3 shots were fired while he was running away. Since they didn’t hit him, we wouldn’t know if they were warning shots or bad shots. Did Wilson miss every shot fired at Brown running away from him but hit him every time when Brown was facing him? Was Wilson entitled to fire warning shots after the confrontation with Brown?</p>
<p>It’s more than likely Wilson would have been justified in firing his weapon to attempt to stop a fleeing robbery suspect who had just assaulted a cop. So, either or we have no murder, yet.</p>
<p>Wait, what? It’s not the tiniest bit likely that a cop would be entitled to shoot a fleeing suspect who had just assaulted the cop, if the fleeing suspect was not a danger to the public and the cop was not in danger of his life. </p>
<p>Let’s assume that we had a different scenario, where we all agreed (or there was video) that a suspect was fleeing (not charging), and this suspect had tussled with the cop and was thought to have stolen some cigarillos from a convenience store. You can’t possibly believe that a cop is entitled to shoot this hypothetical guy. Execution is not the penalty for small-time robbery and trying unsuccessfully to grab the cop’s gun.</p>
<p>The issue here is whether the cop was reasonably in fear for his life. We can disagree about whether Wilson was in fear of his life, and if he was, whether that fear was reasonable, but please, let us not misrepresent the state of the law. Cops just can’t run around shooting suspects because when they feel like it.</p>
<p>A fleeing felon is a danger to the public. It’s the law in MO and it’s been upheld by SCOTUS but is controversial and not being applied in this case. However, it could be if Darren Wilson was arguing that the suspect was fleeing because he had at that point committed a felony assault on an officer of law.</p>
<p>A cop is not going to decide that a robbery suspect who just attacked him is good to go if he doesn’t respond to a couple of warning shots and an order to freeze. What do people expect them to do just just shrug and get back in the car and get donuts? I really don’t understand this thinking. I think the evidence is clear that he was charging the officer but if he wasn’t it’s still a problem for the cop. It’s not just oh well, next case.</p>
<p>Brown and Wilson are both 6’4". How does Brown charge in such a way that a shot from Wilson enters through the top of Brown’s head and exits through his eye socket? If Wilson is holding his gun at shoulder height shooting downwards to get that trajectory how do those angles work? Here are the two descriptions of that part of the encounter from the WP story posted by Igloo. Personally, I find story #2 much more credible and frankly I find Wilson’s account about how he had shots that entered the top of his head and exited through the jaw to be incredible:</p>
<p>Wilson: Wilson fired a series of shots and thinks at least one hit Brown, because he saw Brown flinch but not stop. Wilson paused and started backpedaling; Brown kept coming toward him. He fired more shots at Brown and saw Brown flinch again. “At this point it looked like he was almost bulking up to run through the shots, like it was making him mad that I’m shooting at him,” Wilson said. Wilson said Brown approached to within eight to 10 feet of him. “I’m backpedaling pretty good because I know if he reaches me, he’ll kill me,” Wilson said. “And he had started to lean forward as he got that close, like he was going to just tackle me, just go right through me.”</p>
<p>Johnson: “Shots was definitely fired while he was going down. The last shot he fired he was so close to the ground, it looked like to me he was already on the ground. His knees were, he was going down, he was already down before the last shot came.” “I can see how many shots this officer is firing, it is sickening to my stomach, I’m almost bursting in tears right there.” </p>
<p>I don’t see the two are contradictory. If Wilson was afraid for his life and shooting Brown in succession, the fatal shot could’ve hit Brown when he was going down or already down. That doesn’t necessarily imply the fatal shot was made after he went down. Wilson was firing 7-8 shots in the space of less than a few seconds, I would think.</p>
<p>At any rate if the fatal bullet came out of the eye socket after entering from the front of the skull, Brown couldn’t have been on the ground yet. More like in the process of falling down with his head down. I am sure they have plotted the trajectory connecting the entry and exit points to the bullet origin since forensics can point roughly how far from the bullet was fired.</p>
<p>Wilson’s account is chilling. MB was not a “demon”. Bullets do not go through people leaving them unharmed. He was not a “hulk” and was not going to “go right through” Wilson. He was not going to kill him. He was riddled with bullets. Clearly, Wilson had watched too many horror movies, and was quick to easily conflate a young (black) man with a monster. The lack of judgment should at least show him unfit to be an officer of the law.</p>
<p>Wilson: “I’m backpedaling pretty good because I know if he reaches me, he’ll kill me . . .” </p>
<p>I’m sorry but for a trained, armed police officer who is facing an unarmed young man who has already been shot several times this just sounds preposterous to me.</p>
<p>It seems to me that the mere fact that everyone is arguing about the credibility of this or that piece of evidence and whether one witness’s testimony should be believed over another, just goes to show that there should have been a trial. That’s what trials are FOR, is to weigh the evidence. Grand jury indictment proceedings are to determine whether there’s enough evidence to warrant a trial. Clearly there was contradictory evidence here, so there should have been a trial. Grand juries aren’t supposed to weigh the evidence and decide on guilt or innocence – they’re just supposed to determine whether there’s probable cause that a crime has been committed. (Remember, “crime” here could include manslaughter – it doesn’t have to be murder.)</p>
<p>It astonishes me that @marie1234 can say calmly that a police officer is justified in shooting a fleeing felony suspect. It’s been way too long since I was in law school and there may have been recent rulings on this that I’m not aware of, but in any case let’s talk not about what court rulings say – let’s talk about what kind of society we want to have. Remember that Wilson is not a judge and jury all rolled into one – he is not actually competent to determine anyone’s guilt or innocence. Therefore we should not have a society where a police officer, acting on his own split-second judgment, is allowed to say to himself “that’s a fleeing felon – I should kill him to protect the public.” What if he’s wrong? What if he’d heard the report on the radio mentioning TWO men in the convenience store, so he decided to shoot Michael Brown’s companion as well, a guy who as far as I’ve heard didn’t commit that robbery? What if the radio report had been inaccurate and there was no robbery after all? Is it still okay for him to shoot to kill?</p>
<p>I agree with whoever asked if you’d say the same thing if it was YOUR kid who’d stolen something from a convenience store. Being a petty criminal does not mean you forego all your civil rights. Even Jean Valjean wasn’t killed outright by Javert when he stole that loaf of bread – he just got thrown in prison. It’s amazing to me that there are people here who seem to be calmly advocating for a society that is LESS forgiving and LESS “Christian” than the one depicted in Les Miserables.</p>
<p>I have no idea of what a trained armed policeman should be feeling after having been pinned down by this unarmed young man a few seconds prior struggling to gain the control of his gun. That’s why we need to look at forensics and autopsies. Wasn’t our first question if Wilson shoot Brown in the back while he was running away? It’s possible he may have fired a few shots but none hit Brown if indeed he fired at a fleeing suspect. They could have been warning shots. We don’t know. If Wilson meant to hit him, he was a bad shot. For a bad shot, he has a good record for shooting Brown in the front lodging 7-8 bullets. The second question that seems to arouse deep emotions was Brown was shot after he was already on the ground. I am sure there’s an answer to that somewhere in the report. Just guessing here that it’s more likely he was shot while going down. I would think the trajectory would point Wilson be a size of a squrrel if the shot was made after Brown was already on the ground.</p>