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<p>Yes, they were blocked in – by Wilson. But there were good options. Wilson could have chosen to defuse, rather than escalate, the situation. He didn’t.</p>
<p>How? He planned to wait for the patrol car which did arrive shortly after but unfortunately 90 seconds later it was over. What should he have done? </p>
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This is why, in the back of my mind, I suspect that Mr. Wilson may have an ill-placed priority or even a strong ego (“you shall always follow my order because I am a police”) issue. But I have no proof of this.</p>
<p>He blocked them in purposely because he didn’t want them running off and he didn’t want to confront them alone. I agree it was a bad plan. But, deciding to attack the officer was a worse plan. And, you should always obey a police order because they are the authorities. This protect and serve business does not mean it’s their job to serve criminals. People get this confused sometimes.</p>
<p>This escalation is what people have been talking about. The 12 year old kid who was shot in Cleveland was shot in seconds - escalation. A police shooting in my own city went from guy crossing the crosswalk minding his own business to dead in seconds. Even with dash cam video that contradicts his story the officer enacted a scene in which the victim took an aggressive stance and wielded a knife at him (false). The St. Louis shooting the same week as Michael Brown was a horrifyingly quick escalation from a call to dead. People hesitate to call the police about mentally ill family members for fear that their loved one will be killed as a result. Looking forward people are asking if there’s a better way to interact with the public so that these escalations are more rare. The city of Portland has new programs RE interactions with police and the mentally ill after some disturbing incidences. Seattle has been working on reforming how situations are approached. It all starts with the premise that the public and law enforcement departments should be able to agree upon . . . police should not be judge, jury and executioner and police officers should not be used as a means to commit suicide. There has got to be a better way.</p>
<p>The dispatcher in Cleveland has some problems since she failed to transmit the information that the gun may be fake. </p>
<p>I am not excusing yahoos who perpetrate destruction during protests. The bad behavior of those people doesn’t erase the issue at hand, though. </p>
<p>I’m pretty agnostic on the issue of whether or not Darren Wilson behaved appropriately. But that’s just the point: it is useless to bring an indictment if there is no chance of getting a conviction, and on this evidence, IMO, there was no chance of getting a conviction. Brown was not shot in the back while escaping. Witness testimony is divided. There is some evidence of a physical altercation that involved aggression on the part of Brown. Even if you think there’s a decent chance - and I do - that Wilson may have escalated a situation that could have been defused without violence, there is no way of proving this, and certainly no way of proving that he acted in a way that amounts to criminal overreaction. If Wilson acted like a loudmouth bully in telling Brown and his friend to get out of the street, that may have created a fraught situation, but it certainly doesn’t justify a violent reaction.</p>
<p>Similarly, while I believe the police have become over militarized and trigger happy, I also don’t want to create a legal system where a cop can be charged for murder because he rated his danger level at a “6” and, on careful reflection, we think it is a “4”, and you need to be at level “5” to justify force. I’m not saying a cop’s subjective fear should always be deferred to, but if indeed Brown reached for Wilson’s gun and then seemed like he was coming back for a second chance at it, I don’t think it is fair to quibble in hindsight about the precise level of fear Wilson was justified in feeling.</p>
<p>Of course, we’ll never know exactly how it played out, but that isn’t because there isn’t going to be a trial, it is because there isn’t any record of what happened beyond conflicting eyewitnesses. That’s why police need to be wearing cameras.</p>
<p>The problem here, legally speaking, is that the case made it to a grand jury in the first place. The prosecutor should have had the guts to just come out and say that after investigating, there wasn’t enough evidence to justify indictment. </p>
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<p>So backing up the car was escalating the situation? And that’s because of a big ego?</p>
<p>I think you are forgetting that police need to be somewhat stern because, in order to be effective, they need have people listen to what they say. It reminds me of a junior high teacher I once had. She was super nice but her class was a zoo with the kids being total jerks. She spoke in kind of a conciliatory tone that made it sounded like she was asking the kids to behave better. It’s an art. The dressing down a cop might do to someone who swears at them may be integral for them to do their job, not merely an emotional reaction to being “sassed.”</p>
<p>The other issue is that people who are disrespectful to the police are probably more likely to be doing something else wrong. Call it a risk factor. And the police invariably at least go talk to someone like that to see what they are up to. </p>
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<p>You have no way of knowing that. All we have heard is the prosecutor’s view of evidence which was favorable to his client. (Well, technically Wilson was not his client, but every last thing McCulloch did and didn’t do reflects a defense attorney’s relationship.) Every bit of evidence released by McCulloch was unchallenged in a legal setting. We don’t know what might have been revealed by cross examination. In MY opinion, Wilson’s story would have fallen apart.</p>
<p>Anyway, in this country we let a trial jury decide if there should be a conviction or not – not leaks from the grand jury, and a defense attorney’s summation to the media. A transcript of the grand jury proceedings is NOT the same thing as a criminal trial. Not by a long shot. </p>
<p>We don’t always let a jury decide. Every decision not to press charges doesn’t go before a grand jury, nor does every incident in which a police officer kills someone. Prosecutors have discretion. Now, obviously one can believe that a prosecutor is exercising his discretion in an arbitrary of discriminatory way, but I don’t think that would have been the case here. Prosecutors don’t like losing cases, and there’s a pretty high bar for getting a conviction. If we were talking about a civil case, I agree that a trial would be appropriate, but for a criminal case I really just don’t see any way that a jury could have come to a “beyond reasonable doubt” judgment that Wilson had committed a crime. </p>
<p>If there was no blood in Wilson’s car, there might have been grounds for a trial. If witnesses had been unanimous in their testimony, there might have been grounds for a trial. If Brown had been shot in the back, there WOULD have been grounds for a trial. With none of those things? What could possibly have emerged at trial that would have gotten us to guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of murder or manslaughter? </p>
<p>This is why, in the back of my mind, I that Mr. Wilson may have an ill-placed priority or even a strong ego (“you shall always follow my order because I am a police”) issue. But I have no proof of this."</p>
<p>But you ARE supposed to follow the orders of policemen. That doesn’t make them egotistical or arrogant or bullies. </p>
<p>It’s like when the doctor says to the nurse - sponge (or whatever) in the OR. She’s supposed to do it. It doesn’t make him arrogant if he just expects her to do so without any argument, or without saying please. </p>
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<p>It most certainly does mean that it’s there job to protect every citizen and a criminal is not a criminal if there has been no trial.</p>
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<p>Really? No matter what? Tell that to all the women who have been victimized at the hands of a police officer after being pulled over for a “violation”.</p>
<p>Good grief. Not “no matter what.” The request to get out of the roadway is not a ridiculous or out of line request, any more than the request is to produce your license when pulled over. </p>
<p>I love how we have to assume good faith for Brown, the thug, but not the cops. </p>
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<p>Baloney. An individual who has robbed a bank and is running out of the building with a bag of money and a gun purchased illegally is a criminal. He has committed a crime. He is just not yet a convicted felon.</p>
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<p>Second that. So Brown is innocent until proven guilty but Wilson should be tried if he wants to be proven innocent?</p>
<p>Brown appears to be guilty of robbery which is not a capital offense. Sitting at a picnic shelter with an airsoft gun is not a capital offense. Mistaking your neighbor’s door for your own while blotto is not a capital offense. Walking across the street at a crosswalk minding your own business while carrying a piece of carved wood and a wood carving knife < 3" is not a capital offense . . . even if you are a chronic inebriate. </p>
<p>Brown should have been apprehended with the aid of back up forces and other means if necessary and subjected to a trial of his own where he most certainly would have been found guilty and punished accordingly. Then we wouldn’t even be having this discussion.</p>
<p>catching up on this thread</p>
<p>cobrat: I like your history posts and see what you and poetgrl see. You are probably aware of other parallels, including earlier and non-western examples. As far as I can tell, enlightened self-interest is never a compelling argument on this board. I am counting on you and your peers to fix the world. Good luck, and thank you in advance. And please get busy.</p>
<p>Again, Brown was not killed because he robbed a store. He was killed because he was thought to charge towards a cop. A few seconds before that, he assaulted the cop and tried to get his gun. </p>
<p>according to Wilson . . .</p>