Posted on 11/29/2014 9:50:31 AM PST by SeekAndFind
There were no surprises to come out of Ferguson, Mo., last week. Neither the grand jury’s decision not to indict Officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown, nor the riot that decision engendered was unexpected by anyone with even a modest familiarity with the matter. And just as predictable has been the left’s attempt to undermine the former and thereby justify the latter. They are to be excused in their rioting, we are told, for the grand jury’s decision is illegitimate.
To cite but one example of this, we turn to the New Yorker, where people of a leftist persuasion turn for guidance on how to think about current events. In a Nov. 25 post at the magazine’s website [1], legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin criticizes St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch for what Toobin sees as a failure to follow the “customary rules” of his profession. “If McCulloch’s lawyers had simply pared down the evidence to that which incriminated Wilson,” Toobin writes, “they would have easily obtained an indictment.”
Perhaps so, but an indictment in the case would have led to a trial that McCulloch knew, as Toobin himself should know, would result in Darren Wilson’s acquittal. Reasonable doubt was everywhere in the case, and prosecutors are ethically bound to proceed to trial only if they are confident of their ability to convince twelve jurors that the defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. It wasn’t going to happen.
So, unless the Justice Department brings civil rights charges against Darren Wilson – still a possibility despite little chance of success – he will not face the public criminal trial that Jeffrey Toobin and so many others wished to see. And even a civil trial arising from a wrongful death claim against Wilson and the city of Ferguson is far from a certainty. Yes, there will be a lawsuit, of course, but it will likely be resolved through a settlement rather than a trial. If a trial were to take place, both sides would have much to lose. If a jury finds for the plaintiffs, the city faces the possibility of a multimillion-dollar judgment, and even if it prevailed, the city might face further rioting and disruptive protests. But lawyers representing Michael Brown’s family have risks to weigh as well. In a civil trial, Brown’s juvenile record would almost certainly be introduced. If it revealed serious violations of the law, a jury might be less sympathetic to his family request for damages. And is there anyone who believes he has no juvenile record?
But even as Michael Brown’s death recedes from the front pages, there are still aspects of the case that require examination, not least of which are the tactics employed by Darren Wilson in the moments leading up to the shooting. Though I’m in agreement with the grand jury’s decision in declining to charge Wilson in Brown’s death, it doesn’t mean I agree the shooting was unavoidable. If we imagine a counterfactual scenario and back up, step by step, from the moment the first shot was fired, we can come up with a way in which Michael Brown might have been arrested without the use of deadly force. This is not intended as a criticism of Darren Wilson, but rather as a reminder to police officers who may someday find themselves in a similar situation.
Among my first thoughts on hearing of the Michael Brown shooting was to wonder if the officer was working alone. An article in Police magazine [2] points out that of 536 police officers killed from 2000 to 2009, only about a third were working alone, suggesting that it’s somehow safer to work without a partner. I’m certain that a deeper exploration beyond the raw numbers would show this to be untrue, but let’s examine the issue as it relates to the Darren Wilson-Michael Brown confrontation.
We are told that Wilson was unaware of Brown’s involvement in the convenience store robbery until he had already initiated contact with Brown and his companion, Dorian Johnson. Had Wilson had a partner, there would have been an extra set of ears in the car to monitor the radio traffic, perhaps allowing the officers to learn in advance of the initial contact that they were dealing with robbery suspects rather than simple traffic violators.
But putting that aside, even if our two hypothetical officers had not been apprised of the robbery, they might have taken an extra moment to discuss how they would handle a pedestrian stop of two men, one of whom weighed 300 lbs. And Michael Brown might have been more hesitant to challenge two officers than he was to take on Darren Wilson alone.
Now take a partner officer out of our scenario. How might an officer riding alone have handled the encounter differently? Wilson told the grand jury that his request to Brown and Johnson to get out of the street was met with expletive-laden defiance. Wilson then radioed for backup, as indeed he should have. But rather than wait for that backup to arrive, he reversed his car and pulled within a few feet of Brown and Johnson, thus giving Brown the opportunity to attack him. The more prudent course would have been to keep the two men under observation from the relative safety of the police car until other officers arrived, then initiate a stop. Had Brown and Johnson attempted to run away, the officers could have set up a containment perimeter and found them through a systematic search. And even if Brown and Johnson eluded the search, how many people living on Canfield Drive are 6-3 and 300 lbs.?
Again, none of this is to imply that the grand jury reached the wrong decision in declining to charge Darren Wilson. But he made the choice to put himself in a vulnerable position while confronting two men, one of whom outweighed him by 90 lbs. Wilson told George Stephanopoulos his conscience was clear, but I can’t imagine he doesn’t harbor some regret at having placed himself in so precarious a position.
Of course, since we’re indulging in counterfactuals, we can imagine that Michael Brown didn’t rob the store, didn’t walk down the middle of the street, got out of the street when told to, didn’t punch Officer Wilson and try to take his gun, didn’t turn around as he ran away, and did lie on the ground when ordered to.
Change any one of those decisions Brown made and he’d be alive today.
Also read:
And if I had studied harder in physics, I would be an astronaut.
Hindsight is always 20-20.
Yeah.
I see where the police officer did a bad thing. [/s]
I'm just so tired of people who make excuses for the ferals. I've adopted the strategy of the blacks now -- I'm not sure I care about the facts. The white guy was innocent, and the black guy is a problem. That's it. 100% of the time. In all cases. This attitude has worked for blacks for decades. Now I make it mine.
Thank you, this is exactly the point I have been struggling to make and having FReeper after FReeper attack me for saying so.
Glad I am not the only one that can see that Wilson engaged in extremely poor judgment and appallingly poor police procedure, resuling in the death of a two bit crook and the burning of a whole town.
That's my current working premise also.
Maybe he should follow up with an article titled:
“How Michael Brown SHOULD HAVE ACTED DIFFERENTLY TO AVOID Deadly Force”
This should just be common sense for most of us but .....
Well, he could have just shot him in the arm, y’know. Five or six times.
When a police officer asks you to stop and put your hands up, and you stop and put your hands up, there’s a 99.9999% chance you won’t be killed.
Gosh, it sounds kinda easy. Just drive away and watch him until all kinds of backup arrives. In the history of policing nothing bad has ever happened if there are two or three offices around.
And a group of 4 can do anything!
Unless you happen to be 4 New York cops for example last month, attacked with an axe. (Just the first example that comes to mind)
But the bottom line, im glad Michael Brown is gone. Finding magic nets that can catch him is a bad idea. It just ensures that that thug will continue his depredations.
Nice analogy.
This article misstates many of the facts that the testimony establishes and then goes on to explain why this misinformation is not good policing.
It is easy for ‘big city’ cops to decry what happens in small towns. When your force is limited you utilize single cops in a car..... thus his initial premise is false and his analysis never gets better
I heard some liberal talking heads say that Wilson should have run away rather than shooting Brown. And also, that he should driven away rather than confront brown.
I think liberals are mixing up the Trayvon Martin incident and Michael Brown. In the Trayvon case, many critized Zimmerman getting out of his car. But in the Brown case, remember Officer Wilson is a police officer, not a private citizen. He was in a confrontation with a dangerous individual in his role as a.policeman. He had no duty to retreat and run away and all that. He was a policeman who wanted to arrest a suspect in a robbery. Are we really saying police should run away if someone resists arrest or becomes belligerent? What exactly are liberals saying???
The cop caused the town to burn,,,, got it.
Let me guess, with one of those Hollywood-style expert snipers who always hit what they’re aiming at, no matter how fast the target is moving, what distance it’s at, and how hard the assailant is attacking the victim? (I didn’t read the article yet, lol)
Maybe we shouldn’t have police officers at all. Maybe we should just have a bunch of Eric Holder’s people monitoring TV cameras.
IF the bullfrog had wings he wouldn’t bump his ass..
I am happy the predator was killed. No more predator.
And that girl who was rapes shouldn’t have been where she was, or wearing what she wore, etc /s
And when backup arrives, how to they arrest this doped up animal? Are sap gloves allowed? Blackjacks? Strangleholds? Can they break a nightstick on his head?
Society has scrupulously removed the ability of a cop to subdue an animal. They can do pepper spray and a taser and a beanbag. But there are some fighters out there.
already been covered by Chris Rock years ago
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.