Ferguson, MO

[PiKA2001]

Originally Posted by TonyB06

These are my questions, too. Does fear of imminent death diminish with the 3rd, the 4th, the 5th shot? Have the distances been determined showing how far Brown was from Wilson when the shots were fired?

Also, it's been reported that police department violated their own protocol, not taking statement from Wilson immediately after the incident, instead the next day. By then, several other witness narratives had emerged.

First I want to say that I'm not totally up on all of the facts surrounding the shots fired, but I am sure that the distance between Brown and Wilson was identified and brought to the grand jury's attention since it is standard investigative protocol following an officer involved shooting.

Your question involving the number of shots I'm assuming is you questioning whether or not they were necessary and to that I say that we are trained to stop the threat, not fire one shot than reassess, fire more if necessary. Depending on the size of the person it could take one shot, or ten shots to bring someone down ( Ex. Suge Knight was shot 6 times last month and he walked himself out of the club after that). I see people always getting hung up on the number of initial shots fired and as a law enforcement officer it's one of those things that irks me. Unless he continued to shoot at Brown after Brown went down its hard to make a legit argument about the number of shots fired.

I'm curious about what you mean about the police dept violating their own protocol about taking Wilsons statement. I work in law enforcement and its a rule of thumb to not make your official statement untill you can speak to a union representative and have been able to shake off the shock and fog of what just took place. Once you articulate on paper what happened, there's no going back to change your statement to include something you forgot. So that being said, Wilson giving his initial formal statement the day after is normal.

[DrPhil]

There were peaceful Ferguson neighborhoods where the violent protests did not reach.

In the area with the violent protests, I hope the people who live in that area never petition to local representatives about increasing employment and business revenue in the area. If they ever wonder why companies do not open shop in this area, they can play the videos of businesses being torn apart by rioters. The destructive and violent protesters are a relatively small percentage of the total amount of protesters, and some of them came from outside of Ferguson to act a complete idiot. But the results are all the same.

The NAACP president on CBS This Morning.

The other national and international protests appeared more calm.

More people need to remember that systemic inequalities and patterns of behavior do not mean that every incident is a result of injustice. That cannot be assumed which is why we have a legal process in an attempt to span beyond personal opinions and civil unrest. Michael Brown's family will most likely be assisted with filing a civil suit.