Back in August, a police officer shot a black teenager in Ferguson, Missouri. According to media accounts, the teenager was unarmed and shot from a distance, suggesting an egregious case of police brutality. That’s what it seemed like even to conservatives like Rand Paul and to this blog. But the testimony of two eyewitnesses, the autopsy results, and other forensic evidence has proven that this was not what happened. It turns out, the teenager was attacking the officer and was shot during a scuffle, during which the assailant was trying to get the officer’s gun, followed by a brief chase and the teenager rushing the officer.
This was the finding of the grand jury investigating the case, so no charges against the officer are being filed. Keep in mind that a grand jury is run by the prosecutor’s office and that the authorities had every incentive to make the officer a scapegoat to prevent the kind of riots that broke out in August. And yet the jurors were going by the facts.
Nevertheless, riots have erupted. Businesses are being looted, police are being fired upon by automatic weapons, and Ferguson is basically being burned to the ground.
I know that the local protesters do not believe the legal establishment. I’ll be curious to see if political liberals –who often claim to be “the fact-based” or “the reality-based” or “the science-based” community–will side with the protesters, despite what the evidence proves.
Since postmodernists believe there is no objective truth, that truth claims are nothing but political constructions, I suspect they will. They will think that the legal system constructed a plausibility paradigm that suggests the police officer is innocent in order as an imposition of their power. And they will think nothing of constructing an alternative politically-motivated truth-claim of their own.
From the Smoking Gun:
Included in the grand jury material released tonight after the announcement that no charges would be filed in the Michael Brown killing is a handwritten witness account stating that the teenager charged at Officer Darren Wilson “like a football player. Head down.”
The unidentified witness wrote that the 18-year-old Brown “has his arms out with attitude,” while “The cop just stood there.” The witness added, “Dang if that kid didn’t start running right at the cop like a football player. Head down.”
The witness told of hearing “3 bangs,” but “the big kid wouldn’t stop.”
The witness’s account of the unarmed Brown charging Wilson–even after he had been shot in the hand during a struggle at the cop’s patrol car–supports the officer’s contention that he fired a series of shots as Brown bore down on him.
During his September 16 grand jury testimony, Wilson, 28, recounted how he tussled with Brown when the teenager grabbed for his gun while lunging into the squad car. As they fought over the weapon, Wilson testified, the teenager taunted him, yelling, “You’re too much of a pussy to shoot me.”
Wilson told the grand jury that he felt Brown’s “fingers try to get inside the trigger guard with my finger.” He added, “I distinctly remember envisioning a bullet going into my leg. I thought that was the next step.”
Testifying that he thought Brown (seen at left) would “kill me if he gets ahold of this gun,” Wilson said that he discharged the weapon inside the cruiser. The gunshot, he added, “kind of startled him and me at the same time.” The teenager then “looked up at me and had the most intense aggressive face,” Wilson recalled. “The only way I can describe it, it looks like a demon, that’s how angry he looked.” Brown, Wilson testified, then raised his arms and punched him in the face.
Wilson also gave grand jurors another vivid description of Brown. Recalling when he first placed his hand on the teenager’s arm–when the 6’ 4”, 292-pound Brown was alongside his patrol car–Wilson testified that, “I felt like a five-year-old holding onto Hulk Hogan.” The cop added, “Hulk Hogan, that’s just how big he felt and how small I felt just from grasping his arm.”
From Ferguson burning after grand jury announcement, USA Today:
A white police officer will not face charges for fatally shooting an unarmed black teenager in a case that set off violent protests and racial unrest throughout the nation.
Protestors, angry over the grand jury decision not to indict Michael Brown, take to the streets in cities across the nation.
A St. Louis County grand jury declined to indict officer Darren Wilson, 28, for firing six shots in an August confrontation that killed 18-year-old Michael Brown, St. Louis County prosecutor Robert McCulloch said Monday night.
Crowds of protesters filled streets near the Ferguson police station following the announcement. A police car and stores were set on fire, other stores were looted, gunfire was heard and bricks were hurled. Police said they had been fired on and responded with smoke bombs and pepper spray before using tear gas.
Police later said they came under heavy automatic weapon fire, and some buildings were left to burn because of the danger. County police said an officer suffered a gunshot wound, but it was unclear if it was because of the protest violence.
Protests sprang up in cities from New York to Los Angeles and remained mostly peaceful. At least half a dozen commercial airline flights into St. Louis were diverted out of concerns about the unrest.
The Federal Aviation Administration at 11:15 p.m. ET said it had restricted flights into and out of Lambert International Airport in St. Louis to “provide a safe environment for law enforcement activities.” The restriction lifts at 5:15 a.m. ET.
The grand jury’s decision had been long awaited and followed earlier Ferguson rioting that resembled war-zone news footage in this predominantly black suburb of St. Louis.
In Washington, President Obama appeared before TV cameras. “We need to accept that this decision was the grand jury’s to make,” he said in calling for peaceful protests. But Obama said the Ferguson case “speaks to broader challenges that we still face as a nation.”Prosecutor McCulloch made the announcement in an unusual nighttime presentation in a courtroom. He spoke at length about media coverage of the case and what he called the unreliability of eyewitness accounts. He said the grand jury weighed evidence and testimony before concluding there was no probable cause to indict the officer.
“The duty of the grand jury is to separate fact from fiction,” McCulloch said.
He said prosecuting attorneys presented five potential indictments to the grand jury, and all were rejected.
“The jury was not inclined to indict on any charges,” Benjamin Crump, an attorney for Brown’s family, said after being informed of the decision by authorities.
In grand jury testimony released by prosecutors Monday night, Wilson, the officer, described the confrontation and said that Brown refused his instructions to stop walking in the street. He said Brown cursed him, then slammed the officer’s car door shut as he was trying to exit his vehicle.
He said Brown appeared to be trying “almost like to intimidate or overpower me.” They scuffled and Brown hit the officer, Wilson testified.
“When I grabbed him, the only way I can describe it is I felt like a five-year-old holding Hulk Hogan,” Wilson said.
He had no Taser weapon and felt his mace spray would not work, Wilson said: “So the only other option I thought I had was my gun.” He drew it, he said, and told Brown to “get back or I’m going to shoot you.” He said Brown grabbed the gun with his right hand and twisted it, pushing it down into Wilson’s hip, before the officer fired.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In