General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I work with teens Michael Brown's age and the number one rule is [View all]pipoman
(16,038 posts)Would deny Mr. Brown, with about 98% odds, robbed the convenience store. Mr. Brown would now be charged with felony robbery of some sort if he weren't dead based solely on the tape.
Police are and have always....always...ordered people around...lawful orders issued by a police officer aren't negotiable in the eyes of the law. I suspect Ferguson has a law about pedestrians in the street, therefore a police officer telling pedestrians to get off the street is a lawful order, as is 'come here' (the exact thing a traffic stop results in), turn around and put your hands on the car, etc. are all lawful orders in this context. Refusal to obey a lawful order isn't going to go well I don't give a shit who you are. Resisting, physical confrontation, fleeing, again aren't going to go well regardless of who you are.
Society needs people to be willing to be cops, like it or not. Society gives their agents latitude and allow for human error by giving a pretty large umbrella of immunity from civil and criminal actions. The line is civil rights violations. What immunity would you require before you are willing to confront criminals?
If there were a few stories of Wilson using unnecessary roughness or racist activities it might be plausible. As it is there isn't a single case of either. ..not a single person has come forward with a single story of racism or abuse. What you are describing isn't behavior consistent with 5 years of daily patrol in a predominantly black community with no stories despite 1,000 investigative reporters all looking for a scoop.