The Militarization of U.S. Police: Finally Dragged Into the Light by the Horrors of Ferguson

http://www.vox.com/2014/11/25/7281165/darren-wilsons-story-side
Officer Darren Wilson's story is unbelievable. Literally.
We've finally heard from Officer Darren Wilson.

Wilson had been publicly silent since the events of August 9, when he shot and killed 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. And, even as the grand jury announced its decision not to indict him, he remained silent. He had his attorneys release a statement on his behalf.

But on Monday night, St. Louis County prosecutor Robert McCulloch released the evidence given to the grand jury, including the interview police did with Wilson in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. And so we got to read, for the first time, Wilson's full, immediate account of his altercation with Brown.

And it is unbelievable.

I mean that in the literal sense of the term: "difficult or impossible to believe." But I want to be clear here. I'm not saying Wilson is lying. I'm not saying his testimony is false. I am saying that the events, as he describes them, are simply bizarre. His story is difficult to believe.

The story Wilson tells goes like this:

At about noon on August 9th, Wilson hears on the radio that there's a theft in progress at the Ferguson Market. The suspect is a black male in a black shirt.

Moments later, Wilson sees two young black men walking down the yellow stripe in the center of the street. He pulls over. "Hey guys, why don't you walk on the sidewalk?" They refuse. "We're almost at our destination," one of them replies. Wilson tries again. "But what's wrong with the sidewalk?" he asks.

And then things get weird.

Brown's response to "what's wrong with the sidewalk?", as recorded by Wilson, is "fuck what you have to say." Remember, Wilson is a uniformed police officer, in a police car, and Brown is an 18-year-old kid who just committed a robbery. And when asked to use the sidewalk, Wilson says Brown replied, "Fuck what you have to say."

Wilson says Brown replied, "Fuck what you have to say."

Wilson backs his car up and begins to open the door. "Hey, come here," he said to the kid who just cursed at him. He says Brown replied, "What the fuck you gonna do?" And then Brown, in Wilson's telling, slams the car door closed. Wilson tries to open the door again, tells Brown to get back, and then Brown leans into the vehicle and begins punching him.

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Photos surround Michael Brown's casket in Ferguson, MO. (Richard Perry-Pool/Getty Images)

Let's take a breath and recap. Wilson sees two young black men walking in the middle of the street. He pulls over and politely asks them to use the sidewalk. They refuse. He asks again, still polite. Brown tells Wilson — again, a uniformed police officer in a police car — "fuck what you have to say." Wilson stops his car, tries to get out, and Brown slams the car door on him and then begins punching him through the open window.

What happens next is the most unbelievable moment in the narrative. And so it's probably best that I just quote Wilson's account at length on it.

I was doing the, just scrambling, trying to get his arms out of my face and him from grabbing me and everything else. He turned to his...if he's at my vehicle, he turned to his left and handed the first subject. He said, "here, take these." He was holding a pack of — several packs of cigarillos which was just, what was stolen from the Market Store was several packs of cigarillos. He said, "here, hold these" and when he did that I grabbed his right arm trying just to control something at that point. Um, as I was holding it, and he came around, he came around with his arm extended, fist made, and went like that straight at my face with his...a full swing from his left hand.

So Brown is punching inside the car. Wilson is scrambling to deflect the blows, to protect his face, to regain control of the situation. And then Brown stops, turns to his left, says to his friend, "Here, hold these," and hands him the cigarillos stolen from Ferguson Market. Then he turns back to Wilson and, with his left hand now freed from holding the contraband goods, throws a haymaker at Wilson.

Every bullshit detector in me went off when I read that passage. Which doesn't mean that it didn't happen exactly the way Wilson describes. But it is, again, hard to imagine. Brown, an 18-year-old kid holding stolen goods, decides to attack a cop and, while attacking him, stops, hands his stolen goods to his friend, and then returns to the beatdown. It reads less like something a human would do and more like a moment meant to connect Brown to the robbery.

Wilson next recounts his thought process as he reached for a weapon. He considered using his mace, but at such close range, the mace might get in his eyes, too. He doesn't carry a taser with a fireable cartridge, but even if he did, "it probably wouldn't have hit [Brown] anywhere". Wilson couldn't reach his baton or his flashlight. So he went for his gun.

Brown sees him go for the gun. And he replies: "You're too much of a fucking pussy to shoot me."

"You're too much of a fucking pussy to shoot me."

Again, stop for a moment and think about that. Brown is punching Wilson, sees the terrified cop reaching for his gun, and says "You're too much of a fucking pussy to shoot me." He dares him to shoot.

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A protestors holds up a sign saying "don't shoot". (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

And then Brown grabs Wilson's gun, twists it, and points it at Wilson's "pelvic area". Wilson regains control of the firearm and gets off a shot, shattering the glass. Brown backs up a half step and, realizing he's unharmed, dives back into the car to attack Wilson. Wilson fires again, and then Brown takes off running. (You can see the injuries Wilson sustained from the fight in these photographs.)

Wilson exits the car to give chase. He yells at Brown to get down on the ground. Here, I'm going to go back to Wilson's words:

When he stopped, he turned, looked at me, made like a grunting noise and had the most intense, aggressive face I've ever seen on a person. When he looked at me, he then did like the hop...you know, like people do to start running. And, he started running at me. During his first stride, he took his right hand put it under his shirt into his waistband. And I ordered him to stop and get on the ground again. He didn't. I fired multiple shots. After I fired the multiple shots, I paused a second, yelled at him to get on the ground again, he was still in the same state. Still charging, hand still in his waistband, hadn't slowed down.

The stuff about Brown putting his hand in his waistband is meant to suggest that Wilson had reason to believe Brown might pull a gun. But it's strange. We know Brown didn't have a gun. And that's an odd fact to obscure while charging a police officer.

Either way, at that point, Wilson shoots again, and kills Brown.

There are inconsistencies in Wilson's story. He estimates that Brown ran 20-30 feet away from the car and then charged another 10 feet back towards Wilson. But we know Brown died 150 feet away from the car.

There are also consistencies. St Louis prosecutor Robert McCulloch said that Brown's DNA was found inside Wilson's car, suggesting there was a physical altercation inside the vehicle. We know shots were fired from inside the car. We know Brown's bullet wounds show he was only hit from the front, never from the back.

But the larger question is, in a sense, simpler: Why?

Why did Michael Brown, an 18-year-old kid headed to college, refuse to move from the middle of the street to the sidewalk? Why would he curse out a police officer? Why would he attack a police officer? Why would he dare a police officer to shoot him? Why would he charge a police officer holding a gun? Why would he put his hand in his waistband while charging, even though he was unarmed?

None of this fits with what we know of Michael Brown

None of this fits with what we know of Michael Brown. Brown wasn't a hardened felon. He didn't have a death wish. And while he might have been stoned, this isn't how stoned people act. The toxicology report did not indicate he was on PCP or something that would've led to suicidal aggression.

Which doesn't mean Wilson is a liar. Unbelievable things happen every day. The fact that his story raises more questions than it answers doesn't mean it isn't true.

But the point of a trial would have been to try to answer these questions. We would have either found out if everything we thought we knew about Brown was wrong, or if Wilson's story was flawed in important ways. But now we're not going to get that chance. We're just left with Wilson's unbelievable story.
 
Is that writer seriously incredulous that this guy
michael_brown_innocent_victim-e1408124598690.jpg

was disrespectful to a cop?
THAT is unbelievable. And stop with the bright-eyed cheery student crap. Clearly a brutal street thug.
 
How the fuck can you measure racism quantitatively? Surveys? "Excuse me sir, I'd like to take a moment of your time and ask you if you think Blacks are Niggers and Mexicans are worth nothing more than fruit picking?" Because people would most definitely answer that honestly.

You're the one saying that America is the most exceptionally racist country. So surely you have some kind of evidence that it is the most racist country on earth, right? Sure, America has a Black president, most successful entertainers are black, more black millionaires than anywhere else on earth, highest median income, etc.... but your gut tells you otherwise, so it must be so.

Just out of curiosity, since I know you're going to continue to prop this ridiculous line of thinking up, when was the last time someone reported dying from a single blow to the face via punch?

Jesus, Rambo. Really? It happens all the fucking time. From the first page of googling "killed by a single punch", four different incidents, all in the last eight months.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/cri...ey-teen-killed-single-punch-article-1.1885834
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/201...e-reason-why-he-isnt-facing-criminal-charges/
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/46...hat-killed-a-vulnerable-man-and-shook-Britain
http://metro.co.uk/2014/02/25/cctv-...ferer-was-killed-with-a-single-punch-4320000/

Would it kill you to take five seconds to look yourself?
 
You're the one saying that America is the most exceptionally racist country. So surely you have some kind of evidence that it is the most racist country on earth, right? Sure, America has a Black president, most successful entertainers are black, more black millionaires than anywhere else on earth, highest median income, etc.... but your gut tells you otherwise, so it must be so.



Jesus, Rambo. Really? It happens all the fucking time. From the first page of googling "killed by a single punch", four different incidents, all in the last eight months.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/cri...ey-teen-killed-single-punch-article-1.1885834
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/201...e-reason-why-he-isnt-facing-criminal-charges/
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/46...hat-killed-a-vulnerable-man-and-shook-Britain
http://metro.co.uk/2014/02/25/cctv-...ferer-was-killed-with-a-single-punch-4320000/

Would it kill you to take five seconds to look yourself?
First off, I didn't say it was the most racist. I said it was exceptionally racist. I have no way to quantify this but its pretty obvious given our history, not to mention my own personal experiences.

The links you posted:

1st - no info on what happened
2nd - "Notably, it wasn’t Greg’s punch that killed Dakota; It was the teen hitting his head on the hard tile floor that proved fatal."
3rd and 4th are the same story - "Mr Young fell backwards and smashed his head on the road as a result. He died the next day from head injuries."

Are you the one who usually accuses me of falling for sensationalist headlines and not reading articles all the way through?
 
And police heads don't hit the ground? Risk of death!
The "gentle giant" line was a lie!
Michael-Brown-Ferguson-MO-with-gun.jpg
No, because HE WAS IN THE CAR while Michael Brown, ne Andre The Giant, was simultaneously assaulting him and handing his stolen cigars to his friend.
 
This is actually a very good piece from Gawker on this morning Washington Post horseshit article:

http://gawker.com/the-washington-post-testifies-in-darren-wilsons-defense-1663283441

The Washington Post Testifies in Darren Wilson's Defense

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In explaining why a grand jury decided not to press charges against Darren Wilson, St. Louis County prosecuting attorney Bob McCulloch presented what sounded like the defense's version of the incident. This morning, he was one-upped by the Washington Post in a package matter-of-factly titled "What happened in Ferguson," which only suspiciously leaves off the addendum "according to Darren Wilson."

The story—attributed to Post writers Bonnie Berkowitz, Richard Johnson and Darla Cameron—purports to visualize what happened between Brown and Wilson on that Ferguson street in August. What it actually does is illustrate, and effectively endorse, Wilson's characterization of the events.

For instance, here is the fourth slide, which depicts the struggle between the two in progress.

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Expand

The drawing shows Brown cocking back to strike a visibly cowering Wilson above the bolded headline "Witnesses say Brown punched Wilson." Below that declaration is a directly contradictory paragraph that notes "Witnesses gave conflicting statements on what happened next." The Post's own description of its drawing notes that it has no idea what actually happened—Brown maybe punched Wilson, or maybe he didn't, or maybe he was partially inside the car and not standing on the street with his arm cocked—but they nonetheless choose to visually portray Brown as an attacker attempting to punch out a defenseless cop, who, by the way, looks to be about 80 years old in the illustration.

The story then moves along. Here is slide eight:

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Expand

Here, Wilson is shown shooting at Brown as the teenager runs from him. But the Post takes the first opportunity to undercut its drawing by hedging the headline—"Some witnesses," it notes, "say Wilson fires at Brown." That assessment is affirmed in the following paragraph.

Contrast that with the earlier slide in which Brown is shown cocking back to bludgeon Wilson, which uses "witnesses" rather than "some witnesses"—even though the Post itself reports that there were varying statements regarding what happened during the struggle at the car. Only when the version of events would benefit Brown—when Wilson is shown shooting at Brown's back—does the Post immediately cast its own drawing into doubt by openly questioning the witness consensus.

This dynamic appears again in the third to last slide, which illustrates a contentious and important bit of the story: Did Michael Brown charge Darren Wilson? Here, the Post appears certain:

bzhdfkycger46gbf2zf9.png
Expand

"Brown moves toward Wilson," states the headline. We see Brown in a full sprint at Wilson, who for some reason has now been excised from the drawing, with only the very tip of his pistol barely visible at the extreme left of the frame.

This image, perhaps the most crucial point of the entire incident between Brown and Wilson, is presented as factual from drawing to headline, but, for the second time, the Post contradicts itself in the longer description: "Again, witness accounts differed. Some said Brown didn't move toward Wilson but stood with his hands raised." The Post could have chosen to show exactly that—Brown with his hands up. Or they could have presented a drawing that in some way illustrated this critical cleaving in the story. Instead, we see Brown in a full bull-rush.

At the beginning of the slideshow, the Post writes that it is illustrating McCulloch's "scenario for the sequence of events."

St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert P. McCulloch laid out this scenario for the sequence of events in the shooting of Michael Brown by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson, assembled from physical evidence and testimony of dozens of witnesses.

Rather than evaluate the validity of McCulloch's statement, the newspaper parrots it. The Post's illustration of the events, the first of its kind, is an enshrinement of Wilson's story. It's a storyboard justification of a teenager's death.

Remember the headline: "What happened in Ferguson," it states flatly. The Post is putting its reputation and its eye-catching visuals behind Wilson and McCulloch. This story has been shared on Facbeook some 6,000 times—and that number is rising.

It has even fooled journalists who consider themselves critical readers. Here is media critic Richard Deitsch, the wad of bunched underwear in the ass crack of sports writing, who uses his Twitter feed as a clearinghouse for what he sees as the only journalism a truly discerning consumer needs to read.

Click on this. RT @washingtonpost What happened in the shooting of Michael Brown, based on grand jury testimony: http://t.co/zwuuT00Xt3

— Richard Deitsch (@richarddeitsch) November 25, 2014

When Darren Wilson's story eventually becomes fact, let's remember why.
 
First off, I didn't say it was the most racist. I said it was exceptionally racist. I have no way to quantify this but its pretty obvious given our history, not to mention my own personal experiences.

The links you posted:

1st - no info on what happened
2nd - "Notably, it wasn’t Greg’s punch that killed Dakota; It was the teen hitting his head on the hard tile floor that proved fatal."
3rd and 4th are the same story - "Mr Young fell backwards and smashed his head on the road as a result. He died the next day from head injuries."

Are you the one who usually accuses me of falling for sensationalist headlines and not reading articles all the way through?

I give up. Arguing with friends about what their "personal experiences" tell them is like arguing with my dog why licking it's butt is bad. From his view, he's completely right, despite any stats I can tell him about parasitic infection, etc... It feels good, he likes it, he's never gotten a parasite from it, so I can never convince him (and maybe I shouldn't). And I don't care to jeopardize our relationship by arguing further. And in the end, who gives a shit?
 
I give up. Arguing with friends about what their "personal experiences" tell them is like arguing with my dog why licking it's butt is bad. From his view, he's completely right, despite any stats I can tell him about parasitic infection, etc... It feels good, he likes it, he's never gotten a parasite from it, so I can never convince him (and maybe I shouldn't). And I don't care to jeopardize our relationship by arguing further. And in the end, who gives a shit?
Jesus. What, you think I'm going to disown you forever if you disagree with me further? You're not Piob, take the theatrics down a notch. If you keep this up I'm going to think you've got your period.

You're right though that in the end this doesn't matter. It's impossible to argue how personal experiences color people's opinions.
 
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I give up. Arguing with friends about what their "personal experiences" tell them is like arguing with my dog why licking it's butt is bad. From his view, he's completely right, despite any stats I can tell him about parasitic infection, etc... It feels good, he likes it, he's never gotten a parasite from it, so I can never convince him (and maybe I shouldn't). And I don't care to jeopardize our relationship by arguing further. And in the end, who gives a shit?

Not to argue, but butt licking introduces good bacteria back into the dogs digestive tract, same as when a dog eats shit, which is a good thing and why they do it. Now, I might argue about the ass sniffing in the same context.
 
http://www.vox.com/2014/11/25/7279623/ferguson-grand-jury-evidence

11 things we learned from Darren Wilson's account in the Ferguson grand jury evidence

One of the things that I don't understand about the situation is why Wilson only had a relatively minor bruise/redness on the right side of his face.

After all, in the US, people sit on the left-hand side of the car so the left side of his face would have been presented to Brown. If Brown was "whaling" on him with a couple of big punches, one would expect that a) he'd have more physical damage and b) that the left side of his face would show bruising and contusions, not the right side of his face.

From the available testimony, it sounds as though Wilson had a very "soft" examination in front of the grand jury - if there was a trial, he'd receive a proper grilling and his testimony - including various inconsistent and odd elements - could really have been laid bare and examined.
 
I imagine that it's easier to swing on the open steering wheel side than on the seat side with the door pillar closely behind the head. The perp would've been more forward of the driver. The cop isn't going to pull up and have the person behind him.
 
You guy's see the 60 minutes show several years ago where a guy who was turned down a job as a police officer because his IQ was too high? The courts upheld the intelligence discrimination as legal. Fascism wants stupid thugs to keep people in fear.
 
I don't understand why I would give a toss about one man killed in a village I'd go to as likely as I would travel to Liberia. Honestly, the lads on this forum can't be the ones that get caught in random police checks too often.

It was tragic - yes. Does it have to have a live countdown on some news outlet across the pond - no.
 
Edit - and Jesus christ, as a defense attorney I gotta say there's no goddamn way he should've been indicted.
let me ask you, as a defense attorney, what's your opinion on the claims that the indictment hearing was extremely onesided? Not much crossing of Wilson going on there, and if there was, it was spectacularly ineffective.

You can wait until you're less drunk if you like. No rush.
 
I don't understand why I would give a toss about one man killed in a village I'd go to as likely as I would travel to Liberia. Honestly, the lads on this forum can't be the ones that get caught in random police checks too often.
You'd give a crap if you felt it relevent to general humanity or your own condition. As you say, those not prone to violent attacks are completely unaffected by self-defense shootings by anyone.

Juries are inherently favorable to law enforcement as they consist of registered voters that agreed to come to a courthouse and be subjected to the hassle of jury service. But that's the jury of peers for a cop.
 
http://www.ianwelsh.net/ferguson/
Ferguson and the brokenness of America’s “Justice” System
There isn’t much to say that others haven’t, but let’s go through it anyway:

  • There was never any chance that Darren Wilson would be charged;
  • the prosecutor acted as defense attorney, not as prosecutor;
  • A grand jury, for all intents and purposes does what the prosecutor tells it to;
  • Doing the announcement at 8pm at night was intended to incite violence;
  • Police in America are completely out of control, and police have a license to kill;
  • this is bad for anyone, but it is terrible for African Americans and Muslims.
At this point, in America, calling the police for anything short of a murder is more likely to make your situation worse than better if you aren’t solidly middle upper class or better, and white. If you are black or Muslim, you might not even want to call them for murder.

Police can beat your, rape you or kill you, and the odds are very high they will get away with it. In far too many cases they are nothing but the strongest gang.

The police are so militarized that they amount to a domestic army, stationed in every city. The civil forfeiture laws, RICO statutes and the cost of an effective defense, plus the removal of most judicial discretion and the fact that the vast majority of cases are plea bargained, not tried, means that for most accused of a crime there is no justice.

The police have huge incentives to charge people with crimes, because they can seize the assets of those charged (well, strictly speaking, they can seize your money without ever charging you, and do.) For profit prisons and prison guard unions support prosecutors and judges who will imprison more people, not less. The incentives in the system are almost all towards incarcerating more people and seizing more assets, because that’s how police and prosecutors improve their personal situation.

Prisons are rural support projects where poor whites are paid to lock up poor blacks.

The entire system stinks from one end to another. The simple solution would be to repeal all drug ordinances, make civil forfeiture illegal, get rid of the RICO statutes, most of the anti-terrorism statutes and mandate that plea bargains are illegal and all criminals must have a trial. The fact that the current system cannot run if a trial is necessary is the point, too many things are crimes which should not be.

If you really want to make the system work, make all private lawyers for criminal charges illegal, and use only public defenders, chosen by lot. I guarantee that the pay and competence of public defenders would soar and their case load would drop as soon as rich people realized that they could be the one being defended by an overworked and underpaid lawyer.
 
I hate cops but the race baiters gotta pick their battles.
This. Twice in a row the cause celeb has been a droopy-panted hood that had just finished stealing drug paraphernalia from a convenience store and then decided, when confronted about a separate pedestrian crime, to pick a fight, with an armed authority figure in a large vehicle.
To be blunt, both of these "martyrs" were criminally stupid till it killed them. This is not something to lionize or weep for.
There are many, many cases of cops run amok and abusing authority and infringing on rights. Choose to rally on those, and stop glorifying the street thugs.
 
This. Twice in a row the cause celeb has been a droopy-panted hood that had just finished stealing drug paraphernalia from a convenience store and then decided, when confronted about a separate pedestrian crime, to pick a fight, with an armed authority figure in a large vehicle.
To be blunt, both of these "martyrs" were criminally stupid till it killed them. This is not something to lionize or weep for.
There are many, many cases of cops run amok and abusing authority and infringing on rights. Choose to rally on those, and stop glorifying the street thugs.

You 100% right, but the punk shouldn't have been killed over this.

This is a combination of idiots running amok on both sides of the justice system.
 
If the TV show Cops were around today it would have huge ratings. Instead of chase scenes on foot, cops could just shoot people in the back.
 
One thing that bothers me about the grand jury's no-billing Officer Wilson is this: Generally speaking, the law only permits the use of deadly force against an unarmed adversary if there is a great disparity of force. The tenor of Wilson's statement published this morning was, "Poor little me, how could I cope with the immense power of this giant?" But Wilson himself was a large man, standing 6'3" and weighing over 200 pounds. (I think of the great British wrestler Bert Assirati's dictum: When you weigh 200 pounds, you can fight anybody.) If he had been a 5'5" 130-pound copchick, then shooting Brown as he was charging would certainly have been righteous. But Wilson was a big man, a trained police officer, presumably with immediate access to pepper spray and perhaps a baton, and, as I understand it, Brown was already wounded. Thus, Wilson's exoneration by the grand jury does leave me feeling a little uneasy about the incident.

However, and it may be cynical of me to say it, Michael Brown, a gigantic, violent strong-arm robber and cop fighter, sounds like somebody we're just as well off without.
 
Yet the media is using this to define the social contract and fabric of a nation.

It's one bloke.

And I'm the first socialist and one to defend minority rights.
 
One thing that bothers me about the grand jury's no-billing Officer Wilson is this: Generally speaking, the law only permits the use of deadly force against an unarmed adversary if there is a great disparity of force. The tenor of Wilson's statement published this morning was, "Poor little me, how could I cope with the immense power of this giant?" But Wilson himself was a large man, standing 6'3" and weighing over 200 pounds.

He was coached to say this. Current membership here aside, but it's why lawyers are generally pieces of shit.
 
But Wilson was a big man, a trained police officer, presumably with immediate access to pepper spray and perhaps a baton, and, as I understand it, Brown was already wounded. Thus, Wilson's exoneration by the grand jury does leave me feeling a little uneasy about the incident.

I realise that the US is a large, highly populated country and that, as a consequence, these incidents are really a very small percentage of the overall number of interactions that people have with the police in the US each year.

However, it does seem to me that there is an increasing reliance by police across the US on the tactic of shooting first and thinking about things later.
 
I realise that the US is a large, highly populated country and that, as a consequence, these incidents are really a very small percentage of the overall number of interactions that people have with the police in the US each year.

However, it does seem to me that there is an increasing reliance by police across the US on the tactic of shooting first and thinking about things later.

Its more than "seems". It's real. Compare US police tactics to countries like Japan, the Netherlands, the UK, Canada. They resemble those of Brazil and Russia more than countries we view ourselves in the same league as.
 
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/11/29/ferguson-police-officer-darren-wilson-resigns/

Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson resigns

DEVELOPING: Darren Wilson, the police officer who shot and killed teenager Michael Brown, has resigned from the Ferguson Police Department nearly four months after the confrontation that fueled protests in the St. Louis suburb and across the nation.

Wilson, 28, had been on administrative leave since the shooting on Aug. 9. His resignation was announced Saturday by one of his attorneys, Neil Bruntrager. The resignation was effective immediately, Bruntrager said.

A grand jury spent more than three months reviewing evidence in the case before declining in November to issue charges against Wilson. He told jurors that he feared for his life when Brown hit him and reached for his gun.

The U.S. Justice Department is still conducting a civil rights investigation into the shooting and a separate probe of police department practices.

After the shooting, Wilson spent months in hiding and made no public statements. He broke his silence after the grand jury decision, telling ABC News that he could not have done anything differently in the encounter with Brown.

Wilson said he has a clean conscience because "I know I did my job right." Brown's shooting was the first time he fired his gun on the job, he said.

Asked whether the encounter would have unfolded the same way if Brown had been white, Wilson said yes.

Wilson had no previous complaints against him and a good career record, according to Police Chief Thomas Jackson, who called Wilson "an excellent police officer."

A few months before the shooting, Wilson had received a commendation for detaining a suspect in a drug case.

 
Poor bastard. It's going to be difficult for him to remain in any type of law enforcement.

Can the f' media stop calling MB a teenager. 18 is not teenager.
 
I am sure there are enough PD's in America that he might be able to find a job somewhere. I suggest New Mexico, they seem to have a relatively robust cop:population kill ratio
 

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