In
terms of legal issues, the key to remember in dealing with cases involving
alleged police abuse is that the law gives police officers the authority to use
force and realizes there are going to be times when they screw up.
THE
BURDEN OF proof in this case was literally on those who wanted to regard the
death of Michael Brown, who was shot to death by Ferguson, Mo. police officer
Darren Wilson, as an offense worthy of a charge of murder to prove that the
officer virtually set out to kill the young man without any justification.
Merely
showing that the officer over-reacted, or acted ineptly, was not good enough.
Which
is why county Prosecutor Robert McCullough could say with a straight face
Thursday night on national television that no crime took place, and that the
people who were screaming for Wilson’s head were acting on bad information.
“It
was speculation,” he said. “There was little if any solid information.”
WHICH
MAY WELL be true. It is not uncommon in the confusion of a crime scene for
details to get twisted about, for accounts to change, and for some people to
later be found to be full of it when reviewing the stories they initially tell.
Yet
I don’t doubt the sincerity of those hundreds of people who felt compelled to
show up in Ferguson Thursday night to picket outside the police station in that
suburb; to let it be known they’re sick and tired of having black people
singled out for abuse by the people who supposedly are there to protect them.
Although
I think in most cases of this type of law enforcement misconduct, it’s more a
case of police having an apathetic attitude toward incidents where black people
are involved.
Police
didn’t care enough to figure out what kind of threat Brown – who allegedly
tried to steal cigars from a store – might really be. So a stupid assumption
resulted in the man’s death.
PEOPLE
SEEKING A sense of “justice” in this case are going to have to settle for the
fact that Ferguson municipal government is as cowardly when it comes to
perceived wrongdoing as many other governments.
It
seems that Wilson will lose his job as a police officer. He’s out of work. For
the near future, his name is going to crop up in ways that will make him
virtually unemployable.
Yet
compared to what some people wanted to see happen, it won’t seem significant
enough.
After
all, Wilson is the guy who got married on Sunday (to a fellow Ferguson police
officer) and had his name cleared (in a legal sense) on Monday.
NO
TRUE BILL returned against him for a charge of murder, either first or second
degree. Not even for manslaughter, voluntary or involuntary.
I’m
taking the same basic attitude about this case that I take toward many stories
involving courts and legal issues. I wasn’t there in Ferguson, so I don’t know
first-hand what that grand jury heard to make them reach the conclusion that
criminal charges would not be justified.
McCullough
harped on that point, saying that only the grand jurors heard all the evidence
and would know why they came to the conclusion they did.
Yet
there was also speculation in the hours and minutes leading up to the Thursday
night announcement that prosecutors overwhelmed grand jury members with
information during the months they were in session on this case that their
primary feeling these days is probably relief that the case is now over.
IT
REMINDS ME of that stupid old cliché about the courts, the one that goes “A
grand jury would indict a ham sandwich.” Implying that grand juries will do
what they are told, because their outcome merely means a case goes to trial –
where actual “guilt” or “not guilt” is determined.
McCullough
clearly did not want the stink of a delicatessen on his hands. No ham sandwiches
were prepared for indictment here.
Instead,
our society gets the “stink” of the perception that officials were too eager to
clear a police officer, while other people will go out of their way to ignore
any thought that such a sentiment could ever occur.
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