They all were killed because police had the right and executed it at will, not because it was necessary. That execution being allowed by the law to go unpunished is what infuriates people. If somebody is guilty of minor offense, to use it as an excuse to execute them that is what infuriates. Remember video of Oskar Grant executed in cold blood? Minor excuse - oy! I thought it was taser - allowed to avoid murder charge clearly due there.
But it's not an execution when you attack a police officer. The word "execution" has been brought into the debate solely to rile people up and make them forget that fact.
Let's put it this way. Now, I'm not saying this version of events happened. I'm saying, please bear with me and seriously consider the question: You're a cop. You have a gun and nothing else. Someone has just leaned through the window of your cruiser and tried to grab your gun while beating your face. Adrenaline is pumping through you as a natural consequence of this. You defend yourself. He runs. You run after him to apprehend him, because it's your job and your duty to the community to apprehend someone brazen enough to attack a police officer. If they're willing to attack you, an officer, then obviously they're willing to attack anyone else in the community.
As you run after him and catch up, he turns around and charges towards you. The gun is in play, now. You know it, he knows it. You've seen videos of how this has ended for other officers, where other criminals have grabbed the officer's gun and murdered them with it. You have two seconds to decide what to do.
How would you react? What would you do? I don't know what I would do. I wouldn't want to be in that situation. But the officer certainly didn't either.
Would you run away? Would you let him come up to you and try to punch him, and risk him wrestling the gun from you? Would you try to aim for his legs, even though every hour of gun range training in your life has always hammered into your instincts to aim for the center of mass, and never to point your gun at anything you're not willing to kill? What do you do in that scenario?
My only point here is that the above scenario is the one which physical evidence has most closely corroborated. In particular, the bullets did not enter Brown from behind.
Obviously, it was a huge failure of the police department on two counts. One, that every officer wasn't armed with a taser and pepper spray. Two, that every cruiser wasn't equipped with an audio and video recording system which was turned on at all times. That happened because the Ferguson police department is seriously under-funded. Other police incidents have experienced intentional coverups or other malicious intent, like destroying evidence or erasing video/audio tapes, but this wasn't one of them. The lack of equipment was a factor of funding. No one wanted a video more than that officer, whose life as he knew it is now essentially over. He has to live in secrecy the rest of his life, along with his family, friends, everyone he knew. He has to either cut ties with them or swear them to secrecy about his new identity and location.
The officer was equipped with a P229 Sig Sauer, which loads with either 9mm or .40S&W rounds. I've been unable to find whether the autopsy indicated 9mm or .40 rounds, but if it's 9mm, it's most certainly not true that a single round would stop someone who's charging towards you and is flooded with more adrenaline than they've ever experienced in their life. This phenomenon has been documented time and time again, as counterintuitive as it sounds.
In fatal stabbing incidents, people often comment about how they had no clue how bad the stab really was. That's because adrenaline disables your normal systems which tell your brain that anything is wrong.
Officers aren't trained for Hollywood-style precision shots to the leg. They are trained never to point their guns at anything they're not willing to kill, and if you are forced into a situation where you must use your weapon, to aim for center of mass and continue shooting until the threat is neutralized.
If we disagree with officer training policy, we should try to change it. But we can't go back now and say they shouldn't have followed their training.
pure BS. That fat kid could have been stopped by a punch, let a one shot from 9mm. And that even if he was attacking the officer, which he wasn't to start with.
Again, there wasn't need to kill, yet there was a right to do it - kid stupidly resisted harassment and even tried to move away ("run" in official language as he couldn't really run due to the fat) - and officer executed his right as they usually do to send the message that even minor disobedience will be severely punished.
Police are trained only to shoot to kill because pulling the trigger needs to be a big event. If you think that "shoot to wound" is an option, then of course you're going to pull the trigger more often. You'll become more comfortable shooting people and, presumably, you'll also end up killing people more often.
Other reasons for "shoot to kill" relate to effectiveness: in the energy of the situation if you aim to wound you may either kill by accident, or not hit at all.
As I understand it, police are generally taught specifically to shoot center of mass because aiming there is the most effective way to reliably and quickly end the immediate physical threat. This also ends up pretty close to maximizing the killing effectiveness of shots, but is not the primary focus.
The reason is that you are more likely to hit the target rather than what some propose, that they should just wound him in the kneecap, an almost impossibility.
He charged the officer and was shot once. Then he charged again and was shot again. Then, he came within 10 feet to tackle the officer and that was when he was killed. This was not 10 (or so) consecutive shots. If the first shots didn't stop him, why would you believe the second grouping would? Or the next?
What was Brown's intent once he reached the officer?
Brown didn't attack or charged the officer. That's a lie by the officer. Ever watched "Chicago"? "They both reached for the gun".
Prosecutor, just accidentally, a clerical error mind you, withheld witness' transcripts from the grand jury in the Brown's case.
We all know what happened - Brown was executed for angering the officer, for not demonstrating full submission from the moment the officer started harassing Brown for jaywalking, ie. instead of just writing the ticket for jaywalking, the officer went on power trip ...
I forgot the count but it was between 10 and 20 eyewitness accounts and direct interviews by the grand jury state Brown charged at the officer. It's obvious you didn't look at any of the documents or read any of the online articles or television by news organizations who did read the documents and state the same thing.
One of the biggest lies told, in all this, is that Brown had his hands up and said, "Don't shoot!". Never happened but I'm betting you believe that, too.
