Law enforcement personnel have tough jobs. Rightfully we want them to keep us safe. Rightfully we second guess them. My impression of Mr. Brown is that he had little respect for law and order, or for the average hard working citizen. One look at the video robbery and how Mr. Brown threatened that storekeeper with his physique tells me this. Respectful law abiding citizens do not treat their fellowman like that. Ever!!!
I'm waiting with everyone else to learn more about the shooting incident. But if officer Wilson was concerned about safety of residents, and if he had reason to think Mr. Brown was a threat to citizenry then he'd have taken measures to apprehend Mr. Brown without needlessly jeopardizing third-parties.
Officer Wilson had choices regarding his own welfare. He could choose to place himself in danger or he could choose not to. Mr. Brown had the same choices. Officer Wilson could not decide for Mr. Brown and Mr. Brown could not decide for Officer Wilson, though both could initiate a physical altercation. For the life of me I can't think of a single reason why Officer Wilson would have initiated a physical altercation with Mr. Brown, that is unless he's some kind of bigot. I can say the same for Mr. Brown. The difference is that only moments prior to the shooting incident we have Mr. Brown on film choosing to threaten someone with violence, and for what reason? From all appearances Mr. Brown was wholly intolerant of objections from a storekeeper over theft of property. That’s a disturbing form of bigotry. Rather than being empathetic Mr. Brown instead chose bravado of the worst kind. He stood up for criminal behavior and against someone who made use of nonviolent civil behavior to voice opposition to thievery.
The storekeeper was using non-violent civil behavior in objection to petty thievery. Mr. Brown responded with utter disrespect and chose physical confrontation and intimidation. This tells me of Mr. Brown’s leanings when it comes to bigotry. He apparently respected his own choices, but not the views of those of objected to his own. That makes Mr. Brown a bigot.
As for law enforcement officers, we have legislatures pass laws requiring them to wear firearms. There is a reason for this. We want to be protected, and we want our children protected. In particular we want to be protected from people in society who are willing to stand up for law breaking and against honest hard working folk whose “crime” is to object to law breaking in the face of law-breakers.
Mr. Brown was a predator. He was a bigot. What he did that day on that video shows it. That is the kind of man Mr. Brown was. These are precisely the folk we ask law enforcement officers to protect us from, and hopefully BEFORE they become more emboldened.
