Aibu too not understand the reaction of the Ferguson Michael Brown in the USA

[Natashathemum]

My Dh thinks that it is a disgusting example of racial inequality in America. But i think having read a lot of articles/news that the police officer was only protecting himself. Although it is unfortunate that someone so young died.

However Dh feels strongly it is disgusting racism. He called me blind and crazy (lighthearted). Aibu for thinking this.

111 Police Officers died in the line of duty in 2013. It is obviously 111 too many, but not the extremely high figure many here are suggesting.

The thing is if it was a real gun which he had been waving around for ages, the police turned up, using a softly softly please put the gun down, after him waving it around and still waving it around when he sees the police car as opposed to quickly putting it away.
What if he had then decided to shoot a whole group of onlookers, what then. Would the policeman have been considered incompetent?
It is a risk assessment based on procedure.
It is an awful tragedy which would never have happened if the boy wasn't waving his gun around in a public place for such a length of time knowing he could potentially be shot for it.
Fact is if it was obvious he had seen the police car and still not put the gun away then he is perceived as dangerous and reckless to the public.

The Guy attacked a police officer, i mean you attack an Armed police officer and you have to except the fact you may die .

Oh, and they weren't all violent deaths. 32 officers died of 'other causes' including 14 heart attacks.
Firearms related deaths accounted for 33 deaths.

People keep harping on the fact that he was unarmed as though that makes the officers actions ott.

Well sure, we know that now. But in America, the land where any thug can go and pick a gun up from a corner shop, the officer had no way of knowing he was unarmed then.

It's a very sad situation and IMO America in general is at fault for the ridiculous gun laws they have. But does anyone really blame the officer for wanting a gun instead of taser?

Over my dead body would I be a cop in the USA without a gun.

Ditto what Nosunday said. I never want to be armed but I would if I lived in America.

And police officers can be killed by unarmed people. One of our officers was chocked unconscious last year and is still off work 15 months later. He was a lucky guy that his colleague found him being attacked.

Hmmm why can't I spell choked properly?!

Skimmed thread. I understood that he had grabbed the policeman's gun and was trying to reach the trigger and turn it around on him instead.

I just think while American embraces and protects it's beloved gun culture and the 'freedom to defend itself' this is going to happen over and over. Kids shot while holding plastic guns included.

All very sad.

To clarify, I mean if I worked as a cop in America I would want to be armed.

How dare you say that it's easy to avoid getting shot. How dare you.

Bulbasaur I dare because it's my opinion. You may disagree but I do not need your permission to hold my own views. You make a lot of assumptions by the way.

I think the problem here is a lack of clarity as to why the guy was shot. Some newspapers are claiming he had his hands up and others are claiming he was running at the officer and the officer feared for his safety.
Shooting someone with their hands up VVVU.
Shooting someone who you think could kill or injure you, totally reasonable (if you live in the US where police carry guns)

111 Police killed last year on duty not a terribly high number?? Wow, how many people died as a result of their duties in your profession last year? Sounds pretty horrendous to me. It's a serious risk they take, and people are quick to jump on incidents like this but very slow to thank officers for the numerous good things they do each day to keep people safer.

Interestingly if you look at Officer Down Memorial Page there was 6 officers killed as a result of assault in November alone. 3 suspects were shot, 2 of which were killed.

Ethnicity isn't given but I would be willing to bet some of them were white so I don't think it will be accurate to say that only black people are shot by police.

Haven't read all of the posts so sorry if this has already been linked but this, to me at least, says it all about why people are ao upset. It is not just this one case, this happens all the time to young black men, but it NEVER happens to white men...

www.upworthy.com/here-are-10-images-by-the-time-i-reached-the-third-one-i-was-crying-by-the-10th-i-was-furious

I honestly don't care about it, i'm in a completely different country for starters. I did care at first. Now I don't.

Of course it's not accurate to say white people aren't killed by the Police - it's very easy to locate statistics clearly showing that many more white people than black people are killed by them, but in turn black people have a disproportionately high rate of death. The facile conclusion in attempting to explain why is of course one of blatant racism among the cops, but in reality it's never that simple. Black communities in the US are often disproportionately blighted by poverty and deprivation, inevitably leading to higher rates of offending. That in itself is alarming, but when the chips are down and a cop under threat or attack those sociological factors make no difference at all. Agree that the focus on unarmed is ridiculous - wait two more seconds to ask nicely and make completely sure he doesn't have a weapon and you may well find yourself dead from r hesitating. Sheesh, I'm sure glad that isn't my job.

and also how would they know that plastic gun wasn't a real one? it's self defense thats what I believe. How did the policeman know that kid wasn't gonna shoot? He wasn't shot because he was black, he was shot because the gun looked real.

Particularly given how many kids have actually rampaged in schools with guns.

Sure you can defend each individual case. That black kid was waving a toy gun around. That black guy was walking towards a cop. For stop and search, that black guy was driving a nice car, those black kids were hanging around in a group looking suspicious. You might be able to defend each single action, but when you put them all together you notice a trend. And that trend is one where stats show that black people come off worse in the US justice system than whites.

UncleT - to be fair though, Police choose to go into that career.

I am not saying it is anything other than a tragedy when ANYONE is shot, but it is a career with concomitant risks and benefits.

Re this particular case - it is not yet clear whether the man was holding the gun and running at the Police, in which case it is 'reasonable' to shoot him (but surely not 12 TIMES???)

or if he had his 'hands up' by then in which case they have murdered him.

The Gun Culture in America (and South Africa) is very sad.

I think the reason people rioted over this case is because it isn't about one decision by one officer to shoot. They don't believe there wasn't a racial element to it because everyday black men in that community are going to be to be stopped by police when they haven't done anything. Every day Black men hear police using racist language and every day they hear stories fromtheir firends and family of police over stepping the mark, planting evidence and treating them badly. They don't have a belief that the police would make a decision in their interests. They already see it as them v. us. So it doesn't really matter whether Ferguson was a danger tot he officer or not. What of "their" side was killed, and they see no come back.

The problem in the USA (and in some communities here) isn't that individual officers may be racist. It's that the way policing is set up and run isn't a matter of mutual consent with officers drawn from the community they police, they are an army in the midst.

I just struggle to understand how we all apparently know better than the grand jury, who spent very lengthy periods of time hearing detailed testimony and examining all the evidence, forensic and otherwise.

I chose to join the police but mindreader you make it sound like an occupation hazard.

What if the first 11 shots miss or he keeps running? Do you only shoot him once or do you keep shooting until you are satisfied the risk is gone?

I'm actually interested to know what kind of gun the officer had, if anyone knows? I'm not knowledgable about guns but do officers carry guns that hold twelve bullets?

Yes, he would have at least twelve in the clip I would think.

I don't mean that white people are never killed by the police, I mean that white children are never killed by the police when they have toy guns, particularly in the toy section of a store, unarmed white people are never shot in the street for what turns out to be no good reason. Maybe this case is different, I don't think we will ever know the full story. However, institutionalised racism in the US is making the police shoot first and think later and people are dying! Those people are not white, somehow with white people they are managing to think first