Truth Farmer

Officer Friendly?

The unrest of the past week is likely a prelude of what’s coming in America. Our police have been increasingly militarized and are not “serving and protecting” as they are sworn to do. Instead, because of seizure laws and revenue scams they are largely extorting and intimidating the general populace, black, white, red, brown or any color of skin.

While there is an overwhelming amount of information and footage out there about this incident, it still looks like we have to wait for all of the evidence to be correlated, and for the forensics to be complete and interpreted and rebutted before we can know the facts behind the clinical evidence of the death of Michael Brown.

A few things deeply bother me, and I’m going to go ahead and put them out there for whatever it’s worth. Not much, I know, but these are truly aggravating things to me, and it simply seems like we could very well be being played because of them.

First of all, according to the original report, Michael Brown was pulled into the car by the cop? That, as Judge Judy would say, doesn’t make any sense at all. If you’re 6′ 4″ and someone reaches out to pull you into a car, they aren’t going to be able to it. Your instinct, unless you want to hug the person, is to pull back. And if you’re a police officer, the last thing you’re going to do is try to pull a big guy into the car on top of you, especially by the neck. If the officer was pulling him, he could possibly have pulled his arm and tried to use the door as a lever to subdue Brown, but that is the only potential I can see for the officer pulling Brown into the car.

Then the delay in releasing information in at least two areas, but more likely three. Not releasing the shooting officer’s name for days only adds to the distrust of the system and to the intimation that the police are covering things up. Not releasing the convenience store strong arm robbery tape for SIX days while the city is blowing up is simply unconscionable. And again, it leads to deeper distrust. While I can’t do it, I know that there are people who are completely capable of creating video that looks like the real thing when it isn’t. Is it possible that this is the case with the strong arm robbery video? Maybe. Then again, maybe not.

One has to wonder, why was this officer in a car alone? In the earliest video immediately following the shooting that I can find, there is another officer on the scene. It reportedly begins about 30 seconds after the shooting occurred. There is a cut in the video and then there is crime scene tape up, but when did the other officer arrive on the scene? And Wilson, who was reportedly hit hard enough to break the orbital socket under his eye during the struggle in the car, doesn’t make any move to indicate that his head is hurting in any way. Does this make any sense? It took ten days to get the orbital socket injury out. Three days to report that the officer was treated at a hospital after the shooting. Just who is the other officer with Wilson in this video? Was he Wilson’s partner? If so, where was he during all this and who is he? Likely, he isn’t Wilson’s partner, but then how did he get there so quickly? Or was that 30 second assertion inaccurate and it’s more like 2 to 5 minutes? It’s messed up.

The thing that I find most distressing is that people refer to a caller on a local radio show that says she is a friend of Darren Wilson as a “witness”. I even heard media refer to “Josie” as a witness. That is deeply disturbing. A friend of someone who was present at a scene can only relate hearsay, and giving an attitude of import to that person’s account is beyond irresponsible. And then a tweet from someone saying 12 witnesses have confirmed the officer’s side of the story becomes proof that the officer was justified in his actions? What kind of critical thinking is being employed by the media here?

Now, a grand jury has been convened to decide whether or not to indict Officer Darren Wilson for the shooting death of Michael Brown. But the Prosecutor is saying there won’t be any decision made until October. How is that timely? More importantly, how is it justified? What exactly are the officials trying to accomplish by releasing information in a very slow fashion and only reacting in quick and decisive ways with shows of force? It looks to me like holding off the decision of the grand jury is only going to increase tensions and create more distrust.

Clearly, the issues brought to light by this shooting are deep seated and far reaching. The police are way over militarized. People are more than angry at the entire system, and largely, they have a perfect right to be angry. How they express it and deal with it is another issue entirely. Destroying other people and their property is actually criminal and not a path that we should follow. Yet that is too often what the police are seen doing as well in their position as revenue collectors and enforcers. Just do a search on youtube for police brutality videos and you will be stunned and unhappy with the results.

It’s clear that many in America simply view police as government sanctioned rival gangs. Now they have MRAPs and tanks and more. You can see what your county has acquired by clicking on this New York Times article and the interactive map included there.

To sum up most of America’s feelings on police, it isn’t that we don’t like cops, we just feel better when they aren’t around.

In case anyone is wondering, we also feel better when there isn’t rioting and looting.