The only reason for all of this detail in a grand jury proceeding is because of the unrest in that place afterwards. The grand jury is being treated as a trial itself.
Another thing is that I've heard it said that you can indict a ham sandwich. If a prosecutor wants an indictment, then he can probably get one. Why not in this case? What was different about this case that no indictment could be returned? Could the case be so flimsy that no prosecutor would ever want to bring charges for it?
According to the Times account, all evidence points that there was a struggle at the police car. To me, that pretty much ends the discussion. Brown had no business assaulting the officer. Period.
There could be some question about why the officer chased the man. But the officer was assaulted. It should be required that he chase the man. You cannot have people striking officers and being allowed to leave the scene. If an officer says halt in that instance, that individual must halt.
So, what you really have here is an individual who strikes an officer, runs away, and does not halt when ordered to do so.
The only question here about the officer is if he shot the man when he was trying to surrender. That's the only accusation that can be brought against him for which he should have to answer.
The evidence given by the Times shows that Brown was approaching the officer. This is most unwise after his attack on the officer. Better for him to get down on the ground and put his hands behind his back.
If there's anything wrong here, it's why does anybody expect that the officer should be required to stop chasing the man who assaulted him.
But when no one asked him why he had chased Mr. Brown, Officer Wilson brought it up himself, saying that after experiencing Mr. Brown’s aggression in the vehicle, he felt “he still posed a threat, not only to me, but to anybody else that confronted him.”
Nobody asked him why he chased Brown because he was doing his job in chasing Brown. The officer is not required to answer that question.
So, there's two things here. One is that the Grand Jury process was turned into a trial, or was expected to be turned into a trial. And secondly, there is some notion here that the officer is required to justify why he was doing his job.
I suspect that the agitation surrounding this event is being used to overturn our system of justice.
An individual is required to obey an officer in authority. When he does not, he opens himself up for just about anything that might happen afterward. The best thing an individual can do for himself is to do what he is told without any trouble.
Of course, if there's problems with a police force's treatment of people, that's another question. But in this case, all bets are off when an individual strikes an officer while still in his car. The actions of that individual have already been established as aggressive.
If an officer cannot enforce the law or have his authority respected, he's not going to be much good for anything.
If a Grand Jury is going to be turned into a circus, it is not much good for anything either.
They might be glad that this didn't go to trial. Some of the witnesses may have been unsavory characters with little credibility. These people could be the ones who are causing much of the trouble here.
If these people wanted a trial, the DA should have given them one. You can indict a ham sandwich, as the saying goes. If this process is summed up rather quickly with the same result as we got, then the case must have been so flimsy that the only way to placate these people would be to turn the process into a trial for which it is not intended to be. And they still couldn't get an indictment.
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