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8/20/2014

The insanity of of Ferguson Missouri

Via-BBN


When self-serving narratives replace facts you end up with the insanity of Ferguson Missouri


Ferguson Police|Photo Credit IBD
Ferguson Police|Photo Credit IBD
Whatever the circumstances or wherever the blame, the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson Missouri is a tragedy. Anytime a young person is taken from the world it is always sad because no one knows what we have lost. Even given the circumstances surrounding his death which would seem to point to a future life of trouble, we cannot know what lie ahead for this young man either good or bad and now we never will and that is tragic.
It is entirely possible that the six foot four, two hundred and seventy pound eighteen year old was just sewing some unpleasant youthful seeds when he strong armed a diminutive store owner and stole some Swisher Sweets from the local store. As a neighbor observed  "When you're growing up in a rough situation, everybody makes mistakes." It is possible that if arrested and sent through the "system" he may have seen the errors of his ways and changed paths. Or he might have continued down a road of crime growing more jaded and ruthless. We shall never know and that is tragic.
What we do know is that everything surrounding Michael's death is nothing short of insanity and any memory of the young man will now be shrouded in controversy and acrimony.  Every year thousands of black men die on the streets of our cities and false narratives  aside, the majority die not because they are black, but just like Michael Brown they are engaged in some criminal activity.  Those who would have you believe that being black is an excuse for criminal activity not only do an injustice to society they demean the African-American community.
Is strong arming a few cigars worthy of a death sentence? Of course not, but that is probably not what happened here at all.
If police Officer Darren Wilson was the type of person to administer such "racist" not to mention criminal justice on the streets he patrolled he did so with nary a complaint or a reprimand or any other sign that he was somehow capable of such atrocious behavior. Yet part of the insanity surrounding Michael's death is that from the beginning a large segment of the community a national media, politicians and activist provocateurs were willing to assign such characteristics to another relatively young man (28) who for days they did not know and after his identity was released, his background ignored.
There exists a video that we have all seen that clearly shows the current character and hostile nature of Michael Brown just minutes prior to his death which for some reason under the social narrative being established we are asked to ignore. Instead we are to believe the story of Brown's accomplice in the robbery, Dorian Johnson's version of events.  All the while the fact that Wilson suffered facial fractures during his brief encounter with Mr. Brown is not released to the public because in the world of criminal justice as opposed to that of narrative formation, evidence is gathered and analyzed before it is released.
One of the "facts" of Dorian Johnson's "eye-witness" account which we now know is untrue is that Brown was shot in the back. Here is one of the inflammatory accusations Johnson made about the events of the day which became part of the popular narrative as told by MSNBC.
Brown made it past the third car. Then, “blam!” the officer took his second shot, striking Brown in the back. At that point, Johnson says Brown stopped, turned with his hands up and said “I don’t have a gun, stop shooting!”
Then according to Johnson and MSNBC, Officer Wilson then executed Michael Brown in broad daylight on the streets of Ferguson Missouri.
By that point, Johnson says the officer and Brown were face-to-face. The officer then fired several more shots. Johnson described watching Brown go from standing with his hands up to crumbling to the ground and curling into a fetal position.
Not only are we supposed to accept this version, everyone from protesters on the street to NFL football teams are mimicking this image of Michael Brown with his hands in the air pleading for mercy while the ruthless policeman guns him down. This version told to the world by a man who had just been involved in a robbery and who has an outstanding arrest warrant for robbery.
We do not know all that transpired August 9th on the streets of Ferguson but what we do know is this, Dorian Johnson lied. Michael Brown was not shot in the back, and unless Wilson was standing on a step-ladder he did not shoot Brown while standing "face to face"  with the young man since the bullet that probably killed Brown entered the top of his skull and there were no powder burns.
We also know that Michael Brown smoked pot and had some in his system at the time of his death. Did this contribute to the situation? Possibly, despite the attempts to downplay this fact, whether or not marijuana use makes you more "aggressive" or not, the one thing it does do is alter the user's perceptions of reality, that after all is why people use it.  We don't know yet how "high" Brown was at the time but what we do know is that getting high was very much a part of his young life.
He was heavyset and quiet, but not shy. He recorded rap music with his best friend and smoked marijuana with other young men.
Is the death of Michael Brown tragic? Of course it is,no person should die before his time over such  minor infractions both of which I participated in at his age,  smoking marijuana with other young men and shoplifting. But again I was never confronted on the street by a policeman immediately after "strong arming" a convenience store clerk.  But Michael Brown was and the question is or should be, not just what did Officer Wilson do but what did Michael Brown do.
Regardless of what Wilson knew or did not know, young Michael Brown who was about to attend technical school to study heating and air conditioning, knew he had just robbed a store and had smoked marijuana recently. Michael Brown knew that if arrested all his hopes and dreams for a future were in serious jeopardy. Michael Brown knew that his meeting with Officer Wilson was a life changing experience and not a positive one.  Officer J.D.Tippit did not know what the pedestrian  had done but Lee Harvey Oswald knew.
The insanity of Ferguson Missouri is not just that a young African-American man has died way to young for a relatively small violation of the law. It is also that so many people are willing to excuse that infraction as being unimportant to the events which led to his death. The insanity is that so many people in today's society would rather take a known thief's word as the truth and promote it as the truth  rather than let the facts reveal themselves over time.
The insanity of of Ferguson Missouri is that lies are accepted and woven into a narrative which only seeks to divide Americans along racial lines. Whatever other problems there are in this suburb of St. Louis and it seems there are many, they will not be solved by promotion of lies and false narratives. Those tactics always lead to even more pain and suffering not healing which is proving out in Ferguson.



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