Reuters/Mario Anzuoni
Police say Brown assaulted the officer who fatally shot him, but at least one eyewitness disputes that account. Since then, some rioters have threatened to "kill the police."
Cops are talking about it with each other, and many sympathize with the officer who killed Brown. Below are comments from
VON1:
All a cop needs to believe that his life or another is in danger and he can use the force necessary to stop that threat. Something made this officer shoot.
Hawasafuzz:
No one likes to see loss of life especially a young person but it always appears that anytime officers or civilians are automatically guilty of a wrong when when there is a minority in the mix. Very sad.
Shawnpp:
Has anyone read/heard of any actual details about why the officer actually shot the unarmed boy? In a use of force situation, shooting an unarmed person is acceptable if the officer has tried everything else and it's not working and the suspect is causing great bodily injury or death, i.e.: the officers is getting his a-- kicked seriously and needs immediate relief. I have yet to read any details supporting or non supporting the decision to shoot.
Runcop:
I feel for the poor young copper who will be screwed over because the 'community activists' are now involved. The worthless DOJ will be monitoring and the entire department will be under the microscope. Frickin lying 'witnesses'. Hopefully the copper's administration will not throw him under the bus!
RNS1:
Let's just hope for the officer's sake, assuming he was justified, that there is not the least bit of ambiguity in the incident or he is likely to be railroaded. On a side note, every time I get mad at my department I go steal a TV. Trash.
OldCowboy:
They think that as long as they are unarmed, the officer won't shoot. So they don't really have a healthy fear of the police, they expect us to play by the rules and take our lumps. Sometimes they don't get shot and sometimes they do. Why chance it?
icrazylegs:
Any decent police officer knows any situation can turn from sugar to shit in an instant. You sound like any know it all citizen I run across, "I wasn't there but...." I pray for the police officers in this situation and the hardworking memebers of that community that have to put up with this.
rodan:
What a mess! I hope the officer involved is cleared.
GRPrecon:
So a cop, doesn't matter if white or black, with a six year service record that was clean according to the chief just decided one day to gun down a black man for walking in the street? Yeah ok. These people are incredibly ignorant. They are going to hang this cop some way some how. The altar of political correctness and racial grievances knows no bounds.
This post tries to strike more of a middle ground:
Commando5368:
Yeah, I'm an old guy too, lot's of things have changed since the 70's, some good and some not so good. No matter what, we always seem to hear the same old cries of "us against them" whenever these incidents occur.
I'm a long way from being a bleeding heart, but we owe it to the next generation of coppers coming after us to do our best today. Not live in the past or recite the wrongs of our nation, but to really try and make this country a better place.
As long as we treat these people like animals, then animal type behavior is what we should expect from them. Most of them are just trying to feed their family and get through the day. If you have to take care of business on the job, so be it. Don't make things worse just because you wear a badge."