Thinking about the Michael Brown case with no answers. It seems to me that it should be possible to find that Darren Wilson may not have murdered Michael Brown, but that the government in the form of Officer Wilson acted improperly in handling Mr Brown as a potential suspect in a minor property crime. Maybe this is similar to the inquest system used in Canada instead of grand juries. “An inquest uses witnesses, but suspects are not permitted to defend themselves. The verdict can be, for example, natural death, accidental death, misadventure, suicide, or murder. If the verdict is murder or culpable accident, criminal prosecution may follow, and suspects are able to defend themselves there.” The SIU investigation (*not* an inquest, in this case) into the July 2013 shooting of Sammy Yatim by Constable James Forcillo resulted in a murder charge (the case is still pending, as far as I know). However, there were three similar deaths prior to July 2013; this resulted in an inquest being convened to examine police conduct and misconduct in these cases in late 2013 and ending in early 2014. “The jury returned a verdict of homicide in all three cases, which in an inquest means another person’s actions caused the death but does not carry any criminal implications. The Special Investigations Unit cleared the officers of wrongdoing.” (Toronto police shootings inquest rules deaths as homicides; recommends training changes—Laura Kane, Toronto Star, February 12, 2014) There were 74 training recommendations that came out of the inquest. This is sort of sparked by something I read elsewhere indicating that a grand jury in this case protected an agent of the government acting in an official government capacity—precisely the person who does *not* need such protection. Darren Wilson does, but Officer Wilson…does not. It feels like splitting hairs to say that, but I think that it’s at the heart of why I think that the decision *not* to proceed with charges inspired the tweet “The system ain’t broken. It’s fixed.” Truth. It’s almost as if there should be two decisions made: 1. Was Officer Wilson’s action, as a police officer, toward Mr Brown appropriate and proportionate? By all appearances, *no*, it was neither proportionate or appropriate. I wasn’t there, and it’s not the question that was actually asked. 2. Did Darren Wilson murder Michael Brown? The grand jury decided that this one is also “no”…and I might be inclined to agree with them unless there is evidence otherwise indicating that Darren Wilson had a problem with the community he was supposed to be serving (my gut feeling suggests that there is such evidence, which means that this is all a bit complicated—still, presumption of innocence). As promised, there are no answers here, only questions. I’m unhappy for a lot of reasons, but mostly at the gross injustices that continue to be perpetrated.
Posted on: Wed, 26 Nov 2014 04:02:34 +0000
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