According to Missouri Revised Statutes §563.046: A law enforcement officer in effecting an arrest or in preventing an escape from custody is justified in using deadly force only (1) When such is authorized under other sections of this chapter; or (2) When he reasonably believes that such use of deadly force is immediately necessary to effect the arrest and also reasonably believes that the person to be arrested (a) Has committed or attempted to commit a felony; (b) Is attempting to escape by use of a deadly weapon; or (c) May otherwise endanger life or inflict serious physical injury unless arrested without delay. Therein lies the rub. After months of investigation and days of grand jury deliberation, Darren Wilson walked NOT because he didn’t kill Mike Brown. The grand jury didn’t lack evidence supporting Officer Wilson’s responsibility for this untimely death. Instead, Missouri law excused Officer Wilson’s use of deadly force to kill Mike Brown as a sort of self-defense necessary to effect an arrest. He had a get out of jail free card, akin to the oft-discussed Florida’s stand your ground laws which many expected George Zimmerman’s lawyers to invoke during the Trayvon Martin trial (they didn’t, and Zimmerman was acquitted on plain old self-defense grounds). There is a painful, yet necessary lesson to understand in all this: laws are not always fair or just, but they are laws, nonetheless, and the only way to impact laws is to vote. There is an enduring political truism in life: “if you don’t have a seat at the table, you’re probably on the menu.” For us, living in a representative democracy means that we can vote for people to represent our interests. If, however, we do not vote, we should not be surprised if our needs and wants get swept under the table, for lack of having a representative ‘at the table’ to speak up for us and what we need. Ferguson, Missouri has never had a black mayor and only has one black member on its six person city council. This is despite it being a city with a population that is more than 60 percent black. Make no mistake: voting has a lot to do with this. https://youtube/watch?v=ye8Z8Y8TYxc#t=62
Posted on: Tue, 25 Nov 2014 20:23:36 +0000
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