Eric Holder’s Justice Department Decides Officer Was Justified in Shooting Michael Brown

No matter what you may think of this post, if you don't like any or all of it, then just don't listen to me. My voice doesn't matter. Not. one. whit.

But this guy's does:

And so does this guy's:

My heart still goes out to Brown's relatives and friends. The sad fact, though, is that the evidence reviewed by Eric Holder, the FBI and the Justice Department has shown that Brown would be alive today if he hadn't tried to kill that police officer with his own gun.

Sadly, Michael Brown chose not to be an innocent victim. Nor was he, according to black police officer David Clarke from Wisconsin, anything at all like "Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr....[Brown was] not [an] icon in the civil rights movement."

Eric Holder's Justice Department has "concluded its federal investigation into the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and it has reached substantially the same conclusions as the local grand jury that chose not to press charges against police officer Darren Wilson." Also covered by the New York Times here: "an F.B.I. investigation found no evidence to support charges." From the Times story:

"Mr. Wilson told investigators that Mr. Brown had tussled with him through the window of his police car and tried to grab his gun, an account supported by bruises and DNA evidence...While some witnesses were adamant that Mr. Brown had his hands up, some recanted their stories. Mr. Wilson testified that Mr. Brown had charged at him, and other witnesses backed up his account.

"'I’m backpedaling pretty good because I know if he reaches me, he’ll kill me,' Mr. Wilson told a state grand jury, in testimony that investigators said was consistent with what he told the F.B.I. 'And he had started to lean forward as he got that close, like he was going to just tackle me, just go right through me.'
...
"The federal investigation did not uncover any facts that differed significantly from the evidence made public by the authorities in Missouri late last year, the law enforcement officials said."

The Federalist writer makes a good point, because it is the not-guilty's lives that are at stake, be they white cops, black cops, or anyone:

"...it’s clearly time to apologize—for every activist and journalist (but I repeat myself) who bought into the simplistic, self-serving “hands up, don’t shoot” narrative and broadcast it far and wide based on false testimony; who reflexively dismissed Wilson’s side of the story as preposterous and unbelievable; who doggedly upheld a wider narrative that slanders police officers across the country as murderous racists...Do it because if you want to hold others accountable for their action, you need to first make sure you are accountable for your own."

This wouldn't have happened to Michael Brown if he had done as the officer told him, if he'd not tried to grab the cop's gun, if he'd not charged at the officer.

It wouldn't have happened to Jerame Reid, either, if he'd done as the black officer Braheme Days told him, stayed in the car and just showed him his hands out the window as the driver of the car did throughout this incident:

“We got a gun in this glove compartment.” Shortly after that, Days appears to reach into the vehicle and retrieve something from the glove compartment. As Worley radios for backup, Days issues a series of expletive-laced threats and commands to Reid. “You reach for something you’re going to be fucking dead,” Days warns. Someone in the car replies, “I got no reason to reach for nothing.” A moment later, Days says again, “Hey Jerome, you reach for something you’re going to be fucking dead.” Then seconds later: “He’s reaching, he’s reaching.”

This link gives even more detail of the words spoken by Days and remarks, "The instant Days draws his weapon (0:58) he begins repeatedly shouting at Reid “show me your hands,” the repetition obviously indicating non-compliance. The driver of the suspect vehicle, Leroy Tuft, more prudently puts his empty hands and arms out the drivers side window. Tuft is immediately held at gunpoint by Officer Worley (whom, the trainer in me feels obliged to note, demonstrates excellent trigger finger discipline), while Days continues to verbally engage the persistently non-compliant Reid...A gun was recovered from the suspect car."

The New York Post summarized similarly: "Days screams over and over at the passenger, Jerame Reid, “Show me your hands!” and “If you reach for something, you’re going to be f—— dead!” The officer appears to reach into the car and remove the gun. But the brief standoff ends with Reid disregarding Days’ order to not move, stepping out and getting shot." They are also the only source so far to state the fact that Officer Days is black.

Yet the protests have begun already, and it's now a black officer who shot Reid who was getting out of the car when he'd been told not to move but to just "show me your hands!" The driver, Tuft, did just that, just as he was told, you can see it plain as day on all the videos, and he's alive and unshot today.

So what's Al Sharpton going to do with this one? What's the narrative of the protests going to be now? What's the catchphrase now? How many times does this happen before "Don’t you f*cking move!" gets listened to and obeyed, like the driver, but not the passenger, of this car in New Jersey did?

And before anyone concludes that I've never been in a serious confrontation with police so I can't possibly know how this feels, you're dead wrong about that. Waaaayyyy wrong. I've been there. And it does suck. But you shut your mouth, you "Yes, sir" and "No, sir" and do precisely as you're told. It is what it is, for white folk like me too.