well it's not testimony yet. for me I think it starts with the initiation of force. The video footage of just minutes earlier is very damning. Even if the officer improperly initiated an altercation with him, once the suspect gave injury (second assault in minutes) that was it for me. He was clearly dangerous. Who else would he have assaulted in some more minutes?

yes, I understand. Again, if I had just committed a crime and shown that I was willing to be violent in the commission of the crime, itsn't it likely I might react violently when asked by an officer to get out of the street? He was acting like the man in the store was a pipsqueak and like he owned the world. why is it not possible he would act the same way toward a police officer moments later? We don't know what he thought the officer knew. But there are now multiple eyewitness accounts of his aggression toward the officer. His behavior was certainly alarming, criminal and because of that, I'd deem him a threat to others. Here's the part where I'm not so confident. I do not know what the protocol is, but if I am violently assaulted by someone who also wrestles for my fire arm, I shoot to kill.

Well that clears it up.

Hear, hear.

There has been one scenario brought up that proposes that the officer pulled up and told the young men to get off the street, that Brown (?) blew off the officer and said some nasty, smartass response. The officer then pulled further up beside the two who had continued to walk and threw his door open into the two, then reached through his window and grabbed Brown's clothing to drag him up against the car. Brown resisted and the two began to struggle still through the window, but the officer's seat belt was still on, keeping him from getting to his baton and that he couldn't use his pepper spray because it would affect him as badly. There is still question whether and when they had traversed from the open car window to an open door. At that point Brown struck the officer in an effort to get loose and the officer began trying to draw his gun, still sitting with his seat belt on. Brown saw him reaching for his gun and reached down to stop him from drawing it. The officer got it partially out and discharged it hitting at least Brown's hand. By that point Brown finally got loose and started to move away, but the officer finally got out of his cruiser and kept firing.
A) Brown then turned and came back again thinking the only way to stop the officer from shooting him was to get the gun.
B) Brown turned to surrender with arms up, but the officer kept firing and in getting hit with bullets and trying to turn and dodge more bullets, that Brown's arms came down and accounted for the bullet wound on inside of arm.
C) Brown turned and before he could do anything he was struck with at least one bullet and it enraged him making him come back at the cop who continued to fire.

This scenario is as much supposition as is any others at this point, but Michael Bolden (?), the forensic medical examiner guru accepted that all of these are possible from the bullet wound evidence on the body.

There is blame on Brown in this scenario for continuing the struggle, but there is also blame on the officer for initiating the physical confrontation-definitely outside of his training. No one would recommend that a cop swing a car door into a subject or reach through a car window to grab the subject or initiate any of that with his seat belt still fastened. Nor would any training or protocol call for such an escalation in response to a rude, smart-ass reaction from a citizen.

We'll never know.

Neither nor Shrug.

Shrug, I'm not against a cop being able to defend himself, even if that results in the death of the citizen and maybe the Ferguson cop is just caught up in the rest of the nation wide epidemic of police wrong doing and abuse that's only lately being showed directly to the public through smart phone cameras.

I'll repeat, we don't know what happened that led to the physical confrontation between the officer and Brown and then to the cop shooting him to death. Nor does the black community of Ferguson.

And this post began as "The ability to lie and claim anything against white people" and I maintain that the problems brought to the front in Ferguson are much, much deeper and more widespread than black privilege. Part of that problem is the assumptions and suppositions being made by a lot of us that have absolutely no factual basis for our beliefs in that incident.

But I find it hard to accept that anyone who believes in the power and primacy of individual and natural rights of man over the state and government, when faced with the death of an unarmed citizen, whether he's a big, ugly, mean acting black man or a homeless, helpless, schizophrenic white man on the street doesn't find questions to be asked and answered in the incident.

Neither?

Wasn't me either.

Hmmm I didn't even know Brown had a wife. Seriously tho... it has to take some strength to bust bone that can't be bent to use tork....

hatchet man was armed...so was Brown...his fists, and weight, and strength and lack of self control. Really, you think the officer might have grabbed Brown's shirt through his window? That's seems highly unlikely....and so does Brown reaching in to keep the cop from drawing his gun... Brown trying to grab the cop's gun through the window, that's feesible. Overzealous behavior seemed like his way.

I'm not against defending oneself against an officer or anyone else. I could see myself swinging at one (heck, I have actually lol)
Zen has me in a tither!
Self defense is self defense regardless of skin color or uniform. If someone busts your skull and then comes back at you...I don't think it's to give you a hug. This is not rocket science.

Then you're using your bias as your judgement...passed events you know about to make assumptions about this situation? Interesting.
I'm not abdicating cop shootings either...I'm not 'for' them, but if a big thug is coming back at ANYONE who's face they just broke, then I say use force to stop his force. You don't think he was capable of killing the cop barehanded? (Or the store owner he shoved into a snack rack?) Should the cop just wait for him to bash his head ALL the way in? The cop is a human being too, who has a right to defend his life.... shooting should be a last resort, and who says this wasn't? After all, if this brute can bust a man's eye socket what else is he capable of? A rational person doesn't hesitate or wait to find out.

Yes, I saw it as well. The police stated that the officer wasn't aware of the event nor had he heard the radio traffic about it.