I am by no means an expert, but I HAVE read up on the case, and here are my thoughts, if anyone cares to hear them:
To my understanding, there are two situations in which a cop is permitted use of lethal force. (Also important to note: “lethal force” means use of a potentially lethal weapon, not a carte blanche to kill on sight.)
1. If a cop feels that his life is in danger.
2. If a cop feels that a felon is violent and is about to put another citizen’s life in danger.
A cop is legally required to perform a quick assessment of the situation before EVERY discharge of a firearm in order to determine if lethal force is still necessary. Sometimes, a criminal who sees that the cop is ready and willing to fire his gun will surrender at that point.
Now, there is evidence that a scuffle took place between Brown and Wilson while the latter was still seated in his car. This much is evidenced by the bruise on Wilson’s jaw. During that scuffle, the gun was fired twice. (Wilson stated that Brown had put his hand on the gun as though to take it from him.) Once the gun had gone off, Brown took off running and Wilson was able to leave his car.
At this point, remember that Wilson was legally required to justify continued use of lethal force. That would mean that he’d need to believe that Brown, though he definitely acted like a thug and a lowlife, was an actual danger to Wilson’s life or that of another citizen.
Wilson then chose to pursue Brown, who was at that time running away from him. He yelled at Brown to stop, and then fired his weapon again several times when Brown did not comply. He saw Brown’s body jerk with the impact of at least one bullet, and then Brown turned around.
This next scenario is where witnesses’ and Wilson’s accounts start to differ sharply. Witnesses say that Brown raised his hands in surrender and ducked his head, then began jogging towards Wilson to be arrested. Wilson says that Brown’s hands were never up, and that he ducked his head in a charge. At any rate, that was when Wilson fired the fatal rounds that struck Brown in his head, killing him.
The way I see it, there are two main reasons that the black community is furious about what happened:
1. They don’t agree that lethal force was necessary, especially after Brown fled the scene after scuffling with Wilson. The discharging of the gun DURING the scuffle was necessary, since Brown was attacking a police officer who was trapped in his own car, but Wilson should not have left his car and continued firing until Brown was dead.
2. They believe that the reason Wilson DID continue to use his gun was that his assailant was black, and he considered use of lethal force against a black person a much lighter affair than against a white person who had acted similarly. In fact, they point to Wilson’s lack of non-lethal alternatives on his belt as proof that this was a police officer who intended to kill someone if the opportunity was right.
That said, I’m sure everyone can agree that one should NEVER attack a police officer and certainly never put a hand on his gun for any reason. But the source of the anger appears to be the idea that a white person who had done something similar would still be alive today as well.