Black and Blue: Officer Sees Both Sides in the Michael Brown Shooting

[Uncle Joe]

http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2014/08/black_officer_sees_both_sides_in_michael_brown_shooting.html?wpisrc=topstories

Police have said that when Wilson tried to get out of his vehicle, Brown pushed him back into the car, then entered it and began fighting for the officer’s gun.

No sober black kid does that, at least not over a cop rolling up and opening the door. Dorian Johnson’s version that the cop tried to choke Brown through the window is way more plausible. Maybe Brown reached for a gun then. Maybe not. The real story is probably a mix of Johnson’s and the cop’s version.

(snip)



“As a black woman, I know what it feels like to be followed around in anything from a low-end convenience store to a Saks Fifth Avenue, simply because of the color of my skin. I also know what it feels like to be pulled over unjustly—and I absolutely know it’s not right because I happen to know the motor vehicle laws. I know what it feels like to have a man, who is driving and I’m a passenger, be pulled over unjustly while we’re driving through a white town. So please don’t take this as me not understanding the plight of us as African Americans in this country, because I do.

“However, as an officer, I also know what it feels like to be harassed, assaulted, spit at, cursed at and have unjust complaints filed on me because the man or woman I went after was a fugitive and he or she eluded arrest. Because the group of dudes on the corner were clearly hustling and I moved in to make my arrest. Because I pulled out my weapon on the young man who did not heed my requests to slowly take his hands out of his pockets, to stop running, to stay where he is, to let me see his hands, to put his hands in the air, to put his hands on the steering wheel, etc. Because I was doing my job.

There is more on the link.