by Michelle Tejada, staff reporter
“Justice doesn’t always mean death” junior Terrell Jones said. Picture is from public domain.
In Ferguson, Missouri, an act of alleged civil rights violation occurred on Saturday August 9, 2014 at 12:01 p.m.
Darren Wilson, a part of the Missouri police department shot Michael Brown, an African American, at a suburb in St. Louis. Brown was walking with his friend Dorian Johnson when a police car pulled up to him. Brown was being pulled into the car by police officer Wilson as he attempted to pull away.
Before Brown was able to run away, officer Wilson drew his gun and fired at Brown. Brown was unarmed and didn’t manage to hide like his friend Johnson did. He had surrendered with his hands up but officer Wilson fired at him six times.
This affected not only his family, but also the community, and caused a civil unrest as protesters hollered “Hands up, Don’t Shoot.” This symbolized many other African Americans who were mistreated yet unarmed at the time. The body was left out on the street for 4 hours and a memorial took place a few days later after the tragedy, however the memorial was burned down a few days after.
A decision has been made on this case about whether officer Wilson should be indicted. The result was that they would not indict officer Wilson for the crime against Brown.
“I don’t think that it was fair and I don’t think that it was necessary to kill him. I think that if the punishment was a bit more severe it would have been better because other police officers would be more careful and protesters wouldn’t be as rowdy,” junior Marcella Orlando said.
There was a ten point coalition at Ferguson for more community police patrol who can control crowds like these. Ten point is a group of people from the community who work together to build a better police patrol.
This trial was not over until Monday November 24th.The aftermath of the trial fired angry mobs of people to riot and react to this. Fires broke out and many buildings were burned down. Cops tried to settle the mob by taking a brutal approach such as “lobbying canisters of gas that made people’s eyes and lungs burn”.
“Justice doesn’t always mean death,” junior Terrell Jones said
Ferguson has created other effects in cases with police brutality. Many people now believe that a certain race is always going to be blamed for whatever crime. African Americans are mainly arrested for crimes they did not commit. This belief has many people protesting and acting violent towards law enforcers.
“I can’t believe that it’s happening in 2014, it’s really sad. And to see multiple stories on the news is heart breaking,” teacher Mrs. Muenkwitz said.
Cops brutality is coming up more and more in the media. It’s sometimes unjustified in the eye of the public and is causing controversy everywhere.
