Disparity of force. Wilson was held in his car, his ability to flee was removed from him. His one arm was being held and his other wasn't capable of doing much. His legs were of no help at all. Brown, his attacker, had the upper-hand and complete freedom of movement, but chose to continue holding and attacking Wilson. Wilson was justified in pulling his gun. Allowing himself to be knocked out instead, while being held against his will, is an unreasonable thing to ask of him or anyone. Particularly when you consider the fact that the bulletproof vest, shotgun/rifle, sidearms, handcuffs, and ammunition that can be taken from his car are not only a danger to himself, but could be a danger to the public.Disagreed. "Bare hands" is generally not considered to be "use of lethal force," unless it's a cop that's been attacked. Then you get apologists arguing that making fists is actually an initiation of lethal force, rather than drawing a gun.
Any that say that Wilson shot Brown in the back are mistaken. Any that say Brown had his hands up are mistaken. Any that say Brown was not moving toward Wilson were mistaken. What claims are you saying should be taken seriously?Yes, even when some of them are inconsistent with others, and none of them contradict physical evidence here.
How would Wilson know Brown's history? He knew he matched the description of someone who robbed a convenience store, but he hadn't even confirmed that. All he had to go on was the punch in the face, the grabbing of his gun, and the fact that Brown turned and was moving toward him. Grabbing a cop's gun is a felony in most states, I'm assuming Missouri is no different.That would come down to whether it was found that there was "probable cause" to believe that Brown, (again), being a large but completely unarmed person with no history of violent crime, posed "a significant threat of death or serious harm to the community," which should be pretty tough to sell. Even given that, it's again an example of laws being skewed to give leeway to police for abuse of power, because by no account including Wilson's would Brown's actions be treated as felonious if Wilson were not a cop. Just petty theft, being under the influence of marijuana, and simple assault and battery.
At the moment that Wilson began fearing that the gun could be taken from him and used to kill or seriously injure him, he acknowledged that the gun was posing him a more serious threat than Brown's empty hands were.
Because he used his firearm successfully, it didn't pose him any threat and in fact helped defend him from his actual threat, his unidentified aggressor.And harming his aggressor extremely disproportionately to the amount of threat his aggressor should have been considered to pose, thus resulting in the unnecessary death of an unarmed teenager - classic case of what happens when a handgun is improperly or irresponsibly used - and demonstrating that Wilson was not sufficiently competent to be entrusted with that sort of power.
Sounds like you're implying that black men assaulting police officers is so ingrained in their nature that any cops unwilling to gleefully take that assault are just racists looking to kill black guys. Brown assaulted Wilson and grabbed his gun. This reasonably caused him to fear for his life if he allowed his attacker another chance for a physical struggle. It's not hard to argue he'd be scared of allowing Brown a chance to take his gun since he tried once already.All of those being technically possible, but unreasonable to expect. The legal distinction between simple and felony assault is that either serious permanent injury was caused, or a weapon was used. This is so because where ordinary citizens are concerned, people attacking other people without a weapon are not considered to have a reasonable expectation of causing serious, lasting injury without some other proof of intent to do so, which is why they just get charged with a misdemeanor. Wilson could have called for backup and hidden inside his car if he felt scared of Brown, since "cop potentially letting a cigar thief get away temporarily" is, or should be, generally less frowned-upon than "cop shooting a cigar thief to death." Unfortunately, Missouri state law is so structured that people like Wilson's fear of getting beat up by large black people, or being laughed at for hiding from them, is not effectively counterbalanced by a fear of repercussions for outright shooting them - in which case, given that you're not especially concerned about whether you end up killing more big black guys than you really have to, it makes sense that you'd bring a gun to all your (minor, misdemeanor) arrests, and refuse to even carry a taser.
And yes, like I said in one of my first posts, the only leeway he gets here as a cop is that he had the legal right and duty to pursue Brown, certainly not to arrest him as a thief though. That's just ridiculous. These would have been felony charges had Mike Brown surrendered. He also didn't go out just to arrest Mike Brown for his cigar theft. I'm really not sure where you got that idea.