@giujohn,
Quote:The problem was they didnt give themselves the opportuinty to become wiser and less cavalier with regard to life. Is it tragic? Yes. Is it unavoidable? Yes. Is that the fault of the police officer? Absolutley not. Is it the fault of the parents? Maybe partly. But ULTIMATELY it is up to the individual to be responsible, and both were old enough to figure it out.
Why are you lumping Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown together? You think all black teens can be stereotyped or that they're all alike?
What makes you think Martin did anything wrong? He was walking home from a store, minding his own business, and an armed self-styled vigilante, with no legitimate authority, racially profiled him, followed him in the dark, and provoked a needless and avoidable encounter that left the unarmed teen dead. Photos of Zimmerman taken in the police station the night of the shooting, after he cleaned the dramatic looking blood beneath his nose off, show him looking completely uninjured, except for two tiny scrapes on the back of his head. He required no medical treatment at all for his extremely minor injuries. There was no evidence of any "beating" or "head-pounding" on concrete, he seemed to have suffered no more than a single punch to his nose--which may well have been delivered by Martin in legitimate self-defense, because Zimmerman's stalking behavior had been menacing. He had no idea why this strange man was trailing him, or what he might do to him. And the struggle that ensued, after that single punch, was probably a struggle over the gun, which Zimmerman likely had already drawn, because there was no way, at his trial, that they could explain how he got it out once Martin was on top of him. And the jury verdict really did not eliminate the possibility that Martin had been legitimately trying to defend his life, it simply affirmed it's belief that Zimmerman feared for his life, or feared grave bodily harm, when he fired the shot, rather than having shot out of malice.
What did Martin ever do in his life, including the night he was shot, that showed he was "cavalier with regard to life"? Zimmerman had a prior history of aggressive behavior, Martin had none. And Zimmerman has continued to behave in a menacing manner even since his acquittal.
I'm sick of the racist profiling, of the unjustified character assassination, that clearly took place on the internet with regard to Martin, and that continues to go on. He wasn't a "thug" or a hoodlum, he had never hurt or harmed anyone, he was a middle class high school junior with plans to attend college, just like his older brother was doing, and just as his mother had done, and he was already living a productive life by staying in school--he had only just turned 17.
I don't see the cases of Martin and Brown as being at all similar, other than both were black unarmed teens shot by white men, Wilson is white, and Zimmerman does appear to be white. And so far, I see no similarities in the character or personality of either teen.
I think it was wrong of the police to release the video of the strong-arm robbery from the convenience store. While certainly not in the same category as the character assassination smear that the right wing lodged on Trayvon Martin, I fail to see the point of releasing it, other than to negatively bias the public perception of a police shooting victim. But, whatever anyone can see in those few seconds of video tape, including him not acting like a "gentle giant", and shoplifting, is totally unrelated to his shooting, or the reason for the shooting, and whether it was justified. Was the video released so people would feel less sympathy for an unarmed victim shot by a cop? Should anyone feel Brown's life was worthless, or disposable, because he stole $48 worth of cigars and pushed a store clerk around? The police haven't released Wilson's unredacted incident report, which would relate to the shooting, and the reasons for it, so why the hell did they release the convenience store video, which is unrelated, and likely couldn't be admitted as evidence in Wilson's defense?
I'm glad you don't share the vile assessment that the world is better off without Martin or Brown, but you are also still implying they caused their own deaths. I definitely do not feel that was the case with Trayvon Martin. He wasn't doing anything wrong, he was walking around in a place he had every right to be. Yet he was menacingly pursued in the dark, by a stranger, who had no legitimate authority to follow, or confront, or question him at all, simply because of that stranger's personal obsessions and lack of impulse control, and not because Martin was doing anything wrong.
Michael Brown's encounter was with a legitimate authority, a police officer, who stopped him because he was doing something wrong--he was walking down the middle of the road blocking traffic. He then defied the officer's legitimate order to get back on the sidewalk. We really don't know exactly what followed after that that led to the shooting and the death. Did he really attack the officer and try to get his gun? So far, we have seen no evidence supporting any injuries inflicted on the officer, and he did not appear injured when he remained at the scene after the shooting. Brown's hands showed no evidence he had been in a fight. And I'd have to wonder why someone stopped for a pedestrian traffic violation would suddenly attack a cop and try to take his gun. Was Brown crazy, and trying for suicide by cop? Attacking a cop, and trying to take his gun, is a far cry from bullying a much smaller convenience store clerk in order to steal some cigars. None of this makes sense. Even the robbery in the store doesn't make sense. He had just graduated from high school and was heading to a vocational college, so why would he have jeopardized his entire future for some cigars? He couldn't have been doing these things habitually, otherwise he'd be known to the police and have a criminal record--Ferguson is a very small community of only about 22,000, with its own police force. Maybe Brown was under the influence of drugs that might have made him aggressive that day--something other than marijuana--we don't have the toxicology results yet.
So I'm not ready to judge Michael Brown, or his life, solely on the basis of a few seconds of convenience store security tape. And I'm not ready to judge Darren Wilson's justification for shooting either. There's just not enough evidence yet. All we know, for certain, is that Brown's dead and Wilson shot him.
