A Case Study on the Shooting of Michael Brown

It seems here in America we have had many tragedies of innocent people being killed. People who are unarmed and mostly African Americans. We all recall the incident that happened in Ferguson August of 2014, when Michael Brown was shot several times by police officers. There has been heated debate on whether or not he was threatening police or not, but more evidence proves he was not. I believe investigations are still going on in this case, but most likely the police will receive no punishment. Maybe a slap on the wrist at most. Many Americans are losing trust in their police officers because many aren't there to protect and serve anymore.

In March of 2015 another innocent black man was shot by police. This man's name was Nicholas Taft Thomas. He was a father of a beautiful baby girl just only five months old. Thomas was twenty-five years old, he still had his entire life ahead of him. His name sadly just became another hashtag after police took his life around 1:30 p.m., Tuesday, March 25.

The event began when four officers with Cobb County police department and three Smyrna police officers arrived at Nicholas's place of work Goodyear store. He had planned to serve him with a warrant for his probation violation. Which reportedly was only a traffic offense. Which was nothing for Nicholas to lose his life over.

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When Nicholas spotted the officers at his place of employment, he pursued to flee and hopped into a white Maserati. Allegedly, he was working at this establishment to pay his fine and did not want the police to jeopardize his job. I believe that there was no reason for all of these police officers to be involved in the first place, especially for a simple traffic violation. Also, there was really no reason for them to show up at this place of work in the first place.

As like many other cases, the police claimed they feared for their lives. Claiming Thomas was going to use the vehicle as a weapon to run the officers over. Many witnesses came forward immediately after the press was released, claiming and challenging the official report. They essentially were all saying that it was a bold faced lie.

As I stated earlier there really was no reason seven officers needed to be involved in this case. Practically only one or two could have handled it. So why did all of them show up like this? To me it seems somewhat suspicious. Maybe they planned to shoot him. For what reason you may ask? Racism, even today it still exists. You can see it everywhere. Generally, white people will get away with certain crimes while other minorities seem to receive grave punishments. This is the reality of what America is boiling down to. This is not for every case, but it seems to be becoming a much more prevalent issue lately. In the eyes of God every single person's life is equal to that of another, so why must police not see it the same.

I am sure that many other people feel that they cannot trust police anymore, I know that I can't. At one point in time we could depend on officers to bring justice and protect us. Now I feel like no one can trust them to do this. Incidents like Brown's and Thomas's prove this to us. In both circumstances these men were claimed to not pose as a threat, yet they were still killed.

In the case of Michael Brown, he was shot several times. There is no reason for an officer to shoot him as many times as they did. What is the purpose to overkill? I don't believe an officer should shoot unless their life is honestly being threatened by another gun or equivalent weapon.

Issues like this are very significant because we need to stand up as a nation to see any change. We need to stick up for our brothers and sisters who lives are being taken by corrupt police officers. I realize that not every police officer is bad and that many do their jobs and help keep the country safe, but for the ones who are committing injustices such as this need to resign from their jobs and some need prison time. An officer takes an oath to protect and serve its people not kill and lock up innocent people.

Honestly the only way I think that this problem can be resolved is to make it mandatory that officers wear a camera on themselves. This way the entire scene can be filmed and then later we can detect if they were being threatened or not. I feel like there is nothing wrong with enacting a policy such as this. I feel Americans will be in favor of this overall.

If we do not stand up for these people, no one will. We need to give voice to those who have lost theirs. Everyday there are police officers who commit crimes against their fellow people and nothing is generally done about this. Just because you are the law does not make you above it. Police can get away with things like this because they know what techniques to use to hide evidence. This is what they do for a living, they work with criminals, and laws.

This topic interests me because I saw a video on Facebook about Michael Brown's mother. In this video she could not stop crying after she found her sons body on the road. She claimed she saw everyone huddled outside and ask who died and when they said it was her son she immediately broke down. You could surely see the pain in her eyes. They say nothing is worse to a mother than losing a child and you could certainty see that in this video.

Often times, we are not concerned with something unless we are personally facing it. But I think we all need to take a stance before this becomes reality in our own homes. If we continue to let officers off the way we have previously, nothing will change. It should not be a question if these officers will be reprehended it should be certain.

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