I'm not a lawyer, so you are getting way beyond me. I think focusing on the individuals in this case misses the point completely.

On one side you have supporters of a guy who represents everything that is wrong with the police, and on the other you have supporters of a kid who just robbed a store and then punched a cop. Neither side will accomplish any kind of progress by lining up behind these two individuals. I find that incredibly frustrating, because there are real issues that can only be addressed at a much higher level. Grand juries, riots, fires... these all act to distract attention from any attempt to reform the institutions which are failing the disenfranchised.

I can only speculate, but suspect that the Justice Department is not done with the Ferguson Police Department just yet.

What charges?

Agreed. I want my son to be able to walk down the street without harassment. This won't happen by occasionally charging an officer who shoots and kills a kid. Change in this case needs to be top-down: the cops need to be valued by the community or they are not doing their jobs. They are public servants and it would be best that they remember this.

I do agree with you. I'm just not seeing how making this guy a scapegoat would change anything. The blame lies with the department, and not with the poor bastard that they train to be like this and then throw out onto the street. There are 100 other guys on the force who would do the same damn thing, because that is the way the system is set up.

You either know, or are pretending to know, about forensics. I am not trained in this field, and so have to go with the best source of data that I have available to me. If you want me to accept your version of the events, you would need to explain why it conflicts with the Justice Department's, and why I should use your information instead of theirs.

Correct. If we don't like how he behaved in this situation, and he behaved according to his training, then the training needs to change.

I'm merely reiterating the events as established by the grand jury investigation. That is the best resource that I have available to me. Your version of events does not seem as credible to me.

It's never excessive to defend yourself, and it asks too much from someone who is actively defending themselves to think completely clearly. When the rush of adrenaline kicks in, the best you can hope for is that they follow their rote training. So discussing the actual killing is missing the point entirely. The question shouldn't be about the actions of this individual officer, but the way that the entire police department conducts itself and its training. Why does the black community react so violently when a kid who just robbed a store gets shot after attacking a cop? That indicates a severe disenfranchisement. Cops should be embraced as vital to the community. If that isn't the case, then they are "doing it wrong".

I'd add that I'd personally like to see us get to a point where cops no longer need to carry a handgun. This would require getting to a point where crooks with handguns are rare, but there you go. This latest episode would most likely have been non-fatal.

From what I heard of the Justice Department synopsis, the prosecutor had nothing that he could have taken to trial. Most of the prosecution eyewitnesses would have been discredited immediately, and that left only defense eyewitnesses. All of the forensics and the autopsy supported the defense.

According to the grand jury findings, he ceased firing once the victim stopped moving toward him.

That might very well be the most reasonable action to take going forward, and maybe that should be incorporated into police training. As long as the officer's actions were in line with currently established procedures, that does not make his actions criminal.

There is clearly a huge racial problem in our police departments, and that may have even led to this particular tragedy. Of course, robbing a store and then fighting with the responding officer also led to this tragedy. I think it is a shame that people have hung so much weight on this particular case - Brown is not the easiest person to feel sympathy for. To me, the shocking response of the police to the initial protests was far more indicative of a systemic problem than the shooting of Brown.

Could you clarify what exactly confuses you?

And your assertion that you know better or somehow have better information than those jurors is absurd.

Not true. If he were convicted in a court of law, I'd likely call him a criminal. I wasn't there and I can't possibly have as much information as the grand jury did, social media be damned.

Yes, I don't like to convict people based on public opinion. The cop is a person, too.

Apply the standards in reverse - how loud would the outcry be if the officer were dead and Mike Brown faced a mostly-white jury?

It's a lot more fair than the mob trial that the officer has gotten outside of the justice system.

What happened here is that a prosecutor covered his ass by handing the whole thing over to a grand jury when it would normally have never progressed that far.

I certainly agree. Just not in this case.