Did a quick forum search and found nothing, thought it should be shared here. Remember though, investigation is pending, so there are no opinions allowed whatsoever regarding the case as per unwritten forum rules. However, to make it relevant to OC, I'll pose this question: If you saw this happen to a friend you were walking with and you were carrying, OC or CC, would you defend yourself and your friend with force?
*disclaimer: I hate the mainstream media. The accounts and subsequent comments by CNN reek of race-baiting in sad attempts to continue to subdivide people into groups. There has been considerable protest and rioting in Ferguson, unfortunately including looting of local businesses.
An eyewitness account:
"Dorian Johnson, 22, told CNN that he and Brown were walking in the middle of the street when a white male officer pulled up and told them, "Get the f*** on the sidewalk." The young men replied that they were "not but a minute away from our destination, and we would shortly be out of the street," Johnson said.
The officer drove forward but stopped and backed up, almost hitting the pair, Johnson said.
"We were so close, almost inches away, that when he tried to open his door aggressively, the door ricocheted both off me and Big Mike's body and closed back on the officer," Johnson said.
Still in his car, the officer then grabbed Brown by his neck, Johnson said. Brown tried to pull away, but the officer kept pulling Brown toward him, he said.
The officer drew his weapon, and "he said, 'I'll shoot you' or 'I'm going to shoot' " and almost instantaneously fired his weapon, hitting Brown, Johnson said.
Johnson and a bloodied Brown took off running, and Johnson hid behind the first car he saw, he said. The officer got out of his car.
"I saw the officer proceeding after my friend Big Mike with his gun drawn, and he fired a second shot and that struck my friend Big Mike," Johnson told CNN's Wolf Blitzer. "And at that time, he turned around with his hands up, beginning to tell the officer that he was unarmed and to tell him to stop shooting. But at that time, the officer firing several more shots into my friend, and he hit the ground and died."
From the police:
"That Brown was unarmed is undisputed -- St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar said every casing found at the scene was from the officer's weapon -- but he said at a Sunday news conference that Brown was not an innocent victim.
"The genesis of this was a physical confrontation," Belmar said, adding that Ferguson police asked his office to investigate the case.
Without revealing what led to the dispute, Belmar said the preliminary investigation showed that the Ferguson officer tried to exit his vehicle, but Brown pushed him back into the car," where he physically assaulted the police officer" and struggled over the officer's weapon, Belmar said.
A shot was fired inside the police car, and Brown was eventually shot about 35 feet away from the vehicle, Belmar said.
It's unclear how many times Brown was shot. Johnson said it was more than three, and Brown's mother said she was told he was shot eight times. Some witnesses said they heard as many as 10 shots. Belmar said only that it "was more than just a couple."
The chief didn't explain how Brown got so far away from the car or whether he was surrendering. He said he was declining to disclose certain details because he didn't want to "prejudice" the case."
Cite:
http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/11/us/missouri-ferguson-michael-brown-what-we-know/index.html
