What is fear?
P1. Police whose lives are often at risk may fear for their safety even from suspects whose guns are unloaded or who brandish what looks like a weapon. The fact that they were not in mortal danger in no way diminishes their reasonable fear. Are police officer’s wrong to shoot “an unarmed suspect” or are they within their rights to neutralize a suspect whose intention was to harm? On the night of August 9, 2014, police officer Darren Wilson of the Ferguson Police Department was on patrol when he received a call about a robbery and physical dispute between an 18 year old male and a Ferguson Market clerk. A nationwide study conducted in 2013 by USA.com found that the average crime rate in Ferguson, Missouri, is 2,6885.38, which trumps the Missouri crime rate of 1,858.24 and the national average crime rate of 1,669.05. Officer Wilson spotted Michael Brown walking down the street wearing a hoodie, a red hat and yellow socks that matched the offenders description. Michael Brown’s hands were in his pockets, which perhaps gave the illusion (from a police officer’s perspective) that he could be holstering a weapon. The high crime rate alone was enough to justify officer Wilson’s feelings of uneasiness. Officer Wilson had to acknowledge that there was already a physical altercation with the Ferguson Market Clerk, so his defensiveness is valid. When officer Darren Wilson confronted Brown, Brown reached through the window of the police car, disrespecting the barrier that separates Brown from officer Wilson. Darren Wilson pleads that Michael Brown reached for his hosteled weapon forcing him to fire through Brown’s hand, which signifies the heightened severity of the situation. Because Brown’s physical gesture posed a direct threat to the safety of Darren Wilson, officer Wilson got out of his car to pursue Brown and shot him six times. While six shots seems inexcusable, we can relate to his heightened sense of perceived danger. Officer Wilson shot Michael Brown because Brown appeared to have an apparent intent to cause harm. The fact that he may not have a weapon in no way diminishes officer Wilson’s fear for his life. One of the central questions in the case of Michael Brown that was argued is whether officer Darren Wilson’s response to a situation that calls for instantaneous reactions could hold him accountable. The decision made by officer Wilson reflects an officer’s moral instinct to protect the public at any time and place that the peace is threatened.
P2. As we learn from Chris Mooney in “The Science of Why Cops Shoot Young Black Men,” we are not “born with racial prejudices. We may never even have been taught them. Rather, prejudice draws on many of the same tools that help our minds figure out what’s good and what’s bad. In evolutionary terms, it’s efficient to quickly classify a grizzly bear as dangerous. The trouble comes when the brain uses similar processes to form negative views about groups of people.” A study conducted by Lewis Loflin, a former U.S. Army and military officer , in 2012 found that of the total 2,029 arrests made in Ferguson, Missouri, 558 were white/hispanic and 1,471 were black. It is entirely possible that officer Wilson reacted to many cues in addition to the race of Michael Brown. It has been argued that the six shots to Michael Brown’s body was both excessive and unnecessary. Perhaps police officers learn to be suspicious of individuals that the general public do not fear. Officer Wilson could have developed reflexes that we don’t have, causing him to react faster or with more force than we would.
P3. Officer’s lives are often threatened. They have an obligation to respect the rights of suspects. They also have a (sometimes conflicting) right to defend themselves against mortal danger. Under the Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights, American law enforcement personnel is partially protected from investigation and prosecution arising from conduct during official performance of their duties, and provides them with privileges based on due process additional to those normally provided to other citizens. But police officers are not fully protected. This leaves them vulnerable to due process for a natural instinct. Michael Brown posed a threat to officer Wilson by neglecting to respect the barrier that separates the inside of the car from the outside of the car, while attempting to retrieve officer Wilson’s gun. As we learned from Sunil Dutta, an advocate for police safety and 17-year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department, in “Column defending cops in Ferguson sparks online fury,” people should “not challenge law enforcement — save that for lodging a complaint later. Do what the officer tells you to and it will end safely for both of you.” If people simply cooperated with police officers, there would be fewer arrests and less violence as a result. We can relate to officer Wilson’s sense of perceived danger.
P4. A study conducted by Police One showing the reaction time of a police officer when faced with different scenarios. The test subjects were 24 male volunteers recruited from an active-shooter training class at a regional SWAT conference. Each officer, equipped with a Glock training pistol, was to progress through 10 rooms in an abandoned school where an officer was to confront a suspect with a similar pistol at a distance of 10 feet. According to prior instruction, one-fifth of the suspects followed the officer’s order to surrender peacefully, whereas the rest, designated as attackers, were told to try to shoot the officer at any time they chose. Analysis showed that the suspects on average were able to fire in just 0.38 second after initial movement of their gun. Officers fired back in an average of 0.39 second after the suspect’s movement began. The officer and suspect effectively shot at similar times. Why should an officer be held responsible for a natural instinct? These numbers validate police officer’s rights to react in the way they do to certain situations. Officer Wilson shot Michael Brown’s hand out of pure response to the altercation. While the next six shots seems inexcusable, we cannot understand officer Wilson’s perceived sense of danger and excessive reaction to a potential violent situation. Effectively, it is either kill or be killed.
P5. Neil Bruntrager, a lawyer for Officer McMellon, said, “According to State v. Anthony, once a defendant injects self-defense into a case, the prosecution bears the burden of disproving the defense beyond a reasonable doubt.” Self-defense is an extremely difficult burden to carry in a court of law. The fear of imminent danger in law enforcement is a reasonable defense and may outbalance the burden of proof. (Explain why)
P6. Finally, police officers, as a highly scrutinized group, should not be held responsible for a potential threat to their well-being and others around them. The burden we place on police officers, to protect the safety of everyone they encounter, is incompatible with their human instinct to protect themselves from danger. When we scrutinize their actions without considering how often they place themselves in danger on our behalf, we impose an unjust burden on them. The threats they recognize, that we might not, are mitigating circumstances.
Works Cited
“http://www.policeone.com/Officer-Safety/articles/3705348-New-reaction-time-study-addresses-whats-reasonable-in-armed-suspect-encounters/” Police one. 26 May. 2011. 28 Oct. 2016.
“http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/20/us/ferguson-column-police-reaction/” CNN. Josh Levs. 20 Aug 2014. 28 Oct. 2016.
“http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/11/science-of-racism-prejudice” Mother Jones. Chris Mooney. 1 Dec. 2014. 28 Oct. 2016.
“https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/11/26/officer-wilson-had-a-powerful-case-for-self-defense-under-missouri-law/” The Washington Post. Paul Cassell. 26 Nov. 2014. 28 Oct. 2016.
“http://www.usa.com/ferguson-mo-crime-and-crime-rate.htm” USA.com. 1 Jan. 2016. 9 Nov. 2016.
“http://www.sullivan-county.com/racism/crime_missouri.htm” Lewis Loflin. 3 Feb. 2016. 10 Nov. 2016.
Rowan Counterintuitive 