Michael Brown Case Study

Study of the Police Shooting of Michael Brown

Michael Brown was an 18 year old black man who was fatally shot in Ferguson, Missouri on August 9, 2014 by Officer Darren Wilson. The death of Michael Brown sparked outrage in the community as many claimed that the shooting was racially motivated. The news made national headlines and prompted protests and rallies in Ferguson, as well as other parts of the United States with the slogan “Heads up, Don’t Shoot” as many believed that Brown held up his hands and surrendered before Officer Wilson shot him. Subsequently, the Department of Justice conducted an extensive investigation where they reviewed the physical and forensic evidence as well as witness testimony (2015). Upon studying the evidence,

The use of force by law enforcement is a extremely complex topic and it’s one that is not easily defined. In the textbook Community Policing: PARTNERSHIPS FOR PROBLEM SOLVING, use of force is described as something as a wide range of actions available to police from “the officer’s mere presence to the use of deadly force” (Miller, Hess, and Orthman, 2013, p. 49). The amount of force used also includes “basic verbal and physical restraint, less-lethal force, and lethal force” (National Institute of Justice [NIJ], 2015). In addition to the different levels of force an officer can use, the context in which the use of force is necessary and to what extent is even hazier. There is not a clear consensus on what type of force is suitable in every case due to the impossible task of controlling for all the variables in the incidents that police officers encounter, which is why police exercise a great deal of discretion to determine what would be a reasonable response, “Police use discretion because no set of policies and procedures can prescribe what to do in every circumstance” (Miller, et al., 2013, p. 46). Often, these decisions are made in the blink of an eye, where an officer must assess a situation and determine what level of force is applicable, if any, and

The outrage that followed the shooting can be attributed to the general sense of injustice that goes on in the criminal justice system, especially with minorities. One of the problems about analyzing police brutality is the lack of information available, as there are no reliable sources that track how many people are killed by police each year and how many of those killings are “justified” or “unjustified”(Fischer-Baum, 2014). The lack of these statistics, coupled with biased media coverage of police homicides, has created a public perception that almost every cop uses excessive force, which in itself can be incredibly complex and complicated to define. Having statistics like these, along with better education and communication between law enforcement and the community could go a long way into changing the public perception of the police and lead to a more effective and approach to problems in law