Key Factor in Police Shootings: ‘Reasonable Fear’

Ferguson residents began protesting after Mr. Brown was shot on Saturday, and they continued in front of police headquarters on Sunday. Credit Dilip Vishwanat for The New York Times        

N.Y. TIMES

Each time police officers draw their weapons, they step out of everyday law enforcement and into a rigidly defined world where written rules, hours of training and Supreme Court decisions dictate not merely when a gun can be fired, but where it is aimed, how many rounds should be squeezed off and when the shooting should stop.

The Ferguson, Mo., police officer who fatally shot an unarmed African-American teenager two weeks ago, setting off protest and riots, was bound by 12 pages of police department regulations, known as General Order 410.00, that govern officers’ use of force. Whether he followed them will play a central role in deliberations by a St. Louis County grand jury over whether the officer, Darren Wilson, should be charged with a crime in the shooting.

 

But as sweeping as restrictions on the use of weapons may be, deciding whether an officer acted correctly in firing at a suspect is not cut and dried. A host of outside factors, from the officer’s perception of a threat to the suspect’s behavior and even his size, can emerge as mitigating or damning.

 

The police, the courts and experts say some leeway is necessary in situations where officers under crushing stress must make split-second decisions with life-or-death consequences. A large majority of officers never use their weapons. A handful of officers may be rogue killers, researchers say, but laboratory simulations of armed confrontations show that many more officers — much like ordinary civilians — can make honest mistakes in the pressure cooker of an armed encounter.

 

“It’s a difficult job for coppers out there,” Timothy Maher, a former officer and a professor of criminology at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, said in an interview. “In the heat of the moment, things are happening so quickly. If they were role-playing, they could say, ‘Time out.’ But in real life, it’s, ‘Wow — in my training, this guy stopped, but here, he didn’t.’ ”

Some citizens who read witnesses’ accounts of police shootings or view cellphone videos of them see the shootings as brutal and unjustified, which underscores a frequent gap between public perceptions and official views.

 

The rules dictate when an officer may move from mild coercion, such as issuing an order or grabbing a suspect’s arm, to stronger or even deadly action. In general, officers are allowed to respond with greater force after a suspect does so, and the type of response — from a gentle push to a tight grip, a baton strike to a stun gun shock to a bullet — rises as the threat grows.

 

Every step, however, is overshadowed by a single imperative: If an officer believes he or someone else is in imminent danger of grievous injury or death, he is allowed to shoot first, and ask questions later. The same is true, the courts have ruled, in cases where a suspect believed to have killed or gravely injured someone is fleeing and can only be halted with deadly force.

“It’s a very simple analysis, a threat analysis,” said Geoffrey P. Alpert, a University of South Carolina professor and expert on high-risk police activities. “If a police officer has an objectively reasonable fear of an imminent threat to his life or serious bodily harm, he or she is justified in using deadly force. And not just his life, but any life.”

 

"Objectively reasonable” is a standard set by the Supreme Court in 1989 when it said that a police officer’s use of excessive force must be seen in the context of what reasonable officers would do in the same situation, given the danger and stress of police work.

Much remains in dispute about Officer Wilson’s fatal shooting of Michael Brown, the 18-year-old whom he stopped as Mr. Brown was walking home about noon on Aug. 9. But the question of whether Officer Wilson’s actions were objectively reasonable will likely be at the crux of that debate.

 

Lawrence Kobilinsky, chairman of the department of science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said if the evidence shows a close-up shooting and a struggle, it will go better for Officer Wilson.

Ferguson police officials have said Mr. Brown and a friend were walking in the street when Officer Wilson stopped them. In an ensuing struggle, they said, Officer Wilson was hit in the face and Mr. Brown tried to take his gun, which discharged. Later, Officer Wilson shot Mr. Brown six times as the two men faced each other.

 

David Klinger, also a former police officer and a professor and criminologist at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, has interviewed in depth about 300 officers who fired weapons in confrontations with suspects. A blow to the head by itself would not justify a shooting, he said, but other factors also could be at work.

“Sometimes you make a straight-up mistake,” Mr. Klinger said. “ ‘He punched me, so I shot him.’ Punching and shooting don’t go together unless you’re much bigger than me or you have martial arts training.”

 

“Let the physical evidence tell us what happened,” said Pat Diaz, a former South Florida homicide detective who investigated more than 100 police shootings and now works as a court-certified expert witness. “How badly injured was the police officer? Was he dazed? Was Michael Brown on drugs? Let’s see what’s really going on here.”

“He may have been pulling the trigger out of pure adrenaline, because he was in fear,” Mr. Diaz said. “If the cop has no injuries, then it’s clear-cut and hard to say he should have been shot. It’s all going to be told by the physical evidence.”

Similarly, said Mr. Kobilinsky of John Jay, “If a felon is fleeing and is known to be unarmed and poses no danger of bodily harm to either a police officer or civilians in the area, then the officer will no doubt have legal issues if he uses deadly force to subdue that person.”

 

At Washington State University in Spokane, researchers have run hundreds of simulated confrontations with suspects, using 60 filmed situations based on real life and performed by trained actors. Police officers participating in the simulations are wired to monitor body and brain functions.

The results show that as the simulations become more complex — adding bystanders, dimming lights, turning up background noise — officers are more likely to make mistakes in judgment, said Bryan Vila, a professor of criminal justice and former police officer who oversees the research.

 

“People have to make a decision before there’s enough time to study everything about the situation and what all the possible consequences could be,” he said. “Even if a cop does everything right in a very fast-paced, low-information situation where the risks are very high, the potential consequences of a mistake are very high.”

   

Shooting Accounts Differ as Holder Schedules Visit to Ferguson

F.B.I. agents went door to door looking for witnesses. Credit Eric Thayer for The New York Times        

N.Y.TIMES

As a county grand jury prepared to hear evidence on Wednesday in the shooting death of a black teenager by a white police officer that touched off 10 days of unrest here, witnesses have given investigators sharply conflicting accounts of the killing.

 

Some of the accounts seem to agree on how the fatal altercation initially unfolded: with a struggle between the officer, Darren Wilson, and the teenager, Michael Brown. Officer Wilson was inside his patrol car at the time, while Mr. Brown, who was unarmed, was leaning in through an open window.

Many witnesses also agreed on what happened next: Officer Wilson’s firearm went off inside the car, Mr. Brown ran away, the officer got out of his car and began firing toward Mr. Brown, and then Mr. Brown stopped, turned around and faced the officer.

 

But on the crucial moments that followed, the accounts differ sharply, officials say. Some witnesses say that Mr. Brown, 18, moved toward Officer Wilson, possibly in a threatening manner, when the officer shot him dead. But others say that Mr. Brown was not moving and may even have had his hands up when he was killed.

 

The new details on the witness accounts emerged as Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. was scheduled to visit Ferguson on Wednesday to meet with F.B.I. agents who have been conducting a civil rights investigation into the shooting.

 

Mr. Holder and top Justice Department officials were weighing whether to open a broader civil rights investigation to look at Ferguson’s police practices at large, according to law enforcement officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal talks. The issue came up after news reports revealed a 2009 case in which a man said that four police officers beat him, then charged him with damaging government property — by getting blood on their uniforms.

Under Mr. Holder, the Justice Department has opened nearly two dozen such investigations into police departments, more than twice as many as were opened in the previous five years, according to department data.

 

Officer Darren Wilson at a meeting. Credit City of Ferguson, via Associated Press        

 

 The fatal confrontation began on Aug. 9 shortly after the police received reports that two men had robbed a convenience store in Ferguson. Officer Wilson, who was not responding to the robbery, had stopped to speak with Mr. Brown and a friend, Dorian Johnson. The Ferguson police chief, Thomas Jackson, said that it was around the time that Officer Wilson started talking to the two that he realized they fit the description of the suspects in the convenience store robbery.

A lawyer for Mr. Johnson said that his client was interviewed by the F.B.I. and the St. Louis County police last week for nearly four hours. In that interview, Mr. Johnson admitted that he and Mr. Brown had stolen cigarillos from the store, said the lawyer, Freeman R. Bosley Jr.

 

Mr. Bosley said that the officer told the two to get off the street, adding that Mr. Johnson told the officer that he lived nearby. They got into a bit of a verbal dispute with the officer about whether walking in the street constituted a crime, Mr. Bosley said.

 

Contrary to what several witnesses have told law enforcement officials, Mr. Bosley said that the officer then reached out of the window with his left hand and grabbed Mr. Brown by the throat.

He said Mr. Brown pushed him off, and the officer then grabbed Mr. Brown’s shirt.

“My client sees the officer pull a gun and hears him say, ‘I’ll shoot you’ — then ‘pow!’ there was a shot,” Mr. Bosley said, referring to the one that apparently went off in the car. “He did not describe a scuffle. It was more of a scuffle for him to get away.”

 

However, law enforcement officials say witnesses and forensic analysis have shown that Officer Wilson did sustain an injury during the struggle in the car.

As Officer Wilson got out of his car, the men were running away. The officer fired his weapon but did not hit anyone, according to law enforcement officials.

 

A man who lives nearby, Michael T. Brady, said in an interview that he saw the initial altercation in the patrol car, although he struggled to see exactly what was happening.

 

“It was something strange,” said Mr. Brady, 32, a janitor. “Something was not right. It was some kind of altercation. I can’t say whether he was punching the officer or whatever. But something was going on in that window, and it didn’t look right.”

 

Mr. Brady said he could see Mr. Johnson at the front passenger side of the car when he and Mr. Brown suddenly started running. Mr. Brady did not hear a gunshot or know what caused them to run. But he said he did see a police officer get out of the patrol car and start walking briskly while firing on Mr. Brown as he fled.

What happened next could be what the case turns on. Several witnesses have told investigators that Mr. Brown stopped and turned around with his arms up.

 

According to his account to the Ferguson police, Officer Wilson said that Mr. Brown had lowered his arms and moved toward him, law enforcement officials said. Fearing that the teenager was going to attack him, the officer decided to use deadly force. Some witnesses have backed up that account. Others, however — including Mr. Johnson — have said that Mr. Brown did not move toward the officer before the final shots were fired.

 

The F.B.I., Mr. Bosley said, pressed Mr. Johnson to say how high Mr. Brown’s hands were. Mr. Johnson said that his hands were not that high, and that one was lower than the other, because he appeared to be “favoring it,” the lawyer said.

James McKnight, who also said he saw the shooting, said that Mr. Brown’s hands were up right after he turned around to face the officer.

“I saw him stumble toward the officer, but not rush at him,” Mr. McKnight said in a brief interview. “The officer was about six or seven feet away from him.”

THE GUARDIAN

Darren Wilson, the 28-year-old police officer who killed an unarmed Ferguson teenager with a shot to the head, has so far said nothing publicly about the incident.
Wilson and his girlfriend, Barbara Spradling, left their home in Crestwood, a predominantly white neighbourhood some 18 miles from Ferguson, before he was named last week in connection with the shooting of Michael Brown.
But before they left, Spradling gave an account of the shooting to a friend, who says it is markedly different from the narrative espoused by Brown’s family and their supporters.

Spradling told the friend who spoke to the Guardian that Brown initiated the altercation by striking Wilson in the face, leading to a struggle for Wilson’s gun that resulted in one shot being fired in the police vehicle.
St Louis County police chief Jon Belmar said at a news conference on Sunday that when Wilson got out of his squad car, Brown pushed him back in, and a struggle ensued. Belmar said at least one shot was fired from the officer’s gun inside the police car. An officer with the St Louis County police, who declined to be named, told the Guardian that Brown sustained an injury to his thumb at this point; the autopsy released on Monday shows that one shot hit Brown’s hand.

Johnson has given several slightly differing accounts of the incident. A week ago he told MSNBC that as a squad car pulled up, Wilson called out at them to “get the fuck on the sidewalk”, before the car reversed back alongside them. Johnson claims the officer opened his door onto Brown, and the door bounced off him.
Johnson, in an account supported by other eyewitnesses, maintains that Wilson grabbed Brown through the window of his squad car. Johnson, in a disputed claim, said that Wilson fired a shot while still grabbing on to Brown.
What is not disputed is that Brown then made off. In his MSNBC interview, Johnson said Brown was shot in the back, at which point he turned around and put his hands up. “I don’t have a gun, stop shooting,” Brown said, according to Johnson. (Johnson’s assertion that Brown was shot in the back was not supported by the findings of the independent autopsy.)
But Spradling told the friend that Brown turned around after the officer called on him to stop. In Wilson’s version, Brown was not shot while surrendering, but while moving toward Wilson in a threatening manner. Brown reportedly continued to move toward Wilson even after being shot, and did not stop moving forward until suffering a mortal wound to the head.
“He just kept coming,” the friend said Wilson claimed.
In Wilson’s account, Brown never raised his hands to plead for his life, or said “don’t shoot”, but rather taunted Wilson before moving forward and being shot.

Autopsy Shows Michael Brown Was Struck at Least 6 Times

Prof. Shawn L. Parcells, a pathologist assistant, explained the Brown family’s independent preliminary autopsy report that showed at least six bullet wounds in the body of the slain teenager.

                       Image CreditRoberto Rodriguez/European Pressphoto Agency

N.Y. TIMES

Michael Brown, the unarmed black teenager who was killed by a police officer, sparking protests around the nation, was shot at least six times, including twice in the head, a preliminary private autopsy performed on Sunday found.

One of the bullets entered the top of Mr. Brown’s skull, suggesting his head was bent forward when it struck him and caused a fatal injury, according to Dr. Michael M. Baden, the former chief medical examiner for the City of New York, who flew to Missouri on Sunday at the family’s request to conduct the separate autopsy. It was likely the last of bullets to hit him, he said.

Mr. Brown, 18, was also shot four times in the right arm, he said, adding that all the bullets were fired into his front.

 

The bullets did not appear to have been shot from very close range because no gunpowder was present on his body. However, that determination could change if it turns out that there is gunshot residue on Mr. Brown’s clothing, to which Dr. Baden did not have access.

 

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. last month. He was set to brief President Obama, returning in Washington, on Monday. Credit Saul Loeb/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images        

 

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said Sunday that the Justice Department would conduct its own autopsy, in addition to the one performed by local officials and this private one because, a department spokesman said, of “the extraordinary circumstances involved in this case and at the request of the Brown family.”

 

People have been asking: How many times was he shot? This information could have been released on Day 1,” Dr. Baden said in an interview after performing the autopsy. “They don’t do that, even as feelings built up among the citizenry that there was a cover-up. We are hoping to alleviate that.”

 

Dr. Baden provided a diagram of the entry wounds, and noted that the six shots produced numerous wounds. Some of the bullets entered and exited several times, including one that left at least five different wounds.

“This one here looks like his head was bent downward,” he said, indicating the wound at the very top of Mr. Brown’s head. “It can be because he’s giving up, or because he’s charging forward at the officer.”

He stressed that his information does not assign blame or justify the shooting.

 

“We need more information; for example, the police should be examining the automobile to see if there is gunshot residue in the police car,” he said.

Dr. Baden, 80, is a well-known New York-based medical examiner, who is one of only about 400 board-certified forensic pathologists in the nation. He reviewed the autopsies of both President John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and has performed more than 20,000 autopsies himself.

He is best known for having hosted the HBO show “Autopsy.”Dr. Baden said that because of the tremendous attention to the case, he waived his $10,000 fee.

 

One of the bullets shattered Mr. Brown’s right eye, traveled through his face, exited his jaw and re-entered his collarbone. The last two shots in the head would have stopped him in his tracks and were likely the last fired.

Mr. Brown, he said, would not have survived the shooting even if he had been taken to a hospital right away. The autopsy indicated that he was otherwise healthy.

Dr. Baden said it was unusual for the federal government to conduct a third autopsy, but dueling examinations often occur when there is so much distrust of the authorities. The county of St. Louis has conducted an autopsy, and the results have not yet been released.

 

18-year-old Michael Brown

 

According to what has emerged so far, on Saturday, Aug. 9, Mr. Brown, along with a companion, Dorian Johnson, was walking in the middle of Canfield Drive, a fistful of cigarillos in Mr. Brown’s hand, police say, which a videotape shows he stole from a liquor store on West Florissant Ave.

At 12:01 p.m., they were stopped by Darren Wilson, a police officer, who ordered them off the road and onto the sidewalk, Mr. Johnson, who is 22, later said.

 

The police have said that what happened next was a physical struggle between Mr. Brown and Officer Wilson that left the officer with a swollen face. Mr. Johnson and others have said that it was a case of racial profiling and police aggression from a white officer toward a black man. Within minutes, Mr. Brown, who was unarmed, was dead of gunshot wounds.

The sequence of events provided by law enforcement officials places Mr. Brown and Mr. Johnson at Ferguson Market and Liquors, a store several blocks away on West Florissant Ave., at about 11:50 a.m. After leaving the store with the cigarillos, the two walked north on West Florissant, a busy commercial thoroughfare, toward Canfield Drive, a clerk reported to the police.

 

Mr. Brown was a big man at 6-foot-4 and 292 pounds, though his family and friends described him as quiet and shy, a homebody who lived with his grandmother.

It is about a 10-minute walk from Ferguson Market to the spot where Officer Wilson, 28, with six years’ experience, approached Mr. Brown and Mr. Johnson.

The police tell of an officer who was enforcing the minor violation of jaywalking, as Mr. Brown and Mr. Johnson ignored the sidewalk and strolled down the middle of the road instead.

 

The morning after the shooting, Chief Jon Belmar of the St. Louis County police said that Officer Wilson was leaving his police car when Mr. Brown “allegedly pushed the police officer back into the car,” where he “physically assaulted the police officer.”

“Within the police car there was a struggle over the officer’s weapon,” Chief Belmar said. “There was at least one shot fired in the car.” At that point, the police said, Officer Wilson left his vehicle and fatally shot Mr. Brown.

 

Mr. Johnson, who declined to be interviewed, has described the events differently in television interviews. While he and Mr. Brown walked, he said, Officer Wilson stopped his vehicle and told them to get on the sidewalk. When they refused, Officer Wilson slammed on his brakes and drove in reverse to get closer.

When the officer opened his door, it hit Mr. Brown. With his left hand, Officer Wilson reached out and grabbed Mr. Brown by the neck, Mr. Johnson said.

“It’s like tug-of-war,” Mr. Johnson said. “He’s trying to pull him in. He’s pulling away, that’s when I heard, ‘I’m gonna shoot you.’ ”

 

 

A witness, Tiffany Mitchell, said in an interview with MSNBC that she heard tires squeal, then saw Mr. Brown and Officer Wilson “wrestling” through the open car window. A shot went off from within the car, Mr. Johnson said, and the two began to run away from the officer.

According to Ms. Mitchell, “The officer gets out of his vehicle,” she said, pursuing Mr. Brown, then continued to shoot.

Mr. Johnson said that he hid behind a parked car and that Mr. Brown was struck by a bullet in his back as he ran away, an account that Dr. Baden’s autopsy appears to contradict.

 

“Michael’s body jerks as if he was hit,” Ms. Mitchell said, “and then he put his hands up.” Mr. Brown turned, Mr. Johnson said, raised his hands, and said, “I don’t have a gun, stop shooting!”

Officer Wilson continued to fire and Mr. Brown crumpled to the ground, Mr. Johnson said.

 

Mr. Brown’s body remained in the street for several hours, a delay that Chief Jackson said last week made him “uncomfortable.” Antonio French, a St. Louis alderman who has been active in this case, said on ABC on Sunday that the body had remained in the street for nearly five hours.

At one point, a woman can be heard shouting, “Where is the ambulance? Where is the ambulance?”

Ferguson Crisis: Missouri Gov Says Police Will Present 'Softer Front' / Robin Williams Had Parkinson's / Cease-Fire Extended

Whitney Curtis for The New York Times        

 Capt. Ron Johnson (above photo) of the Missouri State Highway Patrol was chosen to command the officers taking over security responsibilities in Ferguson from the St. Louis County police, which had been criticized for inflaming tensions with protesters by firing rubber bullets and tear gas and deploying armored vehicles. Alarm had been rising across the country at images of a mostly white police force, in a predominantly African-American community, aiming military-style weapons at protesters and firing tear gas and rubber bullets.

Capt. Ronald S. Johnson, the highway patrol official appointed by the governor to take over the response, immediately signaled a change in approach. Captain Johnson told reporters he had ordered troopers to remove their tear-gas masks, and in the early evening he accompanied several groups of protesters through the streets, clasping hands, listening to stories and marching alongside them.

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N.Y TIMES

FERGUSON, Mo. — The chief of police here said  that he had reconsidered his decision to release the name of the police officer involved in the fatal shooting of an unarmed African-American teenager and would not do so because of concerns about the officer’s safety.

The Ferguson Police Department had said it would release the officer’s name by noon on Tuesday, but then it reversed itself after it said that threats had been made on social media against the officer and the city’s police.

“The value of releasing the name is far outweighed by the risk of harm to the officer and his family,” the police chief, Thomas Jackson, said in announcing a decision that was quickly criticized. The officer has been placed on administrative leave.

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DAILY BEAST
 Susan Schneider, widow of the late comedy legend Robin Williams, revealed in a statement Thursday that her husband had been battling the early stages of Parkinson’s disease, a degenerative disorder that targets the nervous system. “Robin’s sobriety was intact and he was brave as he struggled with his own battles of depression, anxiety, as well as early stages of Parkinson’s disease, which he was not yet ready to share publicly,” Schneider wrote. “It is our hope in the wake of Robin’s tragic passing that others will find the strength to seek the care and support they need to treat whatever battles they are facing so they may feel less afraid.” Williams took his own life at his home in Tiburon, California, on Monday morning.

NPR

So far, a five-day extension to a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas appears to be holding, NPR's Jackie Northam reports from Jerusalem.
She says, "There were a few tense hours before the ... extension was announced — rockets were fired from Gaza into southern Israel, and the Israeli military responded with airstrikes. But it's been quiet since, as both sides prepare to return to Egyptian-brokered negotiations aimed at creating a long-term truce."