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2014 St. Louis County Prosecutor's Office/ Getty
Seven months after Michael Brown was shot by Ferguson, Missouri, police officer Darren Wilson, the Department of Justice released an 86-page report on the killing. It cites a sweeping investigation by the FBI, hundreds of interviews and an extensive review of physical and forensic evidence and concludes that “Darren Wilson’s actions do not constitute prosecutable violations.”
The report lays out the reasons for not charging Wilson — who has resigned from the police force — with federal civil rights violations and examines the chronology of Aug. 9, the day Brown was killed. The tragic events of that day began a little before noon, when Brown, as seen in a surveillance video, participated in the robbery of a box of cigars from a convenience store and assaulted a store clerk as he left.
A few minutes later, Wilson, who was patrolling the area near the store, confronted Brown, and a struggle ensued. The report reads, “Brown used his right hand to grab and attempt to control Wilson’s gun. Wilson fired, striking Brown in the hand. Brown … ran at least 180 feet away, turned around and came back toward Wilson. Several witnesses stated that Brown appeared to pose a physical threat to Wilson as he moved toward Wilson. Wilson fired at Brown in what appeared to be self-defense and stopped firing once Brown fell to the ground.”
By the time it was over, Wilson had fired 12 shots at Brown, killing him on the spot.
The events of that two-minute encounter sparked a national conversation about race, violence and law enforcement in America. Before the Justice Department report was issued, I went on ride-alongs with several police officers in the Sarasota Police Department in Florida to understand what they see when they look at the events in Ferguson.
Juan Sanchez, 43, has been an officer with the City of Sarasota Police Department for 15 years.
Juan Sanchez: The truth of the matter is, anytime you come into an encounter with a police officer, there is a weapon. There’s always a weapon. There’s my weapon. And losing my weapon means losing my life. So when I look at what happened in Ferguson and the evidence that clearly says that the suspect [went] for the officer’s weapon, then to me, there’s not even a question whether he should have engaged him with his firearm or not. When someone tries to take an officer’s weapon away, they made that decision for themselves. Because all I need to do is lose consciousness and now the suspect has my weapon and he has all the time in the world to do what he wants to do.
Sgt. Ken Rainey has been with the City of Sarasota Police Department for nine years. Both his parents were police officers.
Ken Rainey: One thing that’s sort of — I feel was missed the entire time was, “What about the police officer?” So the police officer, here he is, 6'4", skinny. Bad guy is, like, 6'3", huge, aggressively attacking him. This person just committed a robbery. Now he’s aggressively attacking a police officer. And now there’s a struggle over a gun. Because any call that a police officer goes to, there’s a gun involved. Unless you are a police officer, you don’t understand what it’s like to be given this extraordinary task of basically winning every situation. I’m 5'11", 170. Ninety-five percent of the people I come across are probably tougher than me. A lot of people have been in prison. But I’m going to win every single time, and I’m going to do what’s necessary to win every single time. That officer has just as much of a right to go home to his family as anyone else. And I think people tend to forget that a lot. I don’t want to have to tell some wife, some son, you know, some parents that their son didn’t come home because he didn’t use force that he was legally allowed to in defense of his life.
Sgt. Eric Bolden, who is African-American, has been with the City of Sarasota Police Department for 25 years and was born and raised in the city.
Eric Bolden: It’s sad to say, but you do have a lot of police officers that … live on edge because of things they see in the media with African-Americans and so forth. I have a 17 year old son … I feel bad, but I have to have those same conversations with him on what he needs to do if he has an interaction or comes in contact with an officer by way of a traffic stop or just a contact on the street. I don’t believe that Caucasians have to worry about having those same conversations. I tell my son to be respectful. I tell my son that the officers have a job to do, and he understands that. But I also tell my son that if he’s stopped, that he should keep his hands where the officer could see them. Even myself, as an officer, when there’s been times when I have been traveling and I have been stopped on the road. And even as an officer — a soon-to-be-25-year veteran — when I see the lights in my rearview mirror, I still don’t know how well trained this officer is that’s coming up to my door. And everything that I’ve taught my son to do, I do myself.
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