"Michael Brown, 18, due to be buried on Monday, was no angel, with public records and interviews with..."

“Michael Brown, 18, due to be buried on Monday, was no angel, with public records and interviews with friends and family revealing both problems and promise in his young life. Shortly before his encounter with Officer Wilson, the police say he was caught on a security camera stealing a box of cigars, pushing the clerk of a convenience store into a display case. He lived in a community that had rough patches, and he dabbled in drugs and alcohol. He had taken to rapping in recent months, producing lyrics that were by turns contemplative and vulgar. He got into at least one scuffle with a neighbor.”



-

The New York Times attempts to pathetically take on Michael Brown.

"He got into at least one scuffle with a neighbor."

OK.

(via takesamuscle)

This is the only thing I’ll say about this incident and this article…

I say this about every teenager who gets in trouble:

No shit. He was 18 years old.

No one, and I mean no one, especially not an 18 year old is a fucking angel. It is not about his personality, who he fought with or not, the dumb shit he did or not. That’s bullshit. That’s copping out. That’s judging him by his stupid actions, the actions of a fucking teenager. Any teenager, angel or no, does dumb shit, they make poor life choices, they all do. Those decisions, no matter where they lay on the angel to devil spectrum DO NOT mean that he was in the wrong that night. He could have set fire to an orphanage earlier that day, that doesn’t mean he did anything wrong the before he was killed. Kids make mistakes. Teenagers are kids. Most adults are kids for christ’s sake.

Speaking to his past run ins and drug use is a fucking low blow, it’s easy and lazy and trying to make a complicated situation simple. Was he Mr. Rogers? No. Was he an up and coming football star or Ivy League deans list kid? No. What, was his killing some kind of preemptive strike? Taking out a future ‘bad egg’ before he could do any real damage? It does no good, only harm, to talk about his past as if his life history has anything to do with why that police officer discharged his weapon that night.

He was a young man who led his life with the decision making abilities of any other 18 year old. An angel? No. A devil? No. An 18 year old.

I don’t know what happened. That’s not for me to decide and I’m not going to let anyone stand around and turn speculation into fact. Opinions into reality. It taints the well.

Who was in the wrong that night? The black kid with a history or the white cop with a history? I don’t know but don’t try to make the situation easier to bear with your worldview of what a model citizen should look like.

via Tumblr http://ift.tt/1qH7xOg