Michael Brown: A Brief Summary

On August 9th, 2014, 18 year old Michael Brown got into a physical confrontation with Officer Darren Wilson. Brown attempted to pull Wilson’s gun out of his holster and shoot Wilson. There was a struggle between Wilson and Brown. In self-defense, Wilson shot and killed Michael Brown. After his death, there was a worldwide outbreak. The town of Ferguson believed that the only reason Brown was killed because he was black, and officer Wilson was white. Each day, the protests would start off peacefully with candlelight vigils and groups of people holding their hands in the air and chanting “Don’t shoot!” as Browns friend told the police during a later interview. As the days went on, the protesters became more and more violent. A vigil broke into
a war as protestors began to break into cars and smash all of the windows. The protesters saw nothing wrong with their actions and continued to protest with violence for the next several days. My point of this whole paper is to prove that Ferguson’s protesting is not an example of peaceful protesting. On average, 40-60% of small businesses in Ferguson won’t be opening their doors ever again. Several businesses windows were smashed and people stole several thousand dollars’ worth of the stores items. On top of that many businesses were burnt to the ground because of these so called “peaceful” protests. The whole town of Ferguson got a wakeup call when 9 year old Jamyla Bolden was shot and killed in her own home.
Jamyla was lying on her bed doing her homework when a bullet came through her window and killed her. The bullet came from De'Eris Marquan Brown’s gun. In his interview he said that he aimed at the house, not intending for Jamyla to be the target. Jamyla’s mom was also shot, but she is expected to make a full recovery. On the one year anniversary of the Michael Brown shooting, two officers were shot and left in critical condition. One of the officers was shot in the face, barely missing his eye. The other officer was shot in the shoulder. Both of the officers made a full recovery. After the ambush, the governor of Missouri declared a state of emergency. One protester in particular, Michael Brown’s stepfather, Louis Head, stood on top of cars parked in the road and was chanting, “Burn this b**** down” referring to burning the town of Ferguson down. That night, more than 20 smaller businesses were burnt to the ground. Protestors defended Head by saying that he was only chanting that out of emotion. The next morning, several business owners had come to their business to find that it had either been burnt to the ground and/or that it was stolen from. The owners were very upset to find that their businesses that they have worked so long and hard to build up and become successful have been looted or burned down because of careless people’s
actions. After seeing all the destruction that the protestors have done since the death of Michael Brown, the Brown family finally stood up and said what everyone needed to hear and listen too. The Brown family said that they did not want anyone to react to the death of Brown by destruction or violence. If you ask me, I’d say that it was a little bit too late for that. The family stated that they wanted Michael to be remembered by all of the memories that you had with him, not by all of these uncalled for protests. Whenever we think of the Ferguson protesting, what tends to come to mind is all of the businesses being burned to the ground, officers being shot, and innocent people being killed. But what we don’t stop and realize is that there was some people who would actually protest peacefully. Those people would protest and then go home. They strongly believed that it was simply wrong to loot or to start riots. But at the same time, there was the vast majority of Ferguson who was starting riots and burning businesses to the ground. Roughly 40-60% of the businesses in Ferguson will not be reopening their doors again because of the riots. If you think about that, that is roughly about half of the city’s businesses. On top of that, more than 20 businesses were burned to the ground. More than half of the businesses are never going to be open again because of the protests. If more than half of the businesses are not going to be reopening, then people most likely aren’t going to want to live there anymore. According to the 1st Amendment, Ferguson was allowed the right to protest peacefully. At first, Ferguson was peacefully protesting. But after about a day, everything was engulfed in flames. Cars were set on fire; businesses were burned to the ground. Candlelight vigils burst into riots. 9 year old Jamyla Bolden was shot and killed because someone shot at her house and it went through the window and killed her while she was doing her homework. The protestors completely blew the protesting out of proportion. More than 100 people were arrested after the first night of protesting. The governor of Missouri had to call it a state of emergency. The protesters barricaded around the police station, so the police had no other option than to stay where they were. There was even one lady who was held at gunpoint in her own home. She pleaded for her life, the shooter left after pleading to him for several minutes. My honest opinion of the whole Ferguson protesting is that it was completely unacceptable and that they thought they could get away with what they did only because they are black. What doesn’t make any sense to anybody is how is burning businesses to the ground, burning cars, and stealing from businesses peaceful protesting? Everybody knows that is not peaceful protesting, but us white people can’t say anything without being called racist. It isn’t being racist at all, it is speaking the truth and that they need to be fined for all the damage that they have done. Nobody makes a big deal if a black officer shoots a white guy; everyone thinks the white guy deserved it. But when a white officer shoots a black man, everything breaks loose and everyone thinks that the white officer shot him only because he is black, and that he did no wrong. If you are going to try and cause trouble, make sure that you actually know what goes on so that you know what you are talking about is actually accurate. If I was a police officer in Ferguson, I would have called in the state police and make sure that no businesses were burned down or stolen from. No police officers would of been shot. 9 year old Jamyla Bolden would still be alive, because I would of made sure that no riots would have broken out. Yes, actual peaceful protests would have been allowed, but no violent protests. Violent protests in general are out of line.