Nov 26, 2014 4 min read

A perusal of social media sites revealed no shortage of newly minted legal, civil rights and law enforcement “experts” Monday night after a Missouri grand jury declined to indict Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson in the August shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown.

There was outrage from those who think Wilson got away with murder, and relief for those who thought the officer was on the verge of being railroaded by public opinion.

But all of these expressions had one thing in common: They were simply opinions, and in many cases, if not most, they were based on scant factual knowledge. Despite a fairly ridiculous level of television news coverage, those of us who were not in the grand jury room really have no idea what level of justice was brought to bear in this case.

We know there was a violent confrontation between Wilson and the 18-year-old Brown that left Brown shot to death. Despite forensic evidence and witness accounts, the exact circumstances will always remain at least partly unknown to everyone except the officer.

What we do know is this was a horrible tragedy for the family of Michael Brown.

They have lost a son, a brother and a grandson.

But it also should be OK to feel sympathy for Wilson, whose life is forever changed.

Was Wilson’s training inadequate for him to properly respond to whatever threat Brown posed?

Did he overreact to that threat?

Wilson said he feared for his life. It’s certainly reasonable to ask whether he might have done something differently, whether he should have removed himself from the immediate confrontation and sought backup, rather than fire away until Brown was dead.

But in the heat of the moment, it’s difficult for any of us to say how we would have responded.

However much we might like to deny it, or wish it were not so, there still exists an inherent danger in simply being black in America, especially as it pertains to contacts with law enforcement. Many in this area no doubt remember the story of Jonny Gammage, a cousin of then-Steelers defensive lineman Ray Seals who was pulled over by police pretty much for the “crime” of driving a fancy car while black. Gammage was doing nothing wrong when he was stopped, but it wasn’t long before he was lying dead on a Pittsburgh street. Like it or not, black Americans can hardly be blamed if they think the color of their skin might color the kind of treatment they will receive in a situation involving police.

It’s also a reality some people in our country show no respect for law enforcement or society as a whole, and some put themselves in peril through their own actions. We’ve all seen the images of rioting and burning storefronts in Ferguson. Brown’s family – most of them, anyway – asked for peaceful protest in the wake of the grand jury’s decision. Most complied. But there still were plenty who used the situation as an excuse to act like animals, destroying innocent people’s businesses and livelihoods, further damaging the very community where it is hoped there can be healing and reconciliation.

We would like to think the spotlight cast on Ferguson would make it less likely another conflict between a young black man and a white police officer would have so tragic a conclusion, but that’s probably not the case. Every such confrontation exists apart from whatever happened in the past.

No one is going to use Wilson’s actions on that deadly day in Ferguson as an example of model police procedures, but relatively few of us were in a real life-or-death situation that forced us to make decisions like those Wilson had to make in the blink of an eye.

The grand jury’s determination does not mean Wilson was blameless in the death of Brown, but the members of that panel may well have tried to imagine themselves in that officer’s shoes and thought better of labeling him a criminal.