The Ferguson Mystery

There are plenty of unanswered questions about the death of Michael Brown, but there is only one real mystery: why won’t the authorities tell us Officer Darren Wilson’s side of the story?

Charles Ogletree is a goofball left-wing professor at Harvard Law School and, no surprise, a mentor to Barack Obama. But Ogletree inadvertently stumbled over the truth in a television interview:

NBC talked to Harvard Law School Professor Charles Ogletree, who had this to say:

“I think the first thing that needs to happen, you need to arrest Officer Wilson. He shot and killed a man, shot him multiple times. … No one knows anything about him, no one knows why he did it.”

Good point! “No one knows why he did it.” The physical evidence, the autopsy, and other known facts strongly suggest that officer Wilson acted in self-defense. Brown and his accomplice (now the witness who claims that Brown was trying to surrender when shot) had robbed a convenience store just ten minutes earlier, and were escaping when Wilson came across them a few blocks away. Initially, Wilson told them to stop blocking traffic by walking in the road. A confrontation followed.

The details are unknown, but it seems highly probable that Brown attacked Wilson. Wilson apparently felt sufficiently threatened by the 6′ 4″, 300 pound Brown that he shot him six times, a typical number when defending oneself against an assailant. All of the bullets were in the front, suggesting that Brown continued to charge, and only the last, which struck Brown on the top of the head, likely because he was charging or grappling with Wilson with his head down, would have stopped him.

The Ferguson police department has reported that Wilson was treated at a local hospital after the incident. Contradictory reports have circulated as to whether Wilson suffered a broken bone in his face as a result of Brown’s attack, but this is immaterial. If Brown charged him, Wilson was entitled to defend himself. One would think that the entire controversy could have been defused long ago if Wilson had publicly explained what happened, and, ideally, answered questions from reporters.

Why hasn’t this happened? Why does Wilson’s side of the story remain a mystery? Presumably because of calls for criminal prosecution of Wilson by Professor Ogletree and many other left-wing activists. It is reasonable to assume that a combination of the Ferguson police department, Wilson himself, and Wilson’s presumed criminal defense lawyer have concluded that for now, silence is Wilson’s best course. That is understandable, and perhaps correct if the objective is protecting Wilson from ultimate criminal liability.

But in the meantime, riots have taken place, the Ferguson controversy has been prolonged, outrageous claims have been made, racial polarization has been aggravated by the Left. By the time Darren Wilson finally speaks, it will be too late, for most purposes. And whatever he says, no matter how thoroughly it may be supported by physical evidence, Brown’s autopsy and eyewitness testimony, will be denounced by demagogues like Al Sharpton, Charles Ogletree and Eric Holder. Thus do the imperatives of the criminal law play into the hands of those who seek to profit by dividing Americans against one another.

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