By Peter Main
November is expected to see a Grand Jury decide not to indict Darren Wilson, a white policeman, for the shooting of the unarmed black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri on 9 August. To undermine the well-known eyewitness accounts that Brown had his hands in the air when shot, highly selective quotes from expert witnesses have been leaked to the media.
The decision not to indict is practically a foregone conclusion. Anything else would require proof of “intention” by Wilson who, of course, claims to have acted in self-defence. Since no amount of forensic evidence can disprove Wilson’s claim “beyond doubt”, so he is likely to walk free.
Media misinformation is not the only preparation, however. Local police have spent $172,669 re-arming themselves with gas grenades, rubber bullets and pepper bombs in order to suppress the inevitable – and justified – protests that will greet the verdict.
Since August, there have been more police killings of unarmed black people, showing that anti-police brutality movements like Black Lives Matter have to go beyond protest to organising community self-defence and to demanding the withdrawal and disarming of the racist police forces.
