Ben Stein: Michael Brown Was Armed With His “Strong, Scary Self”
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The hard left liberals are still weeping and wringing their hands over the shooting of Michael Brown, a man who had just robbed a convenience store and attacked an armed police officer. What almost all of them don’t know is you don’t have to carry a gun or a knife to be considered “armed.”
From RightWingWatch:
In an interview with Newsmax’s Steve Malzberg yesterday, conservative pundit Ben Stein insisted that Michael Brown, the black teenager who was shot to death by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, “wasn’t unarmed” because he was “armed with his incredibly strong, scary self.”
“The idea of calling this poor man ‘unarmed’ when he was six-foot-four, 300 pounds, full of muscles, apparently — from what I read in the New York Times — on marijuana, to call him unarmed is like calling Sonny Liston unarmed or Cassius Clay unarmed,” Stein said.
He went on to accuse Attorney General Eric Holder of leading a “lynching” of the police officer who killed Brown, alleging that the deaths of Brown and of Trayvon Martin were cases of a “very large so-called victim attacking a policeman.”
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If so, society has really gotten screwed up when an grown man with a gun can kill another one and we call it justified. It basically justifies what all of the gun nuts have been saying, everybody needs to start carrying a gun 24/7.
So what you’re saying is that no shooting of an adult by an adult is justifiable, contrary to the opinion of all of the gun nuts which group of course is defined by an opinion you attribute to them for the purposes of defamation. It’s hard to see where the tautology stops and the fallacy begins, but it all assumes the conclusion, doesn’t it?
The young man was on foot. How long would it take to get another unit or two there to assist him?
How long does it take an 18 year old to sprint 20 feet? Sorry, that argument sounds too much like the one that says you should call 911 if you see a burglar in your bedroom instead of shooting him. Of course I’m presuming that Brown was charging the officer and not kneeling with his hands up. Still hypothetical certainly, and we really can’t decide what only a jury can decide — and yet you have pronounced judgement, haven’t you?
Is it that the loathing and fear of firearms or sympathy for the underdog conveys some sort of poetic license? It does seem to me that there is a legal duty to stop when a police officer tells you to. It does seem to me that we owe it to civilization that we comply with this custom. It’s a blow to the big American ego certainly, but one has to be an idiot to think he’s not putting his life in danger if attempting to flee or far worse — to go on the attack.
The right of anyone to self defense and to use lethal force in a situation where a reasonable assumption of the intent and ability to cause serious bodily harm must be made is, in my opinion, self-evident and I hardly think it’s wanton immorality or some indication of society’s descent into the abyss. The ability to scoff at the law, even a repugnant law, and the necessity of using nothing more lethal than a butterfly net to apprehend violent suspects doesn’t fit into any particular model of civilization I can imagine.
But of course that’s only my opinion — others may disagree.
Well said Glenn, and I agree with you. Sorry Bill but you know my position.
Well, gee folks, since Mr. Ben Stein has weighed in on this with all of his knowledge on this subject let’s just roll up the books and call it a day. I mean, what is the point of even discussing this ant further. I have said I would with hold judgement until the investigation is over and all of the “facts”, not opinions, are out. But, I guess that is not needed since Mr. Stein, who would be in that “white flight ” category has rendered his verdict. I will still await the facts which are going to come out eventually and then one side or another is going to wail and gnash their teeth about being mistreated.
First of all, the Attorney General is investigating a pattern of behavior that the residents have complain that is discriminatory toward blacks in that community. That complaint does not surprise me. As I mentioned in my post on subcultures left to battle it out in Ferguson after white flight flew the coop. In an interview on CNN several people from the St. Louis County area said that Ferguson was not an isolated case. It and a number of other small cities in that county supported themselves largely through fines and tickets issued by their police departments and this fell disproportionately heavy on the less affluent members of the community including the blacks. Traffic stops and minor infractions of the law were more likely to be enforced by the police in those cities on those same populations because they were least able to afford to fight them.
I will again point out that when one sees the phrase, “Protect and Serve” on the side of a police vehicle, or in the mission statement of a police department, one wonders who is the police department protecting and serving. In my travels from department to department in my days of consulting I have saw the transitions of police of police departments from “serving the community” to “policing the Community”. These are two very distinctly different views of police work, especially with the smaller departments that used to be known as bedroom communities to larger cities. One can reach back to 1968 to Wilson’s studies to the service oriented police where the department saw its primary function as working with the community to deal with crime problems, as well as disruptions in the community by drugs and illegal behaviors that go with them. With this approach there is generally a substantial amount of community support for the police and their efforts. However, policing the community is different in that the police see themselves as a separate entity from the community with a purpose of ridding the community of undesirables. Undesirables do include people who commit crimes but it also include people who have bad attitudes toward the police or other authorities. In this latter style of policing everything is handled the same way whether it is a traffic ticket or a serious crime. Their is little in the way of respect toward the community member unless they are of the upper income level and thus have substantial political influence.
Now before Mike and Timmy jump on me about this, I am not saying that Ferguson is either of these, nor am I saying that it is neither of these. However, I do know that both of these departments exist across the country. I have worked on research projects that have included both kinds and I have worked as a consultant to several departments of both types that were working on changing some part of their departments. One thing that is clear from my observation and from the research, departments that “police the community” always have more complaints and problems that those that work with the community. Again, I am not positive which category Ferguson is in because I have never been there, furthermore I really do not care to go there.
I do believe this though: Michael Brown has been tried and convicted of the crime of robbery without anyone knowing the exact facts of what went on in the store. No warrant issued, no preliminary hearing, no grand jury, no arraignment, and no trial. Just a video without sound, as far as I know. The video does appear to show him taking something from the store and a man, presumed to be the store owner apparently protesting his taking that something. It may well be a strong armed robbery. It could also be that he was under aged buying tobacco products against the store owner’s wishes. I really don’t know. For now I will accept that the person in the video is Michael Brown, and he his taking the items through force or threat of force. But he yet to be proven to be that person. That will come out in the investigation.
Next, did the officer make a good and prudent decision. Mike says he would shoot and kill a 6’4″ 300 pound man coming at him. When I was a police officer I would not have. The question is, where were the less than lethal options that should have been available to the officer? In the absence of that, If the officer saw the size of the young man, why did he not hang back and wait for back up? The young man was on foot. How long would it take to get another unit or two there to assist him? Was it worth this young man’s life? Finally, if this were a civilian who shot and killed the young man would we be as clear cut in our decision about, “Yeah, sure. Kill him.” If so, society has really gotten screwed up when an grown man with a gun can kill another one and we call it justified. It basically justifies what all of the gun nuts have been saying, everybody needs to start carrying a gun 24/7.
Oh Bill…Less than lethal options? In seconds? As to poor criminal Michael Brown … well you know how much I love criminals.
Yeah, the marketing of a strong-arm robber who has 10″ and 150 Lbs on me as an “innocent child” kneeling in submission points out the dishonest way we view the world, or at least the tactically distorted way some people want us to see it.
Really, what kind of weapon would this man need to kill an old man like me or maim some policeman of normal size and strength? How much punishment is the officer OR ANYONE ELSE supposed to take to avoid harming such an innocent child? God didn’t make men equal, Sam Colt did and although I’m not going to pretend to know exactly what I would have done, shooting someone out to cause you grievous bodily harm — is such was the case — seems like legitimate self defense to me.
I’ve often wondered what happens to a social movement when it starts to wonder if reality is bad enough to support the kind of growth and attention it wants to get. I guess one option is to move on to include another mission and another option is to enhance the data to amplify the outrage.
It’s not that there are no problems in the way minorities are treated and the way some police departments act and cover up acts, but this circus hides legitimate issues and interferes with legitimate efforts to improve things.
I have a good idea what I would have done, based on my experience, and that’s exactly what Officer Wilson did, given what I know about the case. Unfortunately people think that police officers are trained hand to hand fighters, who can take down a charging rhino (or a Michael Brown) with a single Karate chop. That, of course is nonsense. While some defensive tactics are indeed taught, 40 hours in the academy, it’s a very basic course of instruction, not Navy Seal level by any means. As a result the police are given intermediate weapons which can be used under most, but not all circumstances. Using deadly force is indeed a last resort, but there are times, like the one we’re discussing when it’s warranted. In point of fact a 20 year LE veteran might draw his weapon once or twice in his career. The vast majority never, ever fire their weapon other than at the range. Your last statement sums it up quite nicely: “this circus hides legitimate issues and interferes with legitimate efforts to improve things.”
Well, as a Brit what do I know eh? All I can say is if the above is accurate and I’d been that cop I’d have bloody well shot him. Nuff said.
If a big, scary, black, unarmed guy who has smoked marijuana, like Brown, approaches a trained, armed police officer, the officer has no other choice than to act courageously and kill him. Everyone knows that puffing the demon-weed gives people super-human powers, like the ability to consume entire bags of Doritos.
Stein’s also right that America’s Attorney General wants to “lynch” the police officer because he’s white (it has nothing to do with use of excessive force) and unarmed Treyvon Martin — who neither assaulted nor was killed by a police officer — at about 6′ 150 lbs, was also a big, scary BLACK man.
I also thought the “marijuana” remark was stupid. I don’t agree that the officer used excessive force, and firmly believe the evidence will bear that out. I do not think the US Attorney General, and certainly not the WH, need to get involved in every case where a black man is shot. White men are shot and killed on a regular basis but rarely is the AG involved. Trayvon Martin, in my opinion, has no relevance in this case. Totally different set of circumstances. I reluctantly agreed with Stein, only because of his comments regarding the size of Brown and the intimidation factor attendant to that size. Police officers are trained, true, but not to engage in hand to hand combat with a person who is likely to hurt or even kill them based on their size. In most cases intermediate weapons are used, but in this case extenuating circumstances, such as Brown already attempting to take the officer’s gun, and punching him about the head, after strong arming a clerk and robbing a story, make a big difference. Were I in the officer’s place, knowing what I know now, It’s likely I would also have used deadly force to stop the threat.
I’m no fan of Stein but this is one time he got it right. More people should have shown that type of courage. Every prosecutor in the country knew this but not one opened their mouths.
Yes he got it right Tim, and I can’t stand the guy.