Michael Brown shooting/ Madana Kloss 4th period 

St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar said there was a physical confrontation between Brown, the police officer who shot him, and Brown’s friend Dorian Johnson. They claim that Brown pushed the officer into his squad car and attempted to grab his gun, before shots were fired. The officer in question has reportedly been working at the Ferguson Police Department for six years.

Johnson says that he and Brown were walking in the middle of the street when a police officer pulled up and demanded that they get on the sidewalk. Eyewitnesses added that there was a verbal confrontation, during which point the officer tried to put Brown in the squad car as Brown attempted to flee from the scene with his arms raised in the air.

Johnson says he and Brown started running after the first gunshot went off, but then the officer “shot again, and once my friend felt that shot, he turned around and put his hands in the air. He started to get down and the officer still approached with his weapon drawn and fired several more shots.”

Other eyewitnesses say that at least one shot was fired from the car before the officer emerged from the vehicle and continued to shoot.

I feel we must recognize the risks law enforcement officers take to protect our communities. We must respect their authority. And we must understand the grave reality that the way we engage a police officer can affect whether we walk away, whether we are driven away in handcuffs, or whether we are taken away on a stretcher. This is true for people of every race, from every community -- and unfortunately, with the current bias, it may more true for some of us than for others.For those who say that talking about this now is an insensitive way to blame Michael Brown for his own death, nothing could be further from the truth. No matter what turns out to have happened that Saturday afternoon, Brown was killed by the infection, by this insidious cycle. Let's see what we can accomplish if we focus on breaking that cycle.

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/workers-who-were-witnesses-provide-new-perspective-on-michael-brown/article_14a3e5f8-6c6a-5deb-92fe-87fcee622c29.html