Ferguson Residents Protest Against Death Of Michael Brown
Demonstrators protest in reaction to the shooting of Michael Brown. Reuters / Lucas Jackson

Grief and outrage swept the town of Ferguson, Missouri, following the shooting of unarmed teen Michael Brown in broad daylight by a police officer on August 9. Unfortunately, the terrible incident sparked angry protest and riots in the city, revealing extremely high tension between Ferguson residents and police enforcement.

On Monday, the family's independent autopsy report has revealed that 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot six times by police officer Darren Wilson. Two shots struck the teen's head, announced former NYC Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Michael Baden. The four remaining shots entered Brown's arms. The family decided to seek Baden's independent findings because they did not trust the report from the St. Louis police.

According to Dr. Baden, Michael Brown could have survived the first five bullets. The first shot to the head struck the teen above the right eyeball, went through his face, left through his jaw and re-entered his collarbone. Unfortunately, the sixth and last "kill shot" struck the apex of Brown's head. According to eye-witness reports, Michael Brown was already in a downward position, trying to surrender to the police officer. The gunshot wound to Brown's forearm appear as if he had put his arms up in a defensive position or to surrender.

"In my capacity as the forensic examiner for the New York State Police, I would say, 'You’re not supposed to shoot so many times,'" Dr. Baden told the New York Times. "Right now there is too little information to forensically reconstruct the shooting."

Meanwhile, violent protests continue across the town of Ferguson. Governor Jay Nixon and Mayor James Knowles sought for assistance from the National Guard to restore peace and order. Tear gas and rubber bullets were shot at Molotov cocktail-wielding protesters and vandals.

Unfortunately, the death of unarmed 18-year-old victim Michael Brown is a tragedy that is all too familiar. According to ColorLines.com, a joint national investigation was conducted to understand fatal police shooting statistics in America's 10 largest cities. According to the survey results, Blacks were over represented among police shooting victims in every city.

“There is a crisis of perception where African American males and females take their lives in their hands just walking out the door,” said Delores Jones-Brown, interim director of the Center on Race, Crime and Justice at John Jay College in New York. “There is a notion they will be perceived as armed and dangerous. It’s clear that it’s not just a local problem.”

However, Blacks are not the only minorities affected by this troubling statistic: Latinos are facing a rising number of fatal police shootings as well. From just 2001 to 2005, the number of Latinos killed by police rose from 19 percent to 26 percent. The bottom line is that minorities of color face disproportionate encounters of fatal police force.

“The level of mistrust and distrust that has been sown, whether against a black man or a ‘suspicious’ undocumented person, is the same with racial profiling, discrimination, and violence,” said National Immigration Law Center executive director Marielena Hincapié in an interview with BuzzFeed. Even though Hincapié made it clear that by no means is she trying to mix immigrant rights with a black killing, she believes the prejudicing facing Latino and Black youth are extremely similar.

“I think our duty is about organizations that care about justice, whether immigrant justice, racial justice, social justice, or economic justice, it’s all part of the same struggle,” Hincapié said. “Too much injustice is happening to our young people, especially our black and brown children.”

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