Reading the past few pages, it seems a few people are misunderstanding how strong a bullet actually is.
It should be noted that the gun Wilson used was a .40 calibre bullet (10.16mm). They're standard issue, and have moderate to low stopping power against a human.
The thing with police guns is that they're meant to inflict pain to take the person down, not to kill. Similar to a tazer, but more damaging. Which is why normally police aim for the legs or arms where fatal injury is less likely to happen. Even then, a shot to the stomach or possibly lung would be survivable if rushed to the hospital on time.
The bullet itself is more or less a solid chunk of lead/copper. It's not meant to do anything special but go through the skin and get stuck in the body. They're not supposed to leave out the other side to reduce damage as much as possible. They're meant to stop you, not to kill.
(Disregarding accidental hits to the vital organs.)
On the other hand, if a person is shown that he isn't going to go down without a fight, usually when they're armed with guns of equal or greater firepower, the police won't take a chance until the weapons are clearly released from their hands, even if it means taking a life.
In comparison, a .30 calibre round in a hunting rifle is much different. These bullets could easily kill a man if impacted on most parts of the body. They're designed to compress as soon as they hit flesh, or even deform when in mid-air, looking similar to this.
These are very deadly, as they're meant to cause as much internal bleeding as possible to leave a trail, and to get the heart/lungs to fail as quickly as possible.
They're not used by the police because even a shot to the ankle could cause someone to bleed to death very quickly. These types of bullets aren't even used against soldiers in war, as they're considered inhumane and cruel. (Afaik)
This is what a .40 calibre round should look like if coming out the other side of a person.
The bullet should stay in one piece to minimalize blood loss.
The purpose of the bullet is to put the person in shock, hopefully stopping them from doing whatever action the police were telling them to stop doing.
However in this case, we have the problem of the person being shot 6 times. Doesn't really matter what calibre the bullet is. It could be a .22 round for the sake of this example. There will be too many holes in you, and you will be losing a lot of blood. However, 1 shot isn't always enough to take down a man. Two to three hits are quite often what it takes to subdue the assailant
In the claims of Wilson, Brown kept coming forward at him, causing him to discharge 4 more shots at him to halt his activity. At least going off the RCMP laws that I'm aware of, the shooting count is justified, as they're meant to stop the person from attacking, and it's only when Brown's body and mind realized that it was in trouble, and the adrenaline stopped flowing, that he probably fell to the ground and died.
Adrenaline is the body's natural painkiller. If the statements of Brown attacking Wilson through the vehicle were true, it would've been surging through his system due to flight or fight instinct, and in which case his brain chose fight. In the event of this happening, the brain prepares itself for the pain about to come when fighting, and can potentially shrug off bullets until the pain is too intense to ignore, or succumbs to the injuries.
An example more people could relate too would be if they ever got into a physical fight with someone, you normally don't realize how much pain you're actually in until the fight is over or you're loosing horribly. Or when you manage to experience something partially traumatic, such as a scary slip on ice, only to when you can catch your breath an re-orient yourself, you suddenly realize. "Ow, my tailbone loving hurts"
Also, I've chosen to take neutral ground again because I was being a huge loving cunt earlier. Can't really justify it either, but whatever. It's not fun being angry over nothing.
Apologies to Kimon, and Foxscotch and anyone else respectively effected. I don't have the capacity to debate intelligently without throwing around insults like skittles in one of their commercials.
I will stand by the stance however, that based on how the evidence can be inconclusive, that the grand jury couldn't have come to a possible conclusion based on whatever evidence they had that could completely prove Wilson guilty. While I do now see that letting him off scott free isn't the best thing to do, it could've been the Jury's only choice if the provided evidence was inconclusive. As well, they're fed evidence that is unaffected by the press and social media. They're supposed to be an unbiased system, and either the evidence was telling them that Wilson was in the right, or that it was not enough to convict him of proper charges.
Although me taking it as something to celebrate was well undeserved. I have to offer my utmost respect for the family, as it can be heartbreaking knowing that proper justice wasn't delivered over their son's death. I should feel ashamed, and I do.
Personally, Wilson should've been reprimanded to some degree. How far I'm not sure, but control is something that is taught during in police school, and that an officer has to keep as much control as possible.
