Bush Talks At Length On Grand Jury Decision In Ferguson: 'There's Just A Flaw In The System'
By Ashley Dunkak
@AshleyDunkak
ALLEN PARK (CBS DETROIT) - Detroit Lions running back Reggie Bush posted and retweeted more than a dozen Twitter messages Monday night regarding the decision of a grand jury in Ferguson, Missouri, that chose not to charge police officer Darren Wilson, who shot and killed unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown after an altercation between the two.
"I was very passionate about that," Bush told Stoney, Bill and Sara of 97.1 The Ticket. "I lost some sleep over it last night. I felt just a sense of, I guess, anger and frustration and confusion as to what was going on and why. It just seems like history is repeating itself over and over again."
Bush said the amount of force used by the officer - he fired 12 shots, more than half of which hit Brown - bothered him.
"All I know is a young man lost his life," Bush said. "He was shot 10 times. I don't know much about shooting people or getting shot, but I know if you shoot somebody two or three times, they're going to slow down, unless they're just frickin' Superman. Again, I wasn't there, so I can't really speak on the facts of what exactly took place. All I know is a young man lost his life, and the description of, from what I read, the police officer said about - he described the young man as to brutally beating him, and I saw pictures of him, and he looked normal ...
"He had no bruises, nothing at all, so when you describe somebody as being a demon - he called him a demon - said he punched him twice in the head and he didn't think he could take another one," Bush continued. "I've been in fights before, and there should be some kind of bruises or something. Again, like I said, I'm not the grand jury, I'm not the district attorney, everybody who's dealing with that situation, but all I know is it just seems very unfortunate, and there seems to be some kind of flaw in our system."
Bush clarified one of his posts, a retweet of a collection of pictures of people in Palestine holding signs about the situation in Ferguson.
"Of course I'm not comparing that, not at all," Bush said. "I saw the picture and I thought, 'That's a powerful picture,' to see somebody who's dealing with a far worse situation than what we're going through, back in their country, a lot worse, 10 times worse than what we could ever imagine. To see someone take a picture from there and post it saying that, 'We're with you,' I just thought that was so powerful."
Bush did not defend Brown's actions leading up to the shooting, and he did not say he believed the shooting to be racially motivated. The whole situation, however, clearly struck him as disturbing.
"He wasn't a saint by any means, and I never said that, and I never even said that this was a racial issue, either," Bush said. "If you go back and look at my tweets, I never said, 'This is a black and white thing.' I never said, 'Oh, well the kid got killed because he was black.' There's just a flaw in the system as to how situations are handled because I just felt like a kid who's shot 10 times ... maybe the excessive force ... Like I said, I wasn't there, I don't know all the details, but for someone to not be armed and then to be shot 10 times, it just seems like there's got to be something wrong with that.
"There's got to be a better way to handle it," Bush added. "Even if you shoot somebody in the leg once or twice, they're going to slow down ... It's such a delicate situation when you talk about these things, especially when it's kids who are involved, 18-year-old kids. When I think back at some of the things that I did when I was 17, 18 - we don't have all the right answers, we don't know, and when you're dealing with people at that age level, there just has to be a better way to handle it. With a grown man with a gun who's a police officer who is the law, there's got to be a better way to have handled the situation."
Bush posted a longer message on Instagram to clarify his Twitter remarks.
"If you go back and read my posts relating to Ferguson not once did I write anything relating to racism," Bush wrote. "In fact I actually wrote under one of the posts that it didn't matter what your skin color was or what religion you practiced! I guess somehow this was confused for me being a racist? SMH! This issue is a GLOBAL issue (I believe I said that already in one of my posts as well) as you can see! People all over the world have been affected by the unfortunate events that have taken place in Ferguson! I chose to take a stance on this issue because I'd rather have an opinion than to sit back and be quiet and say nothing at all! I wasn't expecting everyone to agree with me and I wasn't expecting everyone to like my posts! A unarmed young man lost his life period! And that's unfortunate! I don't know much about shooting people or getting shot but I do know if you shoot someone once in each leg (not 6-10 times) maybe even 3 times, chances are they will slow down! So my heart goes out to the family members of Mike Brown and anyone else that has gone through similar or worse tragedy!"
