Former State And Federal Prosecutor: Ferguson Rioters Will Not Be Convinced By The Facts
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The controversial Ferguson, Missouri grand jury report stating that police officer Darren Wilson will not be indicted in the death of Michael Brown has generated outrage and riots from the citizens of Ferguson.
George Parry, a former state and federal prosecutor, told WPHT midday host Dom Giordano that he agreed with the ruling, citing how it was shown that the physical evidence contradicted many of the eye witness accounts. He defended Wilson firing 12 shots, 10 of which hit Brown, by referring to the "21 Foot Rule," which is the rule of thumb that police officers use in evaluating use of force.
"Even though someone appears to be far away, that seven yards out, maybe even 10 yards out, when the officer initiated the use of force, that person can be on top of the officer in the blink of an eye…The fact of the matter is the officer had virtually no time to react if he's being charged by the decedent, and people were misled so much by television. Because of on television, when somebody gets shot, they just go down. In reality, people get shot all of the time -- even fatally, they don't do go down…they can do a lot of harm and inflict a lot of injuries before they are debilitated by the fatal shot."
The grand jury might have declared that it will not be indicting Wilson on criminal charges, but the Department of Justice is still continuing their investigation that might conclude with an indictment of their own.
"There can be a federal civil rights prosecution. That is, a person using his legal authority in an improper way -- that is an improper use of deadly force, so there can be a violation of civil rights."
After seeing the damage that was left by rioters after the initial announcement, Parry is hopeful for improvement but aware that the opinions of many of those that are outraged will not be changing anytime soon.
"All that we can do is hope that sooner or later, the facts will prevail, but there were many people that were rioting last night and burning cars and carrying on who are not going to be convinced by the facts no matter what. They know what they know, and they're going to do what they're going to do, and the facts have no moment to them."
