Agreed, but who do we think the more foolish of the 2 were?
A cop who has zero complaints against him. And it's safe to say IMO this is true, b/c it would have been "leaked" already if anything existed. And even if we undertake the argument that there are no reports, b/c people in the community don't bother, I'd have to counter that argument with the idea that people who had been seriously wronged by OW would be seeking out Parks et al and telling them their story. Yes?
But back to foolishness...
MB was more than foolish in a number of different ways:
*Robbing a store where the people who own it/work in it know who you are from the neighborhood qualifies as foolish in my book.
*escalating a shoplifting incident to a felony also qualifies as foolish
*sauntering down the street to grandma's house holding stolen merchandise for all to see.....foolish
*defying a more than reasonable and simple directive by LEO while holding stolen merchandise for all the world to see....extremely foolish
*deciding to get into a physical altercation with a cop....beyond foolish
*IF physical altercation escalated into a struggle over officers gun....point of no return
Ok, I got ya.
But one problem I see with this is the automation causation you use to link the robbery to the shooting. I understand it might explain "state of mind" and all that, buttttt just for the whole "looking at it from both sides" thing, let's contemplate this scenario:
-OW drives up and says in a rude manner, "get the *advertiser censored** off the sidewalk."
-MB and DW,
perhaps irritated by the rudeness of how the officer said it, say something like, "chill, man, we're almost home."
-OW drives off, sees BOLO, backs up, and this time says something like, "GET THE FU** OUT OF THE STREET, YOU DAM* FOOLS," in a very strong and condescending tone of voice.
-MB takes offense to the tone and the words used, he turns towards OW and starts talking back, like, "we're almost home, man, why you wig**' out, man, we're just walking in the street, man, why you comin' at us??"
-OW takes out his gun and points it at MB. "I said get back on teh fu**in' sidewalk or I swear I'll shoot you."
-MB gets rattled at the sight of the gun pointed at him. He reaches to try to knock the gun out of OW's gun,
who was using it for no other reason than to threaten him unjustly and provoke him.
-Either a shot goes off during this part accidentally, or OW shoots hiim on purpose.
-And the rest goes from there.......
In THIS ABOVE HYPOTHETICAL SITUATION - what does the previous robbery have to do with it? The robbery was not what provoked MB or caused him to have a state of mind which was led to his own death. IN THE ABOVE, what provoked MB was OW's unjust use of a gun for the purpose of unjustly threatening someone.
IN THE ABOVE situation, taken BY ITSELF AND WITHOUT PREJUDICE OF THE ROBBERY, MB made some mistakes and OW also makes a lot of foolish mistakes.
So that state of mind stuff is all good in the scenario which is favorable to OW, but it comes into a whole heck of a lot of holes once you think of the scenario the other way around.
JMO.
