As a writer I am also an avid reader and since the very beginning of the incidents in Ferguson, I have read just about every article published on the subject.  I am beginning to be sickened by the amount of people who are putting their two cents worth in, just for the sake of doing so, without any firsthand knowledge of Ferguson, police work or any working knowledge of the subject in general.  Many have labeled Michael Brown a thug and Darren Wilson a racist killer.  Neither of these labels will help anyone to understand the situation in question, but I guess if labeling people in that way makes you feel better about yourself, then you just do what you need to do.

I imagine it’s easy to sit in your office somewhere and judge everyone involved.  It’s easy to take advantage of a city you truly know nothing about and incite inflammatory statements to make your articles seem more dramatic, but really what do you offer but your opinion?

I grew up in St. Louis and though I admit it is not a choice destination for many people, I was always proud to say I was from St. Louis.  I guess things were better when I grew up in the late 70’s.  My dad worked for St. Louis Public Schools and as a result I spent quite a bit of time in north St. Louis.  There was crime back then, but not on the large scale there is now.  I could play on the school playground and not have to worry that I was the only white kid for miles.  I had a great deal of respect for the kids I played with, I knew they were from broken families, they lived in crime ridden neighborhoods and sometimes didn’t know where their next meal was coming from.  In 1977 my family moved to Jefferson county and I didn’t spend a lot of time in north St. Louis again till nursing school when I spent time working in an immunization clinic in the Ferguson area.  I gave hundreds of vaccinations and kissed lots of boo boos those days.  I was happy to see that those children were all very happy and healthy and they had wonderful caring mothers with them and the occasional father.  I had hoped that meant society was moving in the right direction, we were making sure that our kids were healthy, well fed and getting their immunizations.

Unfortunately, I was deeply disturbed tonight when I saw the images of the Rams football players coming out onto the football field with their hands raised, supposedly in “support”of Ferguson.  How does inciting bad behavior in everyone equate to support?  I feel like football players are the face of our American pastime, heroes to children and grownups.  Using gestures that have incited rioting is juvenile behavior as far as I’m concerned.  I equate the rioting in Ferguson to a two year old’s temper tantrum, on a much larger scale.  A toddler throws a tantrum because they didn’t get their way.  The initial logic for the riots was that these people wanted justice for Michael Brown.  Well the evidence, including multiple autopsies, (including one done by a private company hired by Brown’s family) was presented to the Grand Jury. The Grand Jury has made it’s decision, just because it is not the decision you wanted to hear, does not give you the right to destroy other people’s property.  The Grand Jury came to a unanimous decision, this is justice people.  Sure there were inconsistencies, anyone that works in the justice system will tell you there are always inconsistencies.

Why are there inconsistencies?  Because people are human.  Our bodies are still ruled by their limbic system which controls your body’s fight or flight response.  The responses our bodies have to adrenaline were designed to protect us on the most basic level.  When your body faces a threat, adrenaline begins charging through your body, elevating your heart rate, preparing you to do whatever it is you have to do, whether that is run away, or fight off an attacker.  Even witnesses to a crime will experience an adrenaline rush, this is why the brain cannot always remember small details of an attack or another crime, because the blood is being rushed to other parts of the body in preparation for the fight or flight.  This has been proved time and time again, many people are convinced they remember every single detail when most times, the details are quite fuzzy.

Though Michael Brown was described initially as an innocent, unarmed black man, this theory has already been undeniably disproved.  He had just committed a strong arm robbery of a convenience store.  This is a crime, so Michael Brown is now a criminal and he knows it.  He has adrenaline flowing through his body from roughing up the poor, innocent  store clerk and now he feels invincible.  I know he feels invincible because by all reports, he is walking down the middle of the street.  Why would anyone who had just committed a crime, be walking down the middle of the street?  Was he high?  I don’t know, I have yet to see any toxicology reports.  I know he planned to get high, nobody’s denied that, and of course, that was what the cigarillos were for.

Were some of Darren Wilson’s statements inconsistent?  I would imagine so.  Once he encountered Michael Brown and realized that something was up, the adrenaline level in his body started to elevate as well.  When officer Wilson first encountered Michael Brown he didn’t know anything about him, he may not have even known a crime had been committed.  He simply asked Brown and his sidekick to get out of the middle of the street.  Yes, I have seen the articles that “claim” that he used different words than he said he used.  Regardless, we were not there, so we will never know the truth, but in the big picture it really doesn’t matter anyway.  By arguing about it, Brown drew attention to himself, which made Wilson suspicious, making his adrenaline level go up.

What happened after that, will probably never be known.  Everyone it seems, has their own version of the events, all of them seem to have inconsistencies.  There were eyewitnesses, though some of those eyewitnesses after consulting a lawyer and having the concept of perjury explained to them, later recanted their stories.  Why?  Because the mob mentality was in place from the very beginning.  All these people knew was a black man had been shot by a cop and because of their history, it infuriated them.  Justified or not had nothing to do with it.  It was later that reason started to set in.

Michael Brown’s family may never get the kind of justice they want.  Michael was their baby, I get it.  But to hear them talk he was this innocent, college bound kid who was just walking down the street and the cop jumped out of his car and killed him for no apparent reason.  I’m sorry but when I was a college bound kid, I was so busy working to make money, I didn’t have time to get into trouble.

If Michael Brown’s parents were smart they would make sure that something good happened as a result of his death.  Why keep shouting messages of hate when you can rise above all this and actually make this world a better place?  This is my challenge to the Rams football players who “support Ferguson” put your freakin money where your mouth is and do something good for the community.  Donate money to rebuild the city, set up a scholarship fund, build a youth center.  The possibilities are endless.  Please quite prolonging the hate and let the city heal.

Guest blogger-Jean Marie Stanberry, author of Laying Low In Hollywood, One World United, The Illusion of Order, and Blood, Sweat and Fears