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Majority of Normans support indictment for Wilson

The students of the Beginning Journalism class publish their own four-page newspaper each year.  This year, there were too many stories for the short paper.  Over-run stories, like this one, were published on-line for reader enjoyment.
Evan Minniti, cub writer
The people have spoken. The majority of Norman students have stated that they were against the Nov. 24th St. Louis County, Missouri, grand jury decision not to indict Officer Darren Wilson for the shooting of Michael Brown.
In a survey from last Thursday which asked ‘’What is your opinion about the grand jury decision not to indict Officer Darren Wilson for the shooting of Michael Brown’’, a slim majority, 52 percent of the 203 student respondents stated that they disagreed with the decision. Forty-nine students, or 24 percent, stated that they both agreed with and supported the grand jury’s decision not to indict Wilson for the shooting.
How anyone could agree with this tragic public ruling is simply beyond comprehension. Perhaps these students weren’t completely informed about the issue, because it doesn’t make sense how anyone could morally support this decision.
In addition, 42 students, or about 21 percent, expressed indifference to the case. The final three percent did not answer the question that the survey asked. Another thing that was disturbing was the fact that so many students at Beverly didn’t care. Even though this isn’t something that directly affects their lives, this is an important issue that does affect thousands of Americans every year.
The shooting of unarmed African-American teenager Michael Brown occurred at 12:03 p.m. on August 9, 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri. Critics have stated that Michael Brown was unarmed while defenders of Officer Wilson state that Brown may have attempted to grab Wilson’s gun. Many believe that the shooting was racially motivated as Brown was African-American and Wilson is Caucasian.
Brown was shot seven times, and an additional five bullets missed him. It is clear that Officer Wilson had no intention of simply trying to wound Brown like his supporters claim. This was homicide. Officer Wilson didn’t fire those 12 bullets to wound Brown, he fired them to kill him.
The incident has left the racially diverse community of Ferguson outraged and has caused waves of protests and strikes in Ferguson and across the nation.
Protests in New York City drew tens of thousands of people into the streets to demonstrate against the actions of the police department in Ferguson, as well as the general trend of increased militarization of police forces across the nation. Another major topic for the protests in New York City was the death of African-American Eric Garner at the hands of white police officers, who, like Wilson, were to be freed from indictment.
Common slogans of the movement began to prop up among the crowds. Notably ‘’Hands up, Don’t shoot’’ and ‘’I can’t breathe’’ have appeared on thousands of signs around the world. On Nov. 30, 2014, the St. Louis Rams started their game by raising their hands up as though being arrested, in solidarity with the movement. LeBron James and Kevin Garnett were also seen wearing shirts saying ‘’I can’t breathe’’.
Police brutality is one the major issues of our time, and as a people we must face it together. Even though the majority is against what happened, students shouldn’t be so apathetic in the face of this serious issue. We need to unite and show our support for the movement.

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