What makes me ponder is why the arrest was made in the first place, from what I've heard the two African-American men were walking in the street, rather than the sidewalk. I believe it's referred to as 'jay-walking' there, and yet this escalates into Brown being shot multiple times.
Continuing the parallel with the 2011 riots, Duggan was intercepted by armed police who were under the impression that Duggan was armed, and it went downhill from there really, Duggan was a known gang member and a court controversially would later declare the killing lawful.
Now, it's debatable in the UK whether the riots were caused directly by Duggans death or whether it was a pressure cooker situation and Duggans shooting was a millibar too far for the disaffected youth. Especially when one considers the varied make-up of those who were prosecuted after the riots, some were school teachers, I believe one was the daughter of a millionaire. Not the disaffected black youth that many people were expecting, that of Notting Hill and Brixton fame.
Coming back to the US, I think the stress points are acutely different but there are some similarities to be drawn, that of perhaps leftward leaning young individuals (and rightward leaning individuals so long as a Democrat is in power) who are concerned with the misuse of police force and the eagerness to resort to deadly force, particularly with the whole 'stand your ground' debacle not so long ago. However, equally in defence of the police force, they are much more likely to encounter a deadly situation than the police in the UK, where firearms are fewer and situations involving them are dealt with by specially trained firearms units (I believe SCO19) whereas every US trooper has the potential to encounter a situation that would be dealt with by specialised police forces in the UK (not that regular police forces don't encounter firearms in the UK, but I believe that the SOP is to withdraw to a safe distance and call for armed backup if a firearm is discharged at an unarmed officer, Jim might be able to correct me on this), so it is more likely that they will react with lethal force in what they determine to be self-preservation, even if in retrospect, the act was disproportionate to the situation.
Like you say, there's not much in the way of facts to go around at the moment, but the FBI had better run this one over with a fine-tooth comb because I have a feeling that things are going to come to a head in the US regarding the police and African-Americans in the near future, as well as the usage of firearms by the police. We have a similar problem brewing in the UK, only for us it's not just the relationship between ethnic groups and the police but also the relation between the public and the police. I was listening to a program on radio four earlier that described the British publics historical point of view of the police as being 'agents of the public' not 'agents of the government' and up until the 1980s the police were generally given a blank card by the public and trusted, but after the Thatcher government and the miners strike, with the rise of accountability, and numerous corruption scandals and other crises (the latest 'plebgate' scandal being just one of them) that the British public are steadily taking a more European viewpoint towards the police that shifts them from being agents of protection to agents of oppression, and that would honestly be a sad thing to happen, in my opinion anyway.
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