Darren Wilson: The Real Reason Officer Walked Free After Gunning Down Michael Brown

Darren Wilson, as the world is now aware, will walk free despite shooting and killing an unarmed teenager on August 9, thanks to a grand jury decision in St. Louis County, Missouri, that has set off nationwide outrage and in many quarters, bewilderment over how a police officer can gun down a citizen who does not, himself, possess a weapon — and yet walk away with impunity.

In his lengthy announcement of the grand jury decision Monday night, Prosecutor Bob McCullough referred repeatedly to the “physical evidence” as the primary factor compelling the grand jury to return a decision not to issue an indictment of Darren Wilson.

But analysis shows that neither that, nor even the letter of the law — which states that officers may use deadly force “in defense of human life, including the officer’s own life” — is ultimately the reason Darren Wilson was not indicted for killing Michael Brown.

According to overwhelming numerical and statistical evidence, the real reason Darren Wilson was not indicted is simple: police almost never are.

In St. Louis County alone, there were only five grand jury investigations of officers who used deadly force prior to the Darren Wilson investigation, starting in 1991 — the year that McCullough took office.

None of those five led to indictments.

A researcher at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, Philip Stinson, conducted a study showing that only 41 officers were charged with murder or manslaughter in connection with officer-involved killings — over a full seven year period.

A report from Tallahassee, Florida, found that grand juries have investigated 24 police shootings since the year 2000 in Leon County. Nine of those police shooting cases resulted in fatalities. Not one time was an officer indicted.

In Harris County, Texas, grand juries that have investigated police shootings have let the officer involved walk free in an incredible 228 consecutive cases. That amazing streak happened in spite of the fact that, according to a Houston Chronicle investigation, at least 30 of the individuals shot by police were, as in the Darren Wilson shooting of Michael Brown, unarmed.

Comprehensive statistics on police shootings, fatal or otherwise, are difficult to come by because they are not kept by any official agency.

But statistics for crime overall are indeed kept, and they show a stark contrast in the way grand juries treat ordinary citizens in comparison to police officers. In fact, in 2010 alone, federal prosecutors brought about 162,000 cases to grand juries.

A mere 11 of those cases resulted in a grand jury failing to issue an indictment.

The real reason that Darren Wilson was not indicted for the shooting death of Michael Brown, the studies appear to show, is that he was a police officer, and unlike ordinary citizens — who are almost always indicted when subjected to a grand jury investigation — police officers simply walk free, almost every time.