It’s just a punch in the face

Perhaps the most perplexing bit of commentary coming out the Ferguson grand jury findings are the people who are saying that Officer Wilson wasn’t justified in using deadly force because it was, and I quote here “just a punch in the face.” I’d like to ask those people something: have you ever been punched in the face? It’s not like the movies where a guy can take multiple shots to the face and head, shake it off, and get back in the fight.

I am not a professional fighter. I have a black belt in TKD from high school, played sports, and boxed a little bit during my college years. I have also been in some recreational fisticuffs as a younger man. In that time, I can count the number of full on strikes to the head I’ve received. None of them were pleasant, and none of them were experiences I wished to repeat. Getting your bell rung is not something that most people can deal with, and getting punched in the head by a dude over 6 feet tall that weighs as near as makes no difference 300 pounds is absolutely a potentially deadly assault.

Real violence doesn’t work the way you see it in movies. In the span of a few seconds, Officer Wilson had gone from a simple “stop and talk” to getting punched in the head and having someone try to take his gun.

But it was “just a punch in the head” so he didn’t need to shoot. It was “just a punch in the head” – I can’t even deal with how stupid that line of reasoning is. We’ve talked at great length on this site about the danger simple fists can pose to people. When you add “gun grab” to “punch in the head” what you now have is absolutely a lethal force incident. But whatever, it’s not like facts matter, right? I mean, there’s no ballistic evidence that supports Officer Wilson’s version of events. Oh wait, what’s that? All the ballistic evidence supports his version of events? Psssshhht, doesn’t matter. Wait, you mean reliable witnesses in the grand jury corroborated Wilson’s testimony? Psssshhhttt whatever, doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters anymore are people’s stupid feelings.

26 Comments

  1. “The only thing that matters anymore are people’s stupid feelings.”

    Huh so I’m not the only one who sees the relationship to atlas shrugged?

      1. The Fountainhead is much more enjoyable than Atlas, it’s a macro vs micro view of her philosophies, so, you only have the point made to you three times, rather than seven. That said, her style is not that much different than Tolstoy or Dostoevsky

  2. Having been “punched” in the head and lost the ability to defend myself I agree that Wilson was justified in shooting Brown. To many of my liberal friends (and I am a liberal of a sort) lack life experiences that allow them to make rational judgments.

  3. Yeah, just take a peek on Gawker, they’re all about this. The whole thing was clearly unjustified because the 6’4 300lb unarmed child barely scuffed his cheek. Officer Wilson should have just used harsher language and given Brown a time-out.

      1. I know man, I know. I keep thinking I can change someone’s mind there, you know, by using facts and stuff.

  4. An unarmed person can do a lot of damage. Case in point- remember the so called “bath salts” face eating zombie incident in Florida a few years back.

  5. Punched twice (initially 10 times in his police interview) through the driver’s side window in the passenger side of his face. Truly, these were magic punches.

  6. Does it matter to anyone that the guy committed robbery and assaulted a cop and resisted arrest?
    Do the data used by the grand jury matter at all?
    How does burning down stores advance race relations?

  7. I’m sure Wilson had his hands at ten and two and was scanning the road ahead while Brown was at his window, Edwin.

  8. A punch in the head sucks just fine… But when you’re inside a vehicle an the other guy is outside it, you’re NOT STUCK. That said, if a punch in the head was compelling, why did they blow smoke up our asses for months talking about a nonexistent orbital fracture?
    Look, the guy was 100+ feet away when the cop’s testimony stopped matching the evidence. It would have been GREAT to have a chance to hash all this out and see how much of it is true, and how much was bullshit, but THAT’S WHAT A TRIAL WAS FOR.

    1. “No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”

      5th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States Of America

      Pay very close attention to the first part about Grand Juries. I’m sick and tired of listening to people say the cop should have been put on trial so that we could see “how much was bullshit” or not. A Grand Jury is only held to a preponderance of evidence to hand down an indictment. The fact that he was not indicted means that the standard of evidence was not met. If it is impossible to convict him on a preponderance of evidence how would it be possible to convict him beyond a shadow of a doubt at a trial? To ignore all the evidence supporting the officers story and put him on trial anyway would be a violation of his 5th amendment rights. If he was put on trial it would be nothing but a show trial the very thing that the 5th Amendment was intended to prevent.

      1. Just a clarification to a common misconception in your post, brady: a jury does not have to convict beyond a shadow of a doubt, only beyond a reasonable doubt; there is a difference.

      2. There’s no reason at all to presume that putting him on a trial would make it a ‘show trial’ or kangaroo court. the reason for trials to be public is for the real evidence to make it to the public at large, and to PREVENT misinformation and eventual vigilante justice. Consider how freaked they are right now, since he’s had to quit his job, and is hiding in hotels and such… A trial would have given the people a chance to see everything brought out, and given 12 neutral parties time to talk it over and see if they think he reacted within scope, or OVERreacted, and cost a man his life, unfairly.
        If you think the public’s memory is too short for this to be a serious concern, remember that we still recall the name of Lon Horiuchi.

        1. Trials do not always end in public acceptance just look to the L.A. riots after the Reginald Denny case. I am convinced that for what ever reason a segment of the population wants to riot.

          1. I’m a bit unfamiliar with this, and when I look up Reginald Denny, what I get is that his case is the EFFECT of a riot, not the cause.

            To state that a segment of the population wants to riot is to acknowledge that a segment of the population is highly discontent with something, and should be taken as such. We KNOW something’s wrong, we just don’t all see the second or third order effects, or, conversely, don’t know how to find the first cause.

        2. I didn’t know that Vicki Weaver punched Lon Horiuchi in the face before he shot her.

          Huh, you learn something new every day.

          1. Or you WOULD if you’d stop being a shit for long enough.
            Of course, not that I’d expect any of this to penetrate, since you’ve dismissed the ‘vehicular assault’ aspect that happened before he punched the dude.

          2. What piece of physical evidence or reliable witness testimony indicates that Officer Wilson assaulted Brown with his vehicle?

          3. reached your nesting limit.
            The ‘reliable witness testimony’ of Brown’s companion. See, the thing is, nobody’s even CONTESTING that piece of testimony. Omitting, perhaps, but in most cases, we don’t expect vehicular assaulters to be self-reporters.

  9. What troubles me in this mess is the number of people that are willing, no anxious, to subject an individual to a terrible injustice in the name of “social justice”.

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