The Holy Trinity is one of the central towers of the modern Christian faith. To not accept the Trinity is seen by main stream Christians as heresy and is something that makes one not, a Christian, unsaved.
I do not believe in the Trinity but have no worries about salvation. I am a Christian, a follower of Jesus Christ, a believer in the one, all powerful God. I trust that belief in God, trust in Jesus and good works will see me through. God will save whom God will save.
I believe that the Trinity is a false doctrine and that the single God of the Unitarian Christian Church is the one supported by both scripture and reason.
History
Before the fourth century there was no universal acceptance of the doctrine of the Trinity. There were, as there are now, many who disagreed with the idea of the Trinity. The Emperor Constantine and the Nicaea Councils basically imposed Trinitarianism on Christianity and it became the official doctrine of the church for over a thousand years. Dissenters were punished, banished and killed as heretics.
However, the Trinity is NOT supported by the Bible. Jesus does not say that he is God and refers to God as being greater than he, of having sent him.
The Bible
Scripture is fallible. It is inexact. The copies we have today contain translation and copying errors. For example: did Solomon have four thousand stalls for horses or forty thousand. One verse gives one value, another the other. One verse says that no one has seen God, another says that There are many other contradictions. The Bible also contains many factual errors, such as the Earth being unmoving. At all levels, the Earth moves. Tectonic plates roam the surface, and the Earth itself travels through space. The Devil could not show Jesus all the nations of the earth from the top of a high mountain. Such is impossible on a globe. There are no waters above and below a solid firmament - the Hebrew word for the firmament is Rakia (a beaten thing, i.e. made of beaten metal) There are no windows of the sky through which God allows rain to fall or through which He drops snow and hail from his storehouses of the same (Job 38:22) So, we can not take every single word as being absolutely correct. We have to take the whole of what the Bible tells us and pick off the bits that don't fit with the rest, Similarly, we consider the words of people actually present as having greater value than those reported of someone else or describing events long ago - e.g. the creation, the story of which is obviously the description of simpler human beings who had little knowledge of the physical world. Of greatest importance of all are the words of Christ himself. They are reported by others, obviously, but as Christians, the words of Christ - when repeated by enough witnesses and fitting His overall message - carry the greatest weight. Yes, even the words of Christ may be discarded if inconsistent. If someone is reported to say "Never harm an enemy" a thousand times, and that is attested by multiple witnesses, then we can safely say that one person saying "Always kill your enemies", just once, should be treated with great caution and even discarded. The New Testament is, to Christians, the most important of the two main sections of the Bible.
One also has to be very careful when reading phraseology from the past and interpreting it in modern English. Language defines how we think and deal with concepts.
The evidence
So what does scripture say about the nature of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit?
Let's start before Jesus was even born as a human man. "In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God and the word was God". Only John tells us this. But what doe sit mean?
God is eternal. God has no beginning and no end. If God had a beginning then where did God come from? What existed before God? What created God? In Hebrew, one of the names of God is "El Olam", the everlasting God, forever, perpetual, old, ancient. "from everlasting to everlasting you are God" says Psalm 90. 1 Timothy "Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen." God has always existed.
So then, what does John mean by "In the beginning", the beginning of what? God has no beginning. If the Logos was always with God then why not say so? Since the Logos (the word) was WITH God, it can not be God, the Father. If it was then why mention it? But John also says that it was God. Or did he mean God like, of a similar origin, of the same ethereal substance, from the same realm. Just because one entity is made of the same 'stuff' as another that does not mean that it is the same entity. I am made of the same biological material as every other living thing on this planet and yet I am a separate being. So it seems that the Word was the same stuff as God, was with God, but had a beginning and was not actually God.
What did Jesus say?
John 14:28 "You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I.". Jesus clearly indicates that he is distinct from the Father, that the Father is greater than he is and that the Father is in a different location. By any reasonable understanding, Jesus is a subservient, distinct being to God the Father.
John 4:34 "My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work"
John 14:28 "My Father is greater than I."
John 20:17 "I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God."
John 13:3 "Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he was come from God, and went to God"
John 5:30 "By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me" Clearly, Jesus is a special being, sent by God. Indeed here, he claims not to be able to do anything without the will of God.
Jesus did not formulate his message, God did: John 12:49 "For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak."
John 17:6 "I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world; they were Yours and You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word. 7"Now they have come to know that everything You have given Me is from You;"
John 12:29 "For I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it".
1 Corinthians 15:28 "And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.".
Jesus is in a special relationship with God, not part of God. He refers to God being in him and He in God. However, he also asks that we be allowed to be in God:
"I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in me through their word; that they may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you sent me. "The glory which you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as we are one; I in them and you in me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that you sent me, and loved them, even as you have loved me"
This passage also indicates that the oft quoted phrase "My father and I are one" (John 10:30) does not mean that God and Jesus are part of a single being. Jesus asks that human beings all be one too.
Matthew 11:27 "All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal him."
"The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand."
"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me." ALSO in me. God and Jesus are not the same being.
1 Timothy 2:25 "For there is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself human".
Matthew 3:17 "And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased." God is pleased with Jesus and loves him. God is not in love with himself!
Philipians 2:9-11 "“Wherefore God (the heavenly Father) also hath highly exalted Him (Jesus), and given Him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus the Messiah is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” The father exalted Jesus to a position of high power. Jesus is separate from man but also from God from whom his power comes.
Jesus is the anointed one, the Messiah. But Acts 10:37-38 states that "You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him." Yes, Jesus is the Messiah but that means anointed. We see here that God anointed Jesus with the Holy Spirit and power. Jesus has power but that which is given to him by God. Anointing usually means making holy with oil. But God anoints Jesus via the Holy Spirit and grants him power.
John 8:17-18 "Even in your law it has been written that the testimony of two men is true. I am He who testifies about Myself, and the Father who sent Me testifies about Me." Jesus is saying that the law considers the testimony of two individuals to be truth. He states that he is telling the truth and his witnesses are himself and the Father. Again, he and the father are separate beings.
Acts 7:55 "But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.". Jesus is standing at the right hand of God in Heaven. They are two distinct beings.
Colosians 3:1 "Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God."
Matthew 27:46 "And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
John 8:40 "But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God."
Jesus says that he is not as good as God is. Matthew 19:17 "But he said to him, “Why do you call me good? There is none good except God alone. But if you want to enter life, keep the commandments.”
Matthew 26:39 "Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will."
And on and on. Jesus is clearly not God. If he is then he is pleading with himself.
One of the biggest messages of Christians is that God so loved the world that he gave his only son. Leaving aside the fact that God knew perfectly well that he would raise Jesus from the dead (Romans 10:9 "If you declare with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved."), if Jesus is God then God made no sacrifice, gave nothing, since Jesus, according to Trinitarians, is God himself. If a human gave a son then it is a permanent loss here on Earth. A loss in which there is no contact between parent and child and no guarantee of ever meeting again. It MAY be that God will resurrect our loved one, but God decides who will and will not be resurrected. We can only hope. Most Christians today assume that not everyone will be saved. Indeed, some extreme Christian groups believe only a small number of the predestined elect will be saved. A human giving up a child would be an enormous sacrifice. For God, whether Jesus is God or not, the sacrifice is minimal. If Jesus is God then there is no sacrifice at all. If Jesus is the special creation, son of God, then the sacrifice is only slightly more severe. God knows that He will raise Jesus and, being omnipresent, God is never apart from Jesus, dead or alive.
If Jesus is God then of what relevance is the lineage of Joseph? It is Mary whose family is relevant if she was impregnated by God, via the Holy Spirit. Why does the Bible record the family of Joseph if, as Matthew 1:18 says "When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.". That is, Mary was pregnant before she and Joseph ever consummated their marriage. The Bible seems to originally say that Jesus was born of Joseph and Mary but the story of Jesus being created by God within Mary has been tacked on.
So, how do Trinitarians say that Jesus is God?
Well, they quote the my father and I are one example. But, as above, being one does not mean being the same being. Jesus asks that all humans become one also. We claim to be one in the body of Christ. We are not literally one.
Jesus forgave sins, and only God can forgive sins. No, God anointed Jesus with the Holy Ghost and power. He delegated power to Jesus just as Jesus delegated power to Peter (Matthew 18:18 ""Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.". That doesn't mean that Peter became Jesus or that he became God. Jesus granted power to Peter. In the same way, the Centurian in the Roman army is not the Emperor when he commands men or conquered peoples. He is a delegate of the Emperor. The Emperor grants him the right to do certain things. God grants powers to Jesus who delegates them further to Peter. Matthew 9:6 "But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (then saith he to the sick of the palsy,) Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house"
One of the reasons that Jesus is supposed to have to be God is so that his sacrifice is great enough to appease God. This is one argument that makes little sense. Jesus is not just God-like but actual God. So God sacrifices himself to himself to appease himself. That is complete nonsense.
Jesus existed before the world. This is irrelevant. The word, logos, Jesus was with God before the world was made. That simply means that the being Jesus predates the world, as explained above, it says nothing about God and Jesus being the same being.
"baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost" is supposed to indicate that God, Jesus and Holy Ghost are one. This is only one interpretation. This is a list of three items in whose 'name' people are baptized. That doesn't mean that they are all the same being. It does not even mean that the Holy Ghost is a person. The Irish Sea has a name but it isn't a person. Spain is the name of a country but land was claimed in its name. Astronauts left a plaque on the moon in the name of all mankind. Human beings are not all one entity but individuals that make up a group. People can logically be baptized in the name of the group.
Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. This is supposed to indicate that Jesus is God. But Jesus says "Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. And I know that You always hear Me, but because of the people who are standing by I said this, that they may believe that You sent Me.". It is claimed, as if self evident, that only God can reanimate the dead. If God gives Jesus power then Jesus can do anything including raising the dead. Jesus himself says that even we could raise the dead if our faith is strong enough: "Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you." Nothing will be impossible for you.
"And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” The Word was with God, the Word had a beginning. The Word may have been god-like but it was not THE source of all power - God the Father.
John 17:5 "And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began." Jesus existed before the world began but he asks for the Father to glorify him as he was glorified when Jesus was with the Father. He speaks to another entity, the presence of which gives him glory. Similarly, John 17:24 "Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world." This again shows that Jesus was older than the world, (He may have been the mechanism or agent, by which the world was made) but he was given his people, God loved him. He was a separate entity.
"Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority; but the Father who dwells in me does his works." This is supposed to show that Jesus and God are one, but I can not see how. The idea of 'in' indicating sameness is simply inconsistent. We speak of Jesus Christ being in us, or say that we are one in the body of Christ. As above Jesus asks God that all who follow him be allowed to be one with the father. Being one does not mean being the same being. The father acts through Jesus. Jesus says perfectly clearly that he does not speak with his own authority but with that of the Father within him. We all have Jesus, the father and potentially, the Holy Spirit working within us. That does NOT make us GOD, so why does God or the Spirit acting through Jesus make him God?
If God and Jesus are equal then why does Jesus not know the day and the hour that the world will pass away? He says in Mark 24:36 that no one knows the hour except his Father.
What is the Holy Spirit?
The third element of the Trinity is the Holy Spirit, an entity that has no individual name. Jesus is absolutely more clear about the distinction between himself and the Holy Spirit than he is about the distinction between himself and the "Father".
John 15:26 "But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me.". Jesus sees the Holy Spirit as a separate being that he, Jesus, will send from the Father that will reveal truth of Jesus.
John 14:26 "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.". The Spirit appears to be meant as some sort of entity that will reveal information to the followers of Jesus and remind them of the things that Jesus taught, It is the Helper, the other comforter. It is not God, is not Jesus and it doesn't have its own name.
John 14:16-17 "And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever -- the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you." Clearly, Jesus asks God, a third party, for the Spirit of Truth to be sent to live in his followers.
It is truly bizarre to argue that Jesus is praying to himself, for himself to send himself to live in his followers.
Acts 2:33 "Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear." Jesus sits, separately at the right hand of God. He is given the promised Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not a person but some sort of entity given to Jesus. It is poured out on the followers, granting foresight, power and the ability to speak in tongues. Pourer and poured are not the same thing.
Titus 3:6 "He poured out this Spirit on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior"
If the Holy Spirit is a separate conscious entity then why does Paul, who wrote so much of the New Testament, ignore 'him'? In all epistles Paul refers to himself as an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God.In all cases he sends his readers "grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ". The wording is virtually identical in all thirteen epistles although in a couple Paul augments grace and peace with mercy. If there is a trinity of co-equal beings then why does Paul only ever refer to two of them?
Conclusions
The fact that Jesus has all authority in Heaven and Earth, does not mean that he is God. It just means that God has delegated power to Jesus. This is the same as a reagent acting on behalf of a King or an ambassador doing the same.
It is obvious through out the Bible that we learn of two main actors, God the father and Jesus the 'son'. The Holy Spirit seems to be some sort of spiritual force that acts in the world. It can manifest as a dove (as in when Christ was baptized) and it can inhabit the body of followers to give power and understanding. If it is a separate, sentient being then followers are basically possessed. Similarly, if this sentient being is what makes people aware of the truth of God then people are not responsible for their own actions. Why does the spirit, unless it is weak, not simply reveal the truth to everyone?
For three hundred years after Christ, many Christians believed that Jesus was a separate being to God. Only in the fourth century was the Trinitarian doctrine imposed and disbelievers labelled heretics and punished. Prior to that, many people recognized the Biblical support for the Unitarian Christian belief. there is one God. "Hear oh Israel, the Lord our God is ONE!"
God wishes us to understand God, to know God. But the Catholic Church and its offshoots have maintained that the doctrine of the Trinity is the supreme mystery at the heart of Christianity. Why the mystery? Although some of the writings of John might be taken to indicate Jesus was God, why didn't God just tell people straight out in the Old Testament? Why were the Jews not corrected when God told them of himself? Why did Jesus not come straight out and say, I am God?
The most that could be claimed is that Jesus and God exist together in God like state. Jesus was the Word - according to John only of the four Gospel writers. If this was such an important concept and God influenced the creation of scripture then why did only John write of it? The authorship of John is disputed and possibly occurred after all the others. It also has a very different account of the last supper to that presented in the other Gospels. Probably written in the late first century it is a developed theology written between 50 and 70 years after the death of Christ.
All the evidence appears to support the idea that the three elements of the Trinity are separate beings. Their interactions indicate that they are not aspects of the same being. Jesus intercedes with God on our behalf while seated at the right hand of God. If they are both in Heaven then why does Jesus need to communicate with God?
The only thing that we can possibly say about Jesus was that he was a prexisting entity that was 'transmitted' to the physical world by the medium of the Holy Spirit, God's power acting in the world. Jesus is a powerful being, granted power by God, and reanimated after crucifixion by God - exactly as scripture says. But Jesus is less than God. All power comes from the single God. Jesus had a beginning. God was and will be, eternal.
Saturday, November 29, 2014
Thursday, November 27, 2014
Michael Brown Shooting
Ok. I've read the reports and testimony related to the Michael Brown case and I still think the Grand Jury decision was wrong. Not that I say Officer Wilson is guilty of murder but that he should have faced trial for a more stringent analysis of the facts; to allow more cross examination and challenge, rather than simple fact finding.
Some of the accusations against Officer Wilson are ridiculous. Most of the witnesses confirmed some of his story, most refute other parts. Physical evidence supports his statements concerning the initial confrontation.
People are confusing creatures. Some of the witness statements were totally contradictory. In giving evidence to the grand jury, some people admitted that earlier statements to police and the FBI were lies. Some changed their minds, possibly due to direct influence of others, possibly due to contamination of their memories by the stories of others, the media etc. Some accounts, from relatives and friends of Michael Brown, directly contradict both physical evidence and the vast majority of witness statements. Further confusion is sown by the fact that, although their statements seem reasonable, a number of people were related to or were friends of Michael. The possibility of deliberate falsehood can’t be ruled out but there is also the confounding factor of human emotion.
Some of the facts are known to everyone, some are not - if one hasn't followed the story closely. So, I'll start at the beginning:
Michael Brown appears to have stolen the cigarillos and intimidated the shop keeper. We have seen both video and have the testimony of Michael's friend who was with him at the time: Dorian Johnson. Dorian confirms the theft and intimidation.
Brown was 18, Johnson 22. They were not the kids that some like to portray them as. While younger, at 6 ft 4 and weighing 292 pounds, Brown was a large man, not a kid.
The two were walking, single file, down the middle of the road after they left the store. Right down the middle, on the central lines, disrupting traffic.
Officer Wilson was returning from attending to a call in the apartment complex. He saw they men in the road and told them to get on the side walk. He then started to drive on. He heard the call go out about a robbery at the store and saw the two men fit the descriptions of those thought to be involved. Reversing, he blocked the path of the men, nearly hitting them with the speed of his reversal. A number of witnesses describe the squeal of the tires on the police SUV.
After an exchange of unpleasantness that it is not necessary for me to go into, the officer and Brown became involved in a tussle, or tug of war, as many witnesses describe it. Some witnesses describe Brown as trying to pull away, others say he was leaning into the vehicle. Either way, there was a definite altercation occuring via the police vehicle window. Virtually all witnesses to this stage of events confirm the officer’s statement that he was involved in a violent struggle between himself and Brown through the window. 12 agree while 3 do not. Officer Wilson claims that Brown was punching him, and had a grip on the back of his neck. Wilson also claims that Brown tried to get his gun. In self defense, Wilson states that he fired his gun, twice, in the vehicle. He tried a number of other times to fire but his gun did not go off. No fault was found with the gun. One logical conclusion, as the firearms examiner agreed in testimony, was that something – clothing or a hand, was blocking the mechanism of the gun.
Witness testimony and physical evidence largely supports Wilson’s account of this stage. However, there is one discrepancy. Virtually all witnesses saw an altercation. All witnesses report hearing shots in the police vehicle. However, most of them report only a single shot. On October 7th , a van driver visiting the area, gave testimony that she stopped facing the police vehicle. She reported 2 shots. Most other witnesses were much further away. Most witnesses report Brown’s hands going in and out of the police vehicle but do not mention punches. On October 16th, Witness 34 said they saw actual punches. Witnesses had different views of the scene, of course. They also saw things at different times. While many saw the altercation with Brown leaning into the car and his arms going in and out, others saw him at a different stage, trying to pull away.
The physical evidence supports Officer Wilson’s account of this stage of the events. Crucially, Brown’s DNA was found on the Officer’s gun. Brown’s DNA was also found on the left side of Officer Wilson’s uniform at all levels – shirt and pants. That can only be explained is Brown being well into the left side of the police vehicle (American vehicle, driver on the left, left side of uniform facing Brown). To get DNA on the officer’s pant leg, Brown must have had at least his arm reached down into the vehicle and against the officers leg, exactly as Wilson claimed. Wilson’s DNA was found on Brown’s hand. Although not major, the physical evidence from Wilson himself shows scratches to the back of his neck and minor bruising to his RIGHT cheek. None of Wilson’s DNA was found beneath Brown’s finger nails. The discrepancy mentioned earlier relates to the injury to the cheek. If Brown was to Wilson's left, reaching in and hitting into the drivers side window - how did Wilson end up with the bruising on his RIGHT cheek? I suppose that it is possible that Wilson turned to face Brown full on while still seated but it seems unlikely.
In my opinion then, Brown was aggressive that morning and responded aggressively to Officer Wilson. He got involved in a physical altercation with the officer and, as Wilson said, appears to have got a grip on Wilson’s gun at one point. Again, just my opinion, a police officer struggling alone with a physically bigger assailant, willing to attack an officer and trying to get his gun, was reasonable to fire his weapon. He had no taser. His flashlight, that he considered using as a club, was on the passenger side of the vehicle and he would have had to expose his side to further attack to reach it. His mace canister was in the left of his belt, toward Brown. He defended himself with his left hand, against an attack from his left, while he obtained his gun from his right side with his free right hand. I think discharging his weapon was justified at this stage.
Michael Brown then moved away from the vehicle at speed. Whether due to gun shot injury or simply his size, most witnesses describe him as moving at a fast jog, rather than a run. Johnson, the friend with Brown, describes blood on Brown as he moves away. So, Brown appears to have either been hit with a round fired by the officer or by the glass in the door as a bullet passed through it – the glass of the window that was down in the door. At autopsy, Brown is found to have a gun shot to his right lateral chest. Running away from, or toward the officer is unlikely to have exposed Brown's right side to Wilson's gun. It is likely, confirmed by Johnson's statement, that Brown was hit at the car.
Brown doesn’t run very far. But what happens next is described completely differently by the majority of witnesses, compared to Wilson’s statement. He maintains that he did not shoot at Brown as he ran away. 15 witnesses assert that Wilson fired on Brown as Brown was running away. 5 reported that he did not. Of those that say he did, the majority had a good view, others had only partial or obscured views. A bullet wound to Brown’s right arm may be significant here. One bullet entered through the ventral side of the arm and exited through the dorsal (wound 6 & 7 entrance and exit wounds). That is, it entered the inner arm and came straight out the back. I can only think of two scenarios in which this would happen. Either it hit the inner arm of a man running away when his arm was behind him, or it hit the inner arm of a man facing the shooter with his arms raised… Unless all 15 witnesses were lying, it appears that Wilson fired on the fleeing Brown, a young, unarmed man who was no threat to Wilson.
All witnesses who heard the shots, heard three sets. One or two in the car, a series of 4 or 5 shots, a pause and then another series of shots. In all 12 shots were actually fired. Six hit Brown.
Wilson says that Brown stopped, turned to come toward him and then he, Wilson, opened fire the first time. He maintains that Brown continued to advance and he fired another sequence of shots that killed Brown. The van driver witness confirms Wilson's statement. Wilson maintains that he told Brown to stop multiple times. Two witnesses confirm this. Most do not.
Physical evidence also supports Wilson's story of Brown having come back toward him. Blood spatter, on the ground shows that Brown appeared to have run about 200ft from the police vehicle and then returned about 20ft back toward Wilson. Wilson states that he was backing up as Brown approached and some witnesses agree with this.
Most witnesses who saw this part of the scenario say that Wilson fired the first set of multiple shots while Brown was fleeing. Brown appears to be hit – a number of witnesses describe him jerking or flinching. Brown had the shot to the arm and a number of other gunshot injuries that might have been inflicted from behind – the tip of his thumb for example. The van driver witness, mentioned above, supports Wilson’s account as do four others. However, one of these was turning his car around and trying to ‘get out of Dodge’ at the time. Another was a woman going into a friends house, who was parking her car and checking her cell at the time.
Witnesses report Brown stopping turning and raising his arms. 15 witnesses assert that Brown had his hands raised. Only two said that he did not. This is the other time that the bullet could have struck Brown’s arm. So it appears that Brown has his arms raised in some fashion. Some witnesses say his arms were raised in the traditional action of surrender. The majority say that his arms were raised outward with his hands level with his face, palms facing Wilson.
Two witnesses say that the raising of the arms was a reflex response to being shot, the flinch or jerk as it is described.
5 witnesses state that Brown moved his hands to his waist. 2 say that he did not. Brown had no weapon but did he make a move - possibly to pull up his shorts - that could have been interpreted by Wilson as a move toward a weapon?
Some of the witnesses stated that they saw things that were impossible. A number, primarily friends and relatives of Brown, stated that Brown was on his knees with his arms raised up in the air when Wilson walked over to him, shot him in the head at point blank range and then stood over Brown, firing multiple rounds into him as he lay on the ground. However, with the possible exception of the arm shot and one or two other bullet grazes, all significant shots came from the front. This is significant because all witnesses stated that Brown fell on his face and was not moved. If that is the case then it is physically impossible for the officer to have “finished off” Brown with multiple rounds as he lay on the floor. There was also no physical evidence, powder burns etc, of shots being fired at close range. With the exception of these few statements by relatives, virtually all witnesses stated that the distance between Wilson and Brown was between 10 and 15 feet, as Wilson also said. This execution scenario can therefore be discounted.
Half the witnesses say that Brown was already collapsing or kneeling when Wilson fired the last volley of shots. Some of these people describe Brown as disorientated after the first volley of shots. Unfortunately, it was not possible for medical examiners to decide, for most shots, which shots hit Brown when or in what order. The fatal, head shot (to the very top of the head) must obviously have been last. If the first shots, the ones made in the police vehicle, actually wounded Brown then that might explain why he was slow and, as two witnesses described, out of breath, having run only a short way. Brown had four major bullet wounds. One to the head was instantly fatal and must have been made in the last round otherwise Brown would have collapsed immediately. One wound to the central forehead while not immediately fatal, would have blinded Brown in one eye and caused immediate major trauma. It entered, moved down through the eye and face and then exited at the jaw. It was a severe injury that would almost certainly have stopped him. Two wounds were made to the chest. One to the upper front chest and the other two the right lateral chest. Dorian Johnson reported Brown was shot at the car. Brown’s right chest is the most likely impact point, if he was in fact hit at that time, as he reached into the car and grappled with Wilson. This wound hit the lower lobe of his right lung and might explain why he didn’t run far or quickly.
Unless he was an incompetent shot, some of the first volley of rounds – in Wilson’s own description - must have hit Michael in the chest. They can’t have been the head shots. No one saw blood and one of the the head shots was lethal. Wilson himself states that the last shot was one to the head. So, hit in the lungs, Brown is said to run toward Wilson. Witnesses describe Michael staggering and stumbling as he moves toward Wilson, trying to maintain balance and stay upright. The blood evidence on the ground shows that Michael managed to move about 20ft toward Wilson. A number of the witnesses describe Michael collapsing to his knees and Wilson firing as Michael was going down. The last shot to hit Brown was to the very top of his head. This caused major brain damage (according to the autopsy reports) and was instantly fatal.
While it is apparent that Brown was moving back to Wilson, to me it is difficult to imagine a man already shot in the chest, possibly in the head, running at the officer with such force that he can propel himself at an angle which presents the very top of his head to be hit by the instantly fatal bullet. This is particularly true of a heavy man. In his testimony, Wilson says that when the bullet hit Brown’s head, Brown's expression instantly changed. That’s when he knew the threat was ‘neutralized’. If Brown was hit in the top of his head and fell to the floor face down then how did Wilson see his face to know that his expression changed? It is at least possible that the last shots to hit Brown occurred as he was already collapsing to the floor.
I don’t doubt that Wilson’s account of the struggle in the car is mostly correct. All the evidence supports it. I don’t say that Wilson murdered Brown but I believe the Grand Jury decision was wrong and that a trial should be held to explore the issues more thoroughly.
Some of the accusations against Officer Wilson are ridiculous. Most of the witnesses confirmed some of his story, most refute other parts. Physical evidence supports his statements concerning the initial confrontation.
People are confusing creatures. Some of the witness statements were totally contradictory. In giving evidence to the grand jury, some people admitted that earlier statements to police and the FBI were lies. Some changed their minds, possibly due to direct influence of others, possibly due to contamination of their memories by the stories of others, the media etc. Some accounts, from relatives and friends of Michael Brown, directly contradict both physical evidence and the vast majority of witness statements. Further confusion is sown by the fact that, although their statements seem reasonable, a number of people were related to or were friends of Michael. The possibility of deliberate falsehood can’t be ruled out but there is also the confounding factor of human emotion.
Some of the facts are known to everyone, some are not - if one hasn't followed the story closely. So, I'll start at the beginning:
Michael Brown appears to have stolen the cigarillos and intimidated the shop keeper. We have seen both video and have the testimony of Michael's friend who was with him at the time: Dorian Johnson. Dorian confirms the theft and intimidation.
Brown was 18, Johnson 22. They were not the kids that some like to portray them as. While younger, at 6 ft 4 and weighing 292 pounds, Brown was a large man, not a kid.
The two were walking, single file, down the middle of the road after they left the store. Right down the middle, on the central lines, disrupting traffic.
Officer Wilson was returning from attending to a call in the apartment complex. He saw they men in the road and told them to get on the side walk. He then started to drive on. He heard the call go out about a robbery at the store and saw the two men fit the descriptions of those thought to be involved. Reversing, he blocked the path of the men, nearly hitting them with the speed of his reversal. A number of witnesses describe the squeal of the tires on the police SUV.
After an exchange of unpleasantness that it is not necessary for me to go into, the officer and Brown became involved in a tussle, or tug of war, as many witnesses describe it. Some witnesses describe Brown as trying to pull away, others say he was leaning into the vehicle. Either way, there was a definite altercation occuring via the police vehicle window. Virtually all witnesses to this stage of events confirm the officer’s statement that he was involved in a violent struggle between himself and Brown through the window. 12 agree while 3 do not. Officer Wilson claims that Brown was punching him, and had a grip on the back of his neck. Wilson also claims that Brown tried to get his gun. In self defense, Wilson states that he fired his gun, twice, in the vehicle. He tried a number of other times to fire but his gun did not go off. No fault was found with the gun. One logical conclusion, as the firearms examiner agreed in testimony, was that something – clothing or a hand, was blocking the mechanism of the gun.
Witness testimony and physical evidence largely supports Wilson’s account of this stage. However, there is one discrepancy. Virtually all witnesses saw an altercation. All witnesses report hearing shots in the police vehicle. However, most of them report only a single shot. On October 7th , a van driver visiting the area, gave testimony that she stopped facing the police vehicle. She reported 2 shots. Most other witnesses were much further away. Most witnesses report Brown’s hands going in and out of the police vehicle but do not mention punches. On October 16th, Witness 34 said they saw actual punches. Witnesses had different views of the scene, of course. They also saw things at different times. While many saw the altercation with Brown leaning into the car and his arms going in and out, others saw him at a different stage, trying to pull away.
The physical evidence supports Officer Wilson’s account of this stage of the events. Crucially, Brown’s DNA was found on the Officer’s gun. Brown’s DNA was also found on the left side of Officer Wilson’s uniform at all levels – shirt and pants. That can only be explained is Brown being well into the left side of the police vehicle (American vehicle, driver on the left, left side of uniform facing Brown). To get DNA on the officer’s pant leg, Brown must have had at least his arm reached down into the vehicle and against the officers leg, exactly as Wilson claimed. Wilson’s DNA was found on Brown’s hand. Although not major, the physical evidence from Wilson himself shows scratches to the back of his neck and minor bruising to his RIGHT cheek. None of Wilson’s DNA was found beneath Brown’s finger nails. The discrepancy mentioned earlier relates to the injury to the cheek. If Brown was to Wilson's left, reaching in and hitting into the drivers side window - how did Wilson end up with the bruising on his RIGHT cheek? I suppose that it is possible that Wilson turned to face Brown full on while still seated but it seems unlikely.
In my opinion then, Brown was aggressive that morning and responded aggressively to Officer Wilson. He got involved in a physical altercation with the officer and, as Wilson said, appears to have got a grip on Wilson’s gun at one point. Again, just my opinion, a police officer struggling alone with a physically bigger assailant, willing to attack an officer and trying to get his gun, was reasonable to fire his weapon. He had no taser. His flashlight, that he considered using as a club, was on the passenger side of the vehicle and he would have had to expose his side to further attack to reach it. His mace canister was in the left of his belt, toward Brown. He defended himself with his left hand, against an attack from his left, while he obtained his gun from his right side with his free right hand. I think discharging his weapon was justified at this stage.
Michael Brown then moved away from the vehicle at speed. Whether due to gun shot injury or simply his size, most witnesses describe him as moving at a fast jog, rather than a run. Johnson, the friend with Brown, describes blood on Brown as he moves away. So, Brown appears to have either been hit with a round fired by the officer or by the glass in the door as a bullet passed through it – the glass of the window that was down in the door. At autopsy, Brown is found to have a gun shot to his right lateral chest. Running away from, or toward the officer is unlikely to have exposed Brown's right side to Wilson's gun. It is likely, confirmed by Johnson's statement, that Brown was hit at the car.
Brown doesn’t run very far. But what happens next is described completely differently by the majority of witnesses, compared to Wilson’s statement. He maintains that he did not shoot at Brown as he ran away. 15 witnesses assert that Wilson fired on Brown as Brown was running away. 5 reported that he did not. Of those that say he did, the majority had a good view, others had only partial or obscured views. A bullet wound to Brown’s right arm may be significant here. One bullet entered through the ventral side of the arm and exited through the dorsal (wound 6 & 7 entrance and exit wounds). That is, it entered the inner arm and came straight out the back. I can only think of two scenarios in which this would happen. Either it hit the inner arm of a man running away when his arm was behind him, or it hit the inner arm of a man facing the shooter with his arms raised… Unless all 15 witnesses were lying, it appears that Wilson fired on the fleeing Brown, a young, unarmed man who was no threat to Wilson.
All witnesses who heard the shots, heard three sets. One or two in the car, a series of 4 or 5 shots, a pause and then another series of shots. In all 12 shots were actually fired. Six hit Brown.
Wilson says that Brown stopped, turned to come toward him and then he, Wilson, opened fire the first time. He maintains that Brown continued to advance and he fired another sequence of shots that killed Brown. The van driver witness confirms Wilson's statement. Wilson maintains that he told Brown to stop multiple times. Two witnesses confirm this. Most do not.
Physical evidence also supports Wilson's story of Brown having come back toward him. Blood spatter, on the ground shows that Brown appeared to have run about 200ft from the police vehicle and then returned about 20ft back toward Wilson. Wilson states that he was backing up as Brown approached and some witnesses agree with this.
Most witnesses who saw this part of the scenario say that Wilson fired the first set of multiple shots while Brown was fleeing. Brown appears to be hit – a number of witnesses describe him jerking or flinching. Brown had the shot to the arm and a number of other gunshot injuries that might have been inflicted from behind – the tip of his thumb for example. The van driver witness, mentioned above, supports Wilson’s account as do four others. However, one of these was turning his car around and trying to ‘get out of Dodge’ at the time. Another was a woman going into a friends house, who was parking her car and checking her cell at the time.
Witnesses report Brown stopping turning and raising his arms. 15 witnesses assert that Brown had his hands raised. Only two said that he did not. This is the other time that the bullet could have struck Brown’s arm. So it appears that Brown has his arms raised in some fashion. Some witnesses say his arms were raised in the traditional action of surrender. The majority say that his arms were raised outward with his hands level with his face, palms facing Wilson.
Two witnesses say that the raising of the arms was a reflex response to being shot, the flinch or jerk as it is described.
5 witnesses state that Brown moved his hands to his waist. 2 say that he did not. Brown had no weapon but did he make a move - possibly to pull up his shorts - that could have been interpreted by Wilson as a move toward a weapon?
Some of the witnesses stated that they saw things that were impossible. A number, primarily friends and relatives of Brown, stated that Brown was on his knees with his arms raised up in the air when Wilson walked over to him, shot him in the head at point blank range and then stood over Brown, firing multiple rounds into him as he lay on the ground. However, with the possible exception of the arm shot and one or two other bullet grazes, all significant shots came from the front. This is significant because all witnesses stated that Brown fell on his face and was not moved. If that is the case then it is physically impossible for the officer to have “finished off” Brown with multiple rounds as he lay on the floor. There was also no physical evidence, powder burns etc, of shots being fired at close range. With the exception of these few statements by relatives, virtually all witnesses stated that the distance between Wilson and Brown was between 10 and 15 feet, as Wilson also said. This execution scenario can therefore be discounted.
Half the witnesses say that Brown was already collapsing or kneeling when Wilson fired the last volley of shots. Some of these people describe Brown as disorientated after the first volley of shots. Unfortunately, it was not possible for medical examiners to decide, for most shots, which shots hit Brown when or in what order. The fatal, head shot (to the very top of the head) must obviously have been last. If the first shots, the ones made in the police vehicle, actually wounded Brown then that might explain why he was slow and, as two witnesses described, out of breath, having run only a short way. Brown had four major bullet wounds. One to the head was instantly fatal and must have been made in the last round otherwise Brown would have collapsed immediately. One wound to the central forehead while not immediately fatal, would have blinded Brown in one eye and caused immediate major trauma. It entered, moved down through the eye and face and then exited at the jaw. It was a severe injury that would almost certainly have stopped him. Two wounds were made to the chest. One to the upper front chest and the other two the right lateral chest. Dorian Johnson reported Brown was shot at the car. Brown’s right chest is the most likely impact point, if he was in fact hit at that time, as he reached into the car and grappled with Wilson. This wound hit the lower lobe of his right lung and might explain why he didn’t run far or quickly.
Unless he was an incompetent shot, some of the first volley of rounds – in Wilson’s own description - must have hit Michael in the chest. They can’t have been the head shots. No one saw blood and one of the the head shots was lethal. Wilson himself states that the last shot was one to the head. So, hit in the lungs, Brown is said to run toward Wilson. Witnesses describe Michael staggering and stumbling as he moves toward Wilson, trying to maintain balance and stay upright. The blood evidence on the ground shows that Michael managed to move about 20ft toward Wilson. A number of the witnesses describe Michael collapsing to his knees and Wilson firing as Michael was going down. The last shot to hit Brown was to the very top of his head. This caused major brain damage (according to the autopsy reports) and was instantly fatal.
While it is apparent that Brown was moving back to Wilson, to me it is difficult to imagine a man already shot in the chest, possibly in the head, running at the officer with such force that he can propel himself at an angle which presents the very top of his head to be hit by the instantly fatal bullet. This is particularly true of a heavy man. In his testimony, Wilson says that when the bullet hit Brown’s head, Brown's expression instantly changed. That’s when he knew the threat was ‘neutralized’. If Brown was hit in the top of his head and fell to the floor face down then how did Wilson see his face to know that his expression changed? It is at least possible that the last shots to hit Brown occurred as he was already collapsing to the floor.
I don’t doubt that Wilson’s account of the struggle in the car is mostly correct. All the evidence supports it. I don’t say that Wilson murdered Brown but I believe the Grand Jury decision was wrong and that a trial should be held to explore the issues more thoroughly.
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