Nichole Andreasen
Sociology of Crime
4 December 2014
Ferguson Shootings: Victim Theories
One of the biggest cases that is surrounding the news today is the story Michael Brown and Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri. This case began on August 9th, 2014 when Darren Wilson shot 18 year old Michael Brown. When he was shot, Brown had been unarmed. Before the shooting took place, Brown had been suspected of being involved in a robbery. Around this time, Wilson had been leaving another call that was made, when he stopped Brown for being in the street. He didn’t realize at the time that Brown was the suspect that was involved in the robbery. When he stopped Brown, he physically assaulted Wilson by pushing him into the car. The rest of what happened is still up for debate but what they believed to have happened is that Wilson pulled out his gun and when he did this Brown put his hand over the gun and Wilson shot. Wilson continued to shoot Brown six different times and kill him. Since Brown was unarmed and Wilson originally had no reason to stop Brown other than the fact that they were in the street, many people believed that Wilson did what he did out of racism and that Brown was the victim and not Wilson. This case went to trial and after three months the grand jury decided not to indict Wilson for the shooting of Brown. Throughout this paper, I will go through each point of view of Brown being the victim and Wilson being the victim. I will also use different victim theories to explain each of their situations. First off, we will look at this case from the point of view of Wilson as the victim. Wilson had been a police officer in Ferguson for six years prior to this case. Before working with the police force in Ferguson, he had worked in a nearby town called Jennings. Wilson and all other police officers were fired from this area in order to start new because tensions between black residents and white policemen were too much. Before the Brown shooting, Wilson had no prior convictions of any sort. He was defined by people within the police force as a quiet man who was a decent policeman (Lopez, 2014). The day of the shooting Wilson had just finished another call when he came across Brown and a friend of Brown’s. Wilson’s story is that Brown, who was actually a very large young man, charged at him and physically assaulted him. Wilson talked a lot about how intimating Brown was. Brown’s size was somewhat intimidating to many people He was300 pounds and almost 6’6 tall. He also talked about when Brown looked at him it very intense. Brown was also taunting him and using offensive language towards him the whole time according to Wilson’s account of what happened. All Wilson claims that he wanted was for a way to not get beaten when he was in his own car. At the time, Wilson was not carrying a Taser so the only other option that he had was to pull out his gun. When he did this, Brown tried to taunt Wilson that he was too scared to shoot him. They both went into a struggle over the gun and Wilson pulled the trigger on the gun. When he did this, Brown became angry. The way that Wilson described it was that Brown was so angry it looked like a demon. Brown then turned and started to run away and Wilson’s goal was to just keep him contained until backup arrived. Wilson followed Brown who then stopped at a light pole turned around and started charging at Wilson again. Wilson started firing his gun and missed Brown a couple times. When he did manage to hit Brown, it was like he just flinched and it didn’t hurt him at all. Wilson then aimed at his head because Brown was still charging at him. He shot Brown in the head and this is what killed him. From Wilson’s point of view everything that he did in this situation he was doing to protect himself. Brown seemed to be unstoppable and he wanted to make sure that he didn’t get hurt (CBSNews, 2014). In situations like this, he should be able to and have the right to protect himself. He had become a victim to a boy, who was much bigger than him, who was threatening his life, so he was using self-defense. This is Wilson’s side of the story and all that he believes is how it happened. Whether everything he said is true or not is still up for debate. But in Wilson’s story he was a victim trying to protect himself from what could have been a deadly situation for him. Now that this case has taken place it has put Wilson in even more danger to become the victim of another crime. Because many believe that he should have been charged in this case they think that he needs to pay for what he did. Shortly after this event took place, he went into hiding in order to protect himself and his family. He knew that once they released his name he would become targeted. This shows how one crime can escalate into many more.
There are several victim theories that we can use to describe Wilson from this point of view. One theory is the deviant place theory. This theory states that the greater exposure to dangerous places the more likely you will become a victim to violence and crime (Siegel, 2013). The victims that end up in this type of situation don’t encourage crime but they are more prone to something happening. This can describe what happen to Wilson on several different accounts. Wilson’s first job working in Jennings was constantly putting him in danger to become a victim of some sort of crime. Being a policeman in area of high crime you need to be constantly on your guard. As a policeman he constantly has to put himself in dangerous situations, therefore sooner or later something would have to happen to him. The way he reacted is the way most victims would react. When someone is putting your life in danger you have to fight back. Another victim theory that we can look into is the lifestyle theory (Siegel, 2013). Wilson’s lifestyle revolves around crime. In the places that he has worked such as Jennings and in Ferguson the crime rate is higher than most other places. When comparing the crime rate in Ferguson to the United States average Ferguson is generally higher. This means that most of Wilson’s life as a police officer he is going to be around more crime than an average society. The lifestyle theory states that crime isn’t a random occurrence in someone’s life, but it comes as a result of how they live their life. Ferguson has recently become a city of high crime because of the recent drop in its economy. In Ferguson now, the unemployment rate is over 13% and the amount of people in this town that live poverty has more than doubled in the last decade. Also, in this town there is a poverty rate of almost 20% in every neighborhood. This causes high crime rates and also for schools in these areas to start to fail. By looking at all the statistics of crime and poverty in Ferguson it helps to prove both the deviant place theory and the lifestyle theory. Especially since a huge part of the deviant place theory is where the crime takes place. It says that this will happen in poorer neighborhoods and this describes Ferguson (Nicks, 2014).
Now we will look at the point of view of the public where Michael Brown is the victim in this case. Earlier, I went into detail about the crime and what happened, but most of it was in favor of Wilson. Brown is seen as the victim by many people because he was unarmed during the whole incident. All of the shell casings that were found on the scene were from Wilson’s gun. Brown may have instigated the crime but there is reason to believe that what Wilson did could have not been out of self-defense. When Brown’s body was found it was more than 150 yards away from the vehicle that Wilson was in when he shot Brown. By ruling, you can only defend yourself when it is reasonable. Wilson was still shooting when Brown wasn’t near his vehicle anymore. Since Brown didn’t have a weapon then there should have no longer been a threat to Wilson’s life and he should have stopped shooting (CBSNews, 2014). There are also eyewitnesses that said that after the initial shots were fired Brown put his hands up in the air to surrender and Wilson continued to fire at him until he was killed. All but two of the witnesses, according to a PBS survey, claimed that Brown had his hands up in the air while Wilson was still shooting at him (Lopez, 2014). It has also not been confirmed yet whether or not Brown had even grabbed for the gun in the first place. There was one witness to the crime that stated Brown had never grabbed for the gun. Several conflicting moments in this shooting happened because Wilson claimed that he realized that Brown was a suspect for the robbery that had taken place earlier. This had not been proven since Brown was only allegedly stopped in the first place because he was walking on the road. The police chief of Ferguson wasn’t entirely convinced on this fact. The only reason that he could have been claiming this was just so that he was saving himself from conviction. This case brought into question that Michael Brown became the victim because of racism. According to statistics, black teens are more likely to be killed by a police officer than white teens. With all of Wilson’s background dealing with young boys in the black community it can be assumed that he could have the wrong opinion of black teens. While he was working in Jennings, blacks had a lot of conflict with the whole police force. This could have given Wilson a bad impression of the black community as a whole which caused him to continue shooting at Brown making him the victim.
There are several victim theories that can be related to Brown’s side of this case. Brown had several prior convictions of theft which seemed to put him at a higher risk to become a victim or to victimize someone. One of the main theories that can be related to him in this particular case is victim precipitation theory. This theory states that some people may actually initiate the confrontation that will eventually lead to their death (Siegel, 2013). This is what happened in this case. Most of this situation could have been avoided if when Wilson first stopped Brown and his friend and told them to get on the sidewalk they would have done it. Instead Brown ignored his request and charged at Wilson. This is what led to him becoming the victim. According to the victim precipitation theory, all of this is escalated when the victim attacks first, uses threats or fighting words. Brown caused this to happen by throwing violent language at Wilson. When they were fighting Brown was egging Wilson on saying that he wouldn’t do it. By using this type of language it helps to relate to the victim precipitation theory. Also, to go along with this theory is the passive precipitation. This says that a personal characteristic of the victim can threaten or encourage an attacker. The can relate to Brown’s size and the way that Wilson described how Brown looked when he was attacking him. Wilson described Brown to look almost like a demon when he was going to attack him. Showing feature like this can lead to becoming a victim like it did to Brown. Because of the way he looked and his features, when you relate everything that he did to the victim precipitation theory then it shows one reason why Brown became a victim. Another theory that you can relate to Brown is the deviant place theory. Brown lived in a neighborhood that was prone to violence because of low income housing. The whole are of Ferguson was dealing with an economic drop. Unemployment was at a high which put this area in more danger of crimes happening. Areas like Ferguson create hot spots that put everyone in these areas more at risk for something to happen. Whether it was a situation like Michael Brown and Darren Wilson there is bound to always be some sort of crime in this area (Siegel, 2013).
This one case shows different interpretations of how someone can be a victim. When you look at both sides of this case it can be difficult to see what was right and wrong. Michael Brown or Darren Wilson could have both been victims in this situation. When looking at the evidence you have to make different assumptions because of how unreliable the witnesses were to the crime. This could happen anywhere in the United States. Situations like this arise all the time. Especially when it comes to police officers and how they handle situations. They can be given special measures when defending themselves and there are a lot of times when there is no consequences. Whether there needed to be consequences or not in this case is still up debate. It just depends on which perspective that you look at it from. You can either look at the perspective where Michael Brown was unarmed and was trying to flee with his hands up, or you can look at the point of view where Darren Wilson feared for his life when Michael Brown came charging back at him. Either way at some point during this incident they can both be considered victims.
I believe that crime in this society has gotten worse. Just looking at the Ferguson case so much crime resulted from just one shooting. Whether or not what Wilson did was racial or it caused a huge span of crimes across Ferguson. By learning about crime and theories that relate to crime in this class, it has helped me to realize why crimes happen. It puts a lot of emphasis on why crimes happen. Most of the theories that we worked with in this class show that crime comes from how you grew up. Crime is influenced very greatly by how your parents raised you and where you’re from. It also has a lot to deal with you peers and friends. If where you come from is influencing you in the wrong way then you can do something about it. You shouldn’t let where you’re from or the people that you spend your time with be what labels you as a criminal. If anyone is ever caught in this type of situation where they think that because of where they are from and how their life is that they need to report to crime then they need to look into what they can do to make their life better. They need to use a rationalization theory and realize what their punishment could be if they keep going down this path. Not everyone in our society is going to do this and that is why crime has gotten worse and will continue to get worse. Until our society can find a way to keep everyone in the United States out of situations where they are going to be prone to become victims or be someone who partakes in the crime then crime is always going to continue to get worse. With that all the theories that we learned in this class will also become more evident. I believe that I learned a lot in this class. This class helped me to think about what is going on in society and how situations can turn into crime. In class I also really liked to be able to be a part of a group to work on a case study. This case study helped to look at one topic more in depth and helped to get a better understanding of the subject. When you have to present information to the class then you are more likely to learn what it is about and what it means to you rather than when you are just sitting in class taking notes on something. Also having a guest speaker come in can be very useful. It can help to get someone who has experience working with people in crime’s opinion. It is nice to be able to hear first-hand accounts of their story and what they believe about crime and the justice system.

Bibliography
CBSNews. (2014, August 16). Retrieved December 1, 2014, from Ferguson and Michael Brown: 5 Things You Need to Know: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ferguson-and-michael-brown-5-things-you-need-to-know/
Lopez, G. (2014, November 29). Vox. Retrieved December 1, 2014, from 12 Things You Should Know About the Michael Brown Shooting: http://www.vox.com/cards/mike-brown-protests-ferguson-missouri/protests-ferguson-mo-causes-history-facts-details
Nicks, D. (2014, August 18). Time. Retrieved December 1, 2014, from How Ferguson Went From Middle Class To Poor in a Generation: http://time.com/3138176/ferguson-demographic-change/
Siegel, L. J. (2013). Criminology. Belmont: Wadsworth.