Micheal Brown deserved to be shot.

[Jenny A]

I have real trouble with the word deserve in the poll. I don't think that either robbing a convenience store or punching a cop should be death penalty offenses. Neither is jay-walking, but sometimes a car hits you and it is. That's kind of how I see Brown. It's not a question of did he deserve to die, but rather if you rob a convenience store and follow that up with a tussle with a police officer in which you reach into the car, is it likely you will die at the hands of the cop?

The answer is yes, and it's more likely than it should be in an ideal world. Cops are human. They are armed. They are trained to protect themselves. And they are not held to the same standards in a fight as other people. They can legally shot when others can't. In Brown's case I don't think the result would have been different regardless of his color. He got shot because he is big enough to be scary and tussled with a cop.

The problem in Ferguson is police reaction to protests. It is true that dealing with cops is more dangerous if you happen to be brown-skinned. That should not be so. But Brown doesn't make a very good poster child, for the cause.