The President of Sacramento’s NAACP branch has stated that he hopes there will not be violence once the decision in the case of Officer Darren Wilson is handed down, but also asserted that he understands that members of the NAACP community have animosity for police.
Stephen Webb told local Fox affiliate KTXL 40, “We’re hoping if anything, that peace will continue, that the looting the rioting will not happen… We know our local branch is there, working very diligently with community, we’re hoping that we will have a verdict tomorrow and hopefully that verdict will be right.”
But Webb offered his own opinion of the case, stating that Wilson should be indicted by the grand jury: “The thing that we would like to hear is that justice would be done, that the officer would be brought up on charges. Unfortunately we feel that that’s not going to happen….One thing that the officer has indicated and we’ve all heard about it is that there was a struggle. Regardless of that struggle, if you’re defending yourself, one shot would have done it. But six shots? That’s what concerns me,”
Fox40 reports that Webb thinks trouble will escalate in Ferguson and Clayton Missouri, the site of the grand jury considering the case.
Webb tacitly defended any unrest that might occur, adding, “The unrest, I think you have to walk in their shoes. Walk in the shoes of a person that’s being affected by that community. And we’ve got different examples right here in Sacramento. Even though it wasn’t a law enforcement officer, it was an enforcement officer with Oscar Grant.”
Oscar Grant was shot and killed on a train platform by a San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit policeman in 2009. Grant’s father, who was serving a life sentence for murder, filed suit against BART and the policeman, claiming unspecified damages for interfering with his familial relationship. The officer served a year in prison, though he claimed he had mistakenly fired his gun instead of his taser.
Activists are planning a candlelight vigil for Michael Brown in Sacramento at the federal courthouse on Monday at 5 p.m.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.