Ben, your family would have been attending your funeral and there wouldn’t be any street memorials for you.
Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson says he probably wouldn’t have used deadly force against Michael Brown, the teenager whose fatal shooting by police Officer Darren Wilson sparked a national debate on race and the role of police.
Carson gave an interview to the Post-Dispatch on Friday afternoon after visiting Ferguson. When asked if he would have shot Brown if he were in Wilson’s shoes, Carson said: “It’s hard to say. I probably, knowing who he was, I probably just would have arrested him.”
Carson said he would have waited for backup before having the altercation.
A Justice Department investigation concluded that Wilson had reason to fear for his life and thus couldn’t be prosecuted for fatally shooting the unarmed 18-year-old.
Earlier in the day, Carson, appearing with Missouri Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder and Ferguson Mayor James Knowles, told a gathering of reporters that the real issue was how Brown’s body was treated.
“I heard more than one time how the thing that really inflamed the community was the fact that Michael Brown’s body laid out on the street for four hours,” Carson said. “I heard also that people need to learn how to respect authority.”
Carson said when he saw the riots and unrest on television last year, he thought: “My impression was that this is something that could happen anywhere in our country. Particularly when you bring in outside agitators and inflame people.”