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Start off by reading over 1000 pages of the grand jury testimony. Finish it off by reading the 88 page DOJ report on Darren Wilson and Mike Brown. Then you can have at least a basis for commenting on what happened in Ferguson. The widely bashed investigation of the initial shooting of Michael Brown was performed painstaking in detail by St. Louis County, not by Darren Wilson himself as widely reported. The body lay on the street for four hours, as reported, but as was testified to, this is not unusual in a case where someone has been killed. NOT reported, was the fact that several times the investigators had to be pulled back to safety due to the crowd which became threatening and required additional officers to be brought in to protect the investigators. They were deliberate and exact in gathering evidence, such as measuring the blood trail of Michael Brown, which proved beyond a doubt that he had moved back toward the officer 21.6 feet, directly contradicting the testimony of the two witnesses who claimed that he had turned with his hands up, never moving toward the officer. Dorian Johnson, who started the narrative of hands up don't shoot, was identified by all the witnesses as having run for cover as the initial shots were fired, and was hiding behind a car on the back side (passenger side) of the police vehicle, in no position to witness what happed from the initial shots fired to the time the final shots were fired. Additionally, Dorian left the scene only to change clothes (to prevent from being identified) and return to the scene to speak to the media. The media also failed to report on the mob mentality that frightened witnesses who would testify to anything other than the narrative that Brown was an innocent shot by the cops. The NAACP was interviewing witnesses prior to their being interviewed by the police, and one witness who testified to the hands up don't shoot narrative eventually admitted to police that she hadn't actually witnessed anything, that she was testifying to what other people "had said what happened" and was portraying it as if she had actually been a witness. Another witness came forward months later to "corroborate the story" because she wanted to be "a part of the story". There is so much more than what I can list, but the DOJ report does an excellent job of summarizing the Grand Jury testimony. When people quote the DOJ report that says "there is no credible witness or evidence that can disprove Officer Wilson's testimony" and say that it just means that they "just can't prove it", that is strictly not true. Read the entire report, it is damming and it doesn't mince words about the lies, intimidation, and outright coercion perpetrated by the community of Ferguson against the officer himself. It is a shame that the media didn't find it just to provide a balance to the months of reporting on the story, as well as the "scathing" report of the years of profiling by Ferguson police. Somehow, releasing the two together created the idea that the outrage against Wilson was justified due to the profiling. If we really want to move forward, let's find a different starting point than Michael Brown. It is a tragedy that he died, but we have to look at the facts of that day. I think the white community can get on board with changing the way we police our communities, but if the black community wants to reach them and get on the same side of the issue, they will need to find a different starting point. Otherwise, both sides end up yelling past each other, and NOTHING gets done.