Did Michael Brown commit robbery or petty theft?

[OrwellwasRight]

99. That's not what's being discussed.

What's being discussed is whether, if we accept that the video is true version of the events that produced the shoplifting call, and if the person in the video is Mike Brown, then what's the crime? And a prosecutor would have to prove the identity of the perpetrator, would have to prove that taking of property occurred, and would have to prove the "force" element. A defense attorney could argue all those are incorrect, and a jury would hash that out, and they could say, we don't believe that's the guy, or we don't believe merchandise wasn't paid for, or whatever. But you cannot watch the shoving in the video and discount the force element, and just call it petty theft because you wish for the crime to be less severe. That isn't how it works.

In any case, whether it was robbery doesn't excuse the killing and there will never be a prosecution because Brown in dead, so I am not sure why people are so interested in pretending they don't see force used in that video. Perhaps they just don't understand the law. As in, did you know you can assault someone just by touching them? You don't have to hit them or hurt them, you just have to touch them and it can be assault.