We live in an age where news sources are more polarized, incorrect, and politicized than ever. On one hand there’s Fox News with their line-up of Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck; and on the other hand there’s MSNBC with the left-leaning Reverend Al Sharpton. Somewhere in the middle there’s CNN, whose reputation is now embarrassingly low due to multiple false stories they’ve published over the past year. Any channel you tune in to or any news website you click on has their own agenda–and this has come to an apex with the Ferguson riots of August, 2014. It’s time to sort out the facts of the matter and come to a fair conclusion about the riots and their implications.

First let’s lay out the basic story. The two main actors are Michael Brown, an 18 year old 6’4’’, 290 lbs., black teen from Ferguson, MO, and Darren Wilson, a 28 year old white police officer for the city of Ferguson. Brown had just graduated high school and was planning on attending Vatterott College, a technical school, in order to become a heating and cooling engineer; he hoped to start his own business in that industry. Wilson had no disciplinary history as an officer and was said to be an “average officer” who allegedly did not get into trouble, according to a published interview from an anonymous co-worker of his.

The shooting took place on August 9th, at noon. Michael Brown and his friend, Dorian Johnson, a black male, were walking on a road when Officer Wilson drove up in a police cruiser and ordered the men to move to the sidewalk and to stay off the road. This provoked a confrontation between the officer and the men that turned into a possible charge of 2nd degree murder for Officer Wilson.

This is also where the story becomes cloudy. The Ferguson Police Department claims that as Officer Wilson tried to exit his cruiser, Brown pushed the officer back in and that Brown reached for Wilson’s firearm during a violent struggle. However, Dorian Johnson asserts that the officer yelled profanities at him and Brown and then throttled Brown’s neck through the police cruiser window. Johnson also claims Brown never reached for the officer’s firearm during the struggle.

At one point during the confrontation, Wilson’s gun went off, for one reason or another. This caused Brown and Johnson to flee. Wilson took off after them, fired six shots into the backs of the men, and killed Michael Brown

There’s no definitive account of the situation; all of the accounts are based on first-hand witnesses such as Officer Wilson, Dorian Johnson, and some locals who observed part of the struggle. There was no dashboard camera on the police cruiser, and Officer Wilson was not wearing a body-camera.

The grand jury investigation of the murder will produce a more accurate picture as it gets deeper into the events, but as of now there is no clear picture. The case is all centered around hearsay.

Michael Brown was not an angel–this may be shocking to some due to most major news sources’ portrayals of him. Brown was involved in a robbery in which he stole cigars from a convenience store, but Officer Wilson had no knowledge of the robbery at the time of the confrontation. Does stealing cigars warrant being killed? Of course not, but it is relevant at least in the sense that it characterizes Brown as a troublemaker to a certain extent.

The Ferguson community reacted to this event by protesting; their main goal is to have Officer Wilson indicted on charges of murder. This goal is flawed because an indictment depends solely on the unbiased grand jury’s investigation, which only relies on official evidence and will be published in November at the earliest.

In my opinion, it would be a tremendous service to the nation if the protestors demanded legislation that would prevent another Michael Brown-style killing from happening again and leave the indictment decision to the Grand Jury. They should pursue legislation that requires police officers to wear body cameras in order to make sure that police brutality is recorded as evidence. They should also pursue legislation that limits the amount of military equipment sold to police departments in order to decrease their power over communities. Ultimately, they should seek a goal that can be achieved.