Do you want to know why this case has sparked so much outrage? Because it's not a rare occurrence in the US.
If you want to see why I get so frustrated about this issue? Watch this video. Black man is sitting outside of a store alone, waiting for his children to get out of some school function. Just waiting. Paranoid store clerk calls the police. Police insist that he identify himself--which if he's done nothing wrong, if he has done nothing suspicious, why should he have to identify himself? He speaks politely and calmly with the police and then a male officer arrives and he gets to be arrested in front of his children and other onlookers while having done absolutely nothing wrong other than being black and sitting on a public bench.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/0...?detail=tumblr
I admittedly only made it halfway through that video, it was just entirely too bothersome for me to listen to a poor innocent man freaking out because he's being unjustly arrested while his children watch.
This is a major, ongoing problem with law enforcement in this country, and there are a million examples of it. This isn't a problem for Ferguson, or St Louis, or Missouri. This is a major problem for the entire United States, and if Michael Brown's death sparks controversy and outrage and speculation about the consistently growing police problem in the US, then that is a good thing for the citizens of this country.
And yes, I realize this is a different case, different officers, a different city, etc. Fact of the matter is that it's all the same underlying issue: police deeming it necessary, on a regular basis, to use excessive force with black people in general, but especially black men. I'm sure other races get it as well, but it's an epidemic with black men, and it needs to be scrutinized as a nation-wide issue, not just a small town problem with one police force.