No respect.
(CNN) -- Michael Brown's mother says hearing that a grand jury had decided not to indict the officer who killed her son felt like getting shot.
"We heard this and it was just like, like I had been shot. Like you shoot me now -- just no respect, no sympathy, nothing," Lesley McSpadden told CNN's Sunny Hostin on Wednesday. "This could be your child. This could be anybody's child."
A New York Times video captured the moments after McSpadden heard about the decision not to indict Darren Wilson, the white officer who killed her son, Michael Brown, a black teen. She stood with protesters outside the Ferguson police department, sobbing uncontrollably.
McSpadden's husband, her son's stepfather, wrapped her in his arms before turning to the crowd, screaming: "Burn this bitch down."
"He just spoke out of anger. It's one thing to speak and it's a different thing to act. He did not act. He just spoke out of anger," McSpadden said about her husband, Louis Head.
"When you're that hurt and the system has did you this wrong, you may say some things as well. We've all spoke out of anger before," she told CNN.
Both McSpadden and Brown's father, Michael Brown Sr., sat down with Hostin. Neither believes Wilson's version of events, saying their son would never have taunted the officer, nor reached for his weapon.
They remembered their son as humble, silly and soft spoken. He could fix almost anything and loved animals, his siblings and being a grandson.
"He was different, but he still was like any other teenager -- wanted to explore different things, do different things, be around different people," McSpadden said. "He's young. He's growing up. He's finding himself."
Brown's father didn't mince words when he spoke about Wilson: "He's a murderer."
"He understood his actions. He understood exactly what he was doing. You know, he didn't have a second thought, a pushback thought, or nothing. He was intending to kill someone. That's how I look at it," Brown said. "He was going to kill someone at that point."
Earlier, he'd said the grand jury's decision changed his view of America.
"I was upset. I didn't understand," Brown said in a conversation with the Rev. Al Sharpton on Tuesday on MSNBC. "It just let me know that where we live is not what we thought, or what I thought. It's what people have been saying all the time, for a nice little minute: that this was a racist state."
Sharpton accused Prosecutor Robert McCulloch of trying to disparage Michael Brown Jr. He asked Michael Brown Sr. how he felt about the prosecutor attacking "the character of the victim."
"They crucified his character," Brown said.
Whatever else is true or not true in this case, one thing is irrefutable.
No respect.
A black kid with no respect for the law whose encounter with Darren Wilson began only as a result of his act of theft in a local convenience store and the assault of the store's proprietor while, if not incapacitatingly stoned, then certainly, at least, under the influence .
No respect for the authority of a police officer that, whatever else did or did not take place after that, did NOT begin with the young man's following the directions and instructions given him by that police officer in order to peacefully resolve the confrontation and either be found free to go or to be held accountable for his actions and activity.
No respect for the common sense of anyone being asked, by his mother, to believe that her son was "....humble, silly and soft spoken. He could fix almost anything and loved animals, his siblings and being a grandson...." given that, even allowing those were, in fact, some of his qualities, all evidence and information suggests that was not the Michael Brown that Darren Wilson encountered that night.
No respect for a stepfather who, regardless of his personal pain and/or anger, cried out in a crowd already ready to explode his wish that they "burn" the town down.
No respect for the memory of a dead kid, let alone simple, human values, from the hundreds of "protestors" who leapt at the chance to cash in on the atmosphere of anger and hurt and confusion and express their indignation at the legal system by burning, smashing, breaking, injuring and even killing while filling their arms, shopping carts and even their vehicles with the contents, products and property of every local business whose windows were sacrificed first in the "cause of justice and freedom"
No respect for a situation from a prosecutor and town officials who, inexplicably and tragically, chose to pass on an opportunity to make what was guaranteed to be a violently controversial announcement in the clear light of day as soon as the decision was made and opted, for reasons, defying logic, to announce later that night, allowing light to fade, crowds to gather, emotional momentum to build and darkness to provide cover for the aforementioned guaranteed violence.
No respect for the intelligence of any reasonable person who was, and is still being, asked to believe that a police officer with no record of impropriety would suddenly put six bullets into someone, in full knowledge that accountability would immediately follow, motivated by absolutely nothing more than the color of someone's skin.
No respect from bottom feeders like Sunny Hostin and Al Sharpton, among dozens, even hundreds of other second guessers, commentators and/or "experts", who recognize an opportunity for self aggrandizing and agenda pushing a thousand miles away.
And no respect for the process of law, in this instance in the form of a grand jury, made up of an economically, educationally, sexually and, more critically, racially diverse cross section of citizens whose time spent and efforts put forth give every indication that pain staking care was taken to investigate the incident and come to the fairest conclusion that logic and law provided.
Lesley McSpadden lost her son.
And, regardless of Michael Brown's character, or even his actions on that night, it's understandable that, as a mother, she would be blinded by the tears, anguish and pain of that loss.
But there's one thing she saw with an almost crystal clarity.
No respect.
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