There is a protest going on in St Louis, in support of Darren Wilson, the policeman who shot Mike Brown ten times. I don’t understand that at all. Best case scenario, he executed a man for shoplifting; worst case, he’s a trigger-happy racist. There’s really no possible way to justify what he did.
But just in case you’re worried that these citizens might get out of control, the police are on the case — riding bicycles.
Hey, where are the armored personnel carriers and the assault rifles? Don’t they think those protesters deserve a few shots of CS gas?
(via Jon Swaine)
:Snort:
People who haven’t been keeping up, or have been unaware, all the news you could want here (note, 3 pages on that one) and here.
This pisses me off to no end. Tribalism at work? Are people even thinking? “He’s a cop, we’re cops, we’ve got to support him”. Is that it? Fuck that noise.
There’s a Facebook page for supporting Wilson as well.
Their ‘about’ blurb reads:
that page needs moar goatz.
I know the person behind one of the Support Wilson FB pages (maybe even the specific one that Tony! The Queer Shoop linked to).
Her argument is that she has had access to information that isn’t yet public that will completely exonerate Wilson, and that he did nothing that any other cop would have done (or had to have done) in the same situation. She is certain that Wilson’s actions were completely in reaction to Brown’s assault, and that there was no racist intent.
Needless to say, I don’t buy her argument.
Yup, disgusting territorialism at its worst here. Good grief, I didn’t know he shot the guy 10 times. That is insane.
The mild police presence makes sense though. You’d be kidding yourself if you think those people are going to be looting stores.
Incidentally, the Support Darren Wilson page has over 14,000 likes.
The Justice For Michael Brown page has a little over 10,000.
https://www.facebook.com/ripmichaelbrown
As an antidote, watch Capt. Johnson’s speech today. He says he is sorry. He says that he is apologizing in the guise of his office, as an officer. He says that he feels shame for what happened.
lancefinney:
I’m not at all interested to see what kind of ‘evidence’ would justify murdering Michael Brown.
I actually find it bizarre that anyone is talking about supporting Wilson. Nothing has happened to him. He hasn’t been arrested. He hasn’t even been detained.
Saad:
The first time didn’t make any sense. Michael Brown was unarmed. There was no reason for Officer Wilson to draw his gun.
(Now, I am entirely cynical that the police force is going to hide behind him and try to still get away with it, but at least he seems to really care.)
I haven’t kept up with this the past couple of days. But did they really try to use the shoplifting cigars thing to support Wilson’s actions? Is it even true? That’s the same crap as they used against Trayvon: “Oh, the guy did drugs. How could he not deserve being killed?”
Saad:
Yeah, everyone knows white people don’t riot or loot.
Thanks for being an asshole.
Tony, I agree. I’m just shocked at the sheer brutality of it. He could have shoplifted an entire jewelry store but when he’s surrendering with his hands up, the *only* appropriate course of action is to read him his rights and handcuff him. Murder is murder and this is nothing less than murder.
Inaji,
Didn’t even mildly imply “white people.” Stop trying to start arguments with someone who completely agrees with the sentiment here about Mike Brown’s killing. I’m not gonna get into it.
Saad:
Previous thread
Thread before that
We’ve been curating links almost all week.
And to basically answer you: The police didn’t have to say directly that the store video justified Wilson shooting Brown to death. Much of the media and internet are making that connection all by themselves.
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/08/17/3472208/nixon-video-not-right/
White right-wing racists and authoritarians protest and get watched dispassionately by a handful of cops on bicycles.
Ethnic left-wing protesters call for fairness and get a fucking army thrown at them trying to shut them up.
We saw it with Tea Party protests vs. Occupy Wall Street, and we are seeing it here all over again.
It seems to be a trend. A firm political tendency. Bordering on a fucking law of nature.
While I do not support Wilson’s actions, we need to hear all sides of the story before making accusations (I have read he was shot three times, not ten).
A few years ago, a black teenager was killed by a white teen. His mother claimed that her son was innocent boy and there was a rally to support the black teen. Police would release statements saying the black teen tried to rob the white guy and his girlfriend whom the black teen threatened with a gun. The white guy stabbed him.
Saad, please explain what you meant then about being firmly convinced that the crowd in question will not be looting. Please, elaborate. And please also note that “looting” was not the justification for the massive police presence at the other protests. Honestly, they didn’t really have a justification at all: they were there to stifle. They were not there to protect people or property. If you were not aware of that, it may be helpful for you to read the previous threads linked by Inaji in comment one. Be warned: there is a LOT of reading.
and Saad, reconsider when you use the term or concept of “those people”.
Salon – Law enforcement’s shameful campaign against black America
THREE TIMES IS NOT BETTER. Christ, I can’t believe I even have to say that.
They have admitted that he stopped Michael for the “crime” of walking in the middle of the street. They have admitted that Michael was unarmed. At the very, very, very least, the police department has already admitted that Wilson engaged in gross misconduct unbefitting an officer. At the fucking least. There is zero justification for what he did.
Noticed quite a few pithy bible quotes by protesters in support of Wilson like “blessed are the peacemakers”, presumably referring to the hordes of guys dressed like modern day versions of Imperial Stormtroopers blasting everyone with high-tech pain machines.
So-authoritarian, crypto-racist and self righteously religious at the same time? Quelle surprise!
coreyschlueter
All sides of the story? We already have. We have heard the similar stories of many eyewitnesses. And we have heard the several everchanging stories from the police department. I mean, seriously, “before making accusations”? Michael Brown has been dead for a fucking week now.
Serious fucking business.
“All parties agree Brown was shot multiple times.
Mitchell said it was “more than about five or six” times, while Johnson said it was more than three.
Brown’s mother said she was told he was shot eight times. Some witnesses said they heard as many as 10 shots.
Belmar said only that it “was more than just a couple.””
Are you really gonna quibble over something like that? Really? Are you just gonna insist that we say “several”? That hardly seems constructive or helpful or significant.
Fucking relevance?
History supports your contention.
Oh, the quote in my previous comment about number of shots came from here: http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/14/us/ferguson-michael-brown-shooting-5-things/index.html
red herring much?
I can. for every one person like corey that shows up here to spew nonsense, there are a million just like them already spewing the same nonsense out there.
I rather think a part of this kind of irrational response is people just flat out not WANTING to believe they live in a state where authorities can just take their lives on a whim.
Guess what? They’ve been doing it for all of human history; it’s how hierarchies are protected. If you aren’t used to the idea by now, then you and reality have some catching up to do.
I can only hope that someday, instant communication, permanent recording, and real genuine outrage will finally win the day, and this endless hierarchical structure we’ve put up with for endless eons will finally fucking end.
Do you any of you agree with people vandalizing and looting public property in protest for the shooting? That is being irrational.
Is it just me, or does it look like the bike cop sitting in the background is playing a harmonica…. I just picture them playing a blues tune.
as a reminder, Maddow’s piece on previous racial targeting by the St Louis police: “black days” where they were told to arrest all black people at a given shopping mall, and the infamous “Let’s make the jail cells more colorful” remark.
Record of racial disparity (video may autoplay at link)
Transcript of the August 12 show
I guess if ever I get shot I’ll know not to complain unless it’s more than three times.
fishmonger tosses out another red herring.
run along, little troll.
coreyschlueter:
lolwut? Please, show your evidence. It has been established with information in prior threads (we have been talking about this at length, fyi), that the looters were largely out of town people taking advantage of the chaos. There is no evidence that the protestors were looting or that the looting was itself considered an act of protest.
Are you just gonna obfuscate and bullshit us? Is that your game plan?
corey Schulter’s last facebook post that wasn’t a link to a music video:
….and now we get why Corey came here.
Saad:
Stop thinking people are trying to start an argument.
I agree with Inaji. When I read your statement:
I realized the implication: that white people don’t loot. Why?
You’re referencing the picture in the OP, which is made up of pretty much all white people. Taking your comment at face value-and there’s no reason not to, bc you didn’t add a snark tag or anything to hint that you weren’t serious-the implication is that you feel that extra security is not needed because those people in the picture aren’t going to be looting stores. So yes, Inaji’s response was completely on point. What did you expect people would think about your words?
Worse still, you made this comment on a post related to the situation in Ferguson. A great many people believe that groups of black people are going to engage in rioting and looting, though many people wouldn’t word it that way. In fact, there are racists that would likely couch things in the same terms you did.
Experience dealing with people who are racist inform my current thoughts (and, I suspect, Inaji’s, though it is not my place to speak for her) on the subject.
“I need some fine wine, and you, you need to be nicer.” – The Cardigans
Well, there’s this study. I suspect that’s a good deal of the explanation.
:-/
No, but we do recognize a blatant derail when we see one. Better luck next time, shit stain.
coreyschlueter:
What the fuck does this have to do with anything?
It’s not related to the protests. It’s not related to Michael Brown. Why are you bringing this up?
It wouldn’t be because you’re trying to cast a group of black protesters in a bad light by linking them to rioting and looting would it?
This is another example of drawing a conclusion based on prior experiences.
To clear things up, the first group of looter/rioters earlier this week were opportunists from out of the Ferguson community. They were not part of the protests. I’m not certain about the 7 people who were recently arrested, but even then, these would be a few bad apples. They do not discredit the protesters and should not be used as a distraction as you’re doing here.
STOP IT.
(oh, and just because you’re likely to still whine about it, yes, I condemn the actions of those few people who engaged in looting. Happy? Now move on.)
So blatant trolling it is then, huh? Fuck off, corey.
coreyschlueter:
Read the commenting rules. This is a rough blog. You come in here with right wing memes that are all about painting the protesters in a bad light, and you’re going to get shot down fast. Fuck your desire for “niceness” when you’re engaged in racist apologetics.
coreyschlueter:
This isn’t a goddamned jury. We have more than enough facts in place to know that Officer Wilson was not justified in murdering Michael Brown. You fuckers are on my fucking nerves.
We already drank your whine, it’s what made us not nice.
A report in The Guardian on the pro-Wilson protest: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/18/ferguson-supporters-police-killed-teenager-protest?CMP=twt_gu
The person I know is quoted in the piece.
coreyschlueter:
If you have been paying attention, you would know that many people in Ferguson were protecting the stores. And it was the militarized police who were rioting, not the people.
And fuck you for demanding that people be nice to your racist and blatantly ignorant ass. You got the reaction you deserved.
Now crawl away whining.
Getting beyond that, I think what Saad was saying was that this particular group doesn’t look like they are about to go looting…
but WHY? I agree, I wouldn’t look at that group and think, ” oh boy, those folks are up to no good”. But really, I can only claim that conclusion because this is the stereotype that has been drummed into my head since I was a lad.
what’s to stop them from going on a looting spree, really? absolutely nothing.
Why do the cops ignore them as a threat? For the same reason I do when I look at them…. and I can’t say I have any other reason for doing so other than spending too much time at the mall as a kid,
frankly, given the right circumstances, this group of people would be entirely likely to loot that mall.
and yes, cops are just like all the rest of us, brought up on particular stereotypes, reinforced by the media, and this indeed is the result… what look to be a couple of semi-retired bike cops, put there as a token show.
I bet that if this were a gathering in support of Wilson in say, San Francisco, there wouldn’t even be the two token bike cops.
but, if the gathering was a bit larger… I might change my mind on whether there would be cops there. Because they would show up to protect the gathering from attack by “violent counter-protestors”. tear gas would still be fired at anyone but the white people standing there in support of the cop.
and they would see nothing wrong with it. nothing at all. 30 years ago, I might have had the same reaction.
re lancefinney’s link #43:
That’s hilarious, a gesture of support that requires you to own a porch.
(It’d be nice if the teenager he killed had a chance to breathe and enjoy life once again, obviously.)
Ichthyic:
Laughing my ass off here. Thanks for that.
I wonder how many of the people at this protest were open carrying.
Open carry is not a verb, dianne/snark
You need all of the information before making a conviction, not an accusation. If I’m in an alley with one person who has recently been shot dead, and I’m standing there holding a smoking gun, I’m sure as hell going to be accused of having shot them. I will even be arrested, because that’s what you do when you suspect someone of being a violent offender who might flee before all of the evidence gets collected. Being arrested means there is enough circumstantial evidence to accuse you, and it’s to hold you tight so you don’t run away or tamper with evidence that could convict you when it finally gets to court.
And yet, Wilson was standing there with a smoking gun having just shot a kid numerous times, but was allowed to go free, leave town, and erase his entire online history. And he still hasn’t, as far as anyone knows, even been taken in for questioning.
“”He’s been victimized”, said one of his supporters.” Interesting. He’s been given a paid vacation, gotten to leave town, and do pretty much whatever he wants. Meanwhile, the young man he shot is dead, and that young man’s family has had a nightly curfew imposed on them as if they were children or criminals. So how, exactly, has Wilson been “victimized”?
chimera – it could be. If the reference is to the “open carry” law itself, then “open carrying” would be a legitimate neologism in the form of verbing the noun, which has a long and popular history. :)
The defending of the police who murdered an unarmed teenager, with rhetoric attempting to make him seem misunderstood and like The Real Victim for having to deal with Accusations, is disturbingly similar to rape apologia.
According to David Klinger, professor of criminal justice at the University of Missouri, St. Louis, shooting an unarmed man could be justified under the law in some circumstances.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/shooting-an-unarmed-suspect-could-be-justified-according-to-the/article_e9b5412f-2283-512e-8636-0d2bbe958c5c.html
Garner vs Tennessee:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee_v._Garner
The results of the investigations will show if that applies in the Michael Brown case or not. The results should also corroborate or contradict the witnesses that have surfaced so far.
Tony @ 34
Neither of us are familiar with all the personalities that are out there showing support for Wilson. To me it seems obvious they are insensitive, biased assholes who want to just make a statement because they can’t stand their idea of “police can do no wrong” being challenged.
Looting an innocent person’s store is unrelated to someone being murdered by police. That is just criminals taking advantage of a delicate scenario on the verge of turning into chaos. It happens all over the world. I doubt the people taking Wilson’s side have looting in mind. They’re insensitive assholes.
Since you lie and bullshit in your first sentence apology for being a racist, why should anything you say be believed.
One facet of freethinking is to distrust AUTHORITY. Which means anything the police, government, etc. has to say to dismiss and diminish the fact that an unarmed teenager was brutally murdered by a policeman who should have never drawn his weapon. If you don’t see that, you have no business posting here.
observer15:
Decided to show your true colors after all. Disgusting.
And, fuckface, more importantly, even *if* there were some possible justification for shooting Michael Brown ONE motherfucking time, a second time, to say nothing of 8 more times, is completely out of the fucking question.
Take your racist apologetics and shove it and yourself somewhere else.
Oh look, the fuckface observer15 must have missed this part of the article xe quoted above:
Michael Brown wasn’t a felon.
Saad:
I really appreciate your taking time out to give a non response to my comment #34.
And observer15 returns to say that shooting an unarmed teen is justified.
Go to Fox News or Free Republic, you fit in.
Or perhaps the Slymepit. I see some people there have tweeted insightful commentary about Ferguson.
The news story that I was cited was to show how people suggest race as the reason for Brown being shot. There is no evidence to suggest that race was behind what happened. We should be upset this happened, period.
I doubt that Wilson intended to kill Brown and I doubt that Wilson would be convicted of murder (manslaughter maybe).
While there may be a small number of anti-vigilantes, the same can be said of the police, that most of them are not “trigger-happy”.
coreyschleuter #62
Hahahaha! A policeman shooting a man multiple times and not intending to kill him. Hahahaha!
And again, the shooting of Mike Brown isn’t entirely the point, any more, nor is the shooter, as an individual. The point is kind of that we aren’t really all going, “Darren Wilson, what the fuck?” It isn’t that one cop went rogue, or is accused of doing something unusual. It ain’t about Darren and what he did.
It is about the fact that what Wilson did is all too common. It is about the fact that the entire Ferguson police department rallied around him and got him out of town. It is about all the bad things that the department did in the days that followed.
And now, it is about these clueless people holding a demonstration in support of a member of a group that has spent a week showing that they f6ck7ng despise demonstrations.
coreyschlueter:
You don’t know enough about race in the United States, nor the plight of black people (or other people of color) to be able to claim race wasn’t a role in this.
Also, Wilson shot Michael Brown 9 fucking times.
9 times.
He didn’t check to see if he was dead.
He wouldn’t let a nurse assist Brown.
He left the scene.
FUCK OFF with your apologetics you douchebag.
Well, I too thought that there was little more than a snowball’s chance in hell that the people pictured here would loot: not because they’re whites, but because they rallied to express deference toward the Powers That Be: so long as the message the crowd pictured wants to send is “We are Good, law abiding citizens who Respect the police and don’t steal stuff like the rabble over there“, they are very unlikely to indulge in behaviors so blatantly in opposition to their stated stance.
***
And when the underclass starts looting “rationally” by going straight to the wealthy suburbs and gated communities and tearing shit up there, I fully expect the very people who are currently complaining about “irrationality” to freak-out and demands that the plebeians be immediately gazaified into submission.
Oh observer15 just won’t quit finding ways to try to diminish this case.
First, from the wiki for that case: ” when a law enforcement officer is pursuing a fleeing suspect, he or she may use deadly force to prevent escape only if the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others.”
Guess what Michael Brown was not doing? Fleeing.
As for the interpretation of that case:
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=471&invol=1
Original statute says you can kill a fleeing suspect.
Appeals court says it isn’t constitutional.
Supreme Court upholds appeals decision, says that you can only kill fleeing suspect if you think there is a risk of severe violent injuries.
So you and the article are being dishonest: The example of the teenager killed for fleeing the scene of a burglary was an example of what is NOT considered legal. But it was before this ruling. Which is basically the exact opposite of what was being implied.
anteprepro
It’s even worse than that, actually; historical evidence indicates that white rightwing racists can pretty much launch straight out pogroms against nonwhites and the police will at best do something between jack and shit. Sometimes they’ll actively help out, as in the 1921 Tulsa race riots, when mobs of armed whites charged the black part of town shooting people indiscriminately and setting fire to many buildings. The State Police and National Guard were called out… to round up the black population at gunpoint into stadiums and sports fields, where whites threw dynamite at them from small planes.
Meanwhile, of course, any sort of leftwing protest gets armed response, and if any significant portion of the protestors aren’t white the arms will inevitably be used.
obesrver15, coreyschlueter
You’re both unprincipled scumbags with less moral and ethical capacity than a rabid weasel. It sickens me that you are members of the same species as I am.
Shot multiple times and EMTs were not called.
Please show why you doubt that Darren Wilson did not mean to kill Micheal Brown.
For those people who deny race played a role in this horrible crime, if you’re actually interested in raising your level of personal awareness somewhere out of your ass, try reading the prior threads on this blog about this subject.
Or, try this:
http://gawker.com/the-price-of-blackness-1622972582
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/08/17/michael-eric-dyson-spells-it-out-for-white-people-police-wont-kill-your-child/
http://www.occupy.com/article/black-man-killed-us-every-28-hours-police
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2014/08/michael-brown-study-racial-bias-weapon
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/08/3-unarmed-black-african-american-men-killed-police
Go. Start your education. I, and probably many others here, are in no mood to be your personal tutors.
Aren’t we so glad to have the psychic powers of Corey at hand, clearing up all of the issues at hand?
Great work, psychic detective. Maybe next time you can use your mystic divining powers to determine why we think you are a hypocritical piece of shit for saying the above right after asserting that there is no reason to think is race is a factor. Your mindreading powers would be an incredible asset to that case.
Then you aren’t paying attention to the prevalent institutional racism still in this country, and should shut the fuck up as an ignorant racist apologist. It is all about the cop being white, and in hiding, and the black unarmed teenager being dead for jaywalking with nine bullets in his body….
Tony! The Queer Shoop @ #59-
Michael Brown wasn’t a felon.
He wasn’t a convicted felon. Strong arm robbery is a felony and assaulting a police officer can be a felony.
Oh, and further on observer15’s inane angle on this, we return to the article I linked to in comment 24:
You will note that unarmed fleeing from a non-violent crime is exactly what the case observer15 brought up DIDN’T cover.
The above is what you are defending, observer15. I hope you are truly proud of yourself. I hope the sweet thrill of trolling using sweet, sweet denialism is worth it to you.
observer15 at 73: Even granting that, you are still wrong. The case law specifies that the person fleeing needs to be pose a threat of serious physical injury or death if they escape. There was no reason to believe that. They were unarmed. That is undisputed. In addition, when the final shots were fired, they were not even fleeing.
You fail. Your excuses fail. And you fail as a human being.
Wilson did not know that Brown might have been a suspect and there is no sign there was an assault of an officer.
But, please keep pulling shit out of your ass. You are so convincing.
Took you a while to dig that up after you were asked, I see.
but, in the end, IT STILL DOES NOT ANSWER the question you were asked.
man, but you are dense.
fuck you and your damn red herrings. even the PC stated the robbery had NOTHING to do with why the cop stopped Brown.
NOTHING.
fuck.
you.
seconded.
observer15 apparently observes the inside of their own rectum, 15 hours a day. (Allotting for eight hours of sleep and two half hour meal times)
antenepro @#67
You should be arguing about that with David Klinger at the University of Missouri, not me. Also, read the link I gave at #54. Klinger is the one who cited Garner vs Tennessee in this case. The investigations should clear up any questions.
corey, what other possible motive is there for emptying his gun into a kid who was kneeling on the ground with his hands in the air begging for mercy?
probably the same way the white evangelical Christians are being “persecuted” in America by Obama.
it’s privilege turned into pure delusion.
…by shooting him in the back twice and in the front at least 4 more times.
yeah, I always get the attention of my friends when I see them jogging down the street by shooting them in the back.
works better than yelling “Hey!” every time.
observer15:
I see you’re still trying to cast Michael Brown in a bad light in an attempt to justify Darren Wilson’s actions.
You are a vile scuzzbucket.
And one who can’t be bothered to verify the things xe believes. Otherwise you’d know that the the Ferguson Police Department said that Wilson had no knowledge of the robbery when he encountered and later killed Michael Brown.
that should so be a parody comic strip.
observer15, don’t try to bullshit me. You linked to the one article you could find to support your bullshit “maybe there is an excuse” position, and you are the one who linked to both it and the wikipedia article. The wikipedia article which, if you actually read it, undermines the interpretation you were attempting to use. And no, I should not be arguing with Klinger, since he was merely quoted by the author of that article. In fact, Klinger is also quoted in this article and what he is saying is far more in line with the wikipedia article and the case law link I provided, and does not align as well with your spin:
http://www.vox.com/cards/mike-brown-protests-ferguson-missouri/was-it-legal-for-officer-darren-wilson-to-shoot-michael-brown
Just fuck off already.
Yes, they clear up you are a racist, looking for an excuse to justify the cold-blooded killing of an unarmed black teenager posing no fatal threat to a white policeman while jaywalking, were if the policeman in question politely asked the the teenagers to use the sidewalk, there would have never been an incident. The cop, like you, had a racist attitude….
…In the annals of: “anything you can think of has likely already been done”…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychic_Detective_%28video_game%29
like they did for Rodney King.
uh huh.
Ichthyic, but that video game seems to be playing it straight. A little. But then there is also the TV show Psych that plays it for laughs. Mostly. Gotta go full on parody still. Psychic detective who actually thinks he is psychic but isn’t. Not a real psychic getting into weird situations and not a con man using fake psychic powers to be a real detective.
Wow, this is getting really off topic, so I will stop my babbling there.
Okay. For all you folks who want to debate the exactly-precise circumstances of the killing — timing, motivation, aimpoints, catchphrases and follow-ups. Do this: Write down your argument in a pithy, well-phrased, chantable form, then memorize it. Now, go out your door, out on the street, and start marching, or just stand there, and keep chanting your précis for the world to hear.
So here is my pointed question: What is good and right for the police to do to you for your little demonstration? If your answer is that they should armor up and teargas you, fine, we will go back to discussing the original shooting.
In this country, we citizens should be free — we are free — to demonstrate for the deification of one and the disemboweling of the other of the two people in the original incident, either one way or the other. The goobers up top have just as much right to their rally as the people of Ferguson had to theirs. Right, wrong or not even wrong, we have the right to peaceably assemble.
The possible righteousness of the shooting is not the issue, and proof of good cause would not erase the crimes of the police during the past week. The eyewitnesses and the patterns of police activities make it unlikely that the officer had good cause, and it really isn’t about Darren Wilson and his motives. It is now about the Ferguson PD, race and America.
Or do you really think that some magic fairy is gonna come down, reveal the shining truth, and everybody is just going to shake hands and gather in the streets? The people who teargassed the last street gathering are hiding the only person who does know the truth.
so there’s still room for…
“The Adventures of Steve: Boy Psychic Detective?”
the possibilities are spinning out in my mind right now…
I couldn’t come up with anything better than, “Hands Up! Don’t Shoot!”
Ichthyic:
If you have a few drinks, the possibilities open up even further.
I imagine they would at that. Not a bad idea at all.
Menyambal:
Well we do all know that
IntentMotive Is Magic.What I find most baffling is even if it does turn out that everyone was wrong, eyewitnesses were all wrong, and the cop shot down a violent berserker with fists made out of iron and cigars that secretly doubled as shotguns, and good ol’ Coppy McCopperson was Perfectly Justified this whole time, and was all magically just all a misunderstanding and was Truly Truly Self Defense You Guys….
Even with all that….
Then what the fuck was up with all the shit the police up to since!!!??
Even if they do find the magical excuse that makes everything about the fucking murder of an eighteen year old somehow acceptable to the masses, it still doesn’t explain or excuse the dystopian police state behavior that came afterward.
But somehow, these dissembling fucks, these apologists for The Glorious Police, seem to not only EXPECT that the killer cop will get this magical excuse, but also completely ignore the entirety of that second issue. I mean, FUCK.
It’s basically whitewashing all the way down. Whitewash the murder, whitewash the censorship, whitewash the aggressive anti-protest behaviors, whitewash the arbitrary restrictions. But not everything gets whitewashed. The victim, the dead black teenager, gets smeared so that people can more easily victim blame. The protesters get smeared, just outright assumed to be the culprits of looting and the cause of all damage to the town while police are treating the place like soldiers in occupied enemy territory. So the end result: the police are squeaky clean, the black people are unruly and need to be put in their place.
Fuck authoritarians. Fuck all the racist, reactionary fuckwits endlessly chiming up in support of the most violent and oppressive aspects of our society. Fuck their inane blather, their dismissals, their pseudoskepticism, their defense of the status and their active cheeerleading for things to get even worse. Fuck them all.
oh, it’s not just that. It’s much, much worse in fact.
not only will they ignore the over the top response, they will ignore the far more important issue of how this town has become so segregated to begin with, and how the non-white part of it has been demonized for generations.
IOW, as usual, the vast VAST majority of people will just ignore the things that lead to this to begin with.
I so wish that wouldn’t be the case this time.
Hell, maybe it won’t be. first time for everything.
From the Justice for Michael Brown FB page: https://www.facebook.com/ripmichaelbrown?fref=nf
Tear gas and cops: https://vine.co/v/M36A9DjiWJQ
https://twitter.com/aterkel/status/501193587816943616
Tear gas, armored vehicles, flares. Reporters standing here with hands up so we don’t get fired at.
https://twitter.com/aterkel/status/501191846920740864
Whoa. This kid was just hit with tear gas. Mom is freaking out.
https://twitter.com/STLsherpa/status/501184429667012608
Popping sounds by Red’s was gunshots two officers confirm. And we have young woman taken away in ambo. No other detail. Police not shooters.
Yep. The original assumption about the original incident was that the cop was hassling a kid for walking in the street, in unwarranted assertion of authority, got out his gun and shot him for disobeying. The entire police department spent the next week hassling people for walking in the street, in unwarranted assertion of authority, got out their guns and shot them with teargas for disobeying.
It was a perfect recap of the shooting scenario, and a demonstration of departmental attitudes. For Darren Wilson to be a justified shooter, he would have to be a rogue cop indeed. But no, the department responded to the shooting with immediate violations of proper procedure, callous disregard for the citizens and the truth, and paranoid efforts to protect Wilson from whatever it was they imagined the bad people were going to attack him with.
The shooting and the past week are of a pattern, and the pattern spreads too far through this country. And, trivial as it may be in comparison, trolling fits a pattern, too.
https://twitter.com/jonswaine/status/501196196002541569/photo/1
Biggest barrage of gas so far. Multiple flashbangs
https://twitter.com/jonswaine/status/501198444581490688/photo/1
Woman in wheelchair speeding away from gas
https://twitter.com/jonswaine/status/501197216938094595
Kids now throwing a lot of rocks at cops #Ferguson
https://twitter.com/jonswaine/status/501196983265005568
A lot of claims that Molotov cocktails were thrown to start this. But some furious, claim they were at the front, nothing thrown. #Ferguson
https://twitter.com/jonswaine/status/501195561710518274
Guy just threw back a gas grenade, got a round of applause #Ferguson pic.twitter.com/4zHEXOesrk
LOVE this one:
danchovy @danchovy 31m
things are getting pretty serious down at the rally in support of darren wilson, the officer who shot michael brown pic.twitter.com/PDzy1vGbb6
https://twitter.com/rorycarroll72/status/501198648193974273/photo/1
Police scanner eavesdroppers say cops requesting reinforcements from wherever they can get them. #ferguson pic.twitter.com/81N0xmBnag
https://twitter.com/rorycarroll72/status/501192471120838657
Police just widened cordon outside #ferguson, threatening to arrest anyone within a mile.
https://twitter.com/akjohnson1922/status/501200586750951424
Cop just told photog to “back the fuck up or ill shot.”
https://twitter.com/robcrilly/status/501197890723663874
Police pointed weapon and me and Capt Johnson has threatened me with arrest. He has called squad car. V jumpy
https://twitter.com/stephlecci/status/501199139531939840/photo/1
Windows broken at Public Storage, some protestors yelling at guy who did it pic.twitter.com/lY2VTDgdc1
Regarding the claim that Wilson fired only three shots, an autopsy found at least six bullets hit Brown: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/18/us/michael-brown-autopsy-shows-he-was-shot-at-least-6-times.html?smid=tw-bna
you know what’s sad… even on the MB FB page, there are many commenters like “Voice of Reason” spinning the red herring link between Brown, the robbery, and the cop without acknowledging the robbery had fuck all to do with why Wilson stopped Brown.
it’s pathetic and sad, as you see many being convinced by this rhetoric that somehow, it was justifiable to shoot Brown… EVEN ON THE FUCKING FACEBOOK PAGE FOR BROWN.
we’re all doomed by stupidity and the inability of so many to apply even a modicum of effort in researching what people say.
I tried to correct the lies in there, but I doubt it will do much good.
srsly, wtf!?
How can you claim that Wilson didn’t intend to kill Brown when HE FUCKING SHOT HIM.
And then he shot him again.
And then a few more times.
And then denied him medical attention?
WIson is a cop, he had a firearm, and he certainly trained with it. One of the basic rules of firearm safety is not to point a gun at anything you do not intend to kill.
So your argument relies on Wilson being criminally, murderously negligent. You’re a fucking racist authoritarian asshole.
AHHHHH!!!!!!( Mic-drop)
THANK YOU , ANTEPRO,
This! So much this!
This sums up every single thought in my mind in the past two days since these hoards of cockroaches have crawled out from every baseboard imaginable to derail, obfuscate and confuse on every forum and Twitter feed that even lightly mentions this topic.
anteprepro:
Is there any justification given for the police to start up again?
There seem to be different versions of the Michael Brown story circulating on the Internet. Some of them contradict the three witnesses that have appeared so far:
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014/08/exclusive-friend-of-officer-darren-wilson-speaks-out-on-shooting-of-mike-brown-audio/
http://theconservativetreehouse.com/2014/08/15/exceptional-catch-the-jj-witness-video-eye-witness-audio-of-mike-brown-shooting-sharing-brown-doubled-back-toward-police/
I don’t know how much credence if any should be given to these, especially since they come from conservative sources, but the important point is that there is more than version of events.
Ichthyic @ #90-
Two officers were convicted in Federal court in the Rodney King case and were sent to prison.
antenepro @#87-
It’s not my spin, it’s David Klinger’s. You obviously didn’t read the link.
If the Ferguson PD had used any of their apparently millions of dollars of nonlethal equipment with Mike Brown, we wouldn’t be here now.
https://twitter.com/jesseltaylor/status/501203305817575425
Michael Brown was shot twice in the head (and six times total) according to autopsy cited by New York Times #Ferguson http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/18/us/michael-brown-autopsy-shows-he-was-shot-at-least-6-times.html?smid=tw-bna&_r=0 …
https://twitter.com/YourAnonNews/status/501203076859330560
Rubber bullets fired by police. People now yelling: we need a nurse or a doctor. pic.twitter.com/iCC5WQOapL
https://twitter.com/stephlecci/status/501202830959869952/photo/1
Police getting mad when media goes up past their line. Tells us we’ll get maced next time we do that. #Ferguson
https://twitter.com/aterkel/status/501204561118629888
Gunfire. Police asking us if anyone hit. #Ferguson
https://twitter.com/aterkel/status/501202143207231488
Frankie Edwards of #Ferguson says he got shot by police – doesn’t know if by rubber bullet. In car headed to hospital pic.twitter.com/f38yqBIF5H
https://twitter.com/stephlecci/status/501203843850731521
I’m in STL, watching the local news coverage.
There’s a massive police presence there tonight, with police from all the local municipalities joining Highway Patrol, along with more riot control equipment and vehicles. The pictures upthread are from the police line moving along W. Florissant Rd. with teargas, flash bombs and rubber bullets. According to police, there are’s gunfire and molotov cocktails coming from the protesters, as well as reports that protesters invaded and threatened employees at the famous McDonalds where the journalists were arrested.
Who in the gov and at what level has the authority to call off the police? Same question, for arresting Darren Wilson?
Leonard Pitts in the Miami Herald:
From the NYT link in #106:
So he was facing Wilson and most likely at some distance.
observer15, your sources are right-wing blogs? And you continue to say that it is just Klinger’s words, when it was an article not written Klinger, and Klinger is shown in other sources to not be saying those things, suggesting the author’s paraphrases were inaccurate?
You continue to fail beyond words. You should be embarrassed with yourself.
anteprepro:
One of the responses to one of your Tweets:
@CollDoll616 @jonswaine McDonald’s has been vandalized and a person has been shot…but other than that…
Supporters of Michael Brown pack out a church in Ferguson
Antonio French @AntonioFrench 4m
Each day County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch delays indicting #DarrenWilson, he is endangering citizens and delaying the rebuilding of trust.
Thank lakitha.
And it is confusing Tony. Don’t know the timeline.
There are reports of Molotov cocktails but no one on Twitter I saw could substantiate.
Several people heard gunfire, supposedly shot by cops but unclear.
Some protestors broke into McDonald’s but I don’t know why.
And many protesters are throwing rocks and such at the police, but that’s after they had already started their tear gas routine.
Can a monitor get PZ?
I’m fucking sick of observer15 fucking apologetics. This isn’t the time or place for someone like that.
observer15, it is polite around here to warn people about the content of links – one of yours has an image of the body in the street.
…but then I wouldn’t imagine you would consider other peoples feelings…
I see you may have beaten me to punch Tony! Though the “a person has been shot” line I do not care for. I get the impression that the people who really want to oppose the protests will associate any crime that happens in Ferguson for the past week and for the next week or two with the protestors. Every theft, every murder, all linked to the protesters, evidence and logic be damned.
Looks like police are once again keeping journalists from seeing what they’re doing.
(twitter)
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anteprepro, there were reports of molotov cocktails in earlier confrontations, though from what I could see they might simply have been news reporters seeing protesters throwing the gas grenades back at the police and not realizing that gas grenades are not molotov cocktails. Police are also claiming they have not fired any live rounds tonight (which strikes me as plausible; if they had been firing live rounds there would be a lot of dead and hospitalized protesters).
I second Tony!, can we please get a clean up?
I will never laugh at Twitter again.
From the young man who live-tweeted the shooting, to the journalists and protesters documenting the aftermath, Twitter has been the best (and damned near only) source of real news.
Here’s an article on McCullough claiming he’s responsible for the release of the robbery video as well as the one whose job it is to indict Darren W., also giving a history of previous race-related behavior and history. It’s the Daily Mail, not a trusted source,
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2726755/Prosecutor-center-Michael-Brown-investigation-no-stranger-racially-charged-controversy-unlikely-despite-calls-removal.html
irrelevant as to whether all the questions were answered though. Again, missing the point, as usual.
How deeply are they planning on fucking this situation up?!
obviously he did, and you didn’t read what HE said.
fail.
seriously… just get out. if you plan to continue in this vein, you’re not worth responding to, and since you’re not worth responding to, why bother? just go.
This is going to be a textbook case of exactly how not to respond to a massive protest.
Why is it the police seem intent on escalating situations until lethal force is “necessary”?
first link: “friend of officer Wilson”
uh huh.
Just slightly off topic.
nigelTheBold, I refused to check out Twitter until I learned the roll it played with activists in Egypt getting news and updates during the revolution.
Not saying it will bring revolution to the US but it can be used to learn about all sorts of news.
Ichthyic, @133:
It’s a well-known fact that friends who were not there are far more objective than witnesses who were there. Even the ones that live-tweeted the execution.
There are lots of reports of gunshots fired, not by police. Lots of fog (both literally and metaphorically) on the situation. Local TV media with live video and reporters on the scene. At the moment they are hunkering down behind a car due to reports of gunfire.
Have to use the military weapons on the population until they react and then you can justify the use of military weapons.
ABC Australia ( sorry for the length of it):
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-17/police-enforce-curfew-against-protesters-in-ferguson/5676908
Goodbye Enemy Janine:
I really need to go to bed and get some sleep, and all I want to do is curl up in a ball and cry, like a weepy armadillo.
What the fuck is wrong with us, that we can treat other people this way?
to be clear, again, this apparently is due to the recruitment and training procedures in use by AMERICAN police forces.
You really don’t see this kind of shit here in NZ, and it’s not like we aren’t a diverse country, in every sense.
so of course the question really should be… Why has the police infrastructure in the US so often adopted this strategy of ever increasing escalation and confrontation?
Racism plays a big role in it, I’m sure. Heirarchy, authoritarianism, the rampant gun culture, probably also play a role.
Someone posted a link to a book that was supposed to be a good summary of the history of the militarization of the police force in the US, but I doubt even that goes far enough back to really trace the roots of this.
there is certainly room for a lot more books on this subject, to be sure. However, I’ll bet, in keeping with the theme of the first post on the subject, that there will be far more books published on Robin Williams now that he is gone, than there will be on why communities like Ferguson end up being segregated, with a police force that has decided that the use of force is not only warranted in routine stops, but necessary.
you do sarcasm proud. :)
Ferguson schools are supposed to open for the year tomorrow, after having been postponed once already. It’s hard to imagine that kids will be able to go and wait for their buses on these same streets strewn with gas canisters, spent flash grenades, thrown landscaping rocks, broken glass, etc.
Ichthyic:
My apologies. You are absolutely correct. While other countries have seen this before, and probably will again, and while racism isn’t strictly an American export, it is definitely most manifest here in the States.
My nearsighted nationalism created a blind spot, and I most definitely should have clarified it’s all about the US.
Why not getting full meta? a non psychic detective who’s is in fact a super-genius completely oblivious about his own skills who came to genuinely believe he is psychic and whose uncanny ratio of success feeds his delusion.
Me:
Even that’s not true. I know there are other countries that have even worse problems (I’m looking at you Egypt, Iraq, India, Nigeria, and other countries to be named later). I guess it’s just that we claim to have these great ideals about equality and egalitarianism, and hope and love and pulling-together-in-times-of-crisis-itis, and all kinds of good-sounding things.
And then we fail so spectacularly, so obviously, and so heart-breakingly.
Take a look at this good old boy McCulloch. Here’s an older video of him complaining about Governor Nixon taking the situation in Ferguson into his own hands. Seems McCulloch is to blame for a lot of the mishandling and violence here. I wonder what Obomber is thinking tonight as he lays his head on that pillow.
just for fun, I did a google war:
Book biography robin williams (46 million hits)
vs
book US police militarization (4 million hits)
not that I’m saying a google war is really information to base conclusions on, but I found it amusing nonetheless.
In case this has not been linked to yet.
Get the fuck out of here!
You’re right of course, I think I just wanted the focus to be on what is happening in the US and why, rather than other countries, which have other factors which might conflict with what explains what is happening in the US.
OT, but laurentweppe, I’d watch a tv show about that.
War correspondents. Yeah, that sounds appropriate.
If you are telling journalists to stop recording or they will be shot, you are probably not the good guys.
I’m going to bed to curl up with my armor around me and sob myself to sleep.
in the youtube “suggested videos” that pop up after I played that, i got…
“Robin Williams’ Best Impressions”
*headdesk*
The correspondent sent by Te Telegraph previously covered Afghanistan and Irak.
NYT has results of independent autopsy.
NYT has a paywall. Tell us.
To everyone bringing these Tweets to our attention: thank you. I’ve been spreading them on Facebook, and I’ve put up another blog post about them.
Police fire tear gas hours at protestors hours before curfew
From chimera’s link @146:
well, that will allow any defense lawyer to exclude witnesses who said he was shot in the back at least twice.
it’s quite possible that Wilson WAS shooting at him as he was running away, and only connected with him after he turned around, and witnesses were mistaken in thinking he was hit while he was running, but nonetheless, it’s likely that all the early eyewitness testimony will be dismissed because of this new information.
chimera @156:
See Mellow Monkey’s comment @115.
McCulloch doesn’t want anyone messing with his turf.
Quick summary of the NYT article on the autopsy:
Michael Brown was shot at least six times, with two shots to the head. One went through the top of his head, implying it was tipped forward when he was shot. All entry wounds are from the front. His body did not have gunpowder on it, implying he was shot from a distance. The other four shots were to his right arm.
poor guy. surely this makes McCulloch a victim, just like Wilson!
fuck me, but why oh why does a country prosecutor think that the governor of the state should notify him on matters of police control?
McCulloch’s comments suggest he’s part of the problem, and should be dismissed.
Watch the video of McCulloch I posted @146. He’s terribly creepy.
Map of the area tonight.
Ichthyic:
I may be confused here, but I thought this:
meant that the four shots to his right arm were fired into his front. I didn’t take this to mean *all* the bullets fired at him entered from his front.
Mellow Monkey @163:
That clears up my confusion.
Thanks.
Wonder if observer15 will came back in order to explain just how Micheal Brown was a threat to Darren Wilson despite the fact that Brown was to far away to end up with gun powder residue.
Better yet, observer15 should stay the fuck away.
I wonder…those shots to his arm…what position was his arm in?
If all the shots hit him in the front, and he wasn’t running away, were his hands raised?
CNN is showing what went on a few moments ago, splitscreened with current relative calm. Some law-enforcement expert is explaining just why the police have to keep moving in and attacking. It adds up to them maintaining their authority, though the guy doesn’t seem to realize it.
The solution, as I see it, is to announce that Officer Wilson has been arrested, is in custody, and will be properly tried.
tell that to the people suffering from rubber bullet wounds, tear gas inhalation, and sore eardrums from the police sound wave attacks.
I bet this is one of those guys that doesn’t think waterboarding is torture, but isn’t willing to try it out himself to see…
Tony!, there’s a chart on the NYT article, showing entry wounds solely in the front of his body. I don’t know how certain the arm is in placing which way Brown was facing, though, since it obviously rotates.
yeah, I wasn’t clear; I was reacting to the link posted at #155 by James Heartney.
He needs a lesson from Eric Cartman maybe?
The map at Mellow Monkey’s #166 references the use of “bean bags” by the police. I had no idea what those were (aside from the obvious, which isn’t a weapon):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexible_baton_round
I vaguely remembered a shooting involving a member of the Black Panther Party who had her arms up when she was shot and the medical evidence showed the position her arms were in when they were shot.
Here we go. So, depending on what damage those bullets did, it’s possible they could show the position his arms were in.
Yeah, the shots to the arm could have come while hands were raised and the cop was aiming at his head. Direction and angle of those shots is important. (No other scenario makes immediate sense.)
And yeah, not getting hit in the back shows nothing. If he was running, he would be hard to hit, but he could hear shots, stop and turn, only to get executed.
More from Chris Hayes:
(twitter)
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—
HuffPo: Police threaten reporters in Ferguson
but… if the officer was shooting a man so close that they were just involved in a struggle for his gun… how is it that:
the idea that someone shot in the face would not have gunpowder residue on them because:
is a fucking ludicrous conclusion added in by the journalist.
Speaking of James Heartney’s link @155, look at THIS shit:
(my bolding)
I’m also curious about those bullets. How does a bullet enter and exit several times?
Icthyic @ 180
Agreed. The witness descriptions of Brown being grabbed from outside the car through the window and then breaking away seem reasonable with the evidence. The police version is absurd.
@Tony 181
By fragmenting after hitting bone.
Actually, depending on the type of ammunition, it doesn’t even have to hit bone. Newer ammunition supplied to police are supposed to be “frangible” and disintegrate as they enter tissue.
It’s a bit of sloppy wording by the writer, and perhaps a misunderstanding. Bullet has one entrance and multiple exit wounds.
Tony – bullets can also ricochet after hitting bone, without necessarily fragmenting. (Or bone chips can leave exit and entry wounds of their own)
Dorian Johnson said that a shot went off in the car:
from the autopsy link
Gog, Pteryxx:
Thank you
Shocking, isn’t it?
Mr. Johnson did not say he was struck by a bullet. He said he saw him jerk as if he had been shot by one. I remember. He was very precise.
I was responding to the article above, the question about the bullet in the back.
ABC Australia again – five minutes ago:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-18/ferguson-police-fire-smoke-caniseters-into-crowd/5678396
Nothing that hasn’t been mentioned here but it is good to see the tone of the articles changing.
This follows immediately after the quoted info in my #186:
good point. Even I had changed the narrative in my head to the idea that eyewitnesses reported brown being shot in the back.
apparently not so; here are two that actually did NOT say he was shot in the back, only that it *looked* that way based on Brown’s reaction.
Please let me know if posting foreign media coverage here is a distraction – just trying to give some perspective.
Medical Examiner Dr. Baden said the last two shots to Brown’s head would likely have stopped him in his tracks and were probably the last ones fired.
If he was running away prior to that, and then possibly hit, only to turn around, raise his hands and tell Wilson that he was unarmed, then Wilson’s subsequent shots-after knowing he wasn’t in any danger from Brown-don’t look good for Wilson.
gobi’s:
It’s not a distraction in the slightest. It adds a different perspective (I included your link upthread in my roundup of Ferguson related material on my blog).
It’s been asserted that Wilson may not have intended to kill Brown – which is patently ridiculous. Just wanted to add that no police force I’m aware of allow for lethal force to be used with any intention except killing. AFAIK, if an officer does not intend to kill a suspect then they are not allowed to use firearms with lethal rounds.
He also said one of them was fired into the top of 6’4″ Brown’s head.
he suggests “charging”… what??? like he was charging like a bull, head down?? fucking ridiculous.
much more likely he was ALREADY ON THE GROUND when that shot went through the top of his head.
It’s entirely clear to me why the DoJ wants it’s OWN forensics team to examine Brown.
About those Darren Wilson supporters:
Oh, that would be a shame. Having to hire black people. Fuck you dude.
Also, given your opinion of black criminals, do you think white criminals are the nicest, most polite and easy to deal with offenders?
You racist ratfucker.
No one is trying to paint Michael Brown as a hero. What we’ve been saying is that his murder was unjustified, that Darren Wilson mishandled the situation, the Ferguson PD fucked things up even further immediately following the murder, then the Ferguson PD fucked everything up in the days following, and then decided to make it worse by unleashing military grade weapons on a civilian populace, followed by another boneheaded move in releasing the videotape on the same day they released Wilson’s name. Like people have been saying: Sack the entire police force. Along with Wilson, there are likely other cops that need to be brought up on charges.
I’m wondering how the Ferguson PD is going to deal with any reporters who might be seeking to sue the department over their arrest.
&&&&Organizers also are raising money for Darren Wilson to cover “any financial needs… including legal fees.” One donor, who identified himself as John Dawson, wrote “As a retired officer I have run into thugs like Mike Brown also. Why do we let the media make a hero out of a thug and a criminal out of a good officer.” As of Sunday evening, the effort raised over $2100.
Swaine estimated that there were 150 people in attendance, virtually all white. There was only one black member of the crowd, “Martin Baker, a consultant and former Republican congressional primary candidate.”Organizers also are raising money for Darren Wilson to cover “any financial needs… including legal fees.” One donor, who identified himself as John Dawson, wrote “As a retired officer I have run into thugs like Mike Brown also. Why do we let the media make a hero out of a thug and a criminal out of a good officer.” As of Sunday evening, the effort raised over $2100.
Swaine estimated that there were 150 people in attendance, virtually all white. There was only one black member of the crowd, “Martin Baker, a consultant and former Republican congressional primary candidate.”Organizers also are raising money for Darren Wilson to cover “any financial needs… including legal fees.” One donor, who identified himself as John Dawson, wrote “As a retired officer I have run into thugs like Mike Brown also. Why do we let the media make a hero out of a thug and a criminal out of a good officer.” As of Sunday evening, the effort raised over $2100.
Swaine estimated that there were 150 people in attendance, virtually all white. There was only one black member of the crowd, “Martin Baker, a consultant and former Republican congressional primary candidate.”
****
And damn, but the comments at Think Progress are normally good, but these are infested with “we need to wait for the autopsy/more information”.
I think I’m done for the night.
Ichthyic:
I believe Dr. Baden was the DOP examiner.
Incidentally, I could see Brown’s head being down, and his hands raised, facing Wilson, declaring that he’s unarmed.
From the article Lance linked @43
What constitutes a “suspicious manner”? Seriously? That’s fucking bullshit.
As to the second: how fucking naive is that person? What version of Lala Land does this twit reside in that he believes police to be superior to us humans with our irrationality and fallibility?
Basically, to defend Wilson, you have to be willfully fucking stupid. That’s the message I’m getting from these protestors. Don’t think, then you might realize that we rich white folks are protected by systematic threat of murder to those with more melanin. That thought would just be too upsetting for us.
CNN is doing better coverage, as are other stations here in southwest Missouri. CNN just showed two teargas rounds coming straight at their camera in about five seconds. The first missed right by a foot or so, IIRC, the second hit ten feet out and bounce-rolled right under as the holder shuffled. Seems obvious to me that the cops were aiming for the camera and its light.
The cops are saying that their command center was attacked. I seem to recall some journalists using a McDonald’s as a command center ….
====
Again, it wouldn’t matter if Mike Brown had been carrying the nuclear launch codes toward a flying saucer, the protests are now largely about the armored police invading a town to stifle First-Amendment rights.
But, given the past week, it’s as if the entire department decided to re-enact the shooting in some Kafkaesque street theater.
Trying to get an overview of what happened in Ferguson tonight. From the timelines of Steph Lecci and Ryan J. Reilly, looks like: a woman was injured three hours ago, possibly by gunshots, and the police may have started firing teargas into the crowd to make it easier to get to the victim to render aid. (?? Seriously??) But with the roads blocked off, the crowd had nowhere to go when the tear gas started to hit them – peaceful protesters and kids got teargassed. The crowds tried to scatter and some tried to break into closed businesses to escape the gas. Some got into cars to leave but couldn’t pass the roadblocks to get out. Among the bottled-up crowd, some people started picking up rocks and bricks and throwing them at police, who were firing teargas among the stopped cars on the road. Looting and/or breaking into stores was also reported. (People running around inside smashed-open stores could be either looters or just people trying to find shelter, or both.) Police reported gunshots fired, later corrected to have been fireworks.
Tweets assembled from Steph Lecci’s timeline, with intentionally borked links to make this all one post – sorry for the strings of numbers.
20 minutes later…
The timestamps are Twitter’s default Pacific timezone.
Baden was the guy Brown’s family attorney called to do the autopsy. The DoJ has not done theirs yet.
you mean if he was also already on his knees.
just bending his head down wouldn’t do it. Trajectory would be out of the back of his neck on exit then. his head has to be considerably lower than Brown’s arm at the level. frankly, I can’t see how even “charging” would give you the right angle. for it NOT to have left his body, it has to be a straight down shot from the top, he was either kneeling with head bowed, or on the ground.
laughably, provably, false.
why do people say this shit?
HuffPo liveblog from Ferguson. Apparently police are going to hold a press conference shortly.
I have a couple of thoughts as to why the bullets were all to the front and how they entered and exited multiple times.
Hands raised, back to the cop, bullets entering an arm could be entering from the front. It’s possible stopped, raised his arms, and was about to turn around when Wilson started firing.
Another possibility is that he had his arms raised and was moving one of them instinctively as he lowered his head to protect his face.
We’ll know more soon I hope, but however you slice it, murder is not acceptable.
Ichthyic @205, 206:
Thanks for correcting me.
****
Off-Topic
I was totally going to go to sleep, but now I’ve found an antidote to the shitstorm that is Ferguson: Yo, Is This Racist?
I’d never heard of this tumblr, but now that I have, I can’t tear my eyes away. The responses to these questions have me in stitches.
yup, that’s a gudun.
I’m taking the earlier advice to start drinking.
A little something from a person with actual military experience, on miltarization:
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2014/08/veterans-ferguson-matthew-farwell
Even though it should all be obvious…
Issues regarding police communities living essentially segregated from the policed community have been mention previously. (Apparently not a lot of resources on that. Odd, isn’t it? Feels like a sociological goldmine.)
Issues regarding miltarization of the police have been mentioned previously. Soldiers always seem to have the grittiest, most direct view:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_Y4zsgymRxE
(Brief gem regarding government bonus gear: “There’s always free cheese in a mousetrap.”)
Ah. I left a few more comments on the other thread, since I hadn’t realized the conversation had moved again. Comments 173 to 181, there’s probably a lot of reposted info in there.
Ah well.
Tony – there is also a podcast for Yo, is this racist?. It is good.
We should also be able to find out how many rounds were fired from Wilson’s gun, which would give weight to those saying he was shot at (but not hit) while running away. But I would assume that the gun has long been emptied without being counted. (and heck, probably cleaned of his fingerprints too)
This may be a spurious factoid picked up from cop shows, but I was under the impression that number of shots fired was a mandatory part of any police report. Has the report been made public yet?
carlie
There’s been waaay too much time between the murder for any evidence coming from Wilson to have any meaning at all. To me, at least.
Mellow Monkey @163
Actually, gunpowder residue will travel a distance of only 3 to 5 feet for most weapons, so the ‘distance’ he was shot from wasn’t necessarily great (35 feet or 10 feet don’t make much of a difference at this point).
As for the shot from the car, gunshot residue might be difficult to find, even on his clothing (which should be available at an autopsy, I don’t understand why it wasn’t, because it can have a lot of information that is important in analyzing the body!!), considering the tangled arrangement of limbs (the officer was holding MB with his left, shooting with his right, from what I understand).
There should, however, be a heckuvalot of GSR inside the car. But again, considering the time window here, there is no way I can take any information about that at face value.
LykeX
I didn’t know there even was a report.
Well, I sure hope there is. If they don’t even bother writing a report when they shoot somebody, we’re even worse off than I thought.
Yeah, the disappearance of the cop and all related evidence is incredibly wrong. And yet there are folks waiting to hear his story, seemingly ready to believe whatever he says.
RQ, thanks for all the good info on the other thread. The TV is reporting more looting, the Twitter links say some people were breaking into buildings because they were surrounded by tear gas.
The Yo, Is This Racist site has this:
http://yoisthisracist.com/post/94949425339/yo-if-the-pd-in-ferguson-arent-racist-then-they-are#notes which about wraps it up. The Ferguson/St Louis PD are more heavily armed and armored than the army, with no sense of discipline, and are paranoid authoritarians. And racist.
Menyambal
The Toronto Star says the tear gas was a response to people breaking into a restaurant and someone with a gun, not the protesters. Funny how it seems the protesters got the worst of that deal, though.
Also, now I’m confused as to whether there will be two or three autopsies, in the end… Anyone know?
Bye-bye, observer15. Don’t come back.
Here’s a link to the beginning of rq’s links on the previous thread: #173 starting with Ferguson, meet National Guard.
From Gov. Nixon’s order:
(He’s repeating directly from police claims. Last I saw, no independent source saw any Molotovs made or thrown, the “looting” was mostly attempts to find shelter from the tear gas, the “attempt to block roads” was an ankle-height row of bricks to slow down charging SWAT vehicles, and the supposed attempt to attack the command center simply did not happen.)
Sources for those claims – see also witness and firsthand media reports on Twitter.
(twitter)
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Here’s a link to the beginning of rq’s links on the previous thread: #173 starting with Ferguson, meet National Guard.
From Gov. Nixon’s order:
(He’s repeating directly from police claims. Last I saw, no independent source saw any Molotovs made or thrown, the “looting” was mostly attempts to find shelter from the tear gas, the “attempt to block roads” was an ankle-height row of bricks to slow down charging SWAT vehicles, and the supposed attempt to attack the command center simply did not happen.)
Sources for those claims – see also witness and firsthand media reports on Twitter.
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(cont’d)
Excuse me, but why the fuck is this a good idea? Police are supposed to shoot only when they have to and presumably are trying to keep everyone, including the suspect, alive, if possible. Why give them bullets that do the most damage possible? Even if we assume that every police shooting is perfectly justified and everyone they shot, including the unarmed teenagers, are threats to the community, what about the bystanders that they’re inevitably going to hit? Stupid military thinking again.
(cont’d)
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Reply to above:
More Twitter citations:
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That was the initial report of ‘shots fired’ right around the time the tear gas started. A report of shots fired later, while the police were gassing the crowd and moving in, did seem to be confirmed by multiple twitter reports.
(twitter)
Note that it says “shots fired into crowd” not that anyone fired AT police.
Shots fired were reported directly by news media right at midnight, the curfew time. (Twitter timestamps default to US Pacific time.)
(twitter)
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From Rodney King to Eric Garner: video killed trust in police officers (for those who, you know, had any trust in them in the first place).
(twitter)
Not keeping the peace, nor protecting the citizens. Protecting the command center. Which Reilly reported was not attacked.
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*Which Robert Klemko reported was not attacked; see Twitter cited in my #227.
More from Robert Klemko’s feed.
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Also seeing reports via KMOV that schools in the area will remain closed today (Monday) so even more kids won’t be getting their meals.
Whatever happened to the claim that the National Guard had come in and was doing it right? Did they leave again? Did they lose their shit too?
Ah, sorry, it was the Highway Patrol, not the National Guard, who only just got called in. And they seem to have lost their shit too pretty quickly.
And in the morbid humor section of life, this line from the most recent Al Jazeera article made me giggle a little, “a spokesman for the Missouri Highway Patrol said “aggressors” were trying to infiltrate a law enforcement command post.” Too late, guy, the aggressors infiltrated a long time ago. You’re the baddies.
Newer ammunition supplied to police are supposed to be “frangible” and disintegrate as they enter tissue.
Designed to transfer as much energy as possible to the target to cause maximum damage. Illegal for use in war under the GC. Frangibles are a horror for medical personnel who have to try to find the pieces, which go ripping off in different pathways leaving separate damage trails. Take a head hit from a frangible and it’ll empty your brain-pan into a fine mist all over everyone in the vicinity. Look on youtube for videos where gleeful gun nuts demonstrate “glaser safety slug” and “black talon expansion rounds” in ballistic gelatine.
There are no “safety bullets”. Glaser “safety slugs” are the same theory: chop meat, shatter bone, maximize tissue damage and blood loss.
A cop carrying frangibles is not serving to protect. Save them a spot in a tumbril.
governor orders national guard in to quell ferguson unrest
In awesome-land, the NG would show up with bradleys, and round up the cops in a holding-pen with barbed wire, take their guns away, and then send a delegation with empty rifles to go establish a safe route for nonviolent unarmed protest. Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work?
I’ll never trust the cops or my country again. I don’t think I ever should have.
Fuck this racist, fascist shit and every single person who supports it or makes excuses for it.
dianne @ 226
Most damage to the person being shot possible = the bullets are less likely to escape from the body whole to cause damage to other people or travel through walls. That is the justification I’ve been told, at least.
Thanks Pteryxx, for what you’ve been doing this past week or so.
Yeah, the rationale for frangible bullets is to reduce overpenetration, where a round goes through whoever you’re trying to shoot and hits an unintended target. They are also supposed to come apart when they hit hard surfaces, reducing the chance of ricochets.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/frangible.htm
It would be interesting to know what kind of equipment a typical Ferguson cop carries. Specifically, do they carry batons, tasers, or pepper spray? If they do it makes the shooting look even less likely to be a case of innocent cop defending himself from evil guy.
Trying to watch this morning’s press conference on MSNBC.
It occurs to me, given the stats I’ve seen, that this week probably has seen more individual black people interviewed on the US news and *speaking* on the news than the previous year up to this point.
Paraphrasing from the press conference
– Family wanted an independent autopsy rather than solely the one performed by the department whose officer executed their son.
– AT LEAST six bullets struck Brown, could be more.
– Need to recover the clothes
– Hope to reconcile preliminary autopsy information cooperatively with the other autopsies and with eyewitness reports of Brown being shot down in the street
– Hoping the family can have their questions answered.
Father speaking – What else do we need to give them (the authorities) to arrest the killer of my child.
MSNBC ticker: Brown atty: Autopsy verifies witness accounts are true.
…Holy shit.
The attorney speaking says the second shot fired ENTERED near Brown’s hairline and EXITED out his right eye socket. The first shot was into the top of his head, “back to front”, according to this autopsy. (I really hope I heard that accurately.)
They also have to point out that this autopsy came out two hours LATER than the police decision to converge on the crowd last night. Because voices are blaming last night’s violence on the autopsy. (Of course. *gag*)
Dr Baden, forensic pathologist for NYC for many years: The family has a right to be told as soon as possible how their loved one died. Also that second autopsies by an independent party are not uncommon in these cases.
It seems to me that there are other ways that you could do this. For example, what about using smaller bullets or guns with lower muzzle velocity so that the bullet isn’t likely to go any further when it hits a solid object, where solid=soft tissue density?
anteprepro #16, this reminds me of what happened to Cliven Bundy and that Texas “sovereign citizen”. Sort of like the Weimar Republic, where the Right got off much more easily than the Left, even when it involved a certain failed coup in a Munich beer hall.
Baden – is sure the local forensic pathologist does excellent work – she’s an excellent forensic pathologist – but it hasn’t been released yet.
Another person now explaining that “anatomical position” does not mean the person was standing in that position when the wounds happened.
(warning for bullet wound descriptions)
This pathologist says the bullet that entered at the hairline then exited the right eye socket, traveled through the face and exited the jaw, and probably re-entered causing a new entry wound above the right collarbone. A wound to the chest may also be a re-entry wound.
Saying also that the arm wounds are consistent with *either* walking away, or raising arms in a defensive manner.
Baden – two (?) bullets were removed by the first autopsy. They need the X-rays from the first autopsy to be sure of where the bullets lay before they were removed. They have not get been given those X-rays – may depend on what the prosecutor decides to do, days or months.
Why has no one asked the important question? What was Michael Brown wearing? /snark
Baden – also asked for medical report of any evidence of a struggle on the police officer. Their examination of Brown’s body shows only abrasions on his face where he hit the ground – no other signs of a struggle. (Assuming I’m hearing this correctly; please confirm with transcripts when available.)
chimera – I’m not sure they can answer that, even if it weren’t snark, because his clothes are still being held by the St Louis County PD, according to Baden (I think) at this conference.
So much time has passed since the murder and Officer Wilson has not been detained or arrested. He’s had time to clean his clothes, his car, and his gun. I’m worried he’s going to get away with this.
Fuck.
Taking questions from the press now, which I *really* can’t hear.
Baden – normally 95% of the information is available to the family right away, especially wounds. Toxicology and such may take longer but generally doesn’t have to do with the time of death. Usually medical examiner can release autopsy results immediately unless a prosecutor objects. (Earlier he answered that this autopsy took 3 to 4 hours in a local funeral home.)
Baden – talking about the limitations of doing a *second* autopsy, after embalming, blood cleanup and so on.
Taking question from a non-press person in the back of the room – I can’t hear the words but can hear the passionate voice.
Baden – All these gunshot wounds were survivable except the one to the top of the head into the brain.
The crowd is cheering this woman’s even more intense speaking.
*Toxicology doesn’t have to do with the CAUSE of death, correction to my above.
MSNBC scroll: Pathologist: 2 shots to the head came last.
The press conference is over.
I’m out. I can’t look at the headphones picture of Mike Brown’s face while picturing the track of those wounds and hearing the crowd in that room yelling “Why”.
Over to you, internet.
Tony
And here I thought that was a given. :P
Regarding frangible bullets: I thought it was possible to have a “happy medium” (as it were) where lead bullets don’t have a full metal jacket, which makes them soft enough to penetrate less, but the shape isn’t specifically designed to expand on impact.
Apparently there was a treaty on ‘expanding’ bullets back in 1899… Here is wiki on specifically hollow point bullets (including legality in certain jurisdictions), but I’m trying to find some info on non-hollow-point but full metal bullets (the kind more likely to penetrate and cause more damage than the initial target).
Pteryxx:
Great job my friend.
Keeping the internet open: for some, it’s life or death.
Pteryxx:
Top of the head? So, shot while he was lying on the ground?
the bullets are less likely to escape from the body whole to cause damage to other people or travel through walls.
Because: cops should be able to fire into crowds and do less damage?
See the problem here?
The question we should be asking is “why aren’t you issuing tasers?” instead of even engaging in a discussion about bullets.
Moggie – Brown was 6’4″ tall. (1.93 meters) The two shots to the top of his head appear to have come when he was down or kneeling. Not sure if anyone at the press conference said that in so many words but I think they did.
What horrible crime did Brown commit to deserve his fate?
From the preliminary autopsy of Michael Brown:
Brown was facing Wilson. It’s unlikely he was fleeing. If he was fleeing, shooting him six times, twice in the head, is not the correct response. If he was not fleeing what was he doing? Michael brown was unarmed. Did he, as some people are speculating, charge Darren Wilson? How much damage could he have possibly done? Shooting him six times, twice in the head, is not the correct response. Brown’s head was lowered when the final bullet entered his skull. Was he surrendering? Recoiling from being shot five times? Shooting him in the head is not the correct response.
Several of the bullets entered and exited his body multiple times. Michael Brown’s body is riddled with bullet holes.
Every single one of the six bullets could have killed Michael Brown. Darren Wilson made the decision to kill Michel Brown six times in a row. For jaywalking and maybe stealing a bunch of cigars.
That question – were these wounds survivable – came from the audience. Not from the press. Nobody in the press thought to ask that question.
I can’t even.
Three channels here carried autopsy news conference, including Fox News. Sound quality really varied. Examiner said all other wounds survivable, somebody said two head shots came last.
Woman in audience asked why cop not arrested. Much cheering.
Really. Why is cop not arrested? Arresting him is not saying he is guilty, it just holds him. Damn it, the cops were arresting journalists. And then letting them go. Arrest Wilson, let him go later.
The poor parents having to hear an autopsy report on their son.
Content warning for descriptions of fallen body positioning/blood.
The “Brown was bum-rushing Wilson with his head down, top speed” narrative is getting tossed around all over the place, supposedly backed up by the autopsy results.
Question: Assuming that a headbutt was, indeed, a life-threatening move that should be countered with lethal force, what would the blood look like from someone shot while doing that? Would it be at all possible for all of the blood to simply be pooled under the body? What indications of momentum at the time of the shooting would there be?
It seems to me that there are other ways that you could do this. For example, what about using smaller bullets or guns with lower muzzle velocity so that the bullet isn’t likely to go any further when it hits a solid object
What about using negotiation and discussion? Or even harsh language?
If someone doesn’t negotiate, and appears ready to do violence, tase them. In other words, in this situation, there should be a fuckton of cops lying on the ground twitching and vomiting after being tased by citizens.
A former friend of mine (friend until I decided not to hang out with cops any more) used to be in the Capitol City police hostage rescue team, and underwent a lot of training about how to talk down an armed aggressor in a dangerous situation. The cops always – ALWAYS – assume that the armed aggressor is the citizen, not a cop. And, she said, most of what they were learning was how to contain the situation while deciding when it was OK to have a sniper blow the ‘aggressor’s head apart. I finally asked her, “when you’ve got a sniper top-cover with a 10x scope on a .308, who is the ‘aggressor’ in any given situation?”
Pteryxx:
Sounds like an execution to me.
The two shots to the top of his head appear to have come when he was down or kneeling.
No doubt the cop was thinking “no way this guy’s gonna be a favorable witness.”
Marcus Ranum @ 270
Seriously. The othering required to not recognize this imbalance is staggering.
Sounds like an execution to me.
Yup.
Consider this: let’s have a 100 yard footrace in which I spot you 6 bullet holes. Can you outrun me before my adrenaline burst fades and I pass out from shock?
Why aren’t cops taught to, you know, tactically “retreat”?? Blind authoritarianism limits your strategic options and forces you only to respond to threat with greater threat. That is entirely what’s going on here. The area that is not explored (though the protestors appear to be doing pretty well) is de-escalation and counter-manuevering at a more effective point where they have better leverage. Heinously outgunned on one battlefield, you should melt away and reappear somewhere else, later at a time and place of your choosing. Like, outside the state capital or outside the governor’s residence. Someplace where militarized cops aren’t going to fire rubber bullets and (ideally) a demarcated zone where it’s hard to get armored cars.
The last two bullets to the head sound like execution, but earwitnesses say the first two were single shots, the last six or so were at full rip. It could be that Brown was trying to lie down, going from hands-up to down-on-the-ground surrender, as in cooperating with an arresting officer.
As has been said, any bullet fired is meant to kill — shooting to wound is nonsense. As professional soldiers have said, you don’t point the gun unless you mean to fire. All the cops have been pointing guns, en masse, at unarmed individuals. What more evidence does anyone need that a Ferguson cop is literally on a hair trigger?
Actually, that is an important question and the answer is “Not the same thing as the man in the pictures released by the police of the alleged robbery earlier in the night.” I’ve also seen at least one source say that the store in question reported no robbery that night, but still people are claiming that the robbery that might not have occurred and if it did was done by someone who didn’t look like Brown and was wearing different clothing somehow justifies the shooting by a cop who didn’t know it happened, possibly because it didn’t.
I appreciate the clear commentaries and resources people have been providing here.
As brutal as they are, if police shootings were in proportionate response to deadly threats, then I could see an argument for the need to kill easily in order to protect other people. When the ability to kill more easily is coupled with systemic fear, racism, and shoot first instincts (or worse, an instinct to destroy wrongdoers), then it can only lead to injustice.
Geeze, it’s like there’s a brainwave running between Israel and Ferguson, isn’t there?
Back when I was in high school I played a lot of ‘Diplomacy’ and one of the guys in our gaming club, Phil Carrol, formulated a doctrine that most of diplomacy consists of finding nice ways to say “now look what you’ve gone and made me do!” Look what scandalous behavior those silly Gazans have forced those Israeli soldiers to engage in!! Look at what horrific crimes they chose to have inflicted upon themselves! Look at the ass-whuppings those journalists in Ferguson begged for!! Look at how badly those citizens of Ferguson asked for what they got!! It’s almost as if they spent all that tax money to pay for all the CS gas that was used on them, and smiled while they did it.
Pteryxx
Thank you for all you’ve done to raise and maintain awareness.
An interesting (and disturbing) point, because…
Abusers deny or minimize the abuse.
Every one of those excuses has been on display in Ferguson.
The Mellow Monkey @269
From what I know of blood-splatter (one seminar?) these things should be apparent from a good analysis of the traces. If there were any left, that is – it’s been a week and more, and from what I know of the situation, no forensics were called in to examine the scene. So… it could have been known. But probably won’t be.
Bumner:
if police shootings were in proportionate response to deadly threats, then I could see an argument for the need to kill easily in order to protect other people.
No, because the “frangible bullets necessary” argument depends on the theory that the police have no fire control – that they “have to” fire into a crowd or that they are taking shots where killing other civilians is possible. That should never happen. If you’re in a situation where you know that there’s going to be an individual that needs to be killed swiftly that’s what a sniper is there for – they specialize in not firing indiscriminately into crowds. Unless they’re FBI snipers like Lon Horiuchi, that is.
The only argument I can accept for use of frangible bullets is in the rather unusual circumstance that you’re in an airplane pressurized cabin at 30,000 feet – in which case you don’t want to be using military ball. Or perhaps in a nuclear reactor control room. In which case you should try de-escalation and diplomacy.
Why is it that authoritarians never seem to understand de-escalation and diplomacy?? The former friend I mentioned earlier did the hostage negotiation course and one of the case studies they discussed a whole lot was Waco. She told me about it in amazing detail, all the issues that were considered and this and that and finally I asked, “why didn’t someone just call on the telephone and say ‘You’re in the ass end of Texas and you’re not going anywhere and neither are we, can we come out and, you know, talk?” You can’t outrun a radio!!!
The cop who killed that boy, could have turned and run. What was the kid gonna do with a bullet hole in him? They could have picked him up when he went to the hospital and the ER crew had given him some painkillers. And he’d be alive and the cop would not be covered in indelible shame, and all that associate with him, shamed forever. The riot police that put down the protestors? They didn’t need to do that. They could have had one guy there, with a video camera, videotaping the rioters, and if any of them got destructive they could have picked them up individually over they next few years before the statute of limitations ran out.
From a strategic standpoint, the fool that is weak offers resistance against the enemy when the enemy is at his strongest. The fool that is strong offers overwhelming force against the enemy when it isn’t necessary.
If I may add to the smart guy who said “you can’t outrun a radio”
“You can’t make a camera forget.”
I remember a heart-breaking interview with one photographer who was shooting pictures of the resistance in Hungary during the Soviet invasion – he had been photographing the fighters at the barricades and his films were taken by the secret police and used in ensuing years to identify the fighters, who slowly disappeared, one after the other.
There is no need to meet rioters with all that force. What you need is a helicopter and a camera, a couple cameras on the ground, and a charismatic public relations specialist to go down and say, “hey, y’all, we’ve marked out a parade route for you, which is a safe zone. Please don’t litter, use the dumpsters we’ve set up every couple blocks. Call 911 if you need help, or just wave to the helicopter ‘cuz they’ve got optics good enough they can lip-read you from up there. We have a generator set up for public power for your loud-speakers, but please – since this is a residential neighborhood – don’t use amplifiers after sunset.” A scenario in which the police response was understated and collaborative is vastly, vastly less expensive than calling out the war-dogs, too. Of course, you can have the war-dogs standing by but the responsibility of police is public order – not public control. To protect and serve, not stomp and gas. That the police respond in this manner means they do not know what policing is.
BBC article:
@Marcus Ranum,
I think you argue against that proposition very well, and I didn’t mean to say that I accepted it. What I do say is that, in the context of trigger-happy, militarised, racist policing, the use of ammunition with increased lethality looks more like yet another act of indiscriminate brutality.
Exactly. The notion of self defence has been corrupted to mean preemptive or reflexive lethal force, and that happens in a toxic culture that instinctively rejects the idea of de-escalation or tactical retreat. It also becomes a small step to think that someone is doing the world the favour by removing undesirables.
1. They’ve got all these military toys and are itching for an excuse to use them.
2. They’re white in a city that’s mostly black and where racial tensions are out of control, even compared to the baseline of the US in general.
3. They’re not taught how to use diplomacy. They’re taught how to use force.
I expect there are other reasons, but those are the ones that came to my mind to start with. To make matters worse, apparently negotiation is ridiculously successful when the police do manage to use it. Like 90% successful in getting the person to surrender peacefully. (Caution: I don’t remember the source for that number and it may be completely wrong.)
I do think a lot of this is blowback from 9/11 and the “war on terror”. That’s one point at least at which a bunch of PDs got all sorts of military equipment. Which, by the way, would have been 100% useless and worse than useless in the events of 11 September, 2001 since there was never a single instant when military force would have been necessary or helpful. Frankly, the most helpful thing that any government person did that day was the mayor telling people that they were in deep shit if they attacked any of their fellow New Yorkers for looking “Islamic”. And that took no equipment more militarized than a microphone and a New York attitude.
dianne, you appear to remember that figure well:
Containment and negotiation strategies yield a 95 percent success rate in terms of resolving a hostage crisis without fatalities to either hostages or hostage-takers.
I can only find statistics for negotiations in hostage situations, though.
The notion of self defence has been corrupted to mean preemptive or reflexive lethal force, and that happens in a toxic culture that instinctively rejects the idea of de-escalation or tactical retreat.
Indeed.
I recommend a book titled “The Morality of Defensive War” by Cécile Fabre et al. It’s a series of essays on the question of whether it’s even moral to defend oneself violently against violent aggression. Off the table entirely is the idea that aggressive warfare is moral: it’s not. Everyone knows that. The remaining question is whether it’s moral to defend yourself against the aggressive cop or soldier, and when. It takes minimal thought to dispose of the idea of pre-emptive force (lethal or not) on the simple basis that you can be virtually certain that you’re not pre-empting those who would actually be aggressing against you. We’re left gnawing on increasingly finely-sliced arguments such as whether pre-emptive violence is moral in a situation where an aggressor has individually stated that they plan to attack you in 10 seconds .. can you morally pre-empt them? Even then, the answer is “no” because you’d be more morally well-off spending that 10 seconds running, or negotiating, or engaging in defensive efforts to moot their attack.
The doctrine of pre-emptive war is immoral and, unfortunately, has gained wide traction in the late 20th century since the “war to end all wars” and then the “war on terror”. Israel is the current master of pre-emptive war (which really ought to be called what it is: “aggressive war”) The immoral nature of pre-emptive warfare is immediately apparent when you ask yourself what its strategic value is: well, there is only one strategic reason to attack someone before they attack you – the element of surprise. The quintessential example of this would be the Six-day War, of course, in which Israel launched a supremely destructive surprise attack and managed to convince a lot of people that it was a defensive war. Nobody asked, “since your intelligence was so good that they were about to attack you, why didn’t you declare yourselves as nuclear power and suggest a round of negotiation once your opponents had a better idea of your actual strength?”
Pre-emption is aggression. Even just the US’ disastrous invasion if Iraq should put paid forever to the idea of pre-emptive war. Instead we see pre-emptive warfare being carried on by civilian police against those they are supposed to serve and protect.
Some service.
Some protection.
I think it may be time for a link to The Authoritarians. E.g. from page 26:
Certain people are simply more fearful and more likely to respond with aggression. Those people are also attracted to positions of power, such as that of a police officer.
Hah, I left out the punchline:
…I had a horrible random thought. Community leaders on the ground in Ferguson have been asking for the National Guard to take over from the St Louis SWAT-happy cops since at least last Wednesday. Yet the governor finally calls in the Guard to protect *the cops*, only last night, and only in response to largely unverified reports of attacks on said cops. (While arresting and chasing away journalists throughout.) But the St Louis County police had to know the family’s private autopsy was coming, and the approximate time frame, because they’d have to have released Brown’s body for that to happen.
We’ve already seen the Ferguson police chief release surprise robbery footage as a character smear on Brown, simultaneously with naming the shooting officer while releasing no useful information and no reports on the shooting. The STL PD has already done their own autopsy and is still withholding that information.
I have a nasty suspicion that the governor called out the National Guard last night specifically so they’d be already deployed this morning when the family’s autopsy results went public. St Louis knew what that autopsy was going to show.
(moderation?)
…I had a horrible random thought. Community leaders on the ground in Ferguson have been asking for the National Guard to take over from the St Louis SWAT-happy cops since at least last Wednesday. Yet the governor finally calls in the Guard to protect *the cops*, only last night, and only in response to largely unverified reports of attacks on said cops. (While arresting and chasing away journalists throughout.) But the St Louis County police had to know the family’s private autopsy was coming, and the approximate time frame, because they’d have to have released Brown’s body for that to happen.
We’ve already seen the Ferguson police chief release surprise robbery footage as a character assassination on Brown, simultaneously with naming the shooting officer while releasing no useful information and no reports on the shooting. The STL PD has already done their own autopsy and is still withholding that information.
I have a nasty suspicion that the governor called out the National Guard last night specifically so they’d be already deployed this morning when the family’s autopsy results went public. St Louis knew what that autopsy was going to show.
I can’t think of any way you could be wrong. Of course the governor is going to review the autopsy results and we know what they’ll show: the independent autopsy results have already been released.
What’s an RWA?
rq – Right-Wing Authoritarian.
Dianne@293:
of course. This has become one giant ass-covering exercise. Classic case where if the police had done the truly right thing (Cordon off area, arrest suspect [cop] and provide timely details), NONE OF THIS WOULD BE HAPPENING!
In short: Fuck the Police
Palestinians in solidarity.
I think this was already linked: an app to rate cops, by teenagers.
I’m just wondering, the National Guard: does it have to come from the same state? It seems that Missouri isn’t doing so well over all, so wouldn’t it be more neutral to get some NG from another state? Not that they’re going for ‘more neutral’ or anything…
MM
Of course. :P Sorry, brain-fart.
National Guard: does it have to come from the same state?
Yes, the governor of each state is (constitutionally) the only person allowed to deploy that state’s NG. Unless it’s to Iraq or Afghanistan, that is.
Black people living with the threat of gun violence:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/08/18/georgia-man-threatens-black-kids-at-bus-stop-over-noise-this-bullet-has-your-name-on-it/
For the ‘hey, we should wait for the facts’ crowd: Mike Brown: Facts and dog whistles
Michael Brown autopsy: No signs of struggle in fatal shooting
Tony @300, I… that’s… crap, no words, just outrage. I can’t even imagine how the kids’ parents must be feeling.
@rq298: I appreciate the solidarity from Palestine. I’m awed at their ability to even care what’s happening to US-Americans given what the US has contributed to in their land. However, I wish that Palestinians looked at the US and thought, “Feh, first world problems.”
Argh, 301. At least I spelled Tony’s name right. That’s got to count for something.
What libertarians and conservatives get wrong about Ferguson
‘Kill Switch’ Smartphone Bill Passes in California
So, the punishment for jaywalking in the US of A is execution without a trial. Good to know.
Pteryxx, thank you for liveblogging the conference!!!
See comment 249. Or imagine, for the sake of the argument, a bullet going through an outstretched arm from right in front: it goes in and out of the hand, in and out of the upper arm, and in and perhaps out of the ribcage.
Quite the opposite!
I can think of a couple of possible reasons.
Why is it called “National Guard” and not “State Militia”, then? Or the other way around, why aren’t the Secretary of the Interior and the POTUS allowed to send them in?
(In SimCity < 3000, “the President has sent in the National Guard” when your city has spun out of control… ;-) )
…which is one reason why I’m in favor of adding even more levels, most notably the International Criminal Court.
*rageflail*
I didn’t expect I’d live to see people voting their rights away on such a grand scale.
Jezebel helpfully transcribed some of that awesome segment with Jesse Williams on CNN:
David:
Killswitches are going to be in laptops, too.
Nope. I thought it through and realized that I know ZERO black people who have not been harassed by the police. Well, ok, I know a number of black people with whom I have never discussed the question, but of those I have…they’ve all had that experience. It’s like trying to find women who have never been sexually harassed. I’ve got a zero on that one too.
One thing I don’t understand…If I were a police officer, I’d be enraged at Darren Wilson. First off, I’d find what he did completely unethical, immoral, and flat out evil. Second, it would make my job harder and more dangerous as people would be less likely to want to cooperate with the police after this and more apt to attack on suspicion of threat. Finally, he just acted unprofessionally. If you’re going to work with the public you simply have to find ways to interact other than yelling at them and threatening to run them over when they give you minor headaches.
So I don’t get where all this support is coming from. Why are other police officers supporting him? Why isn’t the PD examining its hiring and retention procedures to find how this guy got and stayed in when he was clearly incompetent and out of control? Clearly, the police can’t, well, police themselves. They need more civilian oversight, including oversight into dangerous attitudes and behaviors so that people like Wilson can be retrained, reassigned, or fired before they kill someone.
Thank you Inaji and David. I’m going to go hide under my desk and cry now. Because the only thing that’s keeping us from going full out fascist is cell phones and people watching authority constantly. If that goes, it’s hopeless.
Dianne:
I’m feeling the same. Hopefully, a bunch of smart people will figure out how to disable killswitches. I hope.
Stuff you can do in support of #MikeBrown and #Ferguson
Lots of good info there. Maybe different ways you can donate and help.
Breaking: Allegations that the #Ferguson McDonald’s was looted are inaccurate, McDonald’s corporate spokesperson tells me.
Our President looks all concerned.
One question we should be asking is why cops are not all monitored all the time. Something like:
http://www.taser.com/products/on-officer-video/axon-flex-on-officer-video
(disclaimer: I consulted slightly on the data comms and storage aspects of the system, back in June ’09, which is how I know about the system and its capabilities)
The Taser ‘gun’ already records data about location and time when it’s drawn from the holster, now you can get audio and video as well. As Taser points out in their marketing, it’s going to prevent false accusations.
Now, why on earth would any police force not want to prevent false accusations?? If officer Wilson had been wearing an Axon, the local police force would have been able to instantly exonerate him, right?
We ought to have a constitutional amendment that requires any law enforcement officer carrying a weapon in the US to be wired and logged at all times. “With great privilege comes great responsibility, yadda yadda, it’s for your own protection officer, dadda dadda… If you aren’t doing anything wrong, you’ve got nothing to hide, yadda yadda …”
MM, big thanks for that link.
12 things white people can do now because Ferguson
Numbers That Matter: Ferguson
Marcus@319:
Because there’s a non-zero chance that a cop might be bad, and that would “Make the officers and the department look bad in the eyes of the community.” Blue line and all that horseshit. Pretty much ‘If we’re monitored, people would find out that we have a statistically significant number of corrupt and evil assholes pretending to be law enforcement officers (except they actually are).’
Reading that made me think of a specific group of white people who really need to step up.
If you’re one of those white people who scoffs at cultural appropriation, who thinks it’s no big deal, who thinks it’s a compliment and an expression of solidarity when you take the music and fashions and speech of POC? Then stand the fuck up right now.
Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, all these privileged young white people go out there using black bodies as props and black culture as a dress up party, and have exactly jack and shit to say when stuff like this happens.
This is why appropriation matters.
You come in, steal what looks good, and then ignore the suffering and oppression of the people you just stole from. You’re some white dude with dreads who really feels a deep connection to “black culture”? Then get your ass out there and do something. Use that privilege for something better than stealing the cultural markers that the under-privileged are oppressed–and even murdered–over.
Otherwise you’re just the hypocritical, colonialist assholes we always thought you were.
Allegedly, there are self-confessed neo-Nazis in the Missouri National Guard. Or were.
Kill-switches are rather frightening.
ABC World News @ABCWorldNews 3m
ALERT: Pres. Obama expected to speak on the situations in #Ferguson and Iraq around 4 p.m. ET –
I don’t know about the police, but I’d like the corrupt and evil assholes to be found and booted out of my profession before they kill someone.
Because there’s a non-zero chance that a cop might be bad, and that would “Make the officers and the department look bad in the eyes of the community.”
Imagine how awesome it would be, to be a cop, and know that all the scumbags on the force had been weeded out, and you actually could look citizens in the eye and ask them nicely “please X…” without them fearing you?
I guess the majority of cops don’t want that. I wonder why?
The KKK is going to Missouri to raise funds for Officer Wilson:
The KKK is going to Missouri to raise funds for Officer Wilson:
That’s straight from the “with friends like these, who needs enemies” department…
I’d want to know who the bad cops are, to avoid them / working with them.
rq,
I know that my local YWCA has specific officers they direct people to for domestic violence calls, because apparently there is a list of officers you would not want to show up if you needed help with that. It is frightening and disheartening.
August 18, 2014
Stark Racial Divisions in Reactions to Ferguson Police Shooting
http://thinkprogress.org/culture/2014/08/18/3472491/ferguson-protest-love-sign-philadelphia-records-tourists-reactions/
From Inaji’s #333:
It’s fucking crazy to see people say this. The police botched this situation up from top to bottom. They mishandled the entire investigation. I don’t see how anyone could have confidence in them.
I imagine those white people saying that have no knowledge of the situation beyond a passing familiarity, so they don’t likely know how badly the police handled the investigation.
A number of commenters have asked why Officer Wilson wasn`t arrested after shooting Brown. I`ve never heard of a officer being arrested in the immediate aftermath of killing someone while on duty. For that matter it seems pretty uncommon for that to happen in the US in cases where civilians kill someone and claim self defense. In such cases arrests are only made after an investigation produces evidence of wrongdoing. To use a Canadian example charges were not laid until a month after the death of Sammy Yatim. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Sammy_Yatim
Dianne, at 286:
4. loss of face- authority figures are obsessed with it, and do anything and everything, no matter how absurd or destructive, to avoid it.
Well, shit, how can the police even investigate the murder when they’re busy holding the town hostage and harassing innocent people in their own neighborhoods?
timgueguen @ 336, I suggest you compare and contrast a wee bit:
Hometown police officer fired after fatally shooting dog #Ferguson cop still employed after shooting human being
Also, this isn’t really about Wilson being arrested right after the shooting. This is about normal procedure not being followed at all. Wilson kills Mike Brown. A nurse who wants to try CPR is refused and told to back away. Brown’s body left in the street for hours. No ambulance was called. Brown’s body was finally dumped in a cop SUV and taken away. No incident report was filed. Wilson’s identity was protected by FPD long enough for him to erase online info, flee the area, and fuck up any possible forensics from his clothing. More reading: Mike Brown: Facts and dog whistles and Numbers that Matter: Ferguson.
(Thanks to Sally Strange for this)
Officers assaulted by white suspect. Suspect not shot.
http://www.kmov.com/news/crime/Police-Suspect-hides-in-womans-basement-assaults-officers-271009211.html
Oh yeah, there’s more than enough evidence to suggest they’ve heavily compromised investigation from the start. But even in the best case scenario Wilson would all but certainly be sitting at home, or working a desk, while the shooting was being investigated.
Having some experience with handguns and shooting I notice that there are a lot of misconceptions. Generally speaking, once the determination has been made that deadly force is justified you shoot as rapidly as you can consistent with reasonable accuracy. There is no delay for assessment between shots. You shoot until the perceived threat is neutralized or you run our of ammunition.
With a modern semiautomatic handgun a trained shooter at a range can typically fire with reasonable accuracy at a rate of two or three aimed shots a second. Under stress that rate can double but the accuracy usually suffers. Citing link below they claim Brown was shot at least six times.
http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-ferguson-michael-brown-autopsy-20140818-story.html#page=1
It may seem odd that they don’t know but it has to be noted that, contrary to what people see on TV, the number can be hard to determine based only on the examination of the body. It is easy enough to count the wounds but bullets can enter and exit several times, they frequently break up, and the bullet or fragments may ricochet off bone or exterior surfaces and travel in unexpected directions. Counting empty shell casings and cartridges remaining in the magazine tells you more than the number of holes.
The time it took to fire six shots would typically be somewhere between one and three seconds. Given stress levels, more likely on the shorter end of that range.
In the world of police and defense shooting the actual shooting is considered an extreme, the ultimate, form of restraint. The difference between present threat deserving of the use of deadly force and neutralization comes down to their perceived ability to cause harm. A person is no longer a threat when they are incapable of doing harm. The main way of accomplishing that comes down to causing sufficient blood loss to cause loss of consciousness and/or the destruction of central nervous system. The head and spinal cord are small, well protected and so highly mobile that successful shots are more likely to be random than intended. The main blood vessels are a much larger and much less well protected area. Which is why people are trained to shoot at the “center of mass”. Damage to the nervous system is the quickest way of stopping an attacker but it is much more difficult to accomplish reliably. Inflicting blood loss is easier and more reliable but it takes more time. Time for any attacker to do their worse.
The general assumption by many is that once shot people fall down and stop attacking. A lot of people who get shot do just that. But a good number don’t. A determined attacker may keep coming. Remember that this situation is one where you have already determined deadly force is justified. If they have a gun or knife, at close ranges (<20') a knife is sometimes considered to be more effective than a gun, you are not going to stop shooting until the situation is settled. It is pretty common for defensive shooters under stress to empty the magazine and continue to pull the trigger. In modern handguns a full load may mean up to fifteen shots being fired.
Sounds like a lot, but it might only take two and a half seconds.
Notice that this is all predicated upon the perceptions of the officer. I don't know the merits of the case. Was there a weapon or not is not actually as important as many think. That isn't to say there was, or was not, a weapon present. As I currently understand it, and subject to more information, there were only three people close enough to know and one of them is dead. That the remaining witness, a friend of Brown, would claim there was no weapon and the shooting was unjustified while the officer claims exactly the opposite should be expected. But it gets more meta than that. Facts are simply not that important.
There is one key pretty much irrefutable fact, and one key question. Fact: Officer Darren Wilson clearly felt under sufficient threat to use deadly force. Why he felt that way is up in the air. He may have thought there was a weapon present or he may have felt he was at such a size and/or positional disadvantage that deadly force was justified. The key question, and any judicial proceeding will pivot on: Was Officer Darren Wilson justified in making that call, and could a reasonable person be expected to see it similarly?
Legal eagles will note that Wilson is innocent until proven guilty. Realists will note that police get additional benefit of the doubt over and above the average person and the police union will make sure he has a good lawyer. Brown wouldn't likely get similar presumption of innocence or representation. Nonetheless short of Wilson stupidly announcing over the radio he intended to kill Brown ahead of time odds are he will not be convicted. Worse case he is retained for a couple of months on administrative leave and quietly allowed to quit and move on.
I'm not suggesting that any of this is right, good, or correct. I am saying that that is the reality of the situation as I see it.
lorn:
That is not a fact. What is clear, from eyewitnesses, is that Wilson seems to have been in high temper that day.
To paraphrase the president’s remarks on Ferguson this afternoon: *waffle*
blargh
Yeah; that part has never made ANY sense to me.
Cops are granted the power of life, death, and detainment.
Cops are given training to allow them to deal with threatening situations without killing people.
Cops should be held to a HIGHER, not LOWER standard of conduct than the average person. Cops who murder people should be punished MORE, not LESS harshly, than civilians who murder people.
Fuck authoritarians.
@lorn, 342
This is only a fact if self-defense is the only possible motive for one human being to shoot another human being to death.
Get back to me when you think it through again.
FTFY
lorn:
An unarmed black man causes an armed white police officer to fear for his safety or the safety of others?
Yeahbutno.
The mindless white support of the police is first indicative of racism, second indicative of blinkered authoritarianism, and third is indicative of the burden caused by the Low Information Voter. The people who know fuck all about the situation at hand, but still insist on making their ignorant ass voices heard.
The one thing I did appreciate that Obama said at the very end is that he made clear that the looters were a small minority of opportunists who may not even be residents of Ferguson. So that’s something, I guess.
Gotta agree here, what in the fuck was the point of Obama speaking? You know what would have helped? “Wilson taken in for questioning.” That would have helped.
Press Release: WBC protesting at Missouri State Capitol
It’s funny how so many
racists“realists” have psychic abilities and can read Officer Wilson’s mind and emotional state.lorn @ 342-
I’m impressed at the verbiage you’ve deployed defending spray ‘n’ pray while simultaneously letting the content of this thread and others zip over your head. Bravo.
News still being curated here.
BUTHECOULDHAVEHADAWEAPONITWASIMPOSSIBLETOKNOW
Yeah, so we get this calm, cold assessment of police training and it still comes down to this: the police are acting sketchy as fuck. There is a clear attempt to paint Michael Brown as a perp rather than a victim, and the race baiters get to have a field day trashing the brown people and praising the real thugs.
We can have as many rational, detached discussions about the way the mind of a trigger-happy creep with a badge works. Or we could recognize that this is not an isolated incident and it’s all interwoven with the undercurrent of racism, gun culture, and right-wing paranoia that just. won’t. fucking. stop.
lorn
Except there was considerable delay:
Keep grabbin’ at them straws, why don’t you.
@lorn, 342, but separately:
Take your smug bullshit elsewhere. “Legal eagles” indeed.
He’s not innocent until proven guilty. He is either innocent or guilty right now.
“Legal eagles” might note that the government is forced to treat Officer Wilson as innocent until proven guilty because otherwise a trial is an unnecessary sham. The distinction between governmental action and private action is a basic one that legal turkeys ought to get. Insisting that I can’t criticize you because the first amendment prevents the government from obtaining a court order for prior restraint is only marginally less stupid than insisting that Wilson is “innocent until proven guilty” on a fucking blog.
You may, from the rest of your paragraph, have intended something more nuanced and specific in terms of critiquing the function of the US criminal justice system. However your inability to even comprehend, much less express, the basic distinctions necessary to productively comment on these issues makes your statement, “that is the reality of the situation as I see it,” about as useless a disclaimer as, “Don’t think I’m racist, but…”
Your entire comment is one long ramble of things that sound like detailed critiques but, upon closer observation, have no value whatsoever – at best!
Take the following for example:
No, no, no. This appears to be valid logic: they are still capable of doing harm, kill them. Only dead are they incapable of doing harm.
But this isn’t the situation the police are in. While I’m willing to grant some police training is contradictory, in fact every conscious human being is capable of inflicting harm of one type or another. The cops don’t shoot the open carry advocates, much less everyone driving an SUV, despite how deadly those things are.
The cops are supposed to use their brains to determine the difference between willing and unwilling and attempting and not attempting. If a person has the perceived ability (to use your words) to do harm, but is showing no willingness to harm despite having the ability, cops shouldn’t be fucking shooting. If a person has the ability and with willingness, but isn’t attempting, cops shouldn’t be fucking shooting. If a person has the ability and willingness and was until just a moment ago attempting to cause harm, but is no longer attempting to cause harm, cops shouldn’t be fucking shooting.
This is not war. You are buying into the myths that make a militarized police force to begin with. The cops’ job isn’t neutralizing the capacity for violence among a target population. If it was, sure, you shoot to eliminate any possibility to injure others.
But it’s fucking not. Your commentary is, at its worst, so much worse than useless that it would make it seem that cops’ job include neutralizing capacity for violence. The very thought should make even *you* shudder if you stop to use your brain a moment.
Obama: “I have to be careful about not pre-judging these events before investigations are completed.” #Ferguson
What I wore in a combat zone that killed 5000 troops vs. what cops are wearing in #Ferguson where zero have been shot
I knew that Obama would be useless as soon as I saw that he was going to address Ferguson AND Iraq.
If he really wanted to address Ferguson, he would have addressed that and only that.
Crip Dyke:
Wow.
Great takedown.
And I would sure as hell like to know what investigation Obama is talking about, because there sure hasn’t been one in regard to Mike Brown.
lorn bleats:
Translation: “Being an avid gun fondler….”
Red herring because Michael Brown WASN’T a threat. But aside from that, it is bullshit police brutality apologia. While this might be a nice gut instinct assessment of the way things are for Average Joe With Handgun, cops are supposed to be better than that. That’s why they are trained. That’s why they have all of those privileges and such. We expect to be more responsible, competent, and cautious than a guy playing cowboy to hunt down trespassers.
Yes, which was already discussed, and which was apparently factored in during the autopsy.
Bullshit. It is inconsistent with the description of events. He started shooting, stopped, and then started again. It wasn’t all one volley, you fucking slimy, amoral apologist for murder.
Well you see there is the problem. Apparently police only consider you not a threat when you are bleeding to death on the ground. Apparently raising your arms in the air and expressing that you are giving up and you are unarmed isn’t sufficient. Thank you for your education on the matter, lorn. I guess know we know that when we see a cop, we should shoot THEM in self defense, knowing what you have told us about standard police procedure. Good work, resident legal expert and scholar of ethics.
(Snip out all of the gruesome detail where lorn is borderline salivating over how to best slaughter Kriminals)
Well maybe then the best policy is to do one fucking shot at a time then? Instead of shooting rapidfire into someone without seeing if they stop? Instead of virtually guaranteeing that the target will wind up dead?
Did I mention you should go fuck yourself yet? Because that was a bit of oversight on my part. GO FUCK YOURSELF.
Masturbating to hypothetical gun porn scenarios that don’t even apply to the situation at hand? You are a fucking ghoul.
No, of course not to a person who will come up with any excuse possible to defend the police for shooting and killing black people! Weapons are completely irrelevant in that scenario, as you have clearly displayed!
FUCK. YOU.
There were SEVERAL other eyewitnesses. And if Michael Brown had a weapon, it somehow magically vanished into thin air! What more lies are you going to concoct to protect your beloved killer cops?
Oh my Christ, you are beyond belief. No, that isn’t a fact. He felt “under threat” is not in evidence. And it excuses nothing, because all of the evidence that we actually DO have shows that he SHOULDN’T have felt “under threat”. With several eyewitnesses noticing behavior that was not at all like someone who felt “under threat” as much as someone who WAS the threat.
You are fucking DISGUSTING.
Wait. What The Actual Fuck?
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/08/18/1322560/-Ferguson-Store-Owner-Says-NO-ONE-From-His-Store-Called-Cops-To-Report-Cigar-Theft
lorn@342
Your statement is semi-educational, but omits the fact that the motive might not have been self-defense. It could have also been murder. That being said, given the fairly accurate assessment you’ve given, contrasted with the eyewitness testimony of 1-2 shots, followed by several more as the victim was at distance, all point towards 2nd degree murder. This was not self-defense (no ‘flurry of shots’) but rather a rage-killing.
minor point of order on frangible bullets: any bullet fired from a modern firearm larger than a .22lr usually will have sufficient energy to go through multiple people, walls, and other such sundry things like car doors and whatnot. Frangible bullets are largely considered a ‘safety feature’ in this case to make sure the bullets only hit one thing (hopefully whatever was being aimed at) and a reason why one of the gun-safety hard rules is ‘Always be sure of your backstop’
Xaivius, something lorn said was actually educational? Are you saying that because you can verify that lorn actually said something accurate or are you just trusting that lorn isn’t a bullshitting troll on a mission?
Just because I feel the need to restate it: Darren Wilson is, by all indications, murderous fuck, and all lorn did was help prove it. A good police officer would, as soon as the suspect has stopped resisting or showing signs of struggle post getting shot, immediately radio the shooting in, and try like hell to make sure the suspect didn’t die. Hell, our soldiers have a better track record of this than the goddamn police!
Fucking hell.
Remember the good old days when the cops were worried enough about being caught that they kidnapped you on the edge of town after dark and hid your bodies in an earthen dam? #Ferguson
Remember the days when cops couldn’t blatantly murder people and get off scot free, with people fucking cheering to get that outcome? Yeah, me neither.
Anteprepro@366
Oh, I’m not at all impressed with lorn busting in with a derail on handgun mechanics. The bit about how handguns are used in a self-defense capacity (i.e. large flurry of shots, often due to panic/fight-or-flight reaction) is mostly on point, but it doesn’t fucking matter in this case due to the fact that the shooting IN NO WAY resembles self-defense. Most of the rest is authoritarian apologia. Please continue to eviscerate the dumb shitheel.
Justice for Michael Brown Rests Almost Entirely in the Hands of This One Man:
DDMFM:
The term “national guard” refers to what the NG’s ostensible purpose is: they’re the last-ditch defense of the national territory. They aren’t supposed to be sent abroad to fight, they fight at home, to defend the homeland.
That’s the idea, anyway.
Also, federalism.
Highlights from the history of the police department and the city council of Ferguson. Also: what it means to say that Darren Wilson has a “clean record”, and what it doesn’t mean.
Oh, and sometimes the President (in the capacity of Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces) can seize control of the NG. This is referred to as them being “nationalized.” It is done rarely, and almost always in times of emergency.
Probe into Michael Brown shooting goes to pot
Legal eagles will note that Wilson is innocent until proven guilty
Legal eagles will also note that so was the kid he gunned down.
Brown had sleep-and-munchie-inducing pot in his system not rage-fueling PCP.
Nix on the PCP rage myth, please. Alcohol is much more likely to make someone lose inhibitions and get violent; it happens all the time.
Unfortunately Brown wasn’t smoking enough marijuana that he didn’t just stay home on the couch that day… Although, with a gun-toting aggressive authoritarian wandering around on the street, if it wasn’t Brown, it was going to be someone else Wilson would shoot – probably someone brown.
Reparations for Ferguson
Total police control over black bodies has echoes in American history.
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Eric Holder Talks About Racism the Way Obama Wishes He Could
Xaivius: That’s what I expected, thanks for the clarification.
And for those like me who only vaguely remembered lorn’s nym but didn’t know why: they were among the anti-Palestinian troll spewing bullshit about “human shields” and shit in that vein:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2014/08/03/satire-done-right/
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2014/08/12/true-intellectuals-know-the-power-of-the-passive-voice/
Jesus fuck, they are going to just keep slimily try to feed the media whatever information they can to smear Mike Brown. Just trying to give the authoritarians all the excuses they need to blame the victim, praise the police, and put their minds back to sleep.
Fuck, I hate this country.
THAT is the person who is going to be prosecutor? FUUUUUUUUUUUCK
@Marcus #376
The legal chickens aren’t interested in the dead kid except as a plot device to mull over rationally and carefully.
SECOND RALLY Held in Support of #Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson in St. Louis
Itemizing Atrocity
by Tamara K. Nopper & Mariame Kaba
For blacks, the “war on terror” hasn’t come home. It’s always been here.
Frangible bullets are largely considered a ‘safety feature’ in this case to make sure the bullets only hit one thing
BULLSHIT.
Frangible bullets are, and have always been, about maximizing energy transfer. I.e.: destroying flesh, causing shock and blood loss, and knocking the recipient out of the fight as fast as possible. The stuff about bullets going through multiple targets is a shameful fig-leaf over the presupposition that someone would actually fire into a crowd containing targets and non-targets which no responsible, moral, or trained shooter would do. Please spare the bullshit about how military ball can go through multiple walls or the skin of an airplane and how it might hit a nuclear reactor or whatever – Because the fact is, if you aren’t sure of your target, you don’t shoot Unless you’re a military killer in a free-fire zone.
Which raises the point: officer Wilson rapidly unloaded his service side-arm into Brown, in a residential neighborhood with other witnesses around. That he only hit Brown is small consolation; this could be a whole different story if one of officer Wilson’s bullets had wound up in a bystander. Which, as lorn appears to be trying to convince us, is acceptable behavior: cop unloads gun as fast as possible firing at a person on a residential street with witnesses any of whom might also have been killed by officer Wilson’s gunfire. Especially because Wilson had every opportunity to leave and not escalate the situation. I am fucking sick and fucking tired of authoritarian followers who approach this tragedy with the assumption that violence had to happen to begin with. Why aren’t people looking for the infinity of ways that Wilson could have de-escalated the situation?
I hate cops. Some of you may have figured that out. But even as a serious cop-hater, if one told me not to jaywalk, I wouldn’t attack the fucking cop. The authoritarian followers in this situation want us to somehow believe that a person committed suicide-by-cop because they were jaywalking? There’s something about that that just doesn’t add up!
IN case you don’t feel sick enough:
Oops, I didn’t realize the video link would come for autoload. Someone please feel free to delete that; I’m sorry.
So, the “frangible bullets” – realize: the authoritarians are thinking of firing those toward crowds in hopes that they won’t go through more than just one victim. What they are doing is helping guarantee that if there are bystanders, they’re too dead to testify, more like. At the same time as you’ve got lorn talking about how cops are trained to empty their guns quickly and somewhat accurately, you’ve got them emptying enhanced lethality bullets.
The fucking cops should have bought fucking tasers not fucking armored fucking trucks, the fucking fucks.
Police create “organized protest zone”
Why Black on Black Crime is not the issue in Michael Brown Tragedy Part 2: When was there ever value? (TRIGGER WARNING, GRAPHIC VIOLENCE DEPICTED.)
marcus@383-385
I think we’re talking about different bullets. either way, I regret kicking the hornets nest on this one again. I’ll concede and say you’re correct that they’re a solution for a problem that shouldn’t exist. Fuck the police
Somebody stop this planet. I want off.
Ex-Transit Officer Who Killed Oscar Grant, Unarmed Black Man, Wins Lawsuit
Would those of you who want to talk firearms and bullets please click over to thunderdome? Thanks, it’s appreciated.
LykeX@388:
I agree. I should really work on my French. Worth quite a bit on the Quebec immigration forms
I think we’re talking about different bullets
There aren’t any. Really.
I’ve used the frangibles, myself. They’re kind of interesting, especially subsonic ones. As in, you can target shoot in your appartment with a suppressor and a backstop made of two-by-fours. If you’re insane.
You want to see a surgeon become a foaming-at-the-mouth ragemonster, ask them if they’ve ever worked on a patient that was hit by something like a Glaser safety slug. They call them “safety bullets” because they won’t go through the target and go whanging around, etc. … We’re talking about the same thing.
Here’s the problem: it’ll still go into the guy behind you if it hits you in the hand, or the arm, or the neck, … If you look at the videos of those things hitting ballistic gel, they’re monstrous. And the fragments go all over the inside of the target. They’re frangible they’re not magical unicorn farts that mysteriously go out of existence after they hit a butterfly or something like that – you’re talking thousand-plus footpounds of energy: it’s gotta go somewhere. And it should not be going towards anyone that is “innocent until proven guillty”
You can concoct a fictional scenario, in which John McClane is on an airplane and it’s held by Bad People and he has frangible bullets and he’s able to shoot them down, pow, pow, pow without a round going through the aluminum airplane body – except he’s still firing on an axis toward the kid in seat 4C …
Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein arrested during peaceful protest in #Ferguson for “blocking the entrance”
Inaji @#390. You’re right. Sorry. I forgot to take my anti-SIWOTI meds this morning. :/ I’ll let the lies stand if anyone starts telling them again.
I’ve got a freaking ocean between me and these events and I still can’t shake the despair. I remember when the USA was supposed to be the good guys. Sure, you had problems, but there was a clear idea that you were on the side of freedom, democracy and the common good.
I guess it was naive, but I miss feeling that way.
Marcus:
Seriously? Please take the bullets and guns talk to thunderdome, and if lorn or someone else shows up arguing crap, please respond to them in the dome. I’m finding all the bullet this, bullet that, pow pow shit upsetting in this thread, and I know I’m not the only one. No one is asking you to be silent, but to use an appropriate thread.
Marcus, if someone else comes in wanking about ballistics, please point them to the Thunderdome and email the monitors if they refuse.
Missouri governor says he’s been in Ferguson ‘almost every day’ since shooting, not true.
Getty Images photographer has been arrested in #Ferguson. Likely for taking photos. Land of the free. (@ryanjreilly)
Police officer walking around wielding a can of mace #Ferguson (Cops are not wearing ID).
Inaji, that police officer looks fucking scary. Like the kind of asshole who would mace you, just to be a bully. I’m not basing this assumption of of his physical characteristics, but rather his demeanor, the way he appears to carry himself, and the fact that he is menacing peaceful protesters with a giant can of mace.
What he means is that the Ferguson PD has been there almost every day since the shooting.
What he means is:
Klan heading to Ferguson to ‘guard white businesses,’ back shooting of ‘n*gger criminal’
Re: ballistics and so on. The John Oliver video makes pointed mention of the weaponry used, how unprofessionally its used etc. Maybe that thread would be most apt for such discussion.
National Guard has arrived. To protect the police.
Daz, #402, that is an astute observation. Seconded.
National guard troops deployed on roofs #ferguson
News still being curated here.
National Guard has deployed troops to the rooftops.
Another journalist arrested in #Ferguson. http://www.cnn.com/cnnx @CNN
But why? #Ferguson
The National Guard is on the rooftops? An army is taking up tactical positions because civilians are demanding justice?
Inaji:
Your second link @358 goes to ‘page not found’.
So what happens now that the police in #Ferguson have violated this signed court agreement not to arrest journalists?
Tony @ 409, sorry! If it comes up again, I’ll repost.
For continual curating of news, please go to http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2014/08/17/time-to-arrest-the-police/comment-page-1/
@Inaji:
Nothing. The journalists were arrested, if reports are correct, by state police, not officers of the County of St Louis.
On the other hand, what the consent decree does is establish that future violations are “knowing violations”. When a constitutional right is violated in an area of settled law or when the authority is clearly aware of the state of current precedent, the consequences are vastly different because of a couple of things, but not least because of the loss (or possible loss) of Qualified Immunity.
Unfortunately, qualified immunity is, in practice, preserved when I don’t think it should be. Consent decrees show that the authority **IS** aware of the current state of the law and that the actions under question do compose a violation of one or more constitutional rights. A consent decree may serve as a deterrent to future unconstitutional actions because officials know or should know that they are now without qualified immunity and their own butts and cash are on the line in the future. It also serves as a stick with which to inflict more individualized punishment. When the state pays a fine, no one person particularly cares. Even if it comes out of your departmental budget, limiting your ability to give that raise you promised to the administrative assistant you’re screwing, you can only care so much. When you lose your house to pay back someone falsely arrested for their injuries, you care.
Unfortunately, even with consent decrees, loss of QI isn’t guaranteed. But there is a purpose, and it can help.
The good news is that arresting photographers and journalists has been so common lately, there’s a good chance the state police also have an on-point consent decree on file.
Re; #59
“In a 6-3 opinion, the court held that “deadly force may not be used unless it is necessary to prevent the escape and the officer had probable cause to believe that the suspect posed a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others.”
How does anyone know that Michael Brown did not represent a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer? Being unarmed doesn’t make you harmless.
mindnoodle:
go away with apologetics. They are not welcome here.
About 10 humvees now at the #ferguson command center. Most are Military Policeman one of them tells me.
mindnoodle #413
You didn’t catch the part where Brown turned around after being hit the first time, about twenty feet away from the officer, and raised his arms?
Stop being disingenuous. Continue with this wankery, and I’ll have no hesitation in asking PZ to ban you from the thread as a troll.
Logic, it’s called logic. Person running away from you with no gun = not a threat.
This officer threatened to arrest me if I didn’t move off the public sidewalk. #Ferguson
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/08/14/3471149/police-brutality-reproductive-justice/
“How did you know he wasn’t a threat? Sure, he had no weapon. Sure, he had his hands up in the air. Sure, he was begging for his life. But, still, it is POSSIBLE that he was still threat. You can’t prove he wasn’t. Just Askin’ Questions. Both sides. Teach the Controversy.”
#BREAKING: @NationalGuard soldiers have arrived at the command center in #Ferguson. #MikeBrown
https://twitter.com/ShimonPro/status/501519341423431680/photo/1
Missouri National Guard Has Its Own History of Racial Tension
Cops carrying riot gear & big sticks on Night 10 of #Ferguson unrest.
From Daily Kos back on August 13.
If some in Missouri get their way, we may never know who shot Michael Brown
So as we’ve seen, if the police never DO bother to charge one of their own with a crime, the shooter cop’s name would stay buried.
Pteryxx:
Holy shit. Unfuckingbelievable. “Hey, cops, if you have something to hide, no worries, gotcha covered!”
Fine, let’s not release the name of the individual police who shoot people. Let’s hold the entire police department accountable — but there must be accountability, or we might as well stop paying taxes to fund police. No taxation without protection.
So the supporters of Darren Wilson went and held hands across an old bridge?!? What the actual fuck did that accomplish or even symbolize? And then somebody called them “protestors”. The Facebook comments were strange.
So the autopsy showed only bullet holes in the front. And copfans said that proves Brown was attacking because eyewitnesses had said he had been shot in the back. No, they didn’t say that. And the sketch on the autopsy was a standard layout, not a drawing of how he was standing, and as the doctor said, arms move around.
Seriously. FFS, we’ve all seen human arms before. This isn’t a mystery.
Re: 416
“You didn’t catch the part where Brown turned around after being hit the first time, about twenty feet away from the officer, and raised his arms?”
He was shot from the front, according to the autopsy.
“Stop being disingenuous. Continue with this wankery, and I’ll have no hesitation in asking PZ to ban you from the thread as a troll.”
Stop ascribing devious motives to my questions. That is not reasonable. If the officer was guilty of deliberate and unnecessary violence, then it certainly fits a pattern with other cases and justice should be served. But it’s also possible he did nothing wrong. I just want to know how you can be sure. We are supposed to be reasonable people who believe things based on evidence.
read closer.
yeah, it’s clear he’s just an ignorant fuckwit, totally out of his depth!
dude…
FUCK
OFF
mindnoodle is a typical denialist, pretending to just be a meek little skeptic just awaiting evidence when really are they are doing is loudly dismissing evidence and then defiantly shitting on the carpet.
no, it really, really isn’t.
this is what is wrong with you fuckers, that you just can’t accept that when an unarmed man is shot half a dozen times, with the final shot being an execution style hit to the top of his skull, that means someone did something wrong.
when the cops cover up the entire incident, do not release the autopsy results, do not cooperate with independent federal investigators… that means someone did something wrong.
fuck.
you.
moron.
Alert sent.
Hey, mindnoodle, could you be an apologist for fascists? Are you maybe just asking questions to raise unfounded doubt? Is it possible you’re just an asshole?
I’m just asking questions.
Don’t bother answering, because the banhammer says you can’t.
No. That is literally not possible.
Become a god. Short of that, why not make reasonable decisions based on available evidence like the rest of us?
Thank you Daz and PZ. One irritant less.
Retweeted by Antonio French
https://twitter.com/alexwroblewski/status/501542874203578368
So…..was the police’s allegations of Molotov’s ever substantiated? Because now they have explicitly stated that’s why they went full aggro yesterday. As if it matters, since no excuse was needed on any other day.
Wow. Station has kept having ads for the news, saying “gonna cover Ferguson, news at 10”. Well, they opened with that segment. Over in three minutes. Mainstream media!
Why am I being arrested for sitting in my own car smoking a cigarette in my aunt’s driveway?
From the STL Public Radio live blog
Well, shit. It only took them ten days of intense military occupation and how many arrests? to muster up some other witnesses for themselves. How much you want to bet that these were people who had been arrested for peacefully protesting and are being coerced into siding with the cops? Which is more likely, 4 people who came forward right away, most with some footage and were all ignored. Or twelve new eye witnesses who magically all agree with the cop, whose report hasn’t even been made public?
yes, because police sources have been SO FUCKING RELIABLE with their information so far in this mess.
funny, I don’t recall Wilson ever even claiming to have filed a report, much less detailed the events.
OHHHHH, you mean, what the police chief mumbled about what he said happened?
yeah, because that makes it all official and all.
fuck me, the media is just goddamn terrible any more. You really, REALLY can’t call it journalism with a straight face.
yazikus:
FFS. This is just adding to the fucked up situation in Ferguson.
We still don’t even know Wilson’s version of events.
funny, I thought the FBI was supposed to be conducting the investigation, and the local PD was supposed to be not involved….
Ugh. Just got called ignorant by an ex-BF on my FB page claiming that I’m ignorant of what’s going on in Ferguson. I’m a little irritated at the moment. I don’t have a problem being called ignorant, when it’s accurate. I certainly don’t know everything, nor do I claim to. But in this case, I think I’m more than a little up to speed on what’s been going on. Certainly more than people who claim that Ferguson is marked by rioting and looting.
anteprepro wrote:
It’s the perfect defense of the status quo: Be hyper-skeptical and demand that people exercise restraint in making judgements until all the information is available, but since that takes time, once all the information is finally available, they can complain that we’re talking about very old news and demand we all talk about something else.
Tony, would it be too forward of me to suggest you unfriend him? You are by far, one of the most receptive people to information and learning I’ve ever encountered. Ignorant is one word I would never use to describe you. You are thoughtful, patient, intelligent and skeptical (in the best sense of the word).
yazikus:
I responded to him, and included links to my blog where I’ve discussed the issue. Depending on if and how he responds, I’ve considered unfriending him (so no, it’s not too forward at all; and thanks for the kind words).
Ignorant is actually a fine word to use to talk about specific issues. Like Tony! said, he is profoundly ignorant of many, many things. That’s the reality of being human. But I would never presume that Tony! is ignorant of any specific topic.
I think what’s really likely to be offensive is that this “friend” likely is assuming ignorance wherever Tony!’s opinion differs from the friend’s in interpretation of facts. That shit is annoying. “If only you knew anything about this, you’d agree with me,” is one of the most offensive derails there is.
Marcus Ranum (#282)
Wilson could have retreated at 80mph if he wanted to. Instead, he got out of his vehicle.
Hell, charging him and ramming him with the vehicle would likely have done less damage.
Crip Dyke, you are absolutely right. I ought to have worded that better. What I meant was that I’ve never found Tony to be willfuly ignorant, that is, when information has been presented to him he appraises it. This was a situation that I’ve seen Tony reporting on for a number of days, so I included that personal observation into my comment. This isn’t an issue that he had been ignoring, but one he had been actively researching, via media. I’ll try to be more precise in my wording.
Crip Dyke:
That’s exactly how his comment to me read.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/18/us/michael-brown-autopsy-shows-he-was-shot-at-least-6-times.html?rref=homepage
Looking at the reporting on the wounds I’m struck with how the damage to right hand and forearm resembles damage in a case where the man shot was attempting to grab the officer’s gun. The laceration to the right hand, wound on the forearm, and upper body seem to be in line if the arm is rotated and the arm is extended. This is also likely positioning if the officer were laying back and Brown was attempting to grab the gun as Wilson engaged in standard retention drill. If the gun went off at that time, by accident or design, the bullet might conceivably follow the path observed. The bullet impact might cause enough reaction to cause Brown to further extend his arm and drop his head as the struggle continued. The second shot entering the eye socket and exiting a jaw, and, after Brown’s head slumps more, a third shot enters the top of the head. At that time Brown is effectively dead but he may have been able to turn and run a few steps only to collapse. This might look to anyone observing like he was shot in the back.
I know, that’s three shots not six. Hard to know for sure. I suspect that the independent coroner misspoke and several of those wounds are from a single bullet. Dr. Baden didn’t have access to the X-rays or counts of cartridges remaining in the magazine or shell casings found on-scene. It would be interesting to compare the different sources. Not that it would change the account. As I pointed out in my initial post the number of shots is largely irrelevant. Training, convention among trained shooters (not to be confused with conventional wisdom), and even the law itself tend to tell officers that once the shooting starts to fire more, not less.
The logic plays like this: In a gun retention problem the more you fire the fewer rounds left for the person taking the gun. An empty gun is far less of a threat. If it is a self-defense issue, you are in fear for your life, you don’t want to die without making every effort to save yourself, failing to use every resource amounts to a failure to comprehend your fate. There are no prizes for using the lowest number of bullets. Unless there is torture involved the law doesn’t differentiate between a person killed with one shot and one killed with ten. The prosecutor will, of course, claim more shots imply malice. The defense will claim more shots imply fear. Assuming a relatively even match in legal talent neither side wins that issue.
Of course, the wounds don’t support a conclusion of him being shot in the back and the two head wounds are not consistent with anything but the gun being aligned roughly with the length of the spine. Two men semi-prone wrestling over a holstered gun fits. The only other positioning that comes close to fitting is if Brown were advancing head down as Wilson shot at him.
Then the question is when did Wilson get the swollen face? Was he punched as preparation for an attempt to grab the gun, or was he advancing toward Wilson, shot, and got in a final punch? I suspect the former simply because of the location of the body. Some chance it could be unrelated but I don’t put much stock in coincidence.
Q) Why didn’t Wilson jump up and render aid to Brown? Imagine you have just been involved in a wrestling match with a man twice your size, you have been punched hard enough to swell the side of your face, and the victim has been shot twice in the head with a 9 or 100 mm round. One of which looks to have been a shot directly down through the top of the head. First-aide isn’t going to change anything. What you have then is a crime scene. So everything has to stay in place as the county assembles a team to document it all. It fits. But is it fact as will be determined in court? Perhaps.
A possible hole is that Dr. Baden indicated no powder residue was found, which would seem to indicate a range of at least two feet, but the body may have been washed in the previous autopsy to remove any dirt or blood covering any defects or wounds. It would be expected, as I understand it, for the county autopsy to include a test for gunpowder but the state autopsy was not, for obvious reasons, referenced by Dr. Baden’s results. There may be more clues if/when the X-rays are released.
I said: “Fact: Officer Darren Wilson clearly felt under sufficient threat to use deadly force”.
Barring some mindlessly stupid announcement beforehand to commit murder the assumption will always default back to that conclusion. I don’t read minds, and you don’t either. So, barring egregiously obvious evidence otherwise, or a huge imbalance in the ability of the lawyers to manufacture facts out of smoke and mirrors, Wison will always win the benefit of the doubt. You can have your assumptions, make up any story you like, but it is only what can be proven, or stands because it cannot be shown to be false, that counts as fact in court. IMO, only the naive would think otherwise. I failed to explain why this is, in effect an established fact, simply because it seemed so glaringly obvious as to need no explanation.
Witnesses are the weakest form of evidence. There are obvious contradiction in witness statements. One video, ostensibly from Wilson’s family, claimed that Brown, his male friend, and Wilson were the only people present. They were asking why Brown’s friend had not been questioned. Now people are claiming there were more witnesses. Pretty common for strong feelings and a compelling story that aligns with expectations and shared experience to create witnesses. All part of the human experience.
yeah, funny neither of the two forensics EXPERTS agree.
and no, gunpowder residue on his clothes would not change that, since they can examine a lot of parts of him that had fuckall covering of clothes.
Baden stated he spoke to the country forensics office before conducting his own examination.
basically though… the ONLY thing without ballistics you can conclude properly from Baden’s examination is where the kid was shot, and how often (though even that could be contended).
Baden’s examination isn’t worth wasting your mental acuity on.
This whole thing is a complete fail, from the cops playing “poison the well” on a daily basis, to trying to do proper forensics without half the needed data.
My “educated guess” is that we, the public, WILL NEVER KNOW what exactly transpired and how.
in the end though, what we DO know is that a cop shot an unarmed person and they are dead.
no gettin around that.
if he shot him in the head from the car, he would have had to have his head BELOW the window of the car, for the 90 degree penetration shot to the top of Brown’s head, and THAT would have left powder.
you don’t know what in the fuck you are talking about, and should just shut up about it.
with video.
you fucking, fucking idiot.
I see lorn is back, giving their apologetics another go round. Anything to justify the death of an unarmed black man. I guess for some people the life of a black man doesn’t mean much.
::spits::
lorn, #451:
1st: why are you going on about your insights into how this or that will play in front of a jury? Do you even have the first clue what the purpose of a trial is? Hint: It’s not to establish truth.
2nd: Your bullshit defense notwithstanding, e.g.
makes a mockery of your pretense to judicial education.
1. IF this made it to trial, it would be because the evidence already convinced some experts and/or grand jurors that Wilson did not feel sufficient threat to legally use deadly force. Duh. At that point, there would be no presumption. As for “assumptions” – if you employ those as a jurist or juror, you’re in breach of ethics.
2. Something you are entitled legally to assume absent other evidence is called a rebuttable presumption – or just a presumption. One thing it’s not called? A “fact”.
That cowering, sniveling, mewling thing over in the corner? Pick it up on your way out, would you? It’s your argument, and none of us want to hear it anymore.
lorn
Have you considered just going away?
lorn:
You might want to just stop now. You’re in over your head against someone like Crip Dyke who knows her shit.
lorn @451
Are you a forensic pathologist? Perhaps a specialist in ballistics? Because there’s a few pieces of evidence missing if you want to argue that MB was close enough to try and grab the officer’s gun.
Damn. This image says so much about the perception of black people.
How to make a tear gas mask.
(one among a list of possible ways for people to offer assistance to those in Ferguson I discovered on a here)
Couldn’t he have been punched in the face by a colleague for shooting an unarmed man dead in the street?
It is one thing to argue naively when news first breaks that cops deserve the benefit of the doubt. To continue to make the argument after the cops and officials blatantly attempt to stonewall the family and the public, after the facts are apparent of the mistreatment of the evidence (and the remains of a dead person), of the obstruction of journalism, the failure to cooperate with an independent pathologist?
To continue to make the argument for the benefit of the doubt can only speak of fealty to a system in corcumstances which deserve the greatest scrutiny, or else a callous instinct to defend the use of lethal force because somehow the dead person deserves nothing more.
There is no interpretation of these apologists’ argument which can make them seem sensible or compassionate. I cannot fathom that anyone is able to believe that this is somehow a misunderstanding based in honestly motivated, but incompetent and not racist, law enforcement.
lorn> are you trying to actually piece together some sort of argument, or are you just an idiot flailing at their keyboard?
How do you make it through your morning routine without the empty toothpaste tube kicking your ass?
Cops are trained in weapon retention. think about it, an overwhelming majority of people are right handed, which means they will likely carry their firearm on the right side.
Consider sitting in a running vehicle, and someone reaches through your window. In this situation, you literally have a plethora of options available. Use the window’s borders as a fulcrum and break the persons arm. Just ease off the brake and hit the accelerator and drive your car a dozen meters down the road. Open the door and shove the person away. Use your pepper spray. Punch them in the face (repeat as necessary). Roll over pinning your holster twixt the seat and your body and poke them in the eyes.
Srsly, if you have any sense, being in a (running) car, with a gun, you are at somwhere betwixt no and reallygoddamnedminimal risk from someone reach in the window (and why is your window open?). You don’t need to shoot someone.
And even if you do have to shoot someone, once they start running, you don’t need to shoot them again. And for further clarification, once they put their hands up in the air, you really, really, don’t need to shoot them yet again.
And for the especially confused folk, once someone is lying prostrate on the ground, bleeding out, they aren’t exactly a major threat, so you can spare your department budget a few cents, and try to refrain from shooting them yet again.
This is not debatable. We have several eye-witnesses that state there were at least three volleys of shooting, one in the car, one running away, and another while the victim was attempting to surrender. If the victim actually made a play for the weapon, there would have been powder burns on his arms. No powder found on the body, and all the photos I’ve seen show the victim to be wearing a t-shirt.
That cop wasn’t fearing for his life, he was fearing that some black kid might think it’s okay to dis him.
Fuck the police.
procrastinatorordinaire
Don’t be silly, cops don’t discipline cops.
http://aattp.org/ferguson-police-removed-amnesty-international-observers-media-from-protest-area-images/
It seems they’re removing media even more aggressively and approaching protestors with guns drawn now. Christ, I hope I don’t wake up to a mass slaughter.
heh
HA!
@ shockna
They’ve been approaching protesters with guns drawn since last weekend.
Experts: killed as he tried to surrender. But c’mon, I’ll hear out some of your amateurish, behind-the-computer analyses, too!!
More re Inaji’s #371 on the prosecutor Bob McCulloch:
Also from that article:
That’s one reason for a federal civil rights investigation, which would not involve McCulloch’s oversight.
This is a segment from Chris Hayes on MSNBC from Friday, where he interviewed two local city council members and a professor who want McCulloch to recuse himself from the investigation. (The transcript from Friday the 15th is not yet up but it should be in a day or so here.)
MSNBC – A little history on Bob McCulloch (video may autoplay at link)
One city councilmember says – because we’ve had a situation, years ago, with another shooting where the DOJ investigation said those guys (police officers) lied, and Bob McCulloch allowed those officers to go free. He ruled that it was a justifiable homicide.
Councilwoman Hazel Erby – says many on the council feel the same way, that McCulloch has a track record of not being fair. The case just mentioned, and other cases they can cite.
She says the investigation’s already messed up because St Louis County handled the initial scene.
Jelani Cobb cites a protester’s sign – ‘The Ferguson police need better scriptwriters.’
—
Two news articles so far have mentioned the previous shooting case:
Denver Post – Credibility concerns in Missouri shooting probe
and St Louis Today – St. Louis prosecutor has faced controversy for decades
Just found another indicator of McCulloch’s mindset in this roundup of Ferguson background at the Washington Post.
From the New Yorker article cited:
Woah, the situation with McCulloch is worse than I thought. Thanks, Pteryxx.
I’m shocked, shocked I tell you, to find that the first picture contains nothing but white people in support of a white officer who killed an unarmed black teen.
This is post-racist Murrika, after all.
As I like to point out to all the idiots that actually make similar claims. Obama’s election didn’t show the US to be post racist at all. Indeed, it was like turning on the light and all the racist cockroaches suddenly became a lot more visible. Apologies to any actual cockroaches for the comparison…..
In German: Three German journalists arrested in Ferguson. Police says they didn’t keep moving; journalists say they kept moving – on an empty street where there had been protests the night before – and it’s completely absurd, accuse police of trying to prevent reporting, one of them says “blatant violation of freedom of the press”. Police unreachable for comment.
One of those journalists has a detailed account of what happened: rubber bullets were fired at him and colleagues, several hit.
Guardian is live-blogging Eric Holder’s visit to Ferguson.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2014/aug/20/michael-brown-attorney-general-ferguson-protests
More on why the Ferguson community is calling for McCulloch to be removed as prosecutor. Transcript from Rachel Maddow’s show on Monday the 18th. (Video, may autoplay at link) (Full transcript)
“Jackson Box (ph)” refers to the Jack-in-the-Box shooting deaths-by-cop of two unarmed men in a car, for which both a grand jury on McCulloch’s watch and a subsequent federal civil rights investigation failed to charge the officers with any crime – see my #470 above.
See also this overview in Slate: (warning for detailed descriptions of police brutality)
And finally the Guardian as of this morning: (bolds mine)
McCulloch has been in office since 1991. All of these incidents have occurred on his watch.
New York Times calls for county prosecutor McCulloch to be replaced: NYT – A fair inquiry for Michael Brown
Citing the St Louis Post-Dispatch:
The Post-Dispatch article also cites a case where McCulloch sought security video evidence to expose a whistleblower:
Waugh. Went to the gym, picked treadmill near TV showing Ferguson. Was between Fox News and Fox Business. Brain hurts.
yeah… why IS it that so many gyms have their tvs all tuned to fox news?
I’ve noticed it everywhere I go… even here in NZ!
Here in US, Fox is the default TV station for most businesses — car repair to doctor’s office. Constant information that people aren’t critically focussing on is a brainwashing technique.
Crossposting from the Good Morning America thread (here) because all my citations about McCulloch are above.
I have a serious rant to get out here. The media’s paying attention to the question of prosecutor Bob McCulloch’s (lack of) impartiality, mostly as a close B-story to Eric Holder’s investigation of the Brown killing and policing in general, and I’m glad to see that. I think keeping the public pressure on McCulloch is the only way Brown’s family and the rest of St Louis County have any chance at all of seeing justice for multiple killings by cops.
HOWEVER. The media *and* the internet are seizing on McCulloch’s family history of his police officer father being killed by a black man when McCulloch-the-prosecutor was a 12 year old boy. All mentions of his impartiality lead with “his officer father killed by a black man” as THE probable reason for accusing him of bias in the first place. And that’s a romanticized, Batman narrative that plays right into white racist narratives of having a personally driven champion who’s going to crush all the obviously-black evil-doers. It would sound ridiculous if we hadn’t just seen a week of racist commentary fueled by exactly that story. And McCulloch plays into it. He RAN FOR OFFICE on that story – that his father being killed drove, and still drives, his desire to see justice. And yes, I can cite that: (Denver Post)
So it’s convenient for him to reference his father’s death when it’ll help him win the position of prosecutor in the first place, but not when it might raise questions about his ability to ensure justice for victims of police. I think I’ve seen McCulloch cite this story in TV interviews, which would indicate he’s still using the narrative now.
But as a grown adult, the circumstances of his father’s death should not be of more import to determining whether McCulloch will oversee police brutality cases fairly than the evidence of how he’s handled such cases before. He’s misrepresented grand jury testimony in one major case already, that of the Jack-in-the-Box shooting deaths of two unarmed men in 2001. St Louis Post-Dispatch:
Ferguson’s representatives and community leaders cite several other cases, including the death of Jason Moore referenced in #125 above, which resulted in new lawsuits *one day* after AG Eric Holder talked with Moore’s family.
THOSE are justification for removing McCulloch from the role of prosecutor in the grand jury investigation of Mike Brown’s death. THOSE are evidence of his bias and probable professional misconduct. THOSE should be the focus of media pressure to ensure the people of Ferguson have a chance at seeing justice. Not the Batman story that every white racist will love.