Rampant Police Brutality and Media censorship in Ferguson Missouri

[dragonswarrior]

Ya know, you make a good point, but I'm still gonna have to go with the racism on this one.

If you look at the incredibly high rates of police brutality and violence towards PoC, and especially black men, then you realize pretty quickly that this is about race. Factor in the ridiculous difference in punishments against whites and PoC....

You should read The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander. Fascinating and horribly depressing book. Will really open your eyes though. Definitely worth it.

The thing is, in our complex, globalized society problems are never that simple, there is never just one cause. It's layers upon layers, all kinds of causes and effects creating an intricate web, especially when huge problems like these are concerned.

Is institutionalized prejudgments against the black community a part of this problem? Definitely, and a big one too. Is it the only one? Of course not, it doesn't explain the entire problem. The problem is that if you just pick out one cause you lose perspective, you get an incredibly skewed view. And that, in turn, prevents us from actually addressing and solving these problems properly. Just shouting "Look at that racism!" is not going to do anything. A problem like this with effects this terrible deserves to be addressed better because it definitely needs to be solved. These problems have a lot of angles and we need to look at all of them, not just one, that's not going to help. It's way too big of a clusterfuck.

It's really what annoys about today's rapid-fire soundbite way of communicating. When I scroll through my Tumblr dashboard or look at all those tweets I see lots of shouting, lots of sending, lots of (understandable) emotions. What I don't see is regard for context, thoughtful reflection, rational analysis, calm discussions, etc. I see people who genuinely care not employing solid methods and sometimes even making things worse. I mean good lord just look at Anonymous' fuck up here and what that caused. But that's turning this into a general rant and that we don't need here.

Ah, see, I wasn't trying to say that racism is the only problem. Just that it's the biggest problem. I do see what you're saying. And I agree that approaching this problem solely from one angle (When there are at least three big ones, racism, police militarization, and a "police against the community" mentality) is a huge mistake.

However I do stand by it being the biggest problem. I do think an extremely good case can be made for institutionalized racism being one of the major causes of a lack of police working with and within a community, and when you look at how much of a problem it is across the whole country... Well. I also think that this is a problem that extends way beyond the police. And desperately needs to be addressed.

But it's also true that the military hardware and police force's increased reliance on it has contributed to alienation and police brutality. And it's also true that alienation from the community has increased racism and brutality. So I do see what you're saying. It is all tied up.

 

[omega 616]

I'm kind of proud of these people, I think the government are like kids ... they will push and push their luck, as far as they can. A nice social uprising is a good way to slap them on the back of the hand.

I'm not condoning violence or looting ... but lets say a non-violent riot is always healthy. Ghandi's way was cool and all but it wasn't very attention grabbing and all out riot will get attention but also make you look like animals.

 

[Nielas]

Not everywhere they're not. Dutch cops, for instance, are only trained to shoot for the torso when it's a case of self-defense. In other cases they're trained to go for the legs.

I think you might have phrased this wrong. You seem to be saying that Dutch police are allowed to shoot suspects who are not posing a lethal danger as long as they only shoot them in the legs.

I'll try to clarify. As a last resort (after the baton, pepper spray and the likes and a k-9 unit) they're allowed to fire their service pistols. If the suspect is a 'dangerous (lethal) threat' to the officer or someone else, the officer is trained to fire at the torso. If not, and the suspect has been suspected of a 'serious crime' and needs to be apprehended, the officer is trained to fire at the legs. Warning shots are recommended, so it seems, but they recognize that in threatening situations they're not always possible.

This all translated from a short exempt on the Dutch police's website. It's only a summary, I expect that the guidelines in official manuals/law books are a lot more detailed than that. The website doesn't, for instance, clarify what counts as a 'serious crime'.

In all cases where a Dutch officer fires their service weapon an investigation will be instigated to judge whether it was an appropriate and lawful response. Over here we're actually quite worried about the rise of police shooting incidents. A cop firing his gun isn't seen as a normal thing here. 'Shoot to kill' is definitely not a thing. Over here, an incident like Ferguson's would've been written off as insanely disproportionate straight away.

You are talking about the Fleeing Felon rule. That one can vary a lot from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. In essence a police officer can shoot a fleeing suspect if there is a significant threat that the suspect will hurt someone else if allowed to get away. eg. an armed shooter running toward a crowd of people.

Let's not forget that leg shots can be just a lethal as torso shots.

Assuming the police officer's story is true, I would think a Dutch police officer in the same situation would have a very strong justification for self defense. If his version of events is true then there was a lethal danger and a lethal response in self defense was justified.

 

[Nielas]

According to the officer, he was attacked at the car (where the gun struggle happened), at which point Brown attempted to run and got a decent distance away before stopping, taunting the officer, and charging him.

This seems consistent with the autopsy report, which shows that he was shot at a distance and from the front.

There seem to be two primary versions of events circulating right now. One is supposedly what the police officer told investigators and the other comes from the man who was with Brown and was thus the closest to the action.

Both stories agree that the fight initially started at the car with the police officer inside the car and Brown outside. One shot was fired at this time and Brown fled. The police officer got out of the car and shouted for Brown to stop. Then the police officer fired. The accounts differ at what started the initial struggle, whether Brown tried to grab the gun and whether Brown was surrendering or trying to charge the officer.

 

[Ratty]

-snip-

Actually, I still see a hell of a lot of mental gymnastics being used here.

1) The article you quoted from the eyewitness states that all six rounds entered from the front, so it seems to disagree with your first article.

No, it doesn't.

"She said she believed Brown was grazed by a shot near his arm, turned, and was then shot multiple times."

https://tv.yahoo.com/news/michael-brown-shooting-witness-releases-video-knew-not-143600436.html

>She said she believed Brown was grazed by a shot near his arm

>grazed

>graze, noun; "a scraping along a surface or an abrasion made by it"

If a bullet grazed your arm I'm pretty sure you'd have a strong reaction to.

2) Even if we presume that one round hit him before he turned, he would have to have turned around for the other five to enter him from the front.

So he was just supposed to keep walking away from this man who was shooting at him then?

Your eyewitness also claims that Brown was shot five times while surrendering, but this doesn't explain how the officer then hit Brown three more times in the right arm. If the initial shot hit him and "jerked him around" as has been suggested, then the officer would've had to re-aim in order to then hit that arm again three more times, since his right arm would now be on the opposite side of his target's body.

That depends on how he turned, and it's not like it would have taken a long time to re-aim.

3) Additionally, another eyewitness is on video as saying that Brown doubled back on the officer and charged him as he was being shot at.

And if he was, the Officer still initiated it by firing on a fleeing unarmed man in the street instead of calling for backup or trying to tackle/stun him.

Wilson put the lives of any civilians around at risk by firing into the middle of the street at an unarmed man. Seemingly just because Wilson was pissed off Brown had gave him a shiner. Even if Wilson's story about Brown trying to take his gun is true, Brown was not in the act of taking the gun when he fled. He was not an immediate threat at that point until Wilson used unnecessary deadly force.

A third individual (who is admittedly a friend of the officer and thus heard it second-hand) corroborates that story. It also seems to match up with what the officer himself said.

http://www.examiner.com/article/unwitting-eyewitness-michael-brown-doubled-back-charged-at-officer

See above.

This is why we don't rely exclusively on eyewitness testimony to form our opinions, people. It's also why eyewitness testimony is among the least credible forms of evidence.

It's better to wait until we have the Department of Justice's take on the autopsy, because they said they'll be looking into it as well. They also still need to examine the victim's clothes for gunshot residue to confirm or deny the eyewitness claims that the gun went off during the initial struggle, as the coroner you're quoting admits that he never got the opportunity to test the clothing for GSR, only the victim's own body.

Yes it will be interesting to see what the clothing shows. I can only imagine why the department didn't give it to this coroner to examine in the first place. Given all the departments other attempts to cover up their activities, none of the conclusions I can draw from it are good.

4) You also keep emphasizing that he's "an unarmed 18 year old" as if he's not capable of causing physical harm, while neglecting to mention that he's 6'4", weighs 300 pounds, and played football. He is more than capable of causing significant physical harm even without a weapon. And the eyewitness you quoted even points out that he escaped the officer because he was larger. Said eyewitness also clearly states that he attacked the officer or at the very least resisted his own arrest (in your own words, she stated that there was a struggle at the officer's car) before the shooting took place, which does not make the shooting unauthorized use of force.

Because I don't think being big tough and scary, or resisting arrest for that matter, should qualify as reasons for cops to shoot at your back while you're unarmed and trying to flee. Especially when you're an otherwise non-violent offender.[footnote]Remember that whether that was Brown in the surveillance video or not, Wilson did not know about it.[/footnote]

Even if we ignore the statements that Brown tried to take the officer's firearm, the moment you attack an officer, use of force becomes authorized.

Again, use of force is one thing. Shooting at a fleeing unarmed man is another.


But again the upheavel in Ferguson is NOT just about Brown. It's about the 4 other unarmed black men who've been killed across the country in the last month or so. And the hundreds if not thousands before them. And it's about the obviously long simmering class and racial tension in Ferguson itself finally boiling over. Largely thanks to Police taking a "us vs. them, protect our own" mentality. Which at this point is signified and symbolized as much by the hostile reaction of the Police to both peaceful protestors and the press as by the killing of Micheal Brown.

 

[Cowabungaa]

Let's not forget that leg shots can be just a lethal as torso shots.

Of course, all it takes is for the shooter to hit a major artery and help arriving too late and Bob's your uncle. My response was against someone saying that cops are always trained to shoot to kill, and that shooting to disable was a mostly a movie myth. I just wanted to point out that that isn't true; Dutch police, for instance, is also trained to shoot to disable.

Of course, even being shot to disable can be proven to be lethal. But to point out, in 2011 out of the 30 serious incidents of officers having to open fire, only 5 had lethal results. Dutch cops are very careful when it comes to the usage of weapons, even non/less-lethal ones. It seems to me that that isn't as much the case in US where police seems to grab (I really mean just grab here) for their pistols relatively (to us Europeans) quickly. Holding people at gunpoint seems almost...normal.

Assuming the police officer's story is true, I would think a Dutch police officer in the same situation would have a very strong justification for self defense. If his version of events is true then there was a lethal danger and a lethal response in self defense was justified.

If I think back to previous instances of Dutch shooting incidents, a comparable incident to Ferguson's would be highly suspect from the get-go. Hell, a few years ago there was a man in Rotterdam apparently waving a gun around and even he was just shot in the leg. Six shots (at least six that hit) in an unarmed man? For us that's nearly unthinkable for that to happen.

 

[Nielas]

If I think back to previous instances of Dutch shooting incidents, a comparable incident to Ferguson's would be highly suspect from the get-go. Hell, a few years ago there was a man in Rotterdam apparently waving a gun around and even he was just shot in the leg. Six shots (at least six that hit) in an unarmed man? For us that's nearly unthinkable for that to happen.

Six shots are really not that excessive considering how fast a gun can fire. In a situation like that, you are prone to shoot three before your brain even registers whether you hit or not. If Brown was not down after three bullets then the officer would have adjusted his aim and kept firing. Six shots is not really overkill in a situation like that.

 

[Ratty]

There seem to be two primary versions of events circulating right now. One is supposedly what the police officer told investigators and the other comes from the man who was with Brown and was thus the closest to the action.

Both stories agree that the fight initially started at the car with the police officer inside the car and Brown outside. One shot was fired at this time and Brown fled. The police officer got out of the car and shouted for Brown to stop. Then the police officer fired. The accounts differ at what started the initial struggle, whether Brown tried to grab the gun and whether Brown was surrendering or trying to charge the officer.

Pretty much correct, though the police officer apparently didn't actually hit Brown until he had turned around (the autopsy report shows this). It sounds rather implausible to me that the officer was missing completely while Brown was running, and somehow only landed any shots after Brown had turned. It sounds far more likely that the officer hit once, Brown turned and/or charged, at which point the other rounds hit.

Yeah that's what I think.

No, it doesn't.

Yes, it does. On the line right below the one you quoted.

"A private autopsy conducted at the request of Brown's family and released Sunday indicated that he was shot six times, twice in the head. All of the shots were to his front, and one was at the top of his head, suggesting he was leaning forward when it hit."

That's what we call inconsistency.

Yes it's rather confusingly worded. Looks like we're going to keep getting conflicting reports until we get all the witness testimonies and autopsies in.

So he was just supposed to keep walking away from this man who was shooting at him then?

If he was surrendering as you allege he was, the appropriate response is to stop, put your hands behind your head and get down on your knees without turning around.

I doubt it's easy to put your arm behind your head when it's been shot.

The fact that he turned around was already a mistake on his part, but then he allegedly charged the officer on top of that.

Most people assume you won't get shot 5 times by a cop for turning around. Especially if you're saying you surrender and putting your hands up. Which is the other thing he is alleged to have done.

That depends on how he turned, and it's not like it would have taken a long time to re-aim.

Again, you miss the point. It's not a question of how long it takes to re-aim, it's a question of how or why the officer would purposely re-aim at the same arm he hit the first time.

Namely because he wouldn't aim for the arm, especially if the person was charging him. Which begs the question of how, exactly, the officer hit him three times in the exact same arm as the first shot.

Or considering he shot 6 times presumably in a few seconds he could have just been firing wildly and that's where it hit. Lord knows stranger things have happened.

And if he was, the Officer still initiated it by firing on a fleeing unarmed man in the street instead of calling for backup or trying to tackle/stun him.

....what? Are you attempting to rationalize Brown's attempt to physically attack a police officer? Even though we know for a fact that there was a struggle at the officer's car prior to the shooting?

This isn't grade school, you can't rationalize it with "he hit me first".

A man is dead apparently because an Officer shot at him while he was fleeing and unarmed. This isn't grade school indeed.

You don't ever attack a police officer. Ever. You don't even threaten to do it. By the time the shooting had occurred, Brown had already assaulted the officer once before. That makes him a threat.

I don't know about you, but in my book someone isn't actively a threat if they're unarmed and walking away.

And besides, how exactly do you propose that the officer goes about "stunning him"? With a tazer, a device that has an effective accuracy range of about 15 feet, and can potentially fail to hit and won't always disable a suspect of significant size or strength (or one hopped up on drugs for that matter)? You'd be complaining just as hard if the officer had tazed him, anyways, because then he'd have been a white cop tazing a "poor defenseless black kid".

I would have suggested calling back up and put out a man hunt. It's not like Brown was gonna get away after having a scuffle with a cop.

As to "tackling him", the officer is significantly outclassed in physical size and strength by a young man who is over 300 pounds, stands 6'4", and played football. This is like telling someone of roughly my size and body height that I should totally be able to tackle and subdue a guy his size with only my own strength. In other words, it's a load of hogwash spouted only by people who think they know better. Not to mention that you'd then be on the officer's case for unnecessary force while arresting him....really, just sounds to me like the officer couldn't possibly do anything to stop the suspect that would satisfy you.

No one would argue it would be unnecessary force to taze or tackle him after he punched the cop. But like I said, my suggestion would have been to call for back up rather than firing at an unarmed fleeing man.

Wilson put the lives of any civilians around at risk by firing into the middle of the street at an unarmed man. Seemingly just because Wilson was pissed off Brown had gave him a shiner.

This is what we call "speculation", not evidence. It's equally as likely that he perceived Brown turning around as a second threat on his person.

No more "speculation" than the idea that Brown turned around to be aggressive. And stray bullets out in the open have a nasty habit of killing people.

Even if Wilson's story about Brown trying to take his gun had been true, Brown was not in the act of taking the gun when he fled. He was not an immediate threat at that point until Wilson used unnecessary deadly force.

This is wordplay if ever I've heard it. Yes, he wasn't trying to take the gun at the time he was running from the officer. But the eyewitnesses agree that there was a struggle at the car, and several stories claim that he went for the officer's gun at the time of that initial struggle.

There are many things you never do when approaching a police officer. Trying to take his gun is at the top of the list. Because going for an officer's gun identifies you as a significant threat and immediately authorizes the officer in question to treat you as a deadly combatant. They have to react that way, or they risk being killed themselves.

"deadly combatant" Cops are not soldiers. They shouldn't act like soldiers, someone running away should not be gunned down.
Now you're speculating. We'll know whether the gun went off in the car when we look at it. Until then I don't even entirely believe he tried to take the gun, given the dirty cover up tactics this department has deployed since. And again, walking away.

Because I don't think being big tough and scary, or resisting arrest for that matter, should qualify as reasons for cops to shoot at your back while you're unarmed and trying to flee.

You don't think that resisting arrest and assaulting an officer justifies the use of force?

Why do you think they carry guns in the first place? Because they look cool? An officer is trained to use their gun if a person is a deadly threat. And you become a deadly threat if you physically assault a police officer (which we know he did) or attempt to take his firearm (which reports suggest he may have).

He was not a deadly threat when the Officer started firing at his back. If that is what happened.

Somehow I doubt you would even care about this incident if Brown had gained control of the gun and shot the officer. Methinks the only reason you actually care about this incident at all is because you saw the headline "black man shot by white cop".

I care about Justice. If you're insinuating I have a personal interest in cases of racial violence perpetrated by the Police I guess you could say that. My now estranged father was a white Cop who took part in the racially motivated beating of at least one unarmed black man. I believe he and 2 others went to court for that but got off without punishment. Years later I was beaten up by other kids on my T-ball team who were related to the guy my dad beat. Cops and civilians are both capable of vile things, but cops are in the position of power and need to be held to a higher standard.

Again, use of force is one thing. Shooting at a fleeing unarmed man is another.p

You can keep repeating it all you want, but the autopsy proves that he was not fleeing when he was shot and killed. At best, you could argue that he had stopped, turned to face the officer, and attempted to surrender when he was shot and killed. But you can't keep lying and saying that he was shot six times while running away, when the evidence doesn't say that. Even if we go with the report that the first hit "jerked him around", he is now no longer fleeing and is facing the officer for the five other hits.

He was not fleeing when he was killed. He was facing the officer. You are not being nearly as clever with your wordplay as you think you are.

He was fleeing when the first shot hit him, or so it seems. Then he turned around. I make no bones about this and no attempts at wordplay. The man was fleeing, he got shot, he turned around. That's how it seems to me. If the evidence eventually comes to light that he turned around to charge the officer rather than surrender, then the shooting will be more understandable. But if the officer fired at his back while he was retreating, it was still excessive use of deadly force.

But again the upheavel in Ferguson is NOT just about Brown.

Yes it is, and even if it wasn't, it doesn't matter. What matters are the facts of the case and finding out what really happened, not hurt feelings or people's perceptions of what happened.

The problems in Ferguson should be dealt with, absolutely, and both the rioters and officers punished appropriately. But I'm not talking about that and I'm by no means concerned about that. I trust the state police and federal law enforcement to cover that. I'm talking specifically about the case of Michael Brown himself, because it's honestly more important to me to find out what really happened there.

And right now, the evidence does not support your assertions that a poor, defenseless child was gunned down in cold blood by a vicious, evil police officer. At the absolute worst (and I'll reiterate that the evidence and testimony do not confirm this), a young man with significant physical strength assaulted an officer, attempted to flee, and then was killed by that officer while trying to surrender in a tragic accident. But there is no longer any evidence to support the notion that this was just a racially charged murder in cold blood, and I'll thank you to stop suggesting otherwise.

I would also like the truth. If it turns out Brown turned around to charge at Wilson and then Wilson opened fire to protect himself then so be it, the shooting was justified.

It is more complicated than a simple execution. But I think the us vs. them psychology of the town played into it, and race was a big part of that. So while I don't think it was the soul motivating factor (I think it's likely that Wilson wasn't thinking clearly after getting his clock punched. Most people wouldn't but one would hope years of police training and experience would overcome that.) I still think that if Brown was unarmed and retreating, shooting at him was the wrong thing to do. Not least of all because as I said firing a gun in the middle of the highway could have easily killed an innocent bystander.

 

[AgedGrunt]

So you would trust this Police department, after all these examples of brutality and overwhelming attempts to not be transparent in this case, to effectively gather evidence against and prosecute itself?

Wasn't trusting Ferguson Police Department; county prosecutor is different.

Would like to know why anyone should trust Eric Holder to be transparent and effectively run his own investigation. The involvement of the Feds signals that Ferguson and the state of Missouri have shockingly had their integrity stripped and are not trusted to handle this case. That's huge, because it's no small coincidence that Eric Holder, like the teen who was killed, is black.

Because what I'd like to know more than anything is why society is trained to be prejudiced. Whether it's putting a black Attorney General on this case or handing a female news anchor a story about women's health (because honestly, what would a man know about that?), civilization has developed disturbing trust issues. More disturbing is how much we embrace it.

That's what perpetuates things like racism and sexism; can't build anything without trust.

 

[Ratty]

I doubt it's easy to put your arm behind your head when it's been shot.

On the contrary, if (as the autopsy suggests) the initial round was a grazing shot that "jerked him around", it wouldn't have caused enough damage to prevent him from moving it. A grazing shot would not sever your tendons or disable your muscles. So he could still have raised his arms in surrender.

Most people assume you won't get shot 5 times by a cop for turning around. Especially if you're saying you surrender and putting your hands up. Which is the other thing he is alleged to have done.

Except, as I've said, that's one eyewitness testimony, and it disagrees with another person's testimony as well as the officer's (that no indication of surrender was given, rather, he instead charged the officer).

Which, again, is why eyewitness testimony is typically so unreliable.

Or considering he shot 6 times presumably in a few seconds he could have just been firing wildly and that's where it hit. Lord knows stranger things have happened.

Except that the consistency of the hits would suggest that's probably not the case. When a target is shot "wildly", the hits do not tend to be grouped on one particular extremity.

Possible? Yes. Likely? Not really.

A man is dead apparently because an Officer shot at him while he was fleeing and unarmed.

I don't know about you, but in my book someone isn't actively a threat if they're unarmed and walking away.

Again, he was not fleeing when he was shot with five out of the six rounds. And eyewitness testimony (which I'll remind you is what your entire argument is based upon, the testimony of ONE person) suggests that he may have even been charging the officer, which makes him an active threat.

Furthermore, while some have insisted that many shots were fired, we haven't heard evidence of any other rounds being located. Heck, investigators haven't even found all six of the bullets that hit him yet.

Stop insisting that the cop "shot him while he was fleeing". The very evidence you presented contradicts your own argument.

I would have suggested calling back up and put out a man hunt. It's not like Brown was gonna get away after having a scuffle with a cop.

Fun fact: Cops don't always get their man. In fact, the majority of burglaries in the US go unsolved due to lack of leads, and a very large percentage of more serious crimes (like murder or assault) as well. If Brown had been the culprit of the robbery, and video evidence suggests that he was, letting him go means he probably gets away with the crime.

But let's say he does what you suggest, calls for back up, and they commit to a man hunt. Ferguson is a mostly African-American community and is very closely knit, and was very much against the police to begin with. As you suggested, racial tensions may have been there for the longest time already, and this just sparked the powder keg. How exactly do they go about finding him in a community like that, ready to explode at the slightest provocation?

No one would argue it would be unnecessary force to taze or tackle him after he punched the cop.

You don't watch much news, do you? There are many reports of unnecessary force in the US, and most of them aren't reports of gun usage. In fact, most of them involve....you guessed it, either physical force or the use of a taser.

No more "speculation" than the idea that Brown turned around to be aggressive.

We have eyewitnesses who clam both cases. So fair enough.

"deadly combatant" Cops are not soldiers. They shouldn't act like soldiers, someone running away should not be gunned down.

Good thing that's not what happened then.

Now you're speculating. We'll know whether the gun went off in the car when we look at it. Until then I don't even entirely believe he tried to take the gun, given the dirty cover up tactics this department has deployed since.

The autopsy or examination of his clothing wouldn't be done by the police officers, so your distrust of them is irrelevant.

But keep in mind that if the gun didn't go off in the car, that doesn't necessarily mean that the rest of the reported story is false, either. Remember, we have two eyewitnesses saying very different things. One claims he turned and threw his hands up in surrender, another claims he charged the cop. So someone's got to be lying, anyways.

Again, this is why eyewitnesses aren't as valuable for "proof" of something as people seem to think.

And again, walking away.

And again, still wrong. You don't "flee" by walking away, and eyewitnesses state that he was definitely running away. So you seemingly can't even keep your own story straight.

He was not a deadly threat when the Officer started firing at his back. If that is what happened.

Then how about we wait for evidence that this actually happened? Because right now, the body itself suggests that's probably not what happened. At best, the evidence suggests that he was possibly hit *once* before he turned around.

Personally, I find it a bit implausible that the cop shot several times but only hit him once while he was running away, yet somehow while he was turned around, the cop's accuracy marvelously improved. I think it's more likely he was grazed with a round, then turned and charged the officer, which would explain the officer's visibly increasing accuracy in the front-to-back rounds (he was getting closer, ergo, easier to aim at).

So let's wait for evidence of additional rounds in the nearby buildings, soil, pavement, etc to confirm what happened before making up our own fanciful stories.

I care about Justice. If you're insinuating I have a personal interest in cases of racial violence perpetrated by the Police I guess you could say that. My now estranged father was a white Cop who took part in the racially motivated beating of at least one unarmed black man. I believe he and 2 others went to court for that but got off without punishment. Years later I was beaten up by other kids on my T-ball team who were related to the guy my dad beat. Cops and civilians are both capable of vile things, but cops are in the position of power and need to be held to a higher standard.

*shrug* At least you admit to having a vested interest in the outcome of the case. I'm only suggesting that, right now at least, the evidence doesn't seem to suggest Brown's innocence.

He was fleeing when the first shot hit him, or so it seems. Then he turned around. I make no bones about this and no attempts at wordplay. The man was fleeing, he got shot, he turned around. That's how it seems to me. If the evidence eventually comes to light that he turned around to charge the officer rather than surrender, then the shooting will be more understandable. But if the officer fired at his back while he was retreating, it was still excessive use of deadly force.

Technically it's not. The use of force, from a purely legal standpoint, became authorized when he first made the mistake of attacking the officer and resisting arrest, which all eyewitnesses can agree definitely happened.

I would also like the truth. If it turns out Brown turned around to charge at Wilson and then Wilson opened fire to protect himself then so be it, the shooting was justified.

I'll hold you to that.

It is more complicated than a simple execution. But I think the us vs. them psychology of the town played into it, and race was a big part of that. So while I don't think it was the soul motivating factor (I think it's likely that Wilson wasn't thinking clearly after getting his clock punched. Most people wouldn't but one would hope years of police training and experience would overcome that.) I still think that if Brown was unarmed and retreating, shooting at him was the wrong thing to do. Not least of all because as I said firing a gun in the middle of the highway could have easily killed an innocent bystander.

I don't disagree that an innocent person might have been shot, certainly. But as to the notion of whether it was excessive or not? No, I think he forfeited his right to decide how it was going to end when he resisted arrest and attacked the officer in the initial struggle. At that point, I'd rather the cop err on the side of his own safety than gamble with his life to try and take the suspect without injuring him.

I'm not suggesting that the bulk of the shots hit him while his back was turned. Just the first one apparently did. And I don't think it should be a capital offensive to punch an officer and then run away. We're not at the stage yet where a Cop should be able to be the judge jury and executioner of a man who is fleeing. And yes I consider shooting at the man who was running away unarmed to be an excessive use of lethal force, regardless of whether Brown charged or tried to surrender as a result.

Also a "vested interest" would be a heavy handed way of putting things. At the most I would say I have personal experience that shows me that who have acted like we've seen over the last week are capable of some shit. And I don't necessarily give them the benefit of the doubt in such things. Also my interchangeable use of "walk" and "run" was the result of my seeing them both used to describe the action, though I would assume he would have been trying to hustle away rather than strut.

I agree that I don't think either of us can say much more until more evidence comes to light.

 

[Ratty]

So you would trust this Police department, after all these examples of brutality and overwhelming attempts to not be transparent in this case, to effectively gather evidence against and prosecute itself?

Wasn't trusting Ferguson Police Department; county prosecutor is different.

Would like to know why anyone should trust Eric Holder to be transparent and effectively run his own investigation. The involvement of the Feds signals that Ferguson and the state of Missouri have shockingly had their integrity stripped and are not trusted to handle this case. That's huge, because it's no small coincidence that Eric Holder, like the teen who was killed, is black.

Because what I'd like to know more than anything is why society is trained to be prejudiced. Whether it's putting a black Attorney General on this case or handing a female news anchor a story about women's health (because honestly, what would a man know about that?), civilization has developed disturbing trust issues. More disturbing is how much we embrace it.

That's what perpetuates things like racism and sexism; can't build anything without trust.

People have spent their entire lives trying to figure out why bigotry exists and persists. There are a plethora of historical/economic/sociological reasons for it. I also wish we could stop them, but if mankind is ever able to overcome bigotry I'm afraid it's going to take more than one or two generations to get the job done.

 

[Cowabungaa]

If I think back to previous instances of Dutch shooting incidents, a comparable incident to Ferguson's would be highly suspect from the get-go. Hell, a few years ago there was a man in Rotterdam apparently waving a gun around and even he was just shot in the leg. Six shots (at least six that hit) in an unarmed man? For us that's nearly unthinkable for that to happen.

Six shots are really not that excessive considering how fast a gun can fire. In a situation like that, you are prone to shoot three before your brain even registers whether you hit or not. If Brown was not down after three bullets then the officer would have adjusted his aim and kept firing. Six shots is not really overkill in a situation like that.

Except that, for us, it is. Our police isn't trained like that. In the Netherlands it's already considered relatively extra-ordinary if an officer has to fire at all, let alone kill, let alone fire (more than?) six shots in rapid succession to riddle someone with bullets. That just doesn't happen.

Neither do I, but I also don't presume an alleged criminal to be innocent simply because his family and the media insists that he is.

Except that that's not relevant as we already know that Wilson stopping Brown was related to him walking on the street, the alleged connection to the robbery being irrelevant in that case.

Especially when said media has ignored or squelched information before to push its own agenda.

It's funny how both sides say exactly the same.

 

[Areloch]

We're not at the stage yet where a Cop should be able to be the judge jury and executioner of a man who is fleeing. And yes I consider shooting at the man who was running away unarmed to be an excessive use of lethal force, regardless of whether Brown charged or tried to surrender as a result.

I've already told you several times that he was not fleeing when he was fatally shot, and there's no evidence that he was shot with intent to kill while fleeing. Since you insist on continuing to repeat it after we've gone over this several times, I have to presume you have no interest in reporting the situation honestly.

An inquiry:

From what I've read, we're in general agreement that the officer shot the kid when he was attempting to escape, hitting him in the arm. Is that correct?

If that is correct, that means the cop exerted lethal force on a suspect that was attempting to flee. He had no means of threatening the officer or other theoretical nearby people as we (as far as I've read) are in agreement that he was unarmed at this point.

So the officer, seeing an unarmed man fleeing the scene, decided to pull his pistol and open fire on him, wounding him.

We're in agreement with this section of events, yes?

I believe this is is the specific point that Ratty is taking issue with. At this point, we have an officer attempting to kill a unarmed, fleeing suspect with his pistol. I would probably agree that that is an excessive amount of force.

We don't know if the kid tried to steal the gun(conflicting reports) or if he tried to charge the officer(conflicting reports).

I can't claim I'd be comfortable with a police force that opens fire on a fleeing, unarmed suspect in a public thoroughfare. At minimum, that implies he made some poor decisions when under stress.

If you wanted to be obnoxiously technical with the above information, brown may have charged the officer in self defense if he felt the cop was about to kill him while trying to run away. Doesn't condone his actions, or I would fault the officer for defending themselves at that point, but if both of them are making poor, panicked decisions, brown may have charged the officer(if he even did that) in an attempt to do something other than getting gunned down.

Without more information, it's possible to tell. I just don't like police gunning down unarmed fleeing people.