Rampant Police Brutality and Media censorship in Ferguson Missouri

[Areloch]

This is where you stopped being accurate. Just because an officer pulls a gun does not mean he intends to use lethal force. In fact, shooting for extremities is a technique often employed to disable a fleeing suspect or disarm an armed suspect.

You are making the presumption that he was attempting to use lethal force.

Unfortunately for the both of you, the evidence doesn't corroborate your story. There is no indication of the officer's intent with the initial shooting. He may have been aiming for the fleeing suspect's leg and missed.

Alright, I'm going to copy a comment I made earlier:

Actually, US police are trained to shoot to kill, because if you're using your gun, you're going to get someone dead.
'Non-lethal shooting' is largely a myth. Shooting someone in an extremity can just as easily lead to death as shooting them in the center of mass, so the police aren't trained to risk missing to take limb shots.

So if he was adhering to his training, his poor aim was probably merely a reflection of the stressful situation and he was therefore putting forth lethal intent.
If he was TRYING to shoot the kid's arm, then he was not only using a lethal weapon 'incorrectly', he directly went against his training to do so. He would have been trying to be a action hero or some sort of cowboy and putting the suspect and other people nearby's lives at risk.

In short, as far as I am aware, all weapons training beats into your head that if you're going to use your gun on something, it's to kill it.

Fact is, a gun is designed to put lethal holes in a target. Police are trained to use their gun to put lethal holes in people.
Given the above facts(emphasis, these are indeed true), the default assumption should be that if the officer pulled his gun and fired it at the suspect, it was with an intent to kill.

If that ISN'T the case, it belies either him making very poor decisions, or that the Furgeson PD are terrifyingly lax in their training. On reflection though, given pictures we've seen of the police pointing assault rifles at peaceful protesters at point blank range, however, it may be the latter. And that is a very troubling notion.

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.

Then it's fortunate that, as I've said a few times now, the evidence suggests that isn't what happened. The person was not "gunned down" while fleeing, he was hit once in the arm supposedly from behind, and then hit five more times while facing the officer.

You're both using wordplay to make it sound much worse than it actually is. But it is inaccurate to say the phrase "gunned down a fleeing suspect" because he was not "gunned down" until the point at which he was facing/charging the officer.

Speak accurately, or not at all. We don't need more people on the internet inciting tensions over this case with faulty wordplay. We have far too many of those already.

You're both using wordplay to make it sound much worse than it actually is. But it is inaccurate to say the phrase "gunned down a fleeing suspect" because he was not "gunned down" until the point at which he was facing/charging the officer.

What I was saying is it's entirely plausible that when he was shot in the arm the first time, he turned and charged the officer in an ill-planned strategy of self defense after being shot once while trying to escape.
I made NO insinuation that he was shot the other times while escaping. Only the first.

However, it is(as we pointed above) a fact that the officer open fired upon him while he was escaping. It hit him in the arm, but just as easily could have been in his back, or head. See my above point about using lethal weapons.
If I was running from someone and they shot me at ALL, arm or anywhere, I would have pretty good reason to believe they're trying to kill me. In short hand, "gunned down".

If you think it's an unreasonable stance to believe that a person that shot you in the arm from behind while you were attempting to flee is trying to kill you, then I have major questions about your sense of self preservation.

He was not gunned down at the time of the first shot hitting him, but I very seriously doubt that the officer would have stopped firing if Brown continued to flee. And if that would have been what happened, we would have used a phrase such as "gunned down".

I guess since he was "lucky" and wasn't "gunned down" from the first bullet(again, entirely possible it would have happened), a more accurate statement would be:

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

Is that sufficiently accurate?

 

[AkaDad]

Those 5 eyewitnesses have nothing to gain or lose by coming forth. Officer Wilson has a lot on the line along with the Ferguson PD to not tell the whole truth.

Technically that's not true. Both sides have something to lose: their reputations.

Btw, the Ferguson PD , in the past, wrongly arrested a black man, beat him in the cell when he complained, then tried to charge him with destruction of property for bleeding on their uniforms.

Not sure how that's relevant to this case, exactly?

My point is mainly this: if all of these eyewitnesses actually exist, then that means that somebody's got to be lying. So I'm awfully curious about this, and hope we hear more about these supposed witnesses. Because if they're real, then this case just got a hell of a lot messier.

They may take a hit to their reputations, but Wilson could do some serious jail time.

I thought it was relevant that Ferguson PD had done shady things in the past. Michael Brown's past behavior seems to be relevant to some, then shouldn't the Ferguson PD be as well?

 

[Dark Togashi]

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.

You mean the prosecutor whose mother, father, brother, uncle and cousin work in the St.Louis County police?

 

[Areloch]

Fact is, a gun is designed to put lethal holes in a target. Police are trained to use their gun to put lethal holes in people.
Given the above facts(emphasis, these are indeed true), the default assumption should be that if the officer pulled his gun and fired it at the suspect, it was with an intent to kill.

Technically, your claim is inaccurate mostly because police don't tend to train much with their firearms at all. Which is arguably a much larger problem.

I remember seeing in many places that police are trained to shoot for center of mass. However, as you point out, that's completely dependant on them actually getting their training.

If they're passing up on firearm training entirely, then that would be very distressing indeed.

However, it is(as we pointed above) a fact that the officer open fired upon him while he was escaping. It hit him in the arm, but just as easily could have been in his back, or head. See my above point about using lethal weapons.
If I was running from someone and they shot me at ALL, arm or anywhere, I would have pretty good reason to believe they're trying to kill me. In short hand, "gunned down".

As I just said, that is not what that term means. It means "to be shot to the point of serious injury or death". He was grazed in his arm.

I'm also cutting out the non-sequitur and ad hominem bits here, sorry.

Sorry, that was a typo on my part.

I meant 'In short hand, "being gunned down".'.

I'll concede I completely whiffed that. My point was(hopefully articulating correctly this time), that after being shot the first time, Brown - reasonably - feared if he continued to flee, the officer would continue shooting and kill him.

Whether that was the officer's intent or not, it's not an unfair conclusion.

I guess since he was "lucky" and wasn't "gunned down" from the first bullet(again, entirely possible it would have happened), a more accurate statement would be:

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

Is that sufficiently accurate?

That's actually accurate, so yes.

Yeah. I mean "gunned down" in a "this could easily have been what happened" manner, but to be fair, it wasn't as clear as it should have been.

If it sounds like I'm trying for wordplay, just assume I'm an idiot that conveyed my point incorrectly

 

[Ratty]

And as I believe said before - I agree that if Wilson was being charged shooting was reasonable. But if he started shooting at Brown while Brown was trying to get away then Wilson was using excessive force.

And as I *know* I said before, if the earlier claims that Brown assaulted the officer are true (and even the eyewitnesses in Brown's favor seem to agree with that), then he's already stepped over the line at which the use of force is justified.

Firstly, *Congratulations*. Secondly I disagree that punching a cop justifies that cop shooting at you while you're unarmed and running away in broad daylight down the middle of the street. I don't care if Wilson was technically "legally authorized" or not, opening fire on an unarmed fleeing man is not right.

And I believe I've already agreed with you more than once that yes he was facing the officer thus not technically fleeing when he got the majority of the shots.

But that, if witnesses are telling the truth, Wilson started firing on him when he was fleeing. So it's like this. >Brown Flees >Wilson Fires and Hits Brown >Brown turns to confront/surrender >Wilson fires 5 more times. Wilson started firing at him while he was fleeing at the start of this scenerio, while he was not a threat. Again, this is if witness accounts are true. If Wilson did not start firing at Brown until after he turned around that's very different.

Maybe Wilson intended to fire a warning shot and accidentally hit Brown with that first shot, then acted on instinct when Brown charged/appeared to charge, we don't know yet. But I think pulling the gun on the guy who was fleeing was the wrong call, potentially to the point of being negligent. Regardless of what transpired after Brown turned around.

There is a vast gulf of a difference between "gunning down a fleeing suspect" and "shooting at a suspect who was trying to flee, who then turned around and/or attempted to charge the officer before he was gunned down".

You are being intentionally vague with your language to leave reasonable doubt. Speak accurately, not emotionally.

Are you serious? No really, I see other people trying to communicate this same point to you over and over. Wilson opened fire on Brown while he was running away. He opened fire on a fleeing, unarmed man who was at that point not a threat to him. This was an unjustified use of deadly force against someone who was at that moment not threatening Wilson, because the minute you start shooting at someone it's deadly force.

Well, if what that reporter in St Louis claims is true, then you may get your wish in spades. Maybe.

Unfortunately no. My wish about this whole thing would just be that this shooting and all the ones like it just didn't happen. But they're troublingly common.

Btw, the Ferguson PD , in the past, wrongly arrested a black man, beat him in the cell when he complained, then tried to charge him with destruction of property for bleeding on their uniforms.

Not sure how that's relevant to this case, exactly?

My point is mainly this: if all of these eyewitnesses actually exist, then that means that somebody's got to be lying. So I'm awfully curious about this, and hope we hear more about these supposed witnesses. Because if they're real, then this case just got a hell of a lot messier.

I presume an alleged criminal is innocent until he is proven guilty in a court of law, or I try to. I even try to do so with Wilson, but the actions and history of his colleagues have made it damned hard not to assume the worst of anyone associated with them.

And the problem with that is that it's really no different than assuming that Brown is guilty because he's black. It's guilt by association, and it's wrong regardless of who it is.[/quote]

It's different because "black people" or "poor people" is a pretty broad group, millions. With tons of different cultures, religions etc. encompassed within the group. The Ferguson PD is a group of about 50-something people, their culture is very relevant to Wilson and to this case in terms of a possible motive for his actions. Just how relevant it is is for the jury to decide.

PS-

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

Is that sufficiently accurate?

That's actually accurate, so yes.[/quote]

That's what I've been trying to communicate to you. Only I would add not only do I do not like it, but that I think it's wrong and potentially criminal.

 

[Ratty]

Firstly, *Congratulations*. Secondly I disagree that punching a cop justifies that cop shooting at you while you're unarmed and running away in broad daylight down the middle of the street. I don't care if Wilson was technically "legally authorized" or not, opening fire on an unarmed fleeing man is not right.

He is legally authorized to use force on a suspect that has already attacked him, yes.

And if that's how things happened Wilson was morally in the wrong. Legal =/= Moral.

It's different because "black people" or "poor people" is a pretty broad group, millions. With tons of different cultures, religions etc. encompassed within the group. The Ferguson PD is a group of about 50-something people, their culture is very relevant to Wilson and to this case in terms of a possible motive for his actions. Just how relevant it is is for the jury to decide.

It's absolutely not different. You are assigning guilt on an individual because of the attributions and allegations placed on those whose company he keeps. That's just as bad, whether you would acknowledge it as such or not.

No, it's not. Or would you say it was bad to assume that most of the people in the Westboro Baptist Church are probably somewhat homophobic? Or would it be presumptuous to assume that if you see a burning cross, the KKK might have been involved? I'm not "assigning guilt" so don't put words in my mouth. I am saying that people associated with organizations with a history of racism and violence, and possibly surrounded by racist attitudes all day for years, are likely to be affected by that kind of thinking. Racism, on the other hand, holds that a person of a particular race is genetically inclined to think and act a certain way regardless of environment or the surrounding culture.

 

[Ratty]

And if that's how things happened Wilson was morally in the wrong. Legal =/= Moral.

Morality varies by person to such a degree as to be meaningless in the aftermath of a case. Legality is all that matters in a case.

To the Government perhaps. But probably not to most people.

Within any group of people, even people as hateful as the ones you've named, there are always those who think differently than their peers. Indeed, there are some people who join groups mostly to belong, or because they didn't have a choice, even if they don't necessarily agree with the beliefs of that group.

Which is why you'll notice I said "most of the people in the Westboro Baptist Church are probably somewhat homophobic". It would indeed be a trap to think of an entire group as a mindless (or single-minded) collective. But who you associate with every day will have an effect on you one way or another. That much is unavoidable.

Certainly, their membership in such a group doesn't reflect well on them as an individual. And certainly, being a member of one of those groups in particular makes it VERY likely that you probably are as bad as initial presumptions would suggest. But we're not talking about religious or racial beliefs. We're talking about a guy who works at a job. Where he works should by no means be the basis by which you judge the person. You judge a person based on their stated beliefs and actions, not those of their peers.

But as I said, over a period of years a toxic environment can have side effects. I did not say that Wilson himself was racist. I said seeing racist actions and attitudes of his coworkers could have affected his judgement.

The man's a police officer, and a relatively young one at that (28 IIRC). Most people don't go into that profession with intent to be horrible people. This was very likely his first job out of college and the training academy.

Which would be all the more terrible if Ferguson PD is as bad as it appears to be. If the Officers he looked up to and looked to for guidance when he first started treated citizens with antagonism and hatred, and were poorly trained besides, that means he was all the more likely to be negatively influenced by them. In this case it would be more like a student from the school you worked at, which neglected academics in favor of athleticism, being more likely to be academically disadvantaged against a student from a school with a stronger focus on academics.

 

[Therumancer]

It's pretty much just like one of those old cases you hear about with black people decades ago where they tampered with things until they got the results they wanted and which fit the narrative they wanted to construct. That was wrong then, and it's wrong now, even if some people might feel there is some kind of belated "justice" in punishing someone that way.

Can you give me some specific instances and sources for this? It's fairly inflammatory stuff to post without supporting evidence.

When this is over I won't be surprised if see pictures "leaked" of this cop hanging out with a Grand Wizard of the KKK or something, diaries about him plotting to shoot some black kid for lulz found in his house, and of course at least one mention of his unhealthy obsession with video games. Maybe taking a queue from one of Yahtzee's jokes they will say "... and investigators found he was a huge fan of the "Uncharted" games, a well known series about a white protagonist on a quest to slaughter those of color" mistaking Yahtzee's snarky humor for an actual analysis of the game (which is about a treasure hunter). I mean I'm shocked with all the politicians looking at this that they haven't found some way to work the evils of violent video games into it yet.

This last paragraph of yours is almost painfully ironic. You write about how you're afraid the truth will never come out, that so many powerful people are involved, we haven't heard the officer's story and he'll probably be convicted by the media instead of a court of law. In fairness to you, these are all legitimate points. We should be able to hear the officer's account, and he is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

However,

You don't extend that same courtesy to Michael Brown. You dismiss him as thug, a waste of air and a robber even though he hasn't had his day in court. He was never arrested, tried or convicted, but as far as you're concerned he's guilty as sin because of an unrelated video leaked by people in authority who had a major stake in the case. Exactly what you were afraid would happen to Officer Wilson has happened to him, and you've allowed your own view to be manipulated by it; the very same thing you've been decrying others for doing.

For cases you need to dig but with simple searches you'll find things like this:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/11/glenn-ford-black-man-wrongfully-convicted_n_4944670.html?ir=Black%20Voices&utm_hp_ref=black-voices

and references like this

https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p=Black+man+freed+with+DNA+evidence&fr2=sb-top&hspart=att&hsimp=yhs-att_001&type=sbc_dsl


For the most part if you want examples, you need to look into things like DNA evidence and how it was used to overturn convictions on people sent up the creek decades ago. As a Criminal Justice major, who was focusing on forensics, some cases like this were brought up as examples of the effect new investigative techniques have had and of course in a general CJ sense how the system evolved.

If you've paid attention to some things I've said before, I have commented numerous times in various posts that I think the CJ system has made mistakes, but most of the really heinous ones I've heard people talk about happened a pretty long time ago and I don't think are especially relevant to cases dealt with today.

I do however believe part of the problem in places like Ferguson is a sort of black culture attitude of "screw whitey" and the attitude that because there have been past injustices, it justifies acting like they haven't been corrected, or visiting similar injustices on others.

That said, my attitudes on the case about Brown are because what we saw was video evidence, which had already been checked out. It didn't apply directly to the case because the officer didn't know about the robbery, but it did characterize the man involved, as does the things that even the witnesses claiming there was an execution confirmed such as him walking in the middle of a street in front of a police car, and making a grab for the cop's gun. All of those things together reinforce my attitudes about him.

As I've said before if the cop had control of the situation, and Brown had surrendered, he was dead wrong to execute him. However even so it probably would have been more of a heat of the moment thing (anger and fear over being attacked, etc...) more than a racial thing as it was being depicted as. Especially seeing as this officer was decorated and had been working in that area for six years without complaints. If he was a belligerent racist or whatever, his record would have likely been more colorful given the nature of the community, yet there apparently aren't even any complaints on record about him.

That said it does seem a lot of the politicians have been backing off in the last couple of days, they apparently decided to use the prosecutor for the area like they are supposed to instead of trying to bring in a special one.

I'm guessing a lot of it is that as more evidence comes out, it seems less and less likely there is going to be much of a case against the cop anyway. Apparently it's come out that he was badly injured (a shattered eye socket) which reinforces the close combat claims, and also there is a recording I'm hearing about that pretty much confirms the whole "Brown Charged" theory as well.

In the end the injury adds pain (along with fear and anger) to the equasion meaning that it's unlikely even a vehement prosecutor could push for a serious murder charge (certainly not first degree, second degree might be a possibility, but odds are it would go down to manslaughter tops). Given the rights of officers and the whole situation right now it's unlikely he could ever be convicted beyond a reasonable doubt, as the huge mess here means that there are going to be doubts all over the place. The legal system in the US is such where if a jury does their job, believing the guy likely did it isn't enough, all he has to do is provide a reasonable doubt on whether he did it, and just from what I've seen so far, any competent lawyer is going to make him nearly impossible to convict. Unless of course more things come out that I don't know about yet, which is always possible. This is merely an educated guess. Given the situation I'm even wondering if charges are going to be pressed because as a general rule a competent prosecutor isn't going to take a case he thinks he can prove to the needed standard of evidence. To me the big question of course is going to be if charges aren't filed, or if they are and he's found innocent, if there is going to be more riots, or if the federal government and politicians are going to try and find a way to bring federal charges against him under a more general heading.

That's opinion though, not something I'm saying is going to happen for certain, time will tell if I'm right. If I had to sit on that jury and the evidence I've seen so far was presented, the bottom line is that I think there are reasonable doubts, so by definition you can't convict him. If this was a civil case, not a criminal one, and the case was to go to "a preponderance of evidence" it would be a craps shoot, and to be honest it would come down to how each side was presented to me, but that isn't the standard for criminal trials.

 

[jklinders]

Exactly. This may be hard for some to accept, but the police shoot to kill. They aim for the torso partly as it is easier to hit and partly because they intend to kill you. It's also why they tend to fire so many rounds.

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.

Interesting. I've never heard that. Still, it's a bad idea to try to shoot someone in the leg or arm. You can easily kill a person even without meaning to. I'm fairly certain US police are only supposed to fire in cases of clear and present danger. Such as an armed individual who threatens officers or civilians.

I'm actually curious to see what the cruiser's camera picked up. That should clear up a lot of this.

From what I gathered the Ferguson PD only recently acquired two dashboard cams, neither of them as of yet installed in cruisers.

I really hope that's not true. A dashboard cam would certainly shed a lot of light on this case.

I was under the impression that Dashboard Cams were standard equipment in Police cruisers at this point. They are very useful tools for a lot of reasons. They can help show when police go too far or help prove when an officer is under threat.

As I explained to my fiance last night, there is as much uniformity in how local police in teh US are equipped as there is in snowflakes. Which is to say none. An unavoidable side effect of having each community fund and operate their own police to their own standards. There is bad to that as well as good.

 

[Nielas]

Are you serious? No really, I see other people trying to communicate this same point to you over and over. Wilson opened fire on Brown while he was running away. He opened fire on a fleeing, unarmed man who was at that point not a threat to him. This was an unjustified use of deadly force against someone who was at that moment not threatening Wilson, because the minute you start shooting at someone it's deadly force.

That's one version of events. The version that's claimed to come from Wilson alleges that Wilson only opened fire after Brown turned around and tried to charge him. It also alleges that Brown was the one who attacked first and tried to grab Wilson's gun during the struggle. If that version is true then Wilson was in lethal danger and had justified grounds for self defense.

Ultimately it comes down to which version of events you believe. If you go by the pro-Brown version than it was a heinous murder. If you go by the pro-Wilson version then it was justified use of deadly force against a dangerous attacker. If you start mixing parts from the two versions or interpret them in a different way then you will much more ambiguous conclusions that will vary depending on small details.

 

[WouldYouKindly]

This is where you stopped being accurate. Just because an officer pulls a gun does not mean he intends to use lethal force. In fact, shooting for extremities is a technique often employed to disable a fleeing suspect or disarm an armed suspect.

You are making the presumption that he was attempting to use lethal force.

When you draw your weapon and fire it at a moving target, you tend to aim for center mass. Police officers are not trained to hit any other target. The only thing worse than missing your target is if that shot then hits someone else.

Nowhere in all my knowledge of cops(both my father and grandfather were cops) have I heard they are trained to shoot limbs. Why not? Because they are virtually impossible to hit reliably on a moving person.

When you fire a gun at someone/something, you should always intend to kill it, or not mind putting a hole in it if it's an inanimate object. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

[Ratty]

To the Government perhaps. But probably not to most people.

Considering that cases are tried by the government and not angry mobs, yeah....

The effects of this case clearly ripple out is my point. People are going to be arguing over the verdict, whatever it is, for years to come. Again the protests are obviously symbolic, this isn't just about Brown and Wilson but about thousands of other similar killings.

Which is why you'll notice I said "most of the people in the Westboro Baptist Church are probably somewhat homophobic".

Ah, that totally makes it different! Doesn't it sound much better to say "MOST black people are PROBABLY violent because they're black"? I'm sure if you said that in a public street venue, everyone would go "oh, he said most, not all, so it's cool" and wouldn't consider you even the slightest bit racist!

You're making a patently false equivalence argument, and I think you know it.

The WBC and KKK are relatively small organizations based on a belief system. In contrast "black people", or any other race, is comprised of millions of individuals across the globe. Who are part of many different cultures and belief systems. Racism is the belief that those millions of people from across the globe across different cultures/belief systems are somehow genetically inclined to think and act a certain way, regardless of the surrounding culture and education simply because of their race.

I am saying "Because this department has a history of racism, and because of the apparent disregard and antagonism towards large swaths of the population it appears that some degree of racism is part of the culture of that PD. This may have colored Wilson's judgement." What you're trying to say I'm saying it "All cops everywhere must be effected by the history of this PD" which is not true.

(but no, not really, adding the word "most" doesn't change the nature of the nonsense)

You yourself said "Certainly, their membership in such a group doesn't reflect well on them as an individual. And certainly, being a member of one of those groups in particular makes it VERY likely that you probably are as bad as initial presumptions would suggest."

I have to say I'm glad I never had you as a teacher because you're one of the most pedantic persons I've ever met.

But as I said, over a period of years a toxic environment can have side effects. I did not say that Wilson himself was racist. I said seeing racist actions and attitudes of his coworkers could have affected his judgement.

No, what you said was "the actions and history of his colleagues have made it damned hard not to assume the worst of anyone associated with them". Which is, as I pointed out, attributing guilt without any knowledge of the individual purely on the basis of association. I'll say it again: if that's not what you meant, then you shouldn't have said that.

I didn't say it made him guilty, I said it made it difficult to be impartial. Making it hard not to assume the worst says that I'm trying not to assume the worst, and that they're making it difficult with their actions. Again, you're being unnecessarily pedantic.

Which would be all the more terrible if Ferguson PD is as bad as it appears to be. If the Officers he looked up to and looked to for guidance when he first started treated citizens with antagonism and hatred, and were poorly trained besides, that means he was all the more likely to be negatively influenced by them. In this case it would be more like a student from the school you worked at, which neglected academics in favor of athleticism, being more likely to be academically disadvantaged against a student from a school with a stronger focus on academics.

Not really. People react to scenarios differently. Some folks grow up in poverty and decide "I don't want to live like this" and work their butts off. Some people see gang violence or traumatic events or bad tutulage and say "that's not who I am or who I want to be". And others....don't.

Which is why I said it made them more likely to be academically disadvantaged. Some students from the worst school will study on their own, some students from the better school will slack off in their studies. It's a statement about probabilities not certainties. Because I imagine most students fall into the middle of those two extremes, doing the work that is required of them. Not much more, not much less.

It's wrong to presume that he went into this situation looking to kill the first black guy he saw simply because his peers were (allegedly) racist.

And I never suggested otherwise. If you think that's what I intended you misinterpreted. I don't think he went into this intending to kill Brown. I think that an apparent culture of (racially motivated?) disregard for the people they were supposed to protect at the Ferguson PD might have made it easier for Wilson, in that split second he made the decision, to decide to pull the gun and start firing when Brown had his back turned and was fleeing. Rather than calling for back up.

 

[Ratty]

Are you serious? No really, I see other people trying to communicate this same point to you over and over. Wilson opened fire on Brown while he was running away. He opened fire on a fleeing, unarmed man who was at that point not a threat to him. This was an unjustified use of deadly force against someone who was at that moment not threatening Wilson, because the minute you start shooting at someone it's deadly force.

That's one version of events. The version that's claimed to come from Wilson alleges that Wilson only opened fire after Brown turned around and tried to charge him. It also alleges that Brown was the one who attacked first and tried to grab Wilson's gun during the struggle. If that version is true then Wilson was in lethal danger and had justified grounds for self defense.

Ultimately it comes down to which version of events you believe. If you go by the pro-Brown version than it was a heinous murder. If you go by the pro-Wilson version then it was justified use of deadly force against a dangerous attacker. If you start mixing parts from the two versions or interpret them in a different way then you will much more ambiguous conclusions that will vary depending on small details.

Yes. If Wilson didn't open fire until Brown turned back around and started charging him then Wilson was completely justified in shooting.

 

[AgedGrunt]

This was a bad shooting. Period.

http://dailycaller.com/2014/08/19/preliminary-report-over-a-dozen-witnesses-back-darren-wilsons-story/

Unsurprising. He said/she said/they said; witnesses in total contradiction. People are lying.

The story of a cop who pursues an unarmed teen who then flees, surrenders and is then shot six times by an officer who would not have been in any danger is an enormously unlikely scenario, made more unbelievable with a large number of witnesses who didn't see it that way. To believe that story is to say those witnesses are supporting no less than a public execution. That's incredibly difficult to believe even if we question the integrity of the officer. What you'd be saying is that everyone backing his story is defending a horrific murder.

The more likely scenario, and it needs to be said that there's a massive bias against law enforcement and a great sensitivity for the black population, who understandably has zero trust in law enforcement, is that people are taking the victim's side because of personal and cultural biases.

One thing is certain: we don't exactly know what happened. To close the book on the case requires you to believe one story and not another. All the evidence I've seen so far has been inconclusive. But I didn't realize everyone was an expert in forensics, ballistics and is in fact a certified crime scene investigator. So what do I know?

You mean the prosecutor whose mother, father, brother, uncle and cousin work in the St.Louis County police?

Right, because when it comes to conflicts of interest, skin color is above suspicion. That's why Barack Obama and Eric Holder can launch full criminal and civil rights investigations of a white cop killing a black teen and nobody questions whether they've made an objective analysis.

Let me write this out for everyone: 40 FBI agents. FORTY [http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/a-message-to-the-people-of-ferguson/article_ea8b7358-67a3-5187-af8c-169567f27a0d.html]. There are also "experienced prosecutors from the Civil Rights Division [leading] this process."

Seems to me if we're going to question the associations of a county prosecutor, it's fair to question if black US leaders actions are reflecting a racial interest in this case, not unlike Al Sharpton.

 

[Ratty]

The effects of this case clearly ripple out is my point. People are going to be arguing over the verdict, whatever it is, for years to come. Again the protests are obviously symbolic, this isn't just about Brown and Wilson but about thousands of other similar killings.

People always debate the endings of major cases. This is irrelevant to the actual conducting of the case, the gathering of evidence, or the trial itself. Legality is what matters in a court of law, because no one will ever agree on the morality of the case. Legality is a question of objectivity, i.e. "did the person follow the rules for this situation". Morality is subjective and prone to interference based on personal biases, that's why we haven't let our churches judge our criminals since the Dark Ages.

Obviously some people will agree on the morality, otherwise we wouldn't have schools of thought on the subject. But no the troubling thing here is that the case is largely symbolic, and it appears that however the court rules the two broad sides will still be arguing over it for years. There are high profile cases and then there are high profile symbolic cases, public opinion matters more in the aftermath of the latter.

You're making a patently false equivalence argument, and I think you know it.

The WBC and KKK are relatively small organizations based on a belief system. In contrast "black people", or any other race, is comprised of millions of individuals across the globe. Who are part of many different cultures and belief systems. Racism is the belief that those millions of people from across the globe across different cultures/belief systems are somehow genetically inclined to think and act a certain way, regardless of the surrounding culture and education simply because of their race.

I am saying "Because this department has a history of racism, and because of the apparent disregard and antagonism towards large swaths of the population it appears that some degree of racism is part of the culture of that PD. This may have colored Wilson's judgement." What you're trying to say I'm saying it "All cops everywhere must be effected by the history of this PD" which is not true.

No, I'm telling you that what you originally said is literally identical to the use of racist stereotypes. Because it is.

You can try to flower it up as much as you like. But what you said was quite clear. You said it was difficult to trust his case not because of something HE had ever done, but because of your second-hand knowledge of his peers and what they've allegedly done. That's no different than attributing guilt based on a racial stereotype.

You're trying to adjust your wording now, but that's not what you originally said. For the third time now: If that's not what you meant, then you shouldn't have said it.

It is a different thing to say that the actions of a small Police department reflect badly on its individual members, something which even you admitted via example, than it is to say that the actions of some people who are black reflect badly on all black people everywhere. Again, you're making a false equivalence argument. This is not difficult, a child could understand it.

You yourself said "Certainly, their membership in such a group doesn't reflect well on them as an individual. And certainly, being a member of one of those groups in particular makes it VERY likely that you probably are as bad as initial presumptions would suggest."

Nice quoting out of context, that really strengthens your argument.

I have to say I'm glad I never had you as a teacher because you're one of the most pedantic persons I've ever met.

Ooo, and we're throwing ad hominem into the argument, too?

I didn't say it made him guilty, I said it made it difficult to be impartial. Making it hard not to assume the worst says that I'm trying not to assume the worst, and that they're making it difficult with their actions. Again, you're being unnecessarily pedantic.

No, I'm just repeating what you said verbatim and telling you that what you said very clearly indicates a personal bias against the officer purely on the basis of his peers' actions. Again, if you didn't mean that, then you shouldn't have said it. It's not "pedantic" to quote your exact words and point out to you that perhaps you didn't actually mean to say that.

What I said was that it's difficult not to have a bias against him based on the actions of his 50-something peers in the PD. But that I was trying not to have a bias against him. Again, this is different from saying it would be difficult to not think the worst of an entire race, who are millions of times larger/diverse/geographically spread. An organization like a small Police DP is nothing like an entire race. Now if I had made a statement about it being difficult to trust say a particular religious group, THAT would be closer to the equivalence you're suggesting. But I did not. I made a statement about a group of 50-something people who work with each other every day for years being likely to effect each other. And the bad actions of the whole making individuals within the group look bad.

You can keep repeating your false equivalence all you like, it will still be false.

Which is why I said it made them more likely to be academically disadvantaged. Some students from the worst school will study on their own, some students from the better school will slack off in their studies. It's a statement about probabilities not certainties. Because I imagine most students fall into the middle of those two extremes, doing the work that is required of them. Not much more, not much less.

School environment is hardly the only factor that determines who becomes academically disadvantaged.

And I never suggested otherwise. If you think that's what I intended you misinterpreted.

Then perhaps you should stop trying to use wordplay to disguise your bias and just say what you actually mean.

I don't think he went into this intending to kill Brown. I think that an apparent culture of (racially motivated?) disregard for the people they were supposed to protect at the Ferguson PD might have made it easier for Wilson, in that split second he made the decision, to decide to pull the gun and start firing when Brown had his back turned and was fleeing. Rather than calling for back up.

And I think there's absolutely no evidence to indicate that, and you're pretty much just making up your mental image of the cop on the basis of his peers. See my earlier statements about why that's wrong and dumb.

When we have clear evidence of his behavior and mental process, then we can make assertions about whether or not his intentions were pure or racially motivated. Until then, you're just wildly speculating without any evidence, and then getting mad at me for pointing out that fact.

We have evidence of possibly racially motivated antagonism by this PD against the citizens. You just declared "Nope, that's irrelevant" and expect everyone else to fall in line. No man exists in a vacuum. We don't know how or to what degree Wilson may have been effected by this bias in the PD if it exists. But to say that it's wildly speculating to say that it may exist based on the PD and town's history and recent actions is dishonest. And to say that Wilson was an island unaffected by the attitudes and actions of the men who basically helped complete his training and who worked with him for 6 years [footnote]Again we don't know the effect- it could have made him strongly anti-racist if his co-workers were racist, we don't know. But if bias was there it doubtless had some effect on him.[/footnote] is absurd.