And the reason this is important to discuss is that I'm tired of having the victims of police brutality/murder inevitably and invariably smeared. It's as reliable as the sun rising in the east.
The blatant campaign of lies and misleading evidence tampering that has been perpetrated by the Ferguson police should set off all kinds of warning bells that something isn't legitimate here, if you weren't already raising an eyebrow from this exact nonsense happening every single time a person dies at the hands of a cop.
In other words being guilty of a crime is still no excuse for having your rights violated.
Correction: Being accused of a crime is no excuse to have your rights violated.
Most of these victims never get to the "guilty" stage. They normally have their rights violated long beforehand, if they ever get to a "guilty" verdict. In many of these cases, the victims never commit a crime in the first place.
It's innocent people having their rights violated. Full stop.
It's just all too easy for some people to be so willing to strip people of basic rights at the mere hint of guilt. Actual guilt make them think striping the guilty of humanity is too lenient.
But, nobody wins election by being 'soft' on crime.
And we'll never know if he is guilty of this crime or not because no one is going to press charges or even open an investigation against a man who was shot dead. The only people that give a shit if he actually committed this misdemeanor-level offense are people looking for a reason to justify his deadness.
This is the part where I invoke your favorite deity in vain and then pop several pain killers, because this meaningless diversion has nothing to do with the injustice of Brown's death and everything to do with institutionalized oppression.
In other words being guilty of a crime is still no excuse for having your rights violated.
Correction: Being accused of a crime is no excuse to have your rights violated.
Being either. You shouldn't be shot while jaywalking, beaten while apprehended as a robbery suspect, or raped as a felony convict in prison.
I don't disagree, but I was responding in the context of the thread, where Brown's supposed guilt somehow retroactively justifies his death. Brown was never convicted; the facts are in dispute, which is why we have courts that hear a case try to figure out what happened and if the accused are actually guilty.
Which is not going to happen now because he's dead.
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BigWillieStylesExpert flipper of tablesInside my mind...Registered Userregular
And the reason this is important to discuss is that I'm tired of having the victims of police brutality/murder inevitably and invariably smeared. It's as reliable as the sun rising in the east.
The blatant campaign of lies and misleading evidence tampering that has been perpetrated by the Ferguson police should set off all kinds of warning bells that something isn't legitimate here, if you weren't already raising an eyebrow from this exact nonsense happening every single time a person dies at the hands of a cop.
Sometimes it's deserved though.
To see what I'm talking about, as an example, what gets lost in the mess surrounding Rodney King is the build-up to the beating, from the car chase to what he did once he was outside the car.
The victims of police brutality get smeared because there's always another side to the story. It's rare that a Mother Teresa-type figure gets randomly beaten up or shot by a Bull Connor-type. Shades of gray ev'r' where.
The point being is that the person getting manhandled by the police isn't mister pure-of-heart very often.
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HachfaceNot the Minister Farrakhan you're thinking ofDammit, Shepard!Registered Userregular
And the reason this is important to discuss is that I'm tired of having the victims of police brutality/murder inevitably and invariably smeared. It's as reliable as the sun rising in the east.
The blatant campaign of lies and misleading evidence tampering that has been perpetrated by the Ferguson police should set off all kinds of warning bells that something isn't legitimate here, if you weren't already raising an eyebrow from this exact nonsense happening every single time a person dies at the hands of a cop.
Sometimes it's deserved though.
To see what I'm talking about, as an example, what gets lost in the mess surrounding Rodney King is the build-up to the beating, from the car chase to what he did once he was outside the car.
The victims of police brutality get smeared because there's always another side to the story. It's rare that a Mother Teresa-type figure gets randomly beaten up or shot by a Bull Connor-type. Shades of gray ev'r' where.
The point being is that the person getting manhandled by the police isn't mister pure-of-heart very often.
I am struggling and failing to see what Michael Brown's purity of heart has to do with his murder by cop.
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BigWillieStylesExpert flipper of tablesInside my mind...Registered Userregular
And the reason this is important to discuss is that I'm tired of having the victims of police brutality/murder inevitably and invariably smeared. It's as reliable as the sun rising in the east.
The blatant campaign of lies and misleading evidence tampering that has been perpetrated by the Ferguson police should set off all kinds of warning bells that something isn't legitimate here, if you weren't already raising an eyebrow from this exact nonsense happening every single time a person dies at the hands of a cop.
Sometimes it's deserved though.
To see what I'm talking about, as an example, what gets lost in the mess surrounding Rodney King is the build-up to the beating, from the car chase to what he did once he was outside the car.
The victims of police brutality get smeared because there's always another side to the story. It's rare that a Mother Teresa-type figure gets randomly beaten up or shot by a Bull Connor-type. Shades of gray ev'r' where.
The point being is that the person getting manhandled by the police isn't mister pure-of-heart very often.
So anybody who isn't as pure as the driven snow deserves to be brutalized by cops then?
Because that seems to be what you're suggesting. Just how pure does one's heart need to be to invalidate assault or murder by police?
And the reason this is important to discuss is that I'm tired of having the victims of police brutality/murder inevitably and invariably smeared. It's as reliable as the sun rising in the east.
The blatant campaign of lies and misleading evidence tampering that has been perpetrated by the Ferguson police should set off all kinds of warning bells that something isn't legitimate here, if you weren't already raising an eyebrow from this exact nonsense happening every single time a person dies at the hands of a cop.
Sometimes it's deserved though.
To see what I'm talking about, as an example, what gets lost in the mess surrounding Rodney King is the build-up to the beating, from the car chase to what he did once he was outside the car.
The victims of police brutality get smeared because there's always another side to the story. It's rare that a Mother Teresa-type figure gets randomly beaten up or shot by a Bull Connor-type. Shades of gray ev'r' where.
The point being is that the person getting manhandled by the police isn't mister pure-of-heart very often.
Nobody is 'Mother Theresa ' - and by that I mean the public image / fake concept of Mother Theresa, because the nun herself was actually a horrific person.
The concept of 'it's deserved' when the police are dealing with people who may be difficult to engage with or are rude or whatever is part of the problem. I mean, everyone has very different ideas about what that fake public image of Mother Theresa even is, and the area that sits between that concept and the place where socially acceptable behavior ends is pretty huge. This is partly why we have laws in the first place: these concrete things that the state can point to and say, "This activity - this very specific thing - is illegal. Do not do this specific thing,"
The police need to interface with the real world, where people are sometimes (or maybe even often!) unpleasant and uncooperative. If they cannot interface with that world without violence, much less violence involving lethal force, this is a catastrophic failure of that institute. The police are not supposed to be 'giving people what they deserve!' in their mind at the time - they're supposed to be enforcing the (ideally) rigid & much less subjective laws that the state has imposed.
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BigWillieStylesExpert flipper of tablesInside my mind...Registered Userregular
Yes, because Wilson totally just shot Brown without provocation.
The start of the situation, from what I can gather, is that Wilson drove on up to Brown walking in the middle of the street assuming he was dealing with a soon-to-be inhabitant of the drunk tank. And something changed to make everything go tits up. What happened to initiate that change in the orientation of the tits is what we don't know. Either Brown started yelling at Wilson (or something) and decided to attack him by leaning into the cop car window or Wilson, for some unexplained reason by the people on this thread who think this is somehow the most likely scenario, pulled Brown into his car and then just shot him.
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So anybody who isn't as pure as the driven snow deserves to be brutalized by cops then?
Because that seems to be what you're suggesting. Just how pure does one's heart need to be to invalidate assault or murder by police?
I'm saying "victim blaming" is just another word for "guy who just got beat up by cops will have his life story dug into."
No, what you're saying, whether you intend to or not, is that "bad things happen to bad people". Obviously these people did something to deserve what happened. Obviously if they'd been good and respectful they never would have even been stopped by the police.
Which is such absolute bullshit that it's becoming very hard for me not to wish incredibly bad things upon you.
Reality Check: There is nothing that Michael Brown could have possibly done that warranted his being gunned down in the street short of gunning down someone himself. There is no crime beyond being in the middle of a homicide that should warrant a lethal response.
He could have walked up to Wilson and punched him in the face and he still shouldn't have been shot.
We have a fucking system of law so that we can determine guilt in the most fair and objective way possible; this fucking bullshit Judge Dredd shit needs to stop, and you need to stop defending it with your goosey racist goosery.
Yeah, racist. You might not see it, but those things you keep saying? Rooted in racist language. Stop that.
Either Wilson started yelling at Brown (or something) and decided to attack him by leaning out of the cop car window
Look, I can make shit up to give the benefit of the doubt to whomever I choose, too.
You really need to examine why you keep giving the benefit of the doubt to the white cop instead of the black kid, when all of the recorded statements we have corroborate that Wilson was the aggressor.
Yes, because Wilson totally just shot Brown without provocation.
The start of the situation, from what I can gather, is that Wilson drove on up to Brown walking in the middle of the street assuming he was dealing with a soon-to-be inhabitant of the drunk tank. And something changed to make everything go tits up. What happened to initiate that change in the orientation of the tits is what we don't know. Either Brown started yelling at Wilson (or something) and decided to attack him by leaning into the cop car window or Wilson, for some unexplained reason by the people on this thread who think this is somehow the most likely scenario, pulled Brown into his car and then just shot him.
Note that our standards for police conduct probably ought to be higher than they are for the average person. if I had an altercation with someone and they ended-up shot dead by me, would the police probably arrest me and then try to figure-out whether or not I had some sort of justification for the shooting after I was already arrested as a suspect? If you agree that this is probably very likely, why is this standard not the same for the police? Why does [something unexplained happened -> then someone is shot dead] transform from a matter to be investigated to a matter to be deflected via character assassination when it's a police officer that does the shooting? Even when there are multiple witnesses that all say, "No, the shooting did not look justified," ?
Yes, because Wilson totally just shot Brown without provocation.
The start of the situation, from what I can gather, is that Wilson drove on up to Brown walking in the middle of the street assuming he was dealing with a soon-to-be inhabitant of the drunk tank. And something changed to make everything go tits up. What happened to initiate that change in the orientation of the tits is what we don't know. Either Brown started yelling at Wilson (or something) and decided to attack him by leaning into the cop car window or Wilson, for some unexplained reason by the people on this thread who think this is somehow the most likely scenario, pulled Brown into his car and then just shot him.
Drunk tank? What? He drove up behind two kids walking down a street with the expectation they were publicly intoxicated? If that was his assumption up front then he was a shitty cop.
No, what you're saying, whether you intend to or not, is that "bad things happen to bad people". Obviously these people did something to deserve what happened. Obviously if they'd been good and respectful they never would have even been stopped by the police.
Which is such absolute bullshit that it's becoming very hard for me not to wish incredibly bad things upon you.
Reality Check: There is nothing that Michael Brown could have possibly done that warranted his being gunned down in the street short of gunning down someone himself. There is no crime beyond being in the middle of a homicide that should warrant a lethal response.
He could have walked up to Wilson and punched him in the face and he still shouldn't have been shot.
We have a fucking system of law so that we can determine guilt in the most fair and objective way possible; this fucking bullshit Judge Dredd shit needs to stop, and you need to stop defending it with your goosey racist goosery.
Yeah, racist. You might not see it, but those things you keep saying? Rooted in racist language. Stop that.
Nothing except going for the gun, which is the one scenario here that makes sense.
"Bad things happen to bad people" is not what I'm saying at all. I'm just saying that the situations aren't black and white. The people tend to do something that causes the cops to react the way they do. Whether the use of force is excessive or not isn't the point. It's that there's a provocation that's rational at the time of the situation. Hindsight can change that and whatnot, but that's my view of it.
Oh, you've dropped the curtain now. Openly calling me a racist now. Nice. That's totally civil and everything.
"Rooted in racist language"? I can just go back to the Boston Massacre if you'd like. And say the exact same thing. Because John Adams was right: The British soldiers were heavily provoked.
There are many examples of authority figures with weapons getting off on grounds of "My life was reasonably in danger; I did what I had to do." You act like I'm arguing something completely different here.
Drunk tank? What? He drove up behind two kids walking down a street with the expectation they were publicly intoxicated? If that was his assumption up front then he was a shitty cop.
What would make a sober and/or sane person think walking in the middle of a street is a good idea? OK, then, he drove up to them and told them (in a manner to be determined) to get out of the middle of the street.
The timeline of events here is important. Wilson approached Brown and said something to him, presumably. Brown reacted. Eventually, Brown ended up halfway inside the cop car's window and got shot twice. He was shot at such short range in the hand that there were powder burns on it. Both got out of the car eventually. Brown eventually faced Wilson, something else happened, and Brown got shot a lot more times until he was dead.
Now, the gray in this situation is still unknown. I err on the side of caution. The grand jury report will come out eventually and we'll know the full extent (or as much as can be known) of the situation.
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Nothing except going for the gun, which is the one scenario here that makes sense.
When you frame it the way you have, sure. But let me frame it in a different way, using my own experiences & perspective:
When the police here confront kids who are jaywalking, they slow down, honk the horn and tell the kids to get off of the road. Usually, the kids then just get off of the road. Sometimes the kids decide it's time to get rebellious! and tell that cop to screw off, man! - in which case the police write them a ticket. The idea that this sort of interaction would immediately spur one of the kids to charge at a cop and try to pull their gun out through the window of their cruiser door is kind of ridiculous.
This is (partly) why people think you may have an unhealthy view of the persons involved: given two outrageous acts, one of which must be at least partly true (an unprovoked cop attacking a man for jaywalking vs an unprovoked jaywalker attacking a cop for telling him to get off of the road), you chose the latter option for no apparent reason. And then you made a few comments that were racially insensitive, without apparently realizing it.
In short: no, Brown going for the gun is not 'the one scenario here that makes sense'. It is, in fact, the one scenario here that is not supported by any of the (admittedly scant) evidence. When you state that in such a matter-of-fact manner, it lends a discomforting color to your language.
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BigWillieStylesExpert flipper of tablesInside my mind...Registered Userregular
This is (partly) why people think you may have an unhealthy view of the persons involved: given two outrageous acts, one of which must be at least partly true (an unprovoked cop attacking a man for jaywalking vs an unprovoked jaywalker attacking a cop for telling him to get off of the road), you chose the latter option for no apparent reason. And then you made a few comments that were racially insensitive, without apparently realizing it.
In short: no, Brown going for the gun is not 'the one scenario here that makes sense'. It is, in fact, the one scenario here that is not supported by any of the (admittedly scant) evidence. When you state that in such a matter-of-fact manner, it lends a discomforting color to your language.
Why would Wilson pull Brown into the car and just straight up shoot him? A struggle for the gun makes more sense.
I chose that option because if I were to assign probabilities to the two, I'd give it 65-75% likelihood over the alternative.
The scenario of Wilson pulling Brown into the car is also not supported by any of the evidence either.
There was a struggle in the cop car (that's been confirmed by witness testimony and physical evidence.) I pick the one that makes more sense.
And, in the end, unless there's a bombshell bit of evidence that proves either way, Wilson will walk. Because reasonable doubt is all that needs to be established. And, even from the scant evidence we have, it's there. Some drastic bit of missing evidence is the only thing that changes that.
I'm arguing like a criminal defense attorney here. Something that seems lost on y'all, even though I explicitly stated many times before that the prosecutor of this case has a near impossible job and that I think Wilson will walk.
If you think me giving an armchair defense of Wilson is wrong, why even have a justice system?
And I presume Brown's family will sue the city and the city will settle for an undisclosed amount. Because that's just what has to happen here.
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Why would Wilson pull Brown into the car and just straight up shoot him? A struggle for the gun makes more sense.
I chose that option because if I were to assign probabilities to the two, I'd give it 65-75% likelihood over the alternative.
Why would Brown charge over to Wilson's car and try to grab his gun?
Like, you present one case as unreasonable and therefore implausible, without apparently considering that the alternative is also pretty unreasonable. Also, where do you dervive your stats from? just numbers you pulled out of thin air, for no reason? Why even write them down instead of saying, "I arbitrarily prefer the account that favors the policeman," ? It's exactly the same thing as putting down a fake percentile range, but one is an honest statement and the other is pretending that you have some kind of data that backs you up.
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BigWillieStylesExpert flipper of tablesInside my mind...Registered Userregular
Why would Brown charge over to Wilson's car and try to grab his gun?
Like, you present one case as unreasonable and therefore implausible, without apparently considering that the alternative is also pretty unreasonable. Also, where do you dervive your stats from? just numbers you pulled out of thin air, for no reason? Why even write them down instead of saying, "I arbitrarily prefer the account that favors the policeman," ? It's exactly the same thing as putting down a fake percentile range, but one is an honest statement and the other is pretending that you have some kind of data that backs you up.
Teenagers do stupid shit. I have an easier time believing that a teenager who just did something stupid would do another stupid thing. (Whether he robbed the store or not, he totally assaulted somebody.)
Teenagers, especially male teenagers, are much more likely than a grown ass adult to do impulsive, reckless, and/or dangerous stuff.
Once again, armchair defense attorney talking.
Also, if there was something in Wilson's background to suggest he'd do something like randomly kill a teenager for no damn reason, I'm sure somebody would have found it by now. Because cop who shoots unarmed teenager gets his entire life story dumped into the public eye as well.
There are many stories of idiots deciding to go for a cop's gun for seemingly no reason. There aren't that many of a cop pulling a random person halfway through a cop car window and just shooting him.
There's also a rather obvious point to make here: If the pull-in and shoot theory was accurate, how in God's name did Wilson only injure Brown and not kill him? The presumption in that theory is that Wilson totally jumped Brown for no reason. If his intent was to kill Brown, why would he aim for the non-lethal parts of the body at point blank range? Unless you entertain that Wilson is some super genius who planned a perfect murder or something and needed that for plausible deniability.
Presumably, a cop certified to carry a gun can take down a target, even a moving one, from pretty far away. That's just part of police training. How does a cop with intent to kill shoot a guy at point blank range twice and not kill said guy?
Struggle for the gun just makes more sense.
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Teenagers do stupid shit. I have an easier time believing that a teenager who just did something stupid would do another stupid thing. (Whether he robbed the store or not, he totally assaulted somebody.)
Teenagers, especially male teenagers, are much more likely than a grown ass adult to do impulsive, reckless, and/or dangerous stuff.
See, this is just bias. Uninformed, ignorant bias. And then you take that bias and build a non-Sequitor:
Male teenagers do stupid shit more often than male non-teenagers. Therefore, it is more likely that Brown charged at Wilson and tried to grab his gun through his card window after Wilson told him to get off of the road.
Wilson came from a department that was taken apart due to corruption and had a spotty record regarding aggression too, by the way; again, another thing you probably should have known if you'd actually read sources that didn't simply confirm your bias.
Also, if you look at the video, Brown only shoves the clerk after the clerk grabs him. IANAL, and self defense is an extremely sticky thing, but I don't think it's very clear cut at all that he assaulted that clerk.
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BigWillieStylesExpert flipper of tablesInside my mind...Registered Userregular
See, this is just bias. Uninformed, ignorant bias. And then you take that bias and build a non-Sequitor:
Male teenagers do stupid shit more often than male non-teenagers. Therefore, it is more likely that Brown charged at Wilson and tried to grab his gun through his card window after Wilson told him to get off of the road.
Wilson came from a department that was taken apart due to corruption and had a spotty record regarding aggression too, by the way; again, another thing you probably should have known if you'd actually read sources that didn't simply confirm your bias.
Also, if you look at the video, Brown only shoves the clerk after the clerk grabs him. IANAL, and self defense is an extremely sticky thing, but I don't think it's very clear cut at all that he assaulted that clerk.
If we're talking probabilities here, all else being equal, yes, it does mean that.
But none of that aggression was ever tied to Wilson. There's only guilt by association here. If there were reports of Wilson's past aggression, you know damn well they'd be public knowledge by now.
(And, I knew you'd bring that up. I totally knew about that. I just didn't see the point in mentioning it as none of the aggression or corruption was ever tied to Wilson.)
And why was the clerk grabbing Brown? Reasonable doubt would be so easy to sow into a jury's mind in this case. I don't foresee any outcome of this case not being Wilson is free. Only a bombshell bit of evidence that proves Wilson acted with malicious intent could change that. Outside of a third act Perry Mason courtroom confession, I don't see that happening.
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Question, why does it matter what happened at the store or on the car. At the end of the day 15 people saw Wilson shoot a surendering man. That is the fact we have.
There's also a rather obvious point to make here: If the pull-in and shoot theory was accurate, how in God's name did Wilson only injure Brown and not kill him?
For the same reason Brown's thumb was injured, a struggle with the gun where Brown was trying to push the gun away from himself.
If his intent was to kill Brown, why would he aim for the non-lethal parts of the body at point blank range?
It is called a struggle, and it makes aiming rather impossible.
Unless you entertain that Wilson is some super genius who planned a perfect murder or something and needed that for plausible deniability.
He doesn't need to plan anything when the other officers will actively work with him to create a cover story. Hence the Thin Blue Line.
Presumably, a cop certified to carry a gun can take down a target, even a moving one, from pretty far away. That's just part of police training. How does a cop with intent to kill shoot a guy at point blank range twice and not kill said guy?
I'll let your intellectual curiosity work here, but police training and their ability to shoot firearms is incredibly poor in this country as a whole.
Struggle for the gun just makes more sense.
Absolutely, Brown struggling with Wilson to keep the officer from pointing the gun at Brown and killing him in the car and give him a chance to then run away.
I am struggling and failing to see what Michael Brown's purity of heart has to do with his murder by cop.
Well, what he did to elicit that response from Wilson is where it comes into play.
And, anybody want to take odds on the grand jury testimony leaking before election day? I'd say 80/20 that it doesn't happen.
Hey, I get what you're saying. When Rosa Parks did her thing, she was actually one of several candidates who they were considering. i.e., any candidate was considered and turned down because she was pregnant, which would have invited criticisms that she was a slut and a whore for having sex while black and how dare she try to sit down when there were white people standing up. So in terms of optics, Rosa Parks made a better candidate.
But you know what? Pregnant or not, forcing black people to stand up because a white guy wants to steal her seat is still wrong. It doesn't matter if you can attack her character. It doesn't make it okay.
Your argument boils down to "racism is okay if it happens to less than stellar people."
Yes, because Wilson totally just shot Brown without provocation.
The start of the situation, from what I can gather, is that Wilson drove on up to Brown walking in the middle of the street assuming he was dealing with a soon-to-be inhabitant of the drunk tank. And something changed to make everything go tits up. What happened to initiate that change in the orientation of the tits is what we don't know. Either Brown started yelling at Wilson (or something) and decided to attack him by leaning into the cop car window or Wilson, for some unexplained reason by the people on this thread who think this is somehow the most likely scenario, pulled Brown into his car and then just shot him.
"I, a privileged white person, have never had to deal with cops hassling me until i did something to legitimately deserve it.
Therefore, I reject all evidence of racism, because I assume that black people have the same experience that I do.
Also, I reject all witness testimony and evidence that black people don't have the same experience that I do, because I've already proven that racism isn't real."
This is (partly) why people think you may have an unhealthy view of the persons involved: given two outrageous acts, one of which must be at least partly true (an unprovoked cop attacking a man for jaywalking vs an unprovoked jaywalker attacking a cop for telling him to get off of the road), you chose the latter option for no apparent reason. And then you made a few comments that were racially insensitive, without apparently realizing it.
In short: no, Brown going for the gun is not 'the one scenario here that makes sense'. It is, in fact, the one scenario here that is not supported by any of the (admittedly scant) evidence. When you state that in such a matter-of-fact manner, it lends a discomforting color to your language.
Why would Wilson pull Brown into the car and just straight up shoot him?
Why would Brown just randomly try to reach into a police officer's vehicle, grab his gun (which, assuming Wilson is right handed, would be on the far side from the window), and want to shoot Wilson with Wilson's own gun for no apparent reason?
Why is that situation more plausible than the one you've rejected?
Remember: if you're walking in the middle of the street where there's no sidewalks you must be drunk or high or something because c'mon who would ever walk in the middle of the street in a residential area blocks away from your home?!? However, if you rush a police officer's vehicle, reach in through the window for his holstered gun, and then attempt to shoot him but somehow shoot yourself it's something that can be explained by you being a stupid teenager because c'mon, how many teenagers haven't tried to murder a police officer in cold blood before?
Just so it's out there, walking in the middle of the street is what you do in poor neighborhoods. Growing up that's all we did. Especially at night or in streets with lots of bushes or parked cars. It's how you keep from getting jumped. The small risk someone might risk ruining their car to run you over is not even a real trade off. So anyone who wants to use that as part of a narrative might want to reconsider the likely course of events. It wasn't to be an asshole or because he was drunk. Most likely just doing his normal self protection routine.
I hesitate to post this because I don't know that's why Michael Brown was doing this, or that he grew up in a poor neighborhood. Given the racial tensions of where he lived though it seems like a really safe bet. I can't imagine anyone who is black and could afford to move wouldn't. It isn't great anywhere in the nation, but it sure as shit ain't this bad everywhere.
This is (partly) why people think you may have an unhealthy view of the persons involved: given two outrageous acts, one of which must be at least partly true (an unprovoked cop attacking a man for jaywalking vs an unprovoked jaywalker attacking a cop for telling him to get off of the road), you chose the latter option for no apparent reason. And then you made a few comments that were racially insensitive, without apparently realizing it.
In short: no, Brown going for the gun is not 'the one scenario here that makes sense'. It is, in fact, the one scenario here that is not supported by any of the (admittedly scant) evidence. When you state that in such a matter-of-fact manner, it lends a discomforting color to your language.
Why would Wilson pull Brown into the car and just straight up shoot him?
Why would Brown just randomly try to reach into a police officer's vehicle, grab his gun (which, assuming Wilson is right handed, would be on the far side from the window), and want to shoot Wilson with Wilson's own gun for no apparent reason?
Why is that situation more plausible than the one you've rejected?
And why, in choosing which scenario you find more believable, do you go with the scenario that comes the guy who we know for a fact has presented objectively false evidence as part of his story?
You have two accounts of an incident, and one account contains a fucking blatant lie, and you're going with that account because WHY?
Can anyone explain to me, however, why Wilson left the scene and didn't call it in until WAY later?
Like, I get there is alot of questions about how this went down and whether Wilson shooting Brown was
self-defence or whatever.
But that action isn't of a cop acting in self-defense as the "narrative" that they have put forth is saying. It's of someone going, "OH SHIT" and freaking the hell out.
You could argue that he panicked in the heat of the moment, but you could also argue that it's a clear admission of some sort of guilt.
This is (partly) why people think you may have an unhealthy view of the persons involved: given two outrageous acts, one of which must be at least partly true (an unprovoked cop attacking a man for jaywalking vs an unprovoked jaywalker attacking a cop for telling him to get off of the road), you chose the latter option for no apparent reason. And then you made a few comments that were racially insensitive, without apparently realizing it.
In short: no, Brown going for the gun is not 'the one scenario here that makes sense'. It is, in fact, the one scenario here that is not supported by any of the (admittedly scant) evidence. When you state that in such a matter-of-fact manner, it lends a discomforting color to your language.
Why would Wilson pull Brown into the car and just straight up shoot him?
Why would Brown just randomly try to reach into a police officer's vehicle, grab his gun (which, assuming Wilson is right handed, would be on the far side from the window), and want to shoot Wilson with Wilson's own gun for no apparent reason?
Why is that situation more plausible than the one you've rejected?
And why, in choosing which scenario you find more believable, do you go with the scenario that comes the guy who we know for a fact has presented objectively false evidence as part of his story?
You have two accounts of an incident, and one account contains a fucking blatant lie, and you're going with that account because WHY?
That's a rhetorical question, right?
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Putting aside for a moment the fact that whether Brown stole something doesn't matter in the slightest in terms of whether or not it was right for Wilson to shoot him...
It seems like this is the evidence:
1. Somebody in the store called the police and reported a theft.
2. Ferguson PD says Brown committed a theft.
3. Brown's friend's attorney said there was a theft.
4. FPD released a security video that they claim depicts a theft.
5. Some people, including DailyKos and similar websites, claim the video depicts Brown paying for his items.
6. The store owners say there wasn't a theft.
So was there a theft or not? I have no clue, but neither answer seems like the burden-of-proof default here. I can see FPD lying to help Wilson, I can see the store owners lying to hurt Wilson (or to try and avoid retaliation). I personally am unable to meaningfully decipher the grainy security cam video. This one's a total mystery to me.
Okay, now we can bring back the fact that it doesn't fucking matter to the question of "Should Wilson have shot Brown?"
The theft does not matter. Not one bit. I do think that the video shows something of worth though. When angry, Brown was capable of being very frightening. It doesn't impact whether he should have been shot, but I think it helps to understand whether Wilson could have reasonably feared for his safety.
Also, if there was something in Wilson's background to suggest he'd do something like randomly kill a teenager for no damn reason, I'm sure somebody would have found it by now. Because cop who shoots unarmed teenager gets his entire life story dumped into the public eye as well.
By the way, you were aware that Wilson was previously employed by the Jennings Missouri police department, which was considered so irrevocably racist and corrupt that the only solution they could come up with was for every single member of that police force to be fired and the town to start over from scratch? Of course you were.
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The blatant campaign of lies and misleading evidence tampering that has been perpetrated by the Ferguson police should set off all kinds of warning bells that something isn't legitimate here, if you weren't already raising an eyebrow from this exact nonsense happening every single time a person dies at the hands of a cop.
Correction: Being accused of a crime is no excuse to have your rights violated.
Most of these victims never get to the "guilty" stage. They normally have their rights violated long beforehand, if they ever get to a "guilty" verdict. In many of these cases, the victims never commit a crime in the first place.
It's innocent people having their rights violated. Full stop.
He was jaywalking, remember?
It's just all too easy for some people to be so willing to strip people of basic rights at the mere hint of guilt. Actual guilt make them think striping the guilty of humanity is too lenient.
But, nobody wins election by being 'soft' on crime.
Being either. You shouldn't be shot while jaywalking, beaten while apprehended as a robbery suspect, or raped as a felony convict in prison.
It was an alleged shoplifting.
And we'll never know if he is guilty of this crime or not because no one is going to press charges or even open an investigation against a man who was shot dead. The only people that give a shit if he actually committed this misdemeanor-level offense are people looking for a reason to justify his deadness.
This is the part where I invoke your favorite deity in vain and then pop several pain killers, because this meaningless diversion has nothing to do with the injustice of Brown's death and everything to do with institutionalized oppression.
:P
I don't disagree, but I was responding in the context of the thread, where Brown's supposed guilt somehow retroactively justifies his death. Brown was never convicted; the facts are in dispute, which is why we have courts that hear a case try to figure out what happened and if the accused are actually guilty.
Which is not going to happen now because he's dead.
To see what I'm talking about, as an example, what gets lost in the mess surrounding Rodney King is the build-up to the beating, from the car chase to what he did once he was outside the car.
The victims of police brutality get smeared because there's always another side to the story. It's rare that a Mother Teresa-type figure gets randomly beaten up or shot by a Bull Connor-type. Shades of gray ev'r' where.
The point being is that the person getting manhandled by the police isn't mister pure-of-heart very often.
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I am struggling and failing to see what Michael Brown's purity of heart has to do with his murder by cop.
And, anybody want to take odds on the grand jury testimony leaking before election day? I'd say 80/20 that it doesn't happen.
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Crossing the street while black?
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
So anybody who isn't as pure as the driven snow deserves to be brutalized by cops then?
Because that seems to be what you're suggesting. Just how pure does one's heart need to be to invalidate assault or murder by police?
Nobody is 'Mother Theresa ' - and by that I mean the public image / fake concept of Mother Theresa, because the nun herself was actually a horrific person.
The concept of 'it's deserved' when the police are dealing with people who may be difficult to engage with or are rude or whatever is part of the problem. I mean, everyone has very different ideas about what that fake public image of Mother Theresa even is, and the area that sits between that concept and the place where socially acceptable behavior ends is pretty huge. This is partly why we have laws in the first place: these concrete things that the state can point to and say, "This activity - this very specific thing - is illegal. Do not do this specific thing,"
The police need to interface with the real world, where people are sometimes (or maybe even often!) unpleasant and uncooperative. If they cannot interface with that world without violence, much less violence involving lethal force, this is a catastrophic failure of that institute. The police are not supposed to be 'giving people what they deserve!' in their mind at the time - they're supposed to be enforcing the (ideally) rigid & much less subjective laws that the state has imposed.
Yes, because Wilson totally just shot Brown without provocation.
The start of the situation, from what I can gather, is that Wilson drove on up to Brown walking in the middle of the street assuming he was dealing with a soon-to-be inhabitant of the drunk tank. And something changed to make everything go tits up. What happened to initiate that change in the orientation of the tits is what we don't know. Either Brown started yelling at Wilson (or something) and decided to attack him by leaning into the cop car window or Wilson, for some unexplained reason by the people on this thread who think this is somehow the most likely scenario, pulled Brown into his car and then just shot him.
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No, what you're saying, whether you intend to or not, is that "bad things happen to bad people". Obviously these people did something to deserve what happened. Obviously if they'd been good and respectful they never would have even been stopped by the police.
Which is such absolute bullshit that it's becoming very hard for me not to wish incredibly bad things upon you.
Reality Check: There is nothing that Michael Brown could have possibly done that warranted his being gunned down in the street short of gunning down someone himself. There is no crime beyond being in the middle of a homicide that should warrant a lethal response.
He could have walked up to Wilson and punched him in the face and he still shouldn't have been shot.
We have a fucking system of law so that we can determine guilt in the most fair and objective way possible; this fucking bullshit Judge Dredd shit needs to stop, and you need to stop defending it with your goosey racist goosery.
Yeah, racist. You might not see it, but those things you keep saying? Rooted in racist language. Stop that.
Look, I can make shit up to give the benefit of the doubt to whomever I choose, too.
You really need to examine why you keep giving the benefit of the doubt to the white cop instead of the black kid, when all of the recorded statements we have corroborate that Wilson was the aggressor.
Note that our standards for police conduct probably ought to be higher than they are for the average person. if I had an altercation with someone and they ended-up shot dead by me, would the police probably arrest me and then try to figure-out whether or not I had some sort of justification for the shooting after I was already arrested as a suspect? If you agree that this is probably very likely, why is this standard not the same for the police? Why does [something unexplained happened -> then someone is shot dead] transform from a matter to be investigated to a matter to be deflected via character assassination when it's a police officer that does the shooting? Even when there are multiple witnesses that all say, "No, the shooting did not look justified," ?
"Bad things happen to bad people" is not what I'm saying at all. I'm just saying that the situations aren't black and white. The people tend to do something that causes the cops to react the way they do. Whether the use of force is excessive or not isn't the point. It's that there's a provocation that's rational at the time of the situation. Hindsight can change that and whatnot, but that's my view of it.
Oh, you've dropped the curtain now. Openly calling me a racist now. Nice. That's totally civil and everything.
"Rooted in racist language"? I can just go back to the Boston Massacre if you'd like. And say the exact same thing. Because John Adams was right: The British soldiers were heavily provoked.
There are many examples of authority figures with weapons getting off on grounds of "My life was reasonably in danger; I did what I had to do." You act like I'm arguing something completely different here.
What would make a sober and/or sane person think walking in the middle of a street is a good idea? OK, then, he drove up to them and told them (in a manner to be determined) to get out of the middle of the street.
The timeline of events here is important. Wilson approached Brown and said something to him, presumably. Brown reacted. Eventually, Brown ended up halfway inside the cop car's window and got shot twice. He was shot at such short range in the hand that there were powder burns on it. Both got out of the car eventually. Brown eventually faced Wilson, something else happened, and Brown got shot a lot more times until he was dead.
Now, the gray in this situation is still unknown. I err on the side of caution. The grand jury report will come out eventually and we'll know the full extent (or as much as can be known) of the situation.
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When you frame it the way you have, sure. But let me frame it in a different way, using my own experiences & perspective:
When the police here confront kids who are jaywalking, they slow down, honk the horn and tell the kids to get off of the road. Usually, the kids then just get off of the road. Sometimes the kids decide it's time to get rebellious! and tell that cop to screw off, man! - in which case the police write them a ticket. The idea that this sort of interaction would immediately spur one of the kids to charge at a cop and try to pull their gun out through the window of their cruiser door is kind of ridiculous.
This is (partly) why people think you may have an unhealthy view of the persons involved: given two outrageous acts, one of which must be at least partly true (an unprovoked cop attacking a man for jaywalking vs an unprovoked jaywalker attacking a cop for telling him to get off of the road), you chose the latter option for no apparent reason. And then you made a few comments that were racially insensitive, without apparently realizing it.
In short: no, Brown going for the gun is not 'the one scenario here that makes sense'. It is, in fact, the one scenario here that is not supported by any of the (admittedly scant) evidence. When you state that in such a matter-of-fact manner, it lends a discomforting color to your language.
I chose that option because if I were to assign probabilities to the two, I'd give it 65-75% likelihood over the alternative.
The scenario of Wilson pulling Brown into the car is also not supported by any of the evidence either.
There was a struggle in the cop car (that's been confirmed by witness testimony and physical evidence.) I pick the one that makes more sense.
And, in the end, unless there's a bombshell bit of evidence that proves either way, Wilson will walk. Because reasonable doubt is all that needs to be established. And, even from the scant evidence we have, it's there. Some drastic bit of missing evidence is the only thing that changes that.
I'm arguing like a criminal defense attorney here. Something that seems lost on y'all, even though I explicitly stated many times before that the prosecutor of this case has a near impossible job and that I think Wilson will walk.
If you think me giving an armchair defense of Wilson is wrong, why even have a justice system?
And I presume Brown's family will sue the city and the city will settle for an undisclosed amount. Because that's just what has to happen here.
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Why would Brown charge over to Wilson's car and try to grab his gun?
Like, you present one case as unreasonable and therefore implausible, without apparently considering that the alternative is also pretty unreasonable. Also, where do you dervive your stats from? just numbers you pulled out of thin air, for no reason? Why even write them down instead of saying, "I arbitrarily prefer the account that favors the policeman," ? It's exactly the same thing as putting down a fake percentile range, but one is an honest statement and the other is pretending that you have some kind of data that backs you up.
Teenagers, especially male teenagers, are much more likely than a grown ass adult to do impulsive, reckless, and/or dangerous stuff.
Once again, armchair defense attorney talking.
Also, if there was something in Wilson's background to suggest he'd do something like randomly kill a teenager for no damn reason, I'm sure somebody would have found it by now. Because cop who shoots unarmed teenager gets his entire life story dumped into the public eye as well.
There are many stories of idiots deciding to go for a cop's gun for seemingly no reason. There aren't that many of a cop pulling a random person halfway through a cop car window and just shooting him.
There's also a rather obvious point to make here: If the pull-in and shoot theory was accurate, how in God's name did Wilson only injure Brown and not kill him? The presumption in that theory is that Wilson totally jumped Brown for no reason. If his intent was to kill Brown, why would he aim for the non-lethal parts of the body at point blank range? Unless you entertain that Wilson is some super genius who planned a perfect murder or something and needed that for plausible deniability.
Presumably, a cop certified to carry a gun can take down a target, even a moving one, from pretty far away. That's just part of police training. How does a cop with intent to kill shoot a guy at point blank range twice and not kill said guy?
Struggle for the gun just makes more sense.
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See, this is just bias. Uninformed, ignorant bias. And then you take that bias and build a non-Sequitor:
Male teenagers do stupid shit more often than male non-teenagers. Therefore, it is more likely that Brown charged at Wilson and tried to grab his gun through his card window after Wilson told him to get off of the road.
Wilson came from a department that was taken apart due to corruption and had a spotty record regarding aggression too, by the way; again, another thing you probably should have known if you'd actually read sources that didn't simply confirm your bias.
Also, if you look at the video, Brown only shoves the clerk after the clerk grabs him. IANAL, and self defense is an extremely sticky thing, but I don't think it's very clear cut at all that he assaulted that clerk.
But none of that aggression was ever tied to Wilson. There's only guilt by association here. If there were reports of Wilson's past aggression, you know damn well they'd be public knowledge by now.
(And, I knew you'd bring that up. I totally knew about that. I just didn't see the point in mentioning it as none of the aggression or corruption was ever tied to Wilson.)
And why was the clerk grabbing Brown? Reasonable doubt would be so easy to sow into a jury's mind in this case. I don't foresee any outcome of this case not being Wilson is free. Only a bombshell bit of evidence that proves Wilson acted with malicious intent could change that. Outside of a third act Perry Mason courtroom confession, I don't see that happening.
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It is called a struggle, and it makes aiming rather impossible.
He doesn't need to plan anything when the other officers will actively work with him to create a cover story. Hence the Thin Blue Line.
I'll let your intellectual curiosity work here, but police training and their ability to shoot firearms is incredibly poor in this country as a whole.
Absolutely, Brown struggling with Wilson to keep the officer from pointing the gun at Brown and killing him in the car and give him a chance to then run away.
Hey, I get what you're saying. When Rosa Parks did her thing, she was actually one of several candidates who they were considering. i.e., any candidate was considered and turned down because she was pregnant, which would have invited criticisms that she was a slut and a whore for having sex while black and how dare she try to sit down when there were white people standing up. So in terms of optics, Rosa Parks made a better candidate.
But you know what? Pregnant or not, forcing black people to stand up because a white guy wants to steal her seat is still wrong. It doesn't matter if you can attack her character. It doesn't make it okay.
Your argument boils down to "racism is okay if it happens to less than stellar people."
And that's not acceptable.
"I, a privileged white person, have never had to deal with cops hassling me until i did something to legitimately deserve it.
Therefore, I reject all evidence of racism, because I assume that black people have the same experience that I do.
Also, I reject all witness testimony and evidence that black people don't have the same experience that I do, because I've already proven that racism isn't real."
Why would Brown just randomly try to reach into a police officer's vehicle, grab his gun (which, assuming Wilson is right handed, would be on the far side from the window), and want to shoot Wilson with Wilson's own gun for no apparent reason?
Why is that situation more plausible than the one you've rejected?
I grew up in a poor neighborhood, which meant I had no fourth amendment rights
And black people are traditionally mistreated far, far more by police than poor white people
never having experienced that kind of police behavior and dismissing it as not existing is mind boggling
I wish it were mind boggling.
Instead it's really, really, really common.
I hesitate to post this because I don't know that's why Michael Brown was doing this, or that he grew up in a poor neighborhood. Given the racial tensions of where he lived though it seems like a really safe bet. I can't imagine anyone who is black and could afford to move wouldn't. It isn't great anywhere in the nation, but it sure as shit ain't this bad everywhere.
And why, in choosing which scenario you find more believable, do you go with the scenario that comes the guy who we know for a fact has presented objectively false evidence as part of his story?
You have two accounts of an incident, and one account contains a fucking blatant lie, and you're going with that account because WHY?
Can anyone explain to me, however, why Wilson left the scene and didn't call it in until WAY later?
Like, I get there is alot of questions about how this went down and whether Wilson shooting Brown was
self-defence or whatever.
But that action isn't of a cop acting in self-defense as the "narrative" that they have put forth is saying. It's of someone going, "OH SHIT" and freaking the hell out.
You could argue that he panicked in the heat of the moment, but you could also argue that it's a clear admission of some sort of guilt.
That's a rhetorical question, right?
The theft does not matter. Not one bit. I do think that the video shows something of worth though. When angry, Brown was capable of being very frightening. It doesn't impact whether he should have been shot, but I think it helps to understand whether Wilson could have reasonably feared for his safety.
By the way, you were aware that Wilson was previously employed by the Jennings Missouri police department, which was considered so irrevocably racist and corrupt that the only solution they could come up with was for every single member of that police force to be fired and the town to start over from scratch? Of course you were.