I honestly don't want to even consider that they did this on purpose.
Like, I can't handle that.
Given they clearly new what the outcome was likely a few days in advance given that the police officer involved started giving interviews it clearly was planned ahead of time when the announcement would happen and given the way they were stirring the pot all day before releasing it in prime time I have to assume the outcome is exactly what they were aiming for.
I think that someone who would describe an unarmed teenager who he has been shooting at as hulking up to shrug off bullets should not be a police officer. At least some degree of grounding in reality should be a prerequisite for being a police officer, imo.
But it ISN'T a prerequesite. And if you turn out to be dangerously incompetent, no mechanism exists to discipline you. Police departments will never, ever be willing to voluntarily self-regulate. No external authority exists to regulate them from the outside. Nobody in power has ever displayed a genuine desire to change the status quo. The only people who are fighting for change are the people on the ground in Ferguson and towns like it, and all that happens is that they get beaten down by a corrupt system while most of the nation admonishes them.
And yet you don't understand why anyone could ever be moved to violence.
Switch: SW-2431-2728-9604 || 3DS: 0817-4948-1650
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Waffles or whateverPreviously known as, I shit you not, "Waffen"Registered Userregular
Not sure if this got posted yet, but this is apparently the shop that Michael Brown robbed shortly before his death. Rioters I guess targeted the man's shop because rabble rabble rabble.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I think that someone who would describe an unarmed teenager who he has been shooting at as hulking up to shrug off bullets should not be a police officer. At least some degree of grounding in reality should be a prerequisite for being a police officer, imo.
But it ISN'T a prerequesite. And if you turn out to be dangerously incompetent, no mechanism exists to discipline you. Police departments will never, ever be willing to voluntarily self-regulate. No external authority exists to regulate them from the outside. Nobody in power has ever displayed a genuine desire to change the status quo. The only people who are fighting for change are the people on the ground in Ferguson and towns like it, and all that happens is that they get beaten down by a corrupt system while most of the nation admonishes them.
And yet you don't understand why anyone could ever be moved to violence.
Do you really want to talk about that again? I think its been beaten to death.
Not sure if this got posted yet, but this is apparently the shop that Michael Brown robbed shortly before his death. Rioters I guess targeted the man's shop because rabble rabble rabble.
He got treated well all things considered with what happened in the riot. Its not a cinder.
Sucks it got ransacked but to insinuate that he got targeted due to the nature of what happened to brown is pretty damn selective memory of what happened last night.
To that same end Malcom X was successful. MLK is appreciated more because of the peaceful protesting but without the closed fist open hand nature of the civil rights movement nothing would of been done.
People say things like this a lot, but there is no way to actually know if the violence was necessary or even helpful in achieving success. I am skeptical of pretty much every claim that a violent protest is responsible for change, outside of revolution.
You know that this can just as easily be turned around, right? You may be sceptical that violent protest contributed to change, someone else might be sceptical that peaceful protest on its own is responsible for change. In themselves, those are opinions, or even beliefs, not arguments. Or has empirical research been made into the extent to which peaceful protest made a difference?
Well, we know that Gandhi was successful with non-violent protest. The only violent protests that we can conclusively say lead to change are revolutions, I believe. Even something like the Stonewall riots cannot be proven to be what caused change (people could have become organized without the rioting, and the substantial progress made by the gay community in recent years has been achieved almost entirely by non-violent methods).
Kind of. Ghandi explicitly used the threat of violence to back his peaceful protests(he said, more or less "if this doesn't work then were going to start murdering") And while not a student of Indian Independence I am pretty sure it was not exactly bloodless.
Ugh. First, this situation is to comparable to the civil rights movement because, at a least at this stage, it doesn't have order, direction or leadership. Second, the civil right movement succeeded. That Dr. King was assassinated does not invalidate his successful approach to protest.
This is a strange thread to be making such a claim in.
Additionally the civil rights era was the scene of many race riots. The riots were part of the reason that Kings approach worked.
Not sure if this got posted yet, but this is apparently the shop that Michael Brown robbed shortly before his death. Rioters I guess targeted the man's shop because rabble rabble rabble.
He got treated well all things considered with what happened in the riot. Its not a cinder.
Sucks it got ransacked but to insinuate that he got targeted due to the nature of what happened to brown is pretty damn selective memory of what happened last night.
Not to mention the fact that Brown didn't actually rob the store.
I think that someone who would describe an unarmed teenager who he has been shooting at as hulking up to shrug off bullets should not be a police officer. At least some degree of grounding in reality should be a prerequisite for being a police officer, imo.
But it ISN'T a prerequesite. And if you turn out to be dangerously incompetent, no mechanism exists to discipline you. Police departments will never, ever be willing to voluntarily self-regulate. No external authority exists to regulate them from the outside. Nobody in power has ever displayed a genuine desire to change the status quo. The only people who are fighting for change are the people on the ground in Ferguson and towns like it, and all that happens is that they get beaten down by a corrupt system while most of the nation admonishes them.
And yet you don't understand why anyone could ever be moved to violence.
Do you really want to talk about that again? I think its been beaten to death.
Yeah, that was probably unnecessary. It's just so frustrating to be watching this knowing that there isn't even a shadow of a prayer of it being met with anything but ambivelance on the national scale.
I can't find anything similar in Missouri law, I may be searching wrong but I doubt very much they have anything like this
I would suggest this as one of many reforms to push out of this aftermath
There are probably not going to be any reforms coming out of this situation.
Maaaaaybe some more on-body cameras.
well as I'm pretty fatigued of stating "this is fucked" over and over again it might be worthwhile to talk about what could be pushed in the law to make some sort of change
body cameras for all cops
state required protocols for officer involved deadly force
enforcement of federal requirements of statistics reporting
that's what I've heard so far
I'd also like to end the program that sends military equipment to state police depts
I can't find anything similar in Missouri law, I may be searching wrong but I doubt very much they have anything like this
I would suggest this as one of many reforms to push out of this aftermath
There are probably not going to be any reforms coming out of this situation.
Maaaaaybe some more on-body cameras.
well as I'm pretty fatigued of stating "this is fucked" over and over again it might be worthwhile to talk about what could be pushed in the law to make some sort of change
body cameras for all cops
state required protocols for officer involved deadly force
enforcement of federal requirements of statistics reporting
that's what I've heard so far
I'd also like to end the program that sends military equipment to state police depts
At this point I am failing to see what the advantage of leaving use of force continuum protocols up to local PDs or even having state-by-state differences.
I think that someone who would describe an unarmed teenager who he has been shooting at as hulking up to shrug off bullets should not be a police officer. At least some degree of grounding in reality should be a prerequisite for being a police officer, imo.
But it ISN'T a prerequesite. And if you turn out to be dangerously incompetent, no mechanism exists to discipline you. Police departments will never, ever be willing to voluntarily self-regulate. No external authority exists to regulate them from the outside. Nobody in power has ever displayed a genuine desire to change the status quo. The only people who are fighting for change are the people on the ground in Ferguson and towns like it, and all that happens is that they get beaten down by a corrupt system while most of the nation admonishes them.
And yet you don't understand why anyone could ever be moved to violence.
Do you know any cops?
Granted, all I know about is one department, but they absolutely have not only a willingness but also a desire to self-regulate. They don't want their jobs to be harder than they have to be either. In addition, there are external authorities that do regulate them. They have a citizen review board, who reviews reports where a firearm is discharged.
I know we like to think that cops are made up solely, or mostly, of people who just thirst for the chance to beat those who are less powerful and shoot minorities, but that doesn't actually seem to be the case.
Is there a problem with the way policing is done in this country? Absolutely. No question. Fuck, the cops I know think that there's no question about it. It was actually interesting to talk to my cousin who is a cop. I asked him about the thin blue line stuff, and why do you back up shitty cops making shitty calls. When the shit hits the fan, you need to know that you are going to be supported by your department. You need to know that the guys you are with have your back and will stick up for you. You have to be able to trust them. If they can't have that kind of solidarity then it's harder to do the job. He recognizes that solidarity makes shitty things happen, because everyone tightens up, but the alternative isn't all sunshine and roses. The alternative results in cops worrying more about their safety and whether they can trust that their call isn't going to be reversed than doing their job.
And don't be a goose, some grounding in reality is absolutely a prerequisite for being a police officer. You don't get to be a cop if you are just too fucking dumb.
Again, I don't think that any reasonable person is saying that everything about policing is fine in this country. Everyone thinks that it sucks. But it's not just obvious how to fix it.
"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to give into it." - Oscar Wilde
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
I can't find anything similar in Missouri law, I may be searching wrong but I doubt very much they have anything like this
I would suggest this as one of many reforms to push out of this aftermath
There are probably not going to be any reforms coming out of this situation.
Maaaaaybe some more on-body cameras.
well as I'm pretty fatigued of stating "this is fucked" over and over again it might be worthwhile to talk about what could be pushed in the law to make some sort of change
body cameras for all cops
state required protocols for officer involved deadly force
enforcement of federal requirements of statistics reporting
that's what I've heard so far
I'd also like to end the program that sends military equipment to state police depts
At this point I am failing to see what the advantage of leaving use of force continuum protocols up to local PDs or even having state-by-state differences.
Make it a federal, universal protocol.
enforcement on the federal level, even of a basic requirement to report stats, has failed
also you can tie state money to it
So It Goes on
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I think nothing will come from this. At least not directly. The move towards body cameras will probably continue, but I don't think this is going to move the needle on it.
I think that someone who would describe an unarmed teenager who he has been shooting at as hulking up to shrug off bullets should not be a police officer. At least some degree of grounding in reality should be a prerequisite for being a police officer, imo.
But it ISN'T a prerequesite. And if you turn out to be dangerously incompetent, no mechanism exists to discipline you. Police departments will never, ever be willing to voluntarily self-regulate. No external authority exists to regulate them from the outside. Nobody in power has ever displayed a genuine desire to change the status quo. The only people who are fighting for change are the people on the ground in Ferguson and towns like it, and all that happens is that they get beaten down by a corrupt system while most of the nation admonishes them.
And yet you don't understand why anyone could ever be moved to violence.
Do you know any cops?
Granted, all I know about is one department, but they absolutely have not only a willingness but also a desire to self-regulate. They don't want their jobs to be harder than they have to be either. In addition, there are external authorities that do regulate them. They have a citizen review board, who reviews reports where a firearm is discharged.
I know we like to think that cops are made up solely, or mostly, of people who just thirst for the chance to beat those who are less powerful and shoot minorities, but that doesn't actually seem to be the case.
Is there a problem with the way policing is done in this country? Absolutely. No question. Fuck, the cops I know think that there's no question about it. It was actually interesting to talk to my cousin who is a cop. I asked him about the thin blue line stuff, and why do you back up shitty cops making shitty calls. When the shit hits the fan, you need to know that you are going to be supported by your department. You need to know that the guys you are with have your back and will stick up for you. You have to be able to trust them. If they can't have that kind of solidarity then it's harder to do the job. He recognizes that solidarity makes shitty things happen, because everyone tightens up, but the alternative isn't all sunshine and roses. The alternative results in cops worrying more about their safety and whether they can trust that their call isn't going to be reversed than doing their job.
And don't be a goose, some grounding in reality is absolutely a prerequisite for being a police officer. You don't get to be a cop if you are just too fucking dumb.
Again, I don't think that any reasonable person is saying that everything about policing is fine in this country. Everyone thinks that it sucks. But it's not just obvious how to fix it.
Come on, you know better than to construct such an obvious straw man. It's especially egregious in a post where you're complaining that people aren't showing enough nuance.
To that same end Malcom X was successful. MLK is appreciated more because of the peaceful protesting but without the closed fist open hand nature of the civil rights movement nothing would of been done.
People say things like this a lot, but there is no way to actually know if the violence was necessary or even helpful in achieving success. I am skeptical of pretty much every claim that a violent protest is responsible for change, outside of revolution.
You know that this can just as easily be turned around, right? You may be sceptical that violent protest contributed to change, someone else might be sceptical that peaceful protest on its own is responsible for change. In themselves, those are opinions, or even beliefs, not arguments. Or has empirical research been made into the extent to which peaceful protest made a difference?
Well, we know that Gandhi was successful with non-violent protest. The only violent protests that we can conclusively say lead to change are revolutions, I believe. Even something like the Stonewall riots cannot be proven to be what caused change (people could have become organized without the rioting, and the substantial progress made by the gay community in recent years has been achieved almost entirely by non-violent methods).
There was plenty of violent stuff involved in India's independence movement.
To paraphrase a Gandhi quote: a non-violent protest only works if your oppressor has a conscience.
some of them were not smart enough to be cops. one of them was blatantly racist. never fired.
also I've known a bunch of really good cops!
but I still wouldn't defend the increasingly militarized "us vs. them" mentality that the thin blue line supports. I don't think it's necessary to be a good cop, I think some amount of solidarity matters but it's gotten so out of hand that it's impossible to discipline or fire bad cops, or indict them when they engage in criminal acts. We need a vast culture shift.
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Irond WillWARNING: NO HURTFUL COMMENTS, PLEASE!!!!!Cambridge. MAModeratormod
I think that someone who would describe an unarmed teenager who he has been shooting at as hulking up to shrug off bullets should not be a police officer. At least some degree of grounding in reality should be a prerequisite for being a police officer, imo.
But it ISN'T a prerequesite. And if you turn out to be dangerously incompetent, no mechanism exists to discipline you. Police departments will never, ever be willing to voluntarily self-regulate. No external authority exists to regulate them from the outside. Nobody in power has ever displayed a genuine desire to change the status quo. The only people who are fighting for change are the people on the ground in Ferguson and towns like it, and all that happens is that they get beaten down by a corrupt system while most of the nation admonishes them.
And yet you don't understand why anyone could ever be moved to violence.
Do you really want to talk about that again? I think its been beaten to death.
Yeah, that was probably unnecessary. It's just so frustrating to be watching this knowing that there isn't even a shadow of a prayer of it being met with anything but ambivelance on the national scale.
of course it's going to be met with universal ambivalence. there are a lot of strong, conflicting ways to feel about it and different aspects will resonate with different people.
if you don't feel some ambivalence about all these horrible things that went down then you probably need to take a look around.
some of them were not smart enough to be cops. one of them was blatantly racist. never fired.
also I've known a bunch of really good cops!
but I still wouldn't defend the increasingly militarized "us vs. them" mentality that the thin blue line supports. I don't think it's necessary to be a good cop, I think some amount of solidarity matters but it's gotten so out of hand that it's impossible to discipline or fire bad cops, or indict them when they engage in criminal acts. We need a vast culture shift.
It's not really useful at this point to pay attention to the cops who are doing their jobs and not being racist, murdering geese. The reason we on this forum are so outspoken against what is broken in American policing is perfectly exemplified in the Ferguson PD, the employees of which are primarily comprised of racist, murdering geese. Obviously, Ferguson is worse than many departments, but it demonstrates to us that we need to be moving in the opposite direction of that.
I'm very sorry that the police in America feel persecuted because of what is happening in Ferguson, but showing solidarity with this bullshit is basically shouting from the rooftops that you identify with awful human beings just because they have the same job as you do. We need cops to break from the thin blue line sometimes and side with the public, and when that happens, I'll defend the good cops.
I can't find anything similar in Missouri law, I may be searching wrong but I doubt very much they have anything like this
I would suggest this as one of many reforms to push out of this aftermath
There are probably not going to be any reforms coming out of this situation.
Maaaaaybe some more on-body cameras.
well as I'm pretty fatigued of stating "this is fucked" over and over again it might be worthwhile to talk about what could be pushed in the law to make some sort of change
body cameras for all cops
state required protocols for officer involved deadly force
enforcement of federal requirements of statistics reporting
that's what I've heard so far
I'd also like to end the program that sends military equipment to state police depts.
Weird thing to say, but the bolded is a little bit of a grey area for me (though not by much). Obviously, the degree to which military equipment is being transferred is obscenely dumb, but if the equipment can be repurposed for use in the civilian sector cost-effectively and most importantly safely then the pragmatic approach would be to monitor and regulate the transfers. Naturally, I don't think your average police force needs a bomb-proof personnel carrier that tears up the roads.
But I digress, and this is veering away from Ferguson so any further discussion should probably be moved to the general policing thread, so I'll repost this there for if there is further discussion.
some of them were not smart enough to be cops. one of them was blatantly racist. never fired.
also I've known a bunch of really good cops!
but I still wouldn't defend the increasingly militarized "us vs. them" mentality that the thin blue line supports. I don't think it's necessary to be a good cop, I think some amount of solidarity matters but it's gotten so out of hand that it's impossible to discipline or fire bad cops, or indict them when they engage in criminal acts. We need a vast culture shift.
yeah i agree with this. the lack of public accountability is really problematic. also not all cops are monsters of course, but oppositional police culture and the sense of remove from the rest of the citizenry is toxic and seems to be growing.
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AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
To that same end Malcom X was successful. MLK is appreciated more because of the peaceful protesting but without the closed fist open hand nature of the civil rights movement nothing would of been done.
People say things like this a lot, but there is no way to actually know if the violence was necessary or even helpful in achieving success. I am skeptical of pretty much every claim that a violent protest is responsible for change, outside of revolution.
You know that this can just as easily be turned around, right? You may be sceptical that violent protest contributed to change, someone else might be sceptical that peaceful protest on its own is responsible for change. In themselves, those are opinions, or even beliefs, not arguments. Or has empirical research been made into the extent to which peaceful protest made a difference?
Well, we know that Gandhi was successful with non-violent protest. The only violent protests that we can conclusively say lead to change are revolutions, I believe. Even something like the Stonewall riots cannot be proven to be what caused change (people could have become organized without the rioting, and the substantial progress made by the gay community in recent years has been achieved almost entirely by non-violent methods).
"Violent protests never work" and "You can't prove that a non-violent protest wouldn't have also worked" are two different arguments. Stonewall IS a good example, because it became a rallying point for gays in a way that a peaceful protest would not have done. When courage is lacking, anger can be a functional substitute.
Plus, the LA riots are the closest analogue to this situation, having begun after the announcement of a not-guilty verdict in the trial of the four officers charged with beating King. And after the '92 riots, those four officers got a new, federal trial, and two of them were convicted. That's results.
To that same end Malcom X was successful. MLK is appreciated more because of the peaceful protesting but without the closed fist open hand nature of the civil rights movement nothing would of been done.
People say things like this a lot, but there is no way to actually know if the violence was necessary or even helpful in achieving success. I am skeptical of pretty much every claim that a violent protest is responsible for change, outside of revolution.
You know that this can just as easily be turned around, right? You may be sceptical that violent protest contributed to change, someone else might be sceptical that peaceful protest on its own is responsible for change. In themselves, those are opinions, or even beliefs, not arguments. Or has empirical research been made into the extent to which peaceful protest made a difference?
Well, we know that Gandhi was successful with non-violent protest. The only violent protests that we can conclusively say lead to change are revolutions, I believe. Even something like the Stonewall riots cannot be proven to be what caused change (people could have become organized without the rioting, and the substantial progress made by the gay community in recent years has been achieved almost entirely by non-violent methods).
"Violent protests never work" and "You can't prove that a non-violent protest wouldn't have also worked" are two different arguments. Stonewall IS a good example, because it became a rallying point for gays in a way that a peaceful protest would not have done. When courage is lacking, anger can be a functional substitute.
Plus, the LA riots are the closest analogue to this situation, having begun after the announcement of a not-guilty verdict in the trial of the four officers charged with beating King. And after the '92 riots, those four officers got a new, federal trial, and two of them were convicted. That's results.
On April 29, 1992, at 5:39 PM, Denny loaded his red dump truck with 27 tons of sand and began driving to a plant in Inglewood, where the sand was due. He left the Santa Monica Freeway and took a familiar shortcut across Florence Avenue to get to his destination. His truck had no radio, so he did not realize that he was driving into a riot. At 6:46 p.m., after entering the intersection at Normandie, rioters threw rocks at his windows, and he heard people shouting for him to stop. Overhead, a news helicopter with journalists Bob Tur and his wife aboard captured the events that followed.
Denny stopped in the middle of the street. Antoine Miller opened the truck door, giving others the chance to pull Denny out. Another man, Henry Keith Watson, then held Denny's head down with his foot. Denny was kicked in the abdomen by an unidentified man. Two other unidentified men, who had led a liquor store break-in earlier that day, hurled a five-pound piece of medical equipment at Denny's head and hit him three times with a claw hammer. Damian Williams then threw a slab of concrete at Denny's head and knocked him unconscious.
Williams then did a victory dance over Denny and flashed gang signs at news helicopters, which were televising the events live; he also pointed and laughed at Denny. Anthony Brown then spat on Denny and left with Williams. Several bystanders took pictures of Denny but did not attempt to help him. LAPD officers in the vicinity did not assist Denny, either.
After the beating, various men threw beer bottles at the unconscious Denny. Gary Williams approached Denny and rifled through his pockets. Lance Parker stopped near Denny and attempted to shoot the fuel tank of Denny's truck but missed.
Bobby Green, Titus Murphy and Terri Barnett (boyfriend and girlfriend), and Lei Yuille (a dietitian), who had been watching the events on TV, came to Denny's aid. Denny eventually regained consciousness and dragged himself back into the cab, driving away from the scene slowly and erratically;.[8] Green (himself a truck driver), boarded Denny's truck and took over at the wheel, driving him to the hospital. At the time Green took over, Denny was on the brink of losing consciousness again, and he suffered a seizure shortly thereafter.
Paramedics who attended to Denny said he came very close to death. His skull was fractured in 91 places and pushed into the brain. His left eye was so badly dislocated that it would have fallen into his sinus cavity had the surgeons not replaced the crushed bone with a piece of plastic. A permanent crater remains in his head despite efforts to correct it. Denny had to undergo years of rehabilitative therapy, and his speech and ability to walk were permanently damaged.
let's not be too enthusiastic in our celebration of riots?
To that same end Malcom X was successful. MLK is appreciated more because of the peaceful protesting but without the closed fist open hand nature of the civil rights movement nothing would of been done.
People say things like this a lot, but there is no way to actually know if the violence was necessary or even helpful in achieving success. I am skeptical of pretty much every claim that a violent protest is responsible for change, outside of revolution.
You know that this can just as easily be turned around, right? You may be sceptical that violent protest contributed to change, someone else might be sceptical that peaceful protest on its own is responsible for change. In themselves, those are opinions, or even beliefs, not arguments. Or has empirical research been made into the extent to which peaceful protest made a difference?
Well, we know that Gandhi was successful with non-violent protest. The only violent protests that we can conclusively say lead to change are revolutions, I believe. Even something like the Stonewall riots cannot be proven to be what caused change (people could have become organized without the rioting, and the substantial progress made by the gay community in recent years has been achieved almost entirely by non-violent methods).
"Violent protests never work" and "You can't prove that a non-violent protest wouldn't have also worked" are two different arguments. Stonewall IS a good example, because it became a rallying point for gays in a way that a peaceful protest would not have done. When courage is lacking, anger can be a functional substitute.
Plus, the LA riots are the closest analogue to this situation, having begun after the announcement of a not-guilty verdict in the trial of the four officers charged with beating King. And after the '92 riots, those four officers got a new, federal trial, and two of them were convicted. That's results.
On April 29, 1992, at 5:39 PM, Denny loaded his red dump truck with 27 tons of sand and began driving to a plant in Inglewood, where the sand was due. He left the Santa Monica Freeway and took a familiar shortcut across Florence Avenue to get to his destination. His truck had no radio, so he did not realize that he was driving into a riot. At 6:46 p.m., after entering the intersection at Normandie, rioters threw rocks at his windows, and he heard people shouting for him to stop. Overhead, a news helicopter with journalists Bob Tur and his wife aboard captured the events that followed.
Denny stopped in the middle of the street. Antoine Miller opened the truck door, giving others the chance to pull Denny out. Another man, Henry Keith Watson, then held Denny's head down with his foot. Denny was kicked in the abdomen by an unidentified man. Two other unidentified men, who had led a liquor store break-in earlier that day, hurled a five-pound piece of medical equipment at Denny's head and hit him three times with a claw hammer. Damian Williams then threw a slab of concrete at Denny's head and knocked him unconscious.
Williams then did a victory dance over Denny and flashed gang signs at news helicopters, which were televising the events live; he also pointed and laughed at Denny. Anthony Brown then spat on Denny and left with Williams. Several bystanders took pictures of Denny but did not attempt to help him. LAPD officers in the vicinity did not assist Denny, either.
After the beating, various men threw beer bottles at the unconscious Denny. Gary Williams approached Denny and rifled through his pockets. Lance Parker stopped near Denny and attempted to shoot the fuel tank of Denny's truck but missed.
Bobby Green, Titus Murphy and Terri Barnett (boyfriend and girlfriend), and Lei Yuille (a dietitian), who had been watching the events on TV, came to Denny's aid. Denny eventually regained consciousness and dragged himself back into the cab, driving away from the scene slowly and erratically;.[8] Green (himself a truck driver), boarded Denny's truck and took over at the wheel, driving him to the hospital. At the time Green took over, Denny was on the brink of losing consciousness again, and he suffered a seizure shortly thereafter.
Paramedics who attended to Denny said he came very close to death. His skull was fractured in 91 places and pushed into the brain. His left eye was so badly dislocated that it would have fallen into his sinus cavity had the surgeons not replaced the crushed bone with a piece of plastic. A permanent crater remains in his head despite efforts to correct it. Denny had to undergo years of rehabilitative therapy, and his speech and ability to walk were permanently damaged.
let's not be too enthusiastic in our celebration of riots?
On top of stuff like this, the riots are the result of institutionalized racism being alive and well in Ferguson. There's really no reason to be happy that they're happening.
some of them were not smart enough to be cops. one of them was blatantly racist. never fired.
also I've known a bunch of really good cops!
but I still wouldn't defend the increasingly militarized "us vs. them" mentality that the thin blue line supports. I don't think it's necessary to be a good cop, I think some amount of solidarity matters but it's gotten so out of hand that it's impossible to discipline or fire bad cops, or indict them when they engage in criminal acts. We need a vast culture shift.
totally.
I heard some stories from my cousin about some bad cops in his department and at least what he is under the impression the department was forced to do because they couldn't easily fire them. That may not be the case, but that is the impression he was left with.
Also, one of the best things that I think might actually come out of the whole thing is the demilitarization of police forces. Hopefully.
"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to give into it." - Oscar Wilde
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
I can't find anything similar in Missouri law, I may be searching wrong but I doubt very much they have anything like this
I would suggest this as one of many reforms to push out of this aftermath
There are probably not going to be any reforms coming out of this situation.
Maaaaaybe some more on-body cameras.
well as I'm pretty fatigued of stating "this is fucked" over and over again it might be worthwhile to talk about what could be pushed in the law to make some sort of change
body cameras for all cops
state required protocols for officer involved deadly force
enforcement of federal requirements of statistics reporting
that's what I've heard so far
I'd also like to end the program that sends military equipment to state police depts
hmm. Would you suggest anything, specifically, with regards to prosecution protocol rather than evidentiary measures? Relying on professional good faith to persuade district prosecutors to recuse themselves or request a change of revenue obviously doesn't work.
I can't find anything similar in Missouri law, I may be searching wrong but I doubt very much they have anything like this
I would suggest this as one of many reforms to push out of this aftermath
There are probably not going to be any reforms coming out of this situation.
Maaaaaybe some more on-body cameras.
well as I'm pretty fatigued of stating "this is fucked" over and over again it might be worthwhile to talk about what could be pushed in the law to make some sort of change
body cameras for all cops
state required protocols for officer involved deadly force
enforcement of federal requirements of statistics reporting
that's what I've heard so far
I'd also like to end the program that sends military equipment to state police depts
hmm. Would you suggest anything, specifically, with regards to prosecution protocol rather than evidentiary measures? Relying on professional good faith to persuade district prosecutors to recuse themselves or request a change of revenue obviously doesn't work.
it might be possible to implement a new rule/law requiring the local prosecutor to conflict the case out. or perhaps a slew of bar complaints actually going through with consequences would send a message, but good luck with that.
Messing with prosecutorial discretion is pretty difficult, and I have never heard of a rule like this existing
To that same end Malcom X was successful. MLK is appreciated more because of the peaceful protesting but without the closed fist open hand nature of the civil rights movement nothing would of been done.
People say things like this a lot, but there is no way to actually know if the violence was necessary or even helpful in achieving success. I am skeptical of pretty much every claim that a violent protest is responsible for change, outside of revolution.
You know that this can just as easily be turned around, right? You may be sceptical that violent protest contributed to change, someone else might be sceptical that peaceful protest on its own is responsible for change. In themselves, those are opinions, or even beliefs, not arguments. Or has empirical research been made into the extent to which peaceful protest made a difference?
Well, we know that Gandhi was successful with non-violent protest. The only violent protests that we can conclusively say lead to change are revolutions, I believe. Even something like the Stonewall riots cannot be proven to be what caused change (people could have become organized without the rioting, and the substantial progress made by the gay community in recent years has been achieved almost entirely by non-violent methods).
Kind of. Ghandi explicitly used the threat of violence to back his peaceful protests(he said, more or less "if this doesn't work then were going to start murdering") And while not a student of Indian Independence I am pretty sure it was not exactly bloodless.
It wasn't. I'm not one either, but I know enough about the end of the Indian Empire to say that it was not a peaceful revolution that brought British authority to its knees--not by a long shot. You have to remember that by the 1940s, the Royal Air Force, yes, that one, was actively bombing towns and villages in the Asian subcontinent to try and put down the widespread revolt.
How do you nonviolently resist Lancaster bombers? Is there a way to do this? To my knowledge, there isn't. Which is why the Indian National Army, backed by anti-British Japan and manned by Hindu, Muslim and Sikh soldiers, was a part of the independence movement before it was defeated in the field of battle by Chinese and British partisans.
Gandhi is, incorrectly, attributed as having generally opposed violence. What he was particularly opposed to was violence between Indians, particularly along religious lines (like the communal violence that tore the Indian Empire apart and led to the formation of a separate Pakistani state, something that broke his heart). He was fully aware that violence would be used by, and against, the British authorities. That doesn't mean he advocated using bombers against British civilians, if such a thing had been possibly, but he didn't object to the derailing of British troop trains and blowing up of ammo dumps--that's pretty damn violent.
Speaking as someone who is somewhat involved in the process of disposing of military equipment, I'll say this: Disposing of any non-commercial goods in the military is a royal pain in the ass. There are metric tons of paperwork involved if you want to "trash" equipment. The easier solution for the military is to sell it or give it away, so the environmental impacts of disposing of that equipment isn't their problem anymore.
And really, if the military is going to give away military equipment without "trashing" it, who would you want it to go to? Foreign governments? Open auctions? Just our allies? All of those solutions present potential problems. Just throwing them away is troublesome, as the military doesn't have to worry about just the environmental impacts, but then they get accused of wasting money.
A root cause of the militarization of police comes from the US military having more equipment than they use or need. This has always been an issue, but has been highlighted in recent years because of the post 9/11 surge. The military is trying to be more cost-conscious, and part of the military tightening its waistline is flowing the equipment down to police.
I think nothing will come from this. At least not directly. The move towards body cameras will probably continue, but I don't think this is going to move the needle on it.
A major failure as you mentioned earlier is that Wilson should have never been a police officer in the first place. His statements pretty clearly reveal that his outlook toward PoC is cartoonish at best.
I can't find anything similar in Missouri law, I may be searching wrong but I doubt very much they have anything like this
I would suggest this as one of many reforms to push out of this aftermath
There are probably not going to be any reforms coming out of this situation.
Maaaaaybe some more on-body cameras.
well as I'm pretty fatigued of stating "this is fucked" over and over again it might be worthwhile to talk about what could be pushed in the law to make some sort of change
body cameras for all cops
state required protocols for officer involved deadly force
enforcement of federal requirements of statistics reporting
that's what I've heard so far
I'd also like to end the program that sends military equipment to state police depts
hmm. Would you suggest anything, specifically, with regards to prosecution protocol rather than evidentiary measures? Relying on professional good faith to persuade district prosecutors to recuse themselves or request a change of revenue obviously doesn't work.
it might be possible to implement a new rule/law requiring the local prosecutor to conflict the case out. or perhaps a slew of bar complaints actually going through with consequences would send a message, but good luck with that.
Messing with prosecutorial discretion is pretty difficult, and I have never heard of a rule like this existing
perhaps in other countries?
in english jurisprudence I have the dim impression that the doctrine of legitimate expectations applies to public prosecutors
the german code has a conveniently blunt attitude
Section 152
[Indicting Authority; Principle of Mandatory Prosecution]
(1) The public prosecution office shall have the authority to prefer public charges.
(2) Except as otherwise provided by law, the public prosecution office shall be obliged to take action in relation to all prosecutable criminal offences, provided there are sufficient factual indications.
although it's not really clear how this translates in practice and I don't speak enough deustch to find out readily
Does it have to be unanimous decision for the grand jury to indict?
9 out of 12 have to decide to indict. Three of the 12 jurors were black, so they needed six of the nine remaining white people to go along.
Assuming all the black jurors would have indicted. But I think it's a fairly safe assumption.
Based off of the evidence presented I most likely would not have indicted.
I didn't think they had released all the evidence presented
I haven't read the whole transcript of testimonies, someone linked it earlier
If the transcript that was linked here is all that was released, then there very obviously was stuff not released yet because the opening of the transcript is a discussion by the presented about how she's already messed up a bunch of stuff in presenting the evidence by misnumbering articles and such.
I think that someone who would describe an unarmed teenager who he has been shooting at as hulking up to shrug off bullets should not be a police officer. At least some degree of grounding in reality should be a prerequisite for being a police officer, imo.
But it ISN'T a prerequesite. And if you turn out to be dangerously incompetent, no mechanism exists to discipline you. Police departments will never, ever be willing to voluntarily self-regulate. No external authority exists to regulate them from the outside. Nobody in power has ever displayed a genuine desire to change the status quo. The only people who are fighting for change are the people on the ground in Ferguson and towns like it, and all that happens is that they get beaten down by a corrupt system while most of the nation admonishes them.
And yet you don't understand why anyone could ever be moved to violence.
Do you know any cops?
Granted, all I know about is one department, but they absolutely have not only a willingness but also a desire to self-regulate. They don't want their jobs to be harder than they have to be either. In addition, there are external authorities that do regulate them. They have a citizen review board, who reviews reports where a firearm is discharged.
I know we like to think that cops are made up solely, or mostly, of people who just thirst for the chance to beat those who are less powerful and shoot minorities, but that doesn't actually seem to be the case.
Is there a problem with the way policing is done in this country? Absolutely. No question. Fuck, the cops I know think that there's no question about it. It was actually interesting to talk to my cousin who is a cop. I asked him about the thin blue line stuff, and why do you back up shitty cops making shitty calls. When the shit hits the fan, you need to know that you are going to be supported by your department. You need to know that the guys you are with have your back and will stick up for you. You have to be able to trust them. If they can't have that kind of solidarity then it's harder to do the job. He recognizes that solidarity makes shitty things happen, because everyone tightens up, but the alternative isn't all sunshine and roses. The alternative results in cops worrying more about their safety and whether they can trust that their call isn't going to be reversed than doing their job.
And don't be a goose, some grounding in reality is absolutely a prerequisite for being a police officer. You don't get to be a cop if you are just too fucking dumb.
Again, I don't think that any reasonable person is saying that everything about policing is fine in this country. Everyone thinks that it sucks. But it's not just obvious how to fix it.
I'm not saying that all cops are driven by racist bloodlust. I'm saying that most cops look at Wilson, ask "oh god, what if there was some misunderstanding and it were ME on the bench", and that fear is larger in their mind than the fear that people in their community are being abused. I'm saying they see a cop who made a mistake and decide that giving him a second chance means more than telling the truth about some kid who's already dead anyway.
Even in your example, you know cops who will admit that the thin blue line is a problem, but how many of them were willing to change the culture of unquestioned police solidarity to fix it? Nobody, at least that you mentioned. Even in the absence of malice, this is a calcified system.
Can you honestly look at the Ferguson police department and see a desire for reform? Can you look at the local governments in the county who are funded by fines and see a desire for reform? Can you look at Congress and see a desire for reform? Where is it going to come from? Ferguson won't sacrifice their authority, other cops won't sacrifice their security, local governments won't sacrifice their budgets, national politicians won't sacrifice their safe, easy tough-on-crime talking points...so the sacrifice remains with the poor and the oppressed, just like always.
I can't find anything similar in Missouri law, I may be searching wrong but I doubt very much they have anything like this
I would suggest this as one of many reforms to push out of this aftermath
There are probably not going to be any reforms coming out of this situation.
Maaaaaybe some more on-body cameras.
well as I'm pretty fatigued of stating "this is fucked" over and over again it might be worthwhile to talk about what could be pushed in the law to make some sort of change
body cameras for all cops
state required protocols for officer involved deadly force
enforcement of federal requirements of statistics reporting
that's what I've heard so far
I'd also like to end the program that sends military equipment to state police depts
hmm. Would you suggest anything, specifically, with regards to prosecution protocol rather than evidentiary measures? Relying on professional good faith to persuade district prosecutors to recuse themselves or request a change of revenue obviously doesn't work.
it might be possible to implement a new rule/law requiring the local prosecutor to conflict the case out. or perhaps a slew of bar complaints actually going through with consequences would send a message, but good luck with that.
Messing with prosecutorial discretion is pretty difficult, and I have never heard of a rule like this existing
perhaps in other countries?
in english jurisprudence I have the dim impression that the doctrine of legitimate expectations applies to public prosecutors
the german code has a conveniently blunt attitude
Section 152
[Indicting Authority; Principle of Mandatory Prosecution]
(1) The public prosecution office shall have the authority to prefer public charges.
(2) Except as otherwise provided by law, the public prosecution office shall be obliged to take action in relation to all prosecutable criminal offences, provided there are sufficient factual indications.
although it's not really clear how this translates in practice and I don't speak enough deustch to find out readily
well here prosecutors have some increased ethical duties under lawyer ethical rules but there is nothing you can use to force a prosecutor to charge someone with a crime. EDIT: unless you can show they are routinely declining to prosecute in a way that discriminates against a protected class (example: refusing to prosecute domestic violence, or when victims are black, or something). those are hard cases to bring and win.
like the DA could have just declined to even go to GJ and there is not a real mechanism to force him to do so that I'm aware of
Posts
Given they clearly new what the outcome was likely a few days in advance given that the police officer involved started giving interviews it clearly was planned ahead of time when the announcement would happen and given the way they were stirring the pot all day before releasing it in prime time I have to assume the outcome is exactly what they were aiming for.
But it ISN'T a prerequesite. And if you turn out to be dangerously incompetent, no mechanism exists to discipline you. Police departments will never, ever be willing to voluntarily self-regulate. No external authority exists to regulate them from the outside. Nobody in power has ever displayed a genuine desire to change the status quo. The only people who are fighting for change are the people on the ground in Ferguson and towns like it, and all that happens is that they get beaten down by a corrupt system while most of the nation admonishes them.
And yet you don't understand why anyone could ever be moved to violence.
Do you really want to talk about that again? I think its been beaten to death.
He got treated well all things considered with what happened in the riot. Its not a cinder.
Sucks it got ransacked but to insinuate that he got targeted due to the nature of what happened to brown is pretty damn selective memory of what happened last night.
Kind of. Ghandi explicitly used the threat of violence to back his peaceful protests(he said, more or less "if this doesn't work then were going to start murdering") And while not a student of Indian Independence I am pretty sure it was not exactly bloodless.
Additionally the civil rights era was the scene of many race riots. The riots were part of the reason that Kings approach worked.
Not to mention the fact that Brown didn't actually rob the store.
Yeah, that was probably unnecessary. It's just so frustrating to be watching this knowing that there isn't even a shadow of a prayer of it being met with anything but ambivelance on the national scale.
This came out of a law passed in 2007 requiring every dept to have these protocols
EDIT: here is a more detailed one, the Multco one is sort of preliminary I think http://www.doj.state.or.us/oregonians/pdf/yamhill_county_deadly_force_plan.pdf
I can't find anything similar in Missouri law, I may be searching wrong but I doubt very much they have anything like this
I would suggest this as one of many reforms to push out of this aftermath
There are probably not going to be any reforms coming out of this situation.
Maaaaaybe some more on-body cameras.
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
well as I'm pretty fatigued of stating "this is fucked" over and over again it might be worthwhile to talk about what could be pushed in the law to make some sort of change
body cameras for all cops
state required protocols for officer involved deadly force
enforcement of federal requirements of statistics reporting
that's what I've heard so far
I'd also like to end the program that sends military equipment to state police depts
At this point I am failing to see what the advantage of leaving use of force continuum protocols up to local PDs or even having state-by-state differences.
Make it a federal, universal protocol.
Do you know any cops?
Granted, all I know about is one department, but they absolutely have not only a willingness but also a desire to self-regulate. They don't want their jobs to be harder than they have to be either. In addition, there are external authorities that do regulate them. They have a citizen review board, who reviews reports where a firearm is discharged.
I know we like to think that cops are made up solely, or mostly, of people who just thirst for the chance to beat those who are less powerful and shoot minorities, but that doesn't actually seem to be the case.
Is there a problem with the way policing is done in this country? Absolutely. No question. Fuck, the cops I know think that there's no question about it. It was actually interesting to talk to my cousin who is a cop. I asked him about the thin blue line stuff, and why do you back up shitty cops making shitty calls. When the shit hits the fan, you need to know that you are going to be supported by your department. You need to know that the guys you are with have your back and will stick up for you. You have to be able to trust them. If they can't have that kind of solidarity then it's harder to do the job. He recognizes that solidarity makes shitty things happen, because everyone tightens up, but the alternative isn't all sunshine and roses. The alternative results in cops worrying more about their safety and whether they can trust that their call isn't going to be reversed than doing their job.
And don't be a goose, some grounding in reality is absolutely a prerequisite for being a police officer. You don't get to be a cop if you are just too fucking dumb.
Again, I don't think that any reasonable person is saying that everything about policing is fine in this country. Everyone thinks that it sucks. But it's not just obvious how to fix it.
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
enforcement on the federal level, even of a basic requirement to report stats, has failed
also you can tie state money to it
Come on, you know better than to construct such an obvious straw man. It's especially egregious in a post where you're complaining that people aren't showing enough nuance.
To paraphrase a Gandhi quote: a non-violent protest only works if your oppressor has a conscience.
some of them were not smart enough to be cops. one of them was blatantly racist. never fired.
also I've known a bunch of really good cops!
but I still wouldn't defend the increasingly militarized "us vs. them" mentality that the thin blue line supports. I don't think it's necessary to be a good cop, I think some amount of solidarity matters but it's gotten so out of hand that it's impossible to discipline or fire bad cops, or indict them when they engage in criminal acts. We need a vast culture shift.
of course it's going to be met with universal ambivalence. there are a lot of strong, conflicting ways to feel about it and different aspects will resonate with different people.
if you don't feel some ambivalence about all these horrible things that went down then you probably need to take a look around.
It's not really useful at this point to pay attention to the cops who are doing their jobs and not being racist, murdering geese. The reason we on this forum are so outspoken against what is broken in American policing is perfectly exemplified in the Ferguson PD, the employees of which are primarily comprised of racist, murdering geese. Obviously, Ferguson is worse than many departments, but it demonstrates to us that we need to be moving in the opposite direction of that.
I'm very sorry that the police in America feel persecuted because of what is happening in Ferguson, but showing solidarity with this bullshit is basically shouting from the rooftops that you identify with awful human beings just because they have the same job as you do. We need cops to break from the thin blue line sometimes and side with the public, and when that happens, I'll defend the good cops.
Weird thing to say, but the bolded is a little bit of a grey area for me (though not by much). Obviously, the degree to which military equipment is being transferred is obscenely dumb, but if the equipment can be repurposed for use in the civilian sector cost-effectively and most importantly safely then the pragmatic approach would be to monitor and regulate the transfers. Naturally, I don't think your average police force needs a bomb-proof personnel carrier that tears up the roads.
But I digress, and this is veering away from Ferguson so any further discussion should probably be moved to the general policing thread, so I'll repost this there for if there is further discussion.
FFXIV - Milliardo Beoulve/Sargatanas
yeah i agree with this. the lack of public accountability is really problematic. also not all cops are monsters of course, but oppositional police culture and the sense of remove from the rest of the citizenry is toxic and seems to be growing.
"Violent protests never work" and "You can't prove that a non-violent protest wouldn't have also worked" are two different arguments. Stonewall IS a good example, because it became a rallying point for gays in a way that a peaceful protest would not have done. When courage is lacking, anger can be a functional substitute.
Plus, the LA riots are the closest analogue to this situation, having begun after the announcement of a not-guilty verdict in the trial of the four officers charged with beating King. And after the '92 riots, those four officers got a new, federal trial, and two of them were convicted. That's results.
let's not be too enthusiastic in our celebration of riots?
On top of stuff like this, the riots are the result of institutionalized racism being alive and well in Ferguson. There's really no reason to be happy that they're happening.
totally.
I heard some stories from my cousin about some bad cops in his department and at least what he is under the impression the department was forced to do because they couldn't easily fire them. That may not be the case, but that is the impression he was left with.
Also, one of the best things that I think might actually come out of the whole thing is the demilitarization of police forces. Hopefully.
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
hmm. Would you suggest anything, specifically, with regards to prosecution protocol rather than evidentiary measures? Relying on professional good faith to persuade district prosecutors to recuse themselves or request a change of revenue obviously doesn't work.
it might be possible to implement a new rule/law requiring the local prosecutor to conflict the case out. or perhaps a slew of bar complaints actually going through with consequences would send a message, but good luck with that.
Messing with prosecutorial discretion is pretty difficult, and I have never heard of a rule like this existing
perhaps in other countries?
It wasn't. I'm not one either, but I know enough about the end of the Indian Empire to say that it was not a peaceful revolution that brought British authority to its knees--not by a long shot. You have to remember that by the 1940s, the Royal Air Force, yes, that one, was actively bombing towns and villages in the Asian subcontinent to try and put down the widespread revolt.
How do you nonviolently resist Lancaster bombers? Is there a way to do this? To my knowledge, there isn't. Which is why the Indian National Army, backed by anti-British Japan and manned by Hindu, Muslim and Sikh soldiers, was a part of the independence movement before it was defeated in the field of battle by Chinese and British partisans.
Gandhi is, incorrectly, attributed as having generally opposed violence. What he was particularly opposed to was violence between Indians, particularly along religious lines (like the communal violence that tore the Indian Empire apart and led to the formation of a separate Pakistani state, something that broke his heart). He was fully aware that violence would be used by, and against, the British authorities. That doesn't mean he advocated using bombers against British civilians, if such a thing had been possibly, but he didn't object to the derailing of British troop trains and blowing up of ammo dumps--that's pretty damn violent.
Based off of the evidence presented I most likely would not have indicted.
it's sad that we have to immediately assume the votes were just divided by the race line.
And really, if the military is going to give away military equipment without "trashing" it, who would you want it to go to? Foreign governments? Open auctions? Just our allies? All of those solutions present potential problems. Just throwing them away is troublesome, as the military doesn't have to worry about just the environmental impacts, but then they get accused of wasting money.
A root cause of the militarization of police comes from the US military having more equipment than they use or need. This has always been an issue, but has been highlighted in recent years because of the post 9/11 surge. The military is trying to be more cost-conscious, and part of the military tightening its waistline is flowing the equipment down to police.
Diablo 3 - ArtfulDodger#1572
Minecraft - ArtfulDodger42
I didn't think they had released all the evidence presented
I haven't read the whole transcript of testimonies, someone linked it earlier
A major failure as you mentioned earlier is that Wilson should have never been a police officer in the first place. His statements pretty clearly reveal that his outlook toward PoC is cartoonish at best.
(i can't believe I just used that abbreviation)
in english jurisprudence I have the dim impression that the doctrine of legitimate expectations applies to public prosecutors
the german code has a conveniently blunt attitude
although it's not really clear how this translates in practice and I don't speak enough deustch to find out readily
If the transcript that was linked here is all that was released, then there very obviously was stuff not released yet because the opening of the transcript is a discussion by the presented about how she's already messed up a bunch of stuff in presenting the evidence by misnumbering articles and such.
You're correct. I should say that is based off of the description of the investigation.
I'm not saying that all cops are driven by racist bloodlust. I'm saying that most cops look at Wilson, ask "oh god, what if there was some misunderstanding and it were ME on the bench", and that fear is larger in their mind than the fear that people in their community are being abused. I'm saying they see a cop who made a mistake and decide that giving him a second chance means more than telling the truth about some kid who's already dead anyway.
Even in your example, you know cops who will admit that the thin blue line is a problem, but how many of them were willing to change the culture of unquestioned police solidarity to fix it? Nobody, at least that you mentioned. Even in the absence of malice, this is a calcified system.
Can you honestly look at the Ferguson police department and see a desire for reform? Can you look at the local governments in the county who are funded by fines and see a desire for reform? Can you look at Congress and see a desire for reform? Where is it going to come from? Ferguson won't sacrifice their authority, other cops won't sacrifice their security, local governments won't sacrifice their budgets, national politicians won't sacrifice their safe, easy tough-on-crime talking points...so the sacrifice remains with the poor and the oppressed, just like always.
well here prosecutors have some increased ethical duties under lawyer ethical rules but there is nothing you can use to force a prosecutor to charge someone with a crime. EDIT: unless you can show they are routinely declining to prosecute in a way that discriminates against a protected class (example: refusing to prosecute domestic violence, or when victims are black, or something). those are hard cases to bring and win.
like the DA could have just declined to even go to GJ and there is not a real mechanism to force him to do so that I'm aware of