The Ferguson, Missouri thread

[Rhinox]

Holy shit

[Rhinox]

Wonder if the I've been hacked defense will be making an appearance

[Edelweiss]

That was probably already scrubbed (if it wasn't fake to begin with), since PolitiFact mentions not finding it anywhere on FB.

[Kohan]

Ah, Florida. You never disappoint.

[Outlaw]

From the interview the eyewitness gave it does indeed sound like the teen may have started it (and I stress "may") but I doubt that gave the cop the right to gun him down when he ran away.

[Uzor]

I haven't heard anything about this on the news.

This is quite disgusting imo. The only thing I've heard about is the initial incident, and I remember thinking "This will probably lead to protests". But then I haven't heard anything more about it. I can't believe they're firing tear gas at journalists.

[Anoat]

Edit2: that woman is "Rev. Renita Lamkin. She's the pastor of St. John AME Church in St. Charles" and has been out at nearly every protest involving this incident.

https://twitter.com/LadeeLuvleeLox/s...21493787414530

Not gonna lie, from the name of the woman and the name of her church alone I assumed she was black. I guess I'm part of the problem.

[Callisto]

From the interview the eyewitness gave it does indeed sound like the teen may have started it (and I stress "may") but I doubt that gave the cop the right to gun him down when he ran away.

The description I've seen from the two eyewitnesses was that the kid might have smarted off, then the officer opened the door of his cruiser forcefully, causing it to bounce off of the kid and back into the officer, knocking him into the car. He then proceeded to go Ahnald on the kid.

http://headmania.files.wordpress.com...movie_film.gif

[Not Kuno]

[Callisto]

It's been like that the entire time. Every report of people being arrested, including the alderman and the two reporters, said that at all times officers refused to identify themselves, and never filed charges(except for those related to burning the one gas station) or filled out incident reports. The amount of massively illegal shit that went on between Tuesday and today was huge.

[Weegion]

This is the official who should be investigating Mike Brown's murder.

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/c...531ad6cf1.html

McCulloch blasts Nixon

St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch Thursday night blasted the decision by Gov. Jay Nixon to replace St. Louis County Police control of the Ferguson situation with the Missouri State Highway Patrol.

“It's shameful what he did today, he had no legal authority to do that," McCulloch said. "To denigrate the men and women of the county police department is shameful."

"I hope I'm wrong, but I think what Nixon did may put a lot of people in danger."

[archibaldcrane]

That's horrific. This cop is never even going to be charged is he.

More background on why Ferguson is a hopeless trap for blax:

http://m.stlamerican.com/news/editor....html?mode=jqm

[NynJa]

I said it earlier in the police thread. Everyones story of accounts is different, which works in the cops favor.

[Weegion]

I said it earlier in the police thread. Everyones story of accounts is different, which works in the cops favor.

The cop who didn't call in the shooting or attempt to administer medical assistance?

[NynJa]

I thought Archi meant charges against the cop who shot the kid.

[Not Kuno]

The onion continues to be on point yet again

[Nephlite]

Couple of things to note from what I gathered:

1. The eye-witness reports for the most part are similar with some variances that may, or may not affect the outcome. From what I gather: the officer stops Brown and another person on the side of the road, investigating a report of a shoplifting in the area. A struggle ensues; one witness stated that the officer pulled up along side of Brown and went to get out of his vehicle, striking Brown with the door. Brown then struggles with the officer and it moves back inside the vehicle where the first shot happened. Brown then gets away, and is shot in the back while fleeing. The inconsistency is the officers shooting. Some witnesses say Brown surrendered (hands in the air) and was shot 8-9 times from the front, while another stated the officer shot 8-9 times while he was fleeing (at his back).

The report of the shooting states that Brown attempted to disarm the officer by grabbing the officers gun after punching him in the face in the vehicle. This, in the police world, is a Deadly Force encounter. Any time a subject grabs for an officers weapon, it's Deadly Force. When Brown disengaged, the officer has to articulate the subject posed an ongoing threat to utilize Deadly Force.

In this instance, fearing the subject's intention was murder, which there is no other articulate reason to disarm and acquire a firearm from a Police Officer other than to kill the Police Officer (at least in the Use of Force spectrum), Deadly Force could be used in this instance (varies from policy to policy). If the officer shot him in the back, a reasonable Deadly Force defense can be used in this to protect lives (In Texas, it's legal to shoot a fleeing felon or someone who just reasonably committed a Deadly Force Act). In this case, an appropriate charge could be Manslaughter if the Officer isn't covered under Qualified Immunity.


However, the subject then surrenders (according to one witness). The Deadly Force threat is removed unless he was reaching for a weapon. It's impossible to articulate the circumstances of using Deadly Force if the subjects hands were indeed in the air. This is Murder, straight across the board. Intent is there, and the case for your reasonable Deadly Force response is thrown out the window.

I'm partially for the officer in this instance because of my training and experience. I'm in agreement with the tactics right up until the guy surrenders, which is where good forensics and the investigation will show weather or not Brown was murdered.

Also keep in mind, some of these "witnesses" are coattailing off this incident to make a name for themselves. The witness that hired Trayvon Martin's lawyer for instance, comes out of the woodworks without giving a statement to the Police, which can compromise this investigation. There's also rumors floating of witness tampering (coaching), destruction of evidence (evidence that was on scene was tampered with by bystanders rushing the scene such as shell casings and the position of the body), and some of the witnesses have serious criminal convictions that can make them unreliable on the stand. Studies have shown that eye-witnesses are unreliable; they tend to get caught up in the moment and add fuel to their "eye-witness" testimony with pre-engrained insecurities and distorted mental pictures of how the world works through their eyes. It won't be very funny if it turns out this police officer murdered Brown, and he gets off through a technicality.

2. The response of the St. Louis County Police (the so-called militarized police force currently occupying Ferguson) was in response to the looting and rioting that began after the shooting in support of the Ferguson Police Department who's ill-equipped to handle the sheer amount of chaos that erupted in less than 24 hours. The majority of the protestors are peaceful Ferguson residents. The ones who are enticing the violence (burning stores, drive-by shootings, attempting to harm the police) are outsiders who don't live within the community. There are only a few, but they are the ones adding fuel to the already paranoid police who are trying to balance allowing the protests while trying to minimize damage to the surrounding neighborhood. The FBI is currently sending a team of Crisis Intervention officers to deal with this:

http://wtvr.com/2014/08/13/fbi-warns...e-in-ferguson/

The violence initially started with one of these Black Panther supporters throwing a molotov cocktail at the police when a curfew was enacted by the Ferguson Police Chief when the looting and rioting began. The response with Tear Gas, rubber bullets, and arrests were in response to this. Not sure if anyone here has had a molotov cocktail thrown at them, but the shit sucks and is DEFINITELY a Deadly Force attack. What the media did not show is the people who threw the projectiles were hiding in the crowd of peaceful protestors. There was no other action but disperse the crowd by the police, hence the tear gas and rubber bullets. The Al Jazeera Van being hit was a result of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Now I'm not totally defending all of the police tactics here. For one, most of them are very scared and very fearful of what's happening. They're working 12 hour shifts with no end in sight, they're constantly being threatened, assaulted, are in fear of their families who are receiving death threats, and are getting splattered in the media. One such splattering: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/p...d-in-ferguson/ is now being touted as censorship of the media. The initial reason why they were removed from the McDonald's was the owner called the police because he didn't want people loitering in his establishment. They packed themselves in there to do stuff like charge their phones and get out of the elements. It sucks that they were caught up in the sweep, but the paranoia and already stressed out police force are turning abrasive to minor skirmishes when tensions are already high. Sensationalized media are putting out topics like "Reporter Arrested for Filming Police" which is fueling even more discord.

3. The investigation is not over. A murder is not a quick "hook 'em and book 'em" case. There's hundreds of factors to go in to indicting someone, especially a Police Officer. The DA and investigating party has to weigh weather or not he acted outside the scope of Qualified Immunity, not to mention the forensics (which takes time despite what shows like CSI and Law and Order have led us to believe), interviewing witnesses, finding out who is actually a witness and who is just speaking for the fame, controlling the spiraling out of control violence, trying to keep people from killing the police who still have a job to do and their families, and still conducting a thorough review of all policies and procedures before they take it to trial. You want a complete investigation, not some ramshackle case that will get thrown out due to a technicality.

Anyways, it's likely no one will read all of this so I will just say right now I'm on both sides of the fence. Situations like this are never clean-cut or straight. There's too many factors and too much BS to filter through to gain anything from just calling it like I see it. Once the investigation is over, it'll reveal the truth.

[Eurell]

snip

This is about how I feel. Fucking with the press and taking apart their cameras and shit is absolutely out of line, and something needs to be done about that. But arresting people part of a riot when looting is happening and molotov cocktails are being thrown? Can't be too mad about that.

[Charismatic]

If you're scared of the community you're supposed to be serving then you aren't cut out for your job. I hope you and all pigs like you find some other line of work, Nep.

[wipers]

#justicefortrayvon