The Law Ferguson

[Biggy_Boy]

Some dude had his phone stolen as he was livestreaming the protests yesterday. Was the funniest s**t. He was just walking down the street, and then you suddenly see the phone rapidly swaying from side to side and hear ragged breathing as the thief who snared it sprints away, which is being seen by the like 90k viewers the dude had. The guy stopped and said something like "got me an iPhone 6" before the stream cut out. It was great.

 

[SpuriousPea]

The way they were reacting was consistent with all of the early eyewitness reports. Why would they be shouting "he had his ******* hands up!" if things went down like Wilson claims?

Initial eyewitness reports also had Wilson at close range shooting Brown execution style from behind, Wilson dumping his magazine into a grounded Brown and Wilson strangling Brown.

The numerous autopsies show this not to be the case.

There's also that they held fundraisers for him and threatened to kill protesters. That information didn't come from anonymous.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...-klan-ferguson-police-michael-brown/14275115/

There was also a gofundme campaign for Wilson that was full of racist campaigners donating money. Maybe not proven links between Wilson and the KKK but they're sure being supportive. The Ferguson PD's own statistics show that there is a major problem with racial profiling as blacks are stopped at a higher rate, searched at a higher rate and arrested at a higher rate despite having a lower contraband hit rate than whites.

As far as I'm concerned trailer trash and trolls can spend their money where they like and support whoever they like. It's not proof of anything.
What is troubling is how easy such flimsy, emotionally charged links can short circuit reasonable peoples cognitive faculties.

Racial profiling will always be a reality when a small percentage of society commits a disproportionate amount of the crime. The possible reasons for that (culture/education/oppression/racism) is another debate.

My point was that there's no reason to think that people speaking out against the cops would have any less reason to fear for their safety than the non-local folks who gave early accounts that Brown was surrendering. Why would those white construction guys or the welfare worker be worried that they'll go back to their own neighbourhoods and be targeted for telling the police version any more than they'd be worried about telling the version that they did?

I cannot comment of the thoughts of others.

You're assuming that the police version of events is accurate. Like you said, who in their right mind would charge at a cop after already being shot multiple times?

I'm trying to stick to physical evidence. Like the gunpowder burns on Browns hands which could only have gotten there if he was reaching for the gun (I implore you to watch the rest of the video I posted if you ragequit on it earlier). Or the injuries sustained by Wilson which back up his claims of at least one violent scuffle.

As for Brown charging Wilson, there was blood splatter up to 22 feet behind Mike Browns body, indicating after he got shot he still managed to run 22 feet towards Wilson.

It pretty much is already a race war in some parts of that country (always has been), it's just really one-sided.

Yep. As I outline in this post:
http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/the-militarisation-of-the-police.1067890/page-6#post-35371043

It's an a issue that is incredibly emotionally charged. Leaving those emotions unchecked can easily hinder our ability to rationally weigh the evidence.

 

[JeffDunne]

Reaching for the gun or putting your hand up to shield yourself from a gun?

This is the problem when evidence isn't challenged in a courtroom.


One has to wonder too if these riots in Ferguson aren't checked by a police depart/governor because it helps justify their position.

Why deploy the national guard if they are going to stand by and watch people looting/burning stores?

Why announce the verdict at 9 o'clock at night?

Wouldn't even surprise me if police were directly responsible for some of the scenes we saw after the verdict was released.

 

[Total_Juddshanks]

Shorn of all of the rhetoric and bullshit, all that's really happened here is as follows.

Violent young idiot attacks police officer.
I
Police officer, based on his perception of what was happening, guns down violent young idiot.

Those cases are notoriously difficult to assess because it is extremely hard to know how the officer perceived the situation, why he thought there was a threat and whatever else.

Bluntly though, if you assault a police officer you are taking your life into your own hands, and I can't see how anyone can a.) not understand that, and b.) think that's such a bad thing. Any sane person would agree Police have an option to use lethal force to defend themselves when someone attacks them, after that it just becomes a question of degree and judgment.

I reckon the officer probably did make a fairly dodgy judgment given the other options open to him, but it's an unbelievably stressful situation to be in and an extremely high pressure decision, and the only reason he was making that decision at all is because Brown did assaulted him.

A few years back in WA, there was a case where a police officer was assaulted during a routine traffic stop, suffered a facial bruise and responded by gunning down an unarmed man. Fortunately for the police officer, the guy he shot was white and unknown to the officer, an in captured murderer. From memory the officer ended up getting a police medal.

 

[JeffDunne]

The problem with the "you shouldn't attack a cop" defence is the long history of police using disproportionate force against blacks in the US (especially St Louis). Often cops escalate a situation to give them cause. Often they just execute someone in cold blood.

Personally I've felt since this story first broke that it's a strange one to rally around. There are more blatant examples of cops using unnecessary lethal force. I suppose the whole "hands up" aspect of the story was an easy tag line to sell.

Someone has picked this battleground and it would appear this story is the excuse.

This story now really has little to do with Brown or Wilson.

 

[fleabitten]

It's an a issue that is incredibly emotionally charged. Leaving those emotions unchecked can easily hinder our ability to rationally weigh the evidence.

I'll admit to that. I have a lot of friends from that part of the world (mostly black) and it's obviously a very emotive subject for them. I'm reading through the hearing stuff that's been posted and so far, it still looks to me like there's enough evidence for the case to at least go to trial. I'm trying to keep an open mind though. I'll continue reading through it today and will give my thoughts on it later.

Until then, here's this: http://thinkprogress.org/justice/20...rand-jury-in-ferguson-was-set-up-for-failure/

It looks a lot like the prosecutor did not want an indictment.

 

[kfc1]

Protesting 101: How to get the community onside?
Loot and firebomb local businesses who had nothing to do with what you're protesting about

 

[Seeds]

Capitalism literally is the practice of taking resources and capital off citizens. So yes.

Capitalism is the ability to profit off labour without effort.

No it isn't. capitalism is a system that encourages capital creation by allowing private citizens to keep the capital they create and earn the rent from that capital. Almost the exact opposite of what you just said. Please don't misuse the word.

Basically it sounds like you want to live in a caveman society with no capital and no capital rent. But even caveman used tools so their capitalist too so you want to even go back before the time of cavemen. You are basically complaining about civilisation. Might want to use that term instead of capitalism so people understand what you are taking about. Not that it makes any sense as an explanation for what is happening in Ferguson.

 

[Seeds]

Do you know how many guns are on American streets?

Now think of what it must be like to work as a police officer in that environment on a daily basis.

Brown may not have had a gun, but whose to say what else was out there - assume the worst, prepare for it and at the end of the night when you go home be happy you erred on the side of over caution.

so basically you are saying if I go to America I should take a gun and if someone acts in an aggressive manor, whether I see them have a gun or not (cos they could be hiding it or a mate of there's could have one) I have a right to shoot them? This would mean every trip I take to America I would be coming home with at least a couple of kills to my name. Every trip. And that's fine with you?

 

[mic59]

When Harry Connick, Jr. was on "Red Faces" he was hugely offended by a blackface portrayal of Michael Jackson. While this is not acceptable it begs the question, was the offence he showed real or was it just to deflect from his own country? There is a huge difference between stereotypical portrayal and racist actions causing death and riots. What I find difficult to understand here is :
(1) Why was this placed before a grand jury to decide whether there was evidence to indict and not a panel of judges, and
(2) Why was the jury 9 white, 3 black. Blind Freddy could see that was a make-up to inflame.

I tried to watch the video "What pisses me off about the Michael Brown shooting" but by 1.00 I could see the guy was such a redneck "good ol' boy" that I stopped. You don't need to eat all of an egg to know it's rotten. These narrated youtube videos are such a pile of crap in that the people who put them up there know that most of the people who see them will take them for fact. And that they can spout any kind of vicious bile they want.
For instance, in the short part I saw he tried to destroy the reputation of the family by saying that the relatives were selling Michael Brown souvenirs. Whose word have we got from that apart from his, and maybe that of a few gullible people he's managed to convince.

so basically you are saying if I go to America I should take a gun and if someone acts in an aggressive manor, whether I see them have a gun or not (cos they could be hiding it or a mate of there's could have one) I have a right to shoot them? This would mean every trip I take to America I would be coming home with at least a couple of kills to my name. Every trip. And that's fine with you?

I travel quite a bit and regularly check with the Australian smarttraveller website for violence hotspots and places I should not go to, but there is also another list that I use which is my own. For the reasons you state, America is number 1 on that no-go list.

 

[kfc1]

What I find difficult to understand here is :
(1) Why was this placed before a grand jury to decide whether there was evidence to indict and not a panel of judges, and

isn't a grand jury part of the standard US justice process?

 

[Total_Juddshanks]

The problem with the "you shouldn't attack a cop" defence is the long history of police using disproportionate force against blacks in the US (especially St Louis). Often cops escalate a situation to give them cause. Often they just execute someone in cold blood.

Personally I've felt since this story first broke that it's a strange one to rally around. There are more blatant examples of cops using unnecessary lethal force. I suppose the whole "hands up" aspect of the story was an easy tag line to sell.

Someone has picked this battleground and it would appear this story is the excuse.

This story now really has little to do with Brown or Wilson.

Agree with a lot of that but it's horribly unfair to Wilson if a life or death decision he made in a couple of seconds is judged differently because there's a history of unjustifiable police violence towards blacks.

I don't really get the US grand jury system but if it were Australia I would have thought there were enough uncertainties about what happened to have justified a trial. Although there are plenty of situations where police are entirely justified in shooting and killing an unarmed person, it shouldn't happen without a lot of scrutiny. But unless Wilson broke down and confessed to hating black folk or he copped Malcolm X as a jury foreman, any trial would have almost certainly ended in an acquittal, there's just not enough evidence to conclusively show Wilson did anything criminally wrong. Which means from the moment Wilson pulled the trigger this was always going to be headed to either a gross injustice towards him or riots and looting.

The problem with the US is these sort of shootings are immediately followed by political leaders and commentators wading in with inflammatory nonsense, mass hysteria, and a 'loot first, ask questions later' response to any jury or judicial decision.

 

[mic59]

isn't a grand jury part of the standard US justice process?

Yes, it is. America is the only country that retains the grand jury. There are points of law involved in the process which is why other countries have preliminary hearings by trained judges. But this ignores the point made, why was this important decision placed before a group of people with a 3:1 racial divide? The result was always going to be "not sufficient evidence" and just make things worse.

 

[JeffDunne]

The part of Wilson's testimony that should be challenged is his characterisation of Brown.

He was clearly s**t scared of him. Liking what he described as physical mismatch to a 5 year old up against a pro-Wrestler & describing Brown as a "demon" brings into question why he chose to pursue Brown without calling for backup. He claims he feared for his life.

Not only that, he admits he chose not to carry a taser because he found them uncomfortable to wear.

A good prosecutor would torn him a new one on that testimony.

 

[RisingPhoenix]

so basically you are saying if I go to America I should take a gun and if someone acts in an aggressive manor, whether I see them have a gun or not (cos they could be hiding it or a mate of there's could have one) I have a right to shoot them? This would mean every trip I take to America I would be coming home with at least a couple of kills to my name. Every trip. And that's fine with you?

No that's not fine with me.

I'm simply placing context.

I don't think any of us can imagine the stress of serving as a street level cop in an urban centre within the US.

If some possibly armed, massive black dude is charging you like a bull what would you do?

You put rounds in him and he still keeps coming, what would you do?

Fear is a powerful emotion - even more than racism.

 

[kfc1]

Yes, it is. America is the only country that retains the grand jury. There are points of law involved in the process which is why other countries have preliminary hearings by trained judges. But this ignores the point made, why was this important decision placed before a group of people with a 3:1 racial divide? The result was always going to be "not sufficient evidence" and just make things worse.

Aren't juries selected at random? It would be more disturbing if juries were selected with deliberate racial bias, whether that be positive or negative. The thought of selecting a half black/half white jury purely to satisfy political motivations of appearing to be fair or impartial worries me.

 

[fleabitten]

I believe the racial makeup of the jury is supposed to represent the local demographics and in this case it did. 9 whites and 3 blacks is close to the racial makeup of St Louis. The problem is that it's such a racially divided place that you're most likely going to have a situation where it's almost impossible for enough jurors to empathize with Brown more than they empathize with Wilson.

 

[mic59]

Aren't juries selected at random? It would be more disturbing if juries were selected with deliberate racial bias, whether that be positive or negative. The thought of selecting a half black/half white jury purely to satisfy political motivations of appearing to be fair or impartial worries me.

3 people out of 4 is random. 9 out of 12 is an excessive lean to one side. And the appearance of fairness, as well as the ability to take a measured view would seem to be one of the more important things to be considered. The sacrosance of the justice system is all very well but it seems that is not one of the affordable niceties in some parts of America.

And juries are not selected at random in the US anyway. The opportunity for jury duty is random, serving on a jury is determined by a set of questions asked. But this was a grand jury, different case to a criminal jury. It is basically a magistrate's court to determine whether there is a case. Although as we see from this it can become close to a full trial but without the criminal aspects and it does not have a conviction at the end of it.

 

[kfc1]

3 people out of 4 is random. 9 out of 12 is an excessive lean to one side. And the appearance of fairness, as well as the ability to take a measured view would seem to be one of the more important things to be considered. The sacrosance of the justice system is all very well but it seems that is not one of the affordable niceties in some parts of America.

Actually, it seems to match the local demographics:

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/...cle_6bbba56c-e28a-53d0-8b85-b20c36810fbd.html

The demographics roughly reflect the racial breakdown of St. Louis County's population, which is about 24 percent black and about 68 percent white.

 

[Xsess]

3 people out of 4 is random. 9 out of 12 is an excessive lean to one side.

Side? What side?

Are you suggesting a race based jury selection criteria?

 

[RisingPhoenix]

Side? What side?

Are you suggesting a race based jury selection criteria?

I think that is exactly what's being suggested.

All I can say is it works both ways in America - just look at OJ.

 

[Gough]

Do you think two black rozzers who shot an unarmed white boy would have received the same treatment?

 

[little graham]

America should stop arming Al Queda and Nazis in eastern Europe and concentrate on their own social problems. But to concentrate on their own social problems would mean stopping using al queda to deflect attention away from their own social problems.

 

[RisingPhoenix]

Do you think two black rozzers who shot an unarmed white boy would have received the same treatment?

Who knows?

 

[JeffDunne]

America should stop arming Al Queda and Nazis in eastern Europe and concentrate on their own social problems.

In fairness . . . they do arm their own social problems too.