Police shooting of unarmed teen leads to protests and Riot

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by codynw

Apparently I'm either reading the wrong news sites, or I just don't know how to read. Both are likely.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...s/?click=drive

Police have said Brown was shot after an officer encountered him and another man on the street during a routine patrol. They say one of the men pushed the officer into his squad car, then physically assaulted him in the vehicle and struggled with the officer over the officer’s weapon. At least one shot was fired inside the car before the struggle spilled onto the street, where Brown was shot multiple times, according to police

[Regorium]

Originally Posted by combustiblefuel

I don't doubt it. I am already 100% convinced even if this goes to trial He won't see a day in Jail.

Even with the other Eye witness testimony's.

Seems you've already seen all the evidence before everyone else.

In what case would you absolve the cop? Like, seriously - make up some evidence that needs to appear before you'd believe the cop was in the right.

[PIMking]

apparently the young man that is dead was part of a robbery prior to this and is on film.

if the story about pushing and fighting over the weapon is true then the cop had the right to defend himself. However, shooting the kid over and over again isn't right.

[neo45]

It will probably come down to the word of the office against the word of the no. 1 witness who just helped rob a convinience store

This officer won't be going to jail unless something new emerges

[cal_guy]

This happen in daylight so there were multiple eyewitnesses, and one of them apparently live-tweeted it.

http://mashable.com/2014/08/15/live-...ling-ferguson/

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by joe_mullen

Standard procedure in cases like this is to vilify the victim. We've already seen him flashing "gang signs".

The eye-witness and friend of Michael Brown has already confirmed it was them who robbed the shop. I'll agree that $50 dollar cigars are hardly a reason to shoot someone but, if you've seen the video, the assault and battery on the cashier makes him a violent criminal. Period. Especially telling was that Michael Brown did not simply leave the store, even after pushing away the cashier and having a clear opening to leave he turns around to confront and threaten the man making him an #######. Period.

Now, does being an ####### and violent criminal excuse murder? Absolutely not. It does lend credence to the officers side of the story though. Simply put, the only facts we have now are that violent criminal was confronted by the police shortly after committing a violent crime, the reason for the stop was unrelated, and the confrontation led to his death. Between the confrontation and shooting there is separate accounts of what happened.

The questions that need to be asked are, did Michael Brown believe he was being arrested for robbery and try to prevent that? Did he assault the officer? Did he try to go for the gun? Was he shot while trying to surrender? Let the evidence (hopefully in court) try to answer those questions, not the biases that led to people making decisions (one way or the other) prior to any of the actual evidence and facts being known.

[AcGold]

Just my opinion, but if someone is armed with a weapon and poses an immediate danger to the police or civilians lethal force can be considered a logical possibility. If he didn't have a weapon and wasn't an immediate threat a neutralizing weapon such as a tazer or rubber bullet would be preferable. Tough to tell really as none of us were there and the facts are so all over the place currently, I'm glad there wasn't a civil war or a historically violent event from this. My hope is that the justice system progresses and actually judges based on justice and not bias.

[llwhiteoutll]

Originally Posted by PIMking

apparently the young man that is dead was part of a robbery prior to this and is on film.

if the story about pushing and fighting over the weapon is true then the cop had the right to defend himself. However, shooting the kid over and over again isn't right.

Police don't shoot to wound. They are correctly trained to keep engaging until the threat has been neutralized. It is very well documented that people can keep attacking even after sustaining multiple gunshot wounds.

Originally Posted by AcGold

Just my opinion, but if someone is armed with a weapon and poses an immediate danger to the police or civilians lethal force can be considered a logical possibility. If he didn't have a weapon and wasn't an immediate threat a neutralizing weapon such as a tazer or rubber bullet would be preferable. Tough to tell really as none of us were there and the facts are so all over the place currently, I'm glad there wasn't a civil war or a historically violent event from this. My hope is that the justice system progresses and actually judges based on justice and not bias.

If he was trying to grab the officer's gun, the last thing the officer should do is allow free and open access to it by going for a cross drawn Taser. It is also entirely possible that the officer was not issued with a Taser.

But it's all moot anyway since an active assault and attempts to gain access to the officer's weapon automatically moves the encounter to deadly force on the continuum of force scale, armed assailant or not.

[RyZ]

Originally Posted by combustiblefuel

Even so, shooting a man in the the back then executing over a $50 dollar box of cigars is not an excuse. He still ####ed up.

No doubt about that. I was just reporting some news on the case that was coming to light.

[nik-]

Originally Posted by llwhiteoutll

Police don't shoot to wound. They are correctly trained to keep engaging until the threat has been neutralized. It is very well documented that people can keep attacking even after sustaining multiple gunshot wounds.

"Threat" is out of the equation when the person is running away and shot in the back.

[wittynickname]

Sorry if I don't have much faith in the information the police are giving out, when stories like this exist about the exact same police department and their apparent inability/refusal to keep records about which of their officers have had citizen complaints filed. This entire department sounds like a cluster, and it looks like it's been a cluster for quite some time. They wrongly arrest a man, and then beat him, charge him with "property damage" for bleeding on their uniforms, and then under oath say that he was not bleeding and there was no blood on their uniforms. They provide the wrong surveillance tape to the judge, and then it turns out they don't actually seem to keep records on use-of-force by their officers.

Yeah I totally trust these guys to tell the truth about what happened that day.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...loody-lie.html

Indisputable evidence of what transpired in the cell might have been provided by a surveillance camera, but it turned out that the VHS video was recorded at 32 times normal speed.
“It was like a blur,” Schottel told The Daily Beast on Wednesday. “You couldn’t see anything.”
The blur proved to be from 12 hours after the incident anyway. The cops had saved the wrong footage after Schottel asked them to preserve it.

“On September 20th, 2009, was there any way to identify any officers that were subject of one or more citizens’ complaints?” he asked.
“Not to my knowledge,” Moonier said.
“Was there any way to identify any officers who had completed several use-of-force reports?”
“I don’t recall.”

The entire police force just seems to be pretty questionable, and at least some of their officers have proven willing to lie under oath.

EDIT: I also find it really interesting that the entirety of the report given by the Ferguson police department is about the alleged robbery--and the only two bits of information about the actual death of Michael Brown are that the first officer arrived at 12:01 and by 12:04 when the second officer arrived, Brown was already dead.

Where is the use-of-force report from the officer who shot Brown? Where is the information from the officer who arrived once Brown was already dead? Where is the autopsy report showing how many times Brown was actually hit? Where is the actual information about Brown's death itself, rather than just the robbery--which the officer who shot Brown knew nothing about at the time?

So you release information proving that Brown is a criminal, thus killing him was obviously justified, but you don't actually offer any information about what actually happened between 12:01 and 12:04 that day. Okay, Ferguson PD.

[WhiteTiger]

Originally Posted by nik-

"Threat" is out of the equation when the person is running away and shot in the back.

Didn't Mythbusters prove that 30'-40' was the distance someone armed with a melee weapon (like a knife) could cover (running) before someone armed with a gun could draw and shoot? If they were fighting over the officers gun, and the kid figured he wouldn't get it and tried to run...35' sounds about right for an officer to draw and shoot.

Now, SHOULD that officer have drawn and shot? That's a question for the jury.

[llwhiteoutll]

Originally Posted by nik-

"Threat" is out of the equation when the person is running away and shot in the back.

Got a sneak peak at the unreleased coroners findings?

Or was it the report that the investigators released? You know, the one due out in a few weeks.

[AcGold]

Originally Posted by llwhiteoutll

If he was trying to grab the officer's gun, the last thing the officer should do is allow free and open access to it by going for a cross drawn Taser. It is also entirely possible that the officer was not issued with a Taser.

But it's all moot anyway since an active assault and attempts to gain access to the officer's weapon automatically moves the encounter to deadly force on the continuum of force scale, armed assailant or not.

If he's running down the street he's not fighting for the gun, if the guy is in the car trying to grab it fire away but when he's running down the street does he really need to be shot 7 times? Apprehend the guy and let justice do its part. I get where your headed just seems like police should use lethal force sparingly and only when absolutely required to save a life.

Part of the problem is that there are so many cases that happened where the person who was killed never did resist and there is a general animosity towards the police. The one time the people protest the guy or his accomplice may have gotten in a fight with the cop turning the situation into a giant moral quagmire. I've seen enough cases of police brutality that it's tough to not just assume the cop was in the wrong, obviously not all cops are bad and not every time they have to kill someone is abuse of power the situation just sucks.

[nik-]

Originally Posted by llwhiteoutll

Got a sneak peak at the unreleased coroners findings?

Or was it the report that the investigators released? You know, the one due out in a few weeks.

Actually it was eyewitness account.

Don't try to be a smartass if you're not 100% sure you're right.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by nik-

Actually it was eyewitness account.

Don't try to be a smartass if you're not 100% sure you're right.

In Michael Brown's "credit" (for lack of better words) there's been multiple eyewitness accounts, including those of his accomplish in the robbery, that have stated he was shot in the back.

I believe anyone defending the officer will have a hard time doing so if the coroner report correlates the story that he was shot in the back from a distance, turned around and then shot multiple times with his hands up. My argument is, and always will be in cases like this, to let the facts and evidence speak for themselves.

But what if the coroner report doesn't show Michael Brown shot in the back? How many people who were so quick to call out the officer as a racist murderer will actually change their views? Will you?

[Peanut]

Well, to be fair, he could still be a racist murderer who just shot him in the front.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by Peanut

Well, to be fair, he could still be a racist murderer who just shot him in the front.

But there would go the evidence of the eye witness reports saying otherwise. And the only reason people came to the conclusion in the first place.

Too often it seems like there's nothing that would convince anyone to change their side. Of course this goes for every side of every single argument (doesn't matter the evidence you present you're going to have a young-Earth creationist tell you the world is 5000 years old).

In Trayvon Martin's case there could have been video of Martin nursing a kitten back to health before being brutally attacked and shot by Zimmerman and people would still have said Zimmerman was innocent by the time the trial was over. Likewise, you could have had video of Martin coming at Zimmerman, knocking him to the ground and slamming his head into the concrete floor unprovoked and people would still call him guilty...and white.

I'm just curious at what point or what evidence in this case would be required for the people who are so sure that the cop was a racist and/or corrupt murderer to second guess their original assumptions. If it isn't that Michael Brown had just committed a violent crime and the eye witness is lying/misremember, what is it?


I like to believe I'm "neutral" but because I wasn't willing to condemn the officer without all the facts I have a feeling many people will see me on the officer's side. But if the coroner report shows that Michael Brown was shot in the back at a distance, I'll likely be hopping on the cop-is-a-murderer bandwagon. So what will it take all those people who came in here calling for his head to change their minds?

[wittynickname]

Originally Posted by Oling_Roachinen

But there would go the evidence of the eye witness reports saying otherwise. And the only reason people came to the conclusion in the first place.

Too often it seems like there's nothing that would convince anyone to change their side. Of course this goes for every side of every single argument (doesn't matter the evidence you present you're going to have a young-Earth creationist tell you the world is 5000 years old).

In Trayvon Martin's case there could have been video of Martin nursing a kitten back to health before being brutally attacked and shot by Zimmerman and people would still have said Zimmerman was innocent by the time the trial was over. Likewise, you could have had video of Martin coming at Zimmerman, knocking him to the ground and slamming his head into the concrete floor unprovoked and people would still call him guilty...and white.

I'm just curious at what point or what evidence in this case would be required for the people who are so sure that the cop was a racist and/or corrupt murderer to second guess their original assumptions. If it isn't that Michael Brown had just committed a violent crime and the eye witness is lying/misremember, what is it?


I like to believe I'm "neutral" but because I wasn't willing to condemn the officer without all the facts I have a feeling many people will see me on the officer's side. But if the coroner report shows that Michael Brown was shot in the back at a distance, I'll likely be hopping on the cop-is-a-murderer bandwagon. So what will it take all those people who came in here calling for his head to change their minds?

The problem is that the eyewitness reports have all been pretty consistent with each other. The story coming from police has been a whole lot less so. First he had stolen a candy bar, then he hadn't stolen anything, now they have tape of him stealing cigars. But they didn't even realize that he was even a suspect in that robbery until after his death. The officer was not responding to the robbery. If the officer wasn't responding to the robbery, why did he interact with Brown? And in those three minutes before the other officer arrived, just what happened?

There are zero answers to anything in those three minutes. Police were all too happy to point out that Brown had just committed a crime--but there is zero information from the shooting itself, which is what has caused such community uproar. Again--the police did not realize until after Brown was dead that he was involved in a crime. What reasoning did the officer have to shoot Brown? What prompted the confrontation? Those are huge questions that are being completely ignored in favor of pointing out "but look, look! He just stole stuff!" Pretty sure minor assault and theft doesn't warrant deadly force. And if the officer actually was injured, if he actually was acting in self-defense, why is there no report from the officer himself?

This police force hasn't proven to be very trustworthy, and in the days following, they've proven to enjoy using excessive force. Some transparency of this investigation would go a long way toward diffusing the situation, only the entire process looks a whole lot like a coverup.

Also, after a single night of reprieve, riot cops are back, threatening to arrest protesters and media alike. "Arrest or other actions," is the threat. Not sure what "other actions" could mean.

Edit: Apparently there is rioting happening now. This whole thing is just a disaster.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by wittynickname

The problem is that the eyewitness reports have all been pretty consistent with each other.

The other eye witnesses came after Michael Brown's friend's recount of the story was public. They may be completely true. They may be misremembering a bit after hearing the account on TV - our memories are far from perfect - and their own biases may influence them. But that's actually the point, if all the eye witnesses claimed he was shot in the back from a distance running away and the coroner report disproves this, doesn't that mean the eye witnesses shouldn't be taken as fact? (And the opposite holds true).

The story coming from police has been a whole lot less so. First he had stolen a candy bar, then he hadn't stolen anything, now they have tape of him stealing cigars. But they didn't even realize that he was even a suspect in that robbery until after his death. The officer was not responding to the robbery. If the officer wasn't responding to the robbery, why did he interact with Brown? And in those three minutes before the other officer arrived, just what happened?

Michael Brown had just committed a robbery. For some reason, probably because as already proven he was an #######, he was holding up traffic in the middle of the street. The officer interacted with him over this. The officer was not aware Michael Brown had committed a violent crime. Was Michael Brown aware that the officer wasn't aware? We don't know.

There are zero answers to anything in those three minutes.

My whole point of waiting for evidence.

Police were all too happy to point out that Brown had just committed a crime--but there is zero information from the shooting itself,

Pointing out a person had just committed a violent crime obviously lends credence to the side of the officer, which is why they wanted to point it out. There's not a ton of information, but the officers side has been told.

which is what has caused such community uproar. Again--the police did not realize until after Brown was dead that he was involved in a crime.

You're right. But we do have a violent criminal getting into confrontation with the police. I say wait for evidence, as always, but removing the racial issues and lack of evidence, why should the violent criminal be given credibility and not the police?

What reasoning did the officer have to shoot Brown?

According to the police, Brown went for his gun.

What prompted the confrontation?

Walking in the middle of the road.

Those are huge questions that are being completely ignored in favor of pointing out "but look, look! He just stole stuff!" Pretty sure minor assault and theft doesn't warrant deadly force.

Never said it did. In fact I explicitly said it doesn't. However, a violent criminal had just committed a violent crime moments before interacting with an officer who has said he went for his gun.

And if the officer actually was injured, if he actually was acting in self-defense, why is there no report from the officer himself?

There is, and there will be a coroner report and other information that will come to light. Maybe in favour of the officer, maybe against. Again, my argument is let that stuff come out before jumping to conclusions.

This police force hasn't proven to be very trustworthy, and in the days following, they've proven to enjoy using excessive force. Some transparency of this investigation would go a long way toward diffusing the situation, only the entire process looks a whole lot like a coverup.

The FBI has been brought into investigate. Ferguson police force used unnecessary force and made themselves look stupid but that has nothing to do with the actual confrontation.

Also, after a single night of reprieve, riot cops are back, threatening to arrest protesters and media alike. "Arrest or other actions," is the threat. Not sure what "other actions" could mean.

Again, a result of the incident but nothing to do with the actual confrontation.

Edit: Apparently there is rioting happening now. This whole thing is just a disaster.

Agreed