Police shooting of unarmed teen leads to protests and Riot

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by underGRADFlame

http://www.buzzfeed.com/franciswhitt...-and-marijuana

From that article:

In August, Brown’s family asked former New York City Chief Medical Examiner Michael Baden to conduct a private autopsy. He also found that Brown was shot six times, and that the fatal bullet entered the top of his head either because the teen was giving up or charging at the officer.

Attorneys for Brown’s family said at the time that head shot went from a “back to front position” — consistent with eyewitnesses who said Brown was surrendering.

He also said there was no gunshot residue on his body, meaning Brown may not have been shot at close range. Still, Baden said, that was inconclusive because he didn’t have access to Brown clothes.

[underGRADFlame]

Originally Posted by rubecube

I don't think anyone on the opposite side is debating what they would do in the situation you've described. We're saying we don't believe that was in fact the way the situation went down.

Rube I don't want to get in to a pissing match at all here, but what do you believe went on... Physical evidence to me is pretty clear, are you say there is a larger conspiracy and that evidence has been faked? Because that is a huge undertaking in the media spot light thy has been on this event since the beginning.

[blankall]

The real nail in the coffin here comes from the witnesses with BS stories. There were enough witnesses telling BS stories, exaggerating, and parroting things they didn't actually see to make proving anything beyond a reasonable doubt impossible.

It's really unfortunate.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by underGRADFlame

Rube I don't want to get in to a pissing match at all here, but what do you believe went on... Physical evidence to me is pretty clear, are you say there is a larger conspiracy and that evidence has been faked? Because that is a huge undertaking in the media spot light thy has been on this event since the beginning.

No pissing match here. I think you're bringing up some valid points. And it's nice to see someone doing so without referring to Brown as a thug. I'm saying some of the physical evidence matches up with parts of Wilson's story, but some of it doesn't seem to, or that there is at least a debate to be had around it. I'm curious why so many articles, like the one you posted, put so much emphasis on one of the autopsy reports but fail to include the critical components from the second one.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by blankall

The real nail in the coffin here comes from the witnesses with BS stories. There were enough witnesses telling BS stories, exaggerating, and parroting things they didn't actually see to make proving anything beyond a reasonable doubt impossible.

It's really unfortunate.

I don't think they were intentionally trying to B.S. anyone. That's just the way eyewitness accounts tend to work.

[WhiteTiger]

Originally Posted by Bent Wookie

No, I get that.

If that's the case, what do you think of the article?

It's a good article (and I can recall seeing a sort of matching one talking for the 'other' side).

Thing is, most folks have made up there mind, period, and that's that. Evidence to the contrary be damned, what they feel happened happened. Anything else is misrepresented or a coverup or "not being considered in the right light".

I always hate when something like this happens (or something like the Zimmerman case) where short of a Divine Being (that everyone believes in!) coming down and saying "Verily, this is how this incident came to pass..." folks are going to believe that someone, somewhere is feeding them a line.

Originally Posted by rubecube

I don't think they were intentionally trying to B.S. anyone. That's just the way eyewitness accounts tend to work.

I guess that's the crux of the issue- You believe, that there was some conspiracy and injustice based what you believe are honest people trying to do right. Whereas a lot of others tend to side with the forensic evidence as it seems to corroborate the majority of witness accounts. In the absence of eyewitness testimony clouding the issue, the facts most clearly line up with officer Wilson's version of events.

I just don't know if it's worth debating anymore.

Further, personal biases towards police and authority are often at the heart of such debates. I tend to think there's some irony in believing that white cops target and kill black males yet its okay to project personal biases about police in such a situation.

[underGRADFlame]

Originally Posted by rubecube

No pissing match here. I think you're bringing up some valid points. And it's nice to see someone doing so without referring to Brown as a thug. I'm saying some of the physical evidence matches up with parts of Wilson's story, but some of it doesn't seem to, or that there is at least a debate to be had around it. I'm curious why so many articles, like the one you posted, put so much emphasis on one of the autopsy reports but fail to include the critical components from the second one.

I'm trying to look at this as a investigator would who wasn't there. My personal believes on Brown isn't relevant in the discussion about physical evidence.

I think the reason the second autopsy don't get as much credence is because it was one commissioned by the Brown family. The biggest discrepancy I believe is in if he was shot at close range or not, during the struggle in the vehicle. The fact that Brown's blood is on the vehicle inside and out as well as on Wilson's gun I believe shows that he was shot in the vehicle.

I would be very interested in the findings of the 3rd autopsy, which I haven't seen. But even with the 2nd autopsy I still feel it supports the events as described by Wilson.

[metallicat]

Cool little story, in a world full of bad stories.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/devonte-...ly-goes-viral/

[PsYcNeT]

I think we can all use some pure, unadulterated Schadenfreude about now.

http://racistsgettingfired.tumblr.com/

EDIT: NWS language, obvs.

[longsuffering]

Justice Antonin Scalia, in the 1992 Supreme Court case of United States v. Williams, explained what the role of a grand jury has been for hundreds of years.

Respublica v. Shaffer, 1 Dall. 236 (O. T. Phila. 1788); see also F. Wharton, Criminal Pleading and Practice § 360, pp. 248-249 (8th ed. 1880). As a consequence, neither in this country nor in England has the suspect under investigation by the grand jury ever been thought to have a right to testify or to have exculpatory evidence presented.

This passage was first highlighted by attorney Ian Samuel, a former clerk to Justice Scalia.

In contrast, McCulloch allowed Wilson to testify for hours before the grand jury and presented them with every scrap of exculpatory evidence available. In his press conference, McCulloch said that the grand jury did not indict because eyewitness testimony that established Wilson was acting in self-defense was contradicted by other exculpatory evidence. What McCulloch didn’t say is that he was under no obligation to present such evidence to the grand jury.

The only reason one would present such evidence is to reduce the chances that the grand jury would indict Darren Wilson.
Compare Justice Scalia’s description of the role of the grand jury to what the prosecutors told the Ferguson grand jury before they started their deliberations:

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/201...on-grand-jury/

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

I think we can all use some pure, unadulterated Schadenfreude about now.

http://racistsgettingfired.tumblr.com/

EDIT: NWS language, obvs.

WTF is going on on that page? It's a mess.

[Knalus]

Originally Posted by jar_e

Certainly interesting. What does the DA gain though? You'd have to think the political and public pressure was to indict and lay charges.

The DA's job is to lay charges against individuals investigated by the police. When one of those individuals is a police officer, a DA that lays charges against that officer runs the risk of souring his relationship with what are essentially co-workers.

In the case of this particular DA, who's father was a St. Louis area cop, and who works in the St. Louis area with the very police force he would be prosecuting, he has a very obvious conflict of interest. The conflict of interest is so great, if all he was interested in doing was avoiding being the one who laid charges against this officer, he should have recused himself. He did not. And with all the information that we are now given, it seems clearer now, after taking the time to look at the evidence - both presented and the manner in which it was presented - that the DA's goal was not only to passively avoid laying charges on Officer Wilson, but to actively ensure that charges would be dropped.

I believe that Conservative Justice Scalia has said it best - the DA was working against the traditional goals of the DA, and for the interests of the police in this case.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/201...on-grand-jury/

[Knalus]

Originally Posted by underGRADFlame

I'll throw my 2 cents in here. Eye witness's are crap... even the officer, who is a professional witness, his recollection of the even is skewed by emotion and could be effected by memory loss from the trauma of the event, believe it or not, an officer involved shooting is stressful for the officer. Eye witnesses are the most unreliable piece of evidence in a trial, because everyone comes in with their own agenda, pre conceived ideas and prejudice.

What makes me think that the events went down closer to Officer Wilson's account is the physical evidence at the scene and the autopsy. Physical evidence doesn't lie and what the evidence tells a story of is a physical altercation that turned deadly.

Here's an interesting article that matches up Wilson's testimony with evidence. Here

In this case, however, the officer is given a good look at the evidence before giving his eyewitness, and has been trained for years to know what is believable and what is not in a court of law. The officer can make his eyewitness statement look the most credible of the bunch, and should be inadmissible as a matter of course.

Physical evidence may not lie, but lies can be made to fit nearly any set of physical evidence available.

[Mike F]

Nothing to substantiate this, but my theory of this case is that the DA looked at all of the evidence gathered and determined that a charge wasn't warranted - that there was no reasonable possibility that a jury, properly instructed, would return a guilty verdict.

However, the DA simply choosing not to charge Officer Wilson would have resulted in a firestorm many magnitudes bigger than even the current one, so he put the evidence he'd seen before a panel of citizens and allowed them to come to that conclusion.

If that is the case, it was the most just way this could have played out.

Frankly, say what you want about what is supposed to be the approach of a DA in a grand jury hearing, a DA who doesn't believe that charges are warranted but nonetheless uses the one sided nature of the grand jury to put a skewed version forward in order to get an indictment would sicken me and would be a massive affront to justice.

[wittynickname]

Originally Posted by Mike F

Nothing to substantiate this, but my theory of this case is that the DA looked at all of the evidence gathered and determined that a charge wasn't warranted - that there was no reasonable possibility that a jury, properly instructed, would return a guilty verdict.

However, the DA simply choosing not to charge Officer Wilson would have resulted in a firestorm many magnitudes bigger than even the current one, so he put the evidence he'd seen before a panel of citizens and allowed them to come to that conclusion.

If that is the case, it was the most just way this could have played out.

Frankly, say what you want about what is supposed to be the approach of a DA in a grand jury hearing, a DA who doesn't believe that charges are warranted but nonetheless uses the one sided nature of the grand jury to put a skewed version forward in order to get an indictment would sicken me and would be a massive affront to justice.

Let's be honest here:

If Darren Wilson was just joe schmo and shot an unarmed man, and he wasn't a police officer, the DA would've made sure this went to trial. Grand juries very rarely reach an agreement to not indict a defendant.

The US desperately needs some kind of oversight in these incidents of police using deadly force, some kind of separate entity that investigates cases of police use of force, not a DA who regularly has to work with these same police in order to do his job.

There is no way that a DA that regularly works with a police force is going to risk his relationship with said police force in order to find an officer guilty, just as no police officer is going to out a fellow officer for excessive force, what with the fraternal nature of police.

This grand jury trial was grossly mishandled, just as pretty much every single thing since the shooting has been grossly mishandled by the Ferguson PD/StL PD/Governor of Missouri, etc. Top down, this whole situation has been marred with incompetence at best and corruption at worst.

[Hack&Lube]

I googled Ferguson looting pictures and I'm wondering why nobody has stolen a belt yet since all their pants are falling off. That fashion trend is the most nonsensical to me. Doesn't it make looting and running away even more difficult if your pants are falling off?

[nik-]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

I googled Ferguson looting pictures and I'm wondering why nobody has stolen a belt yet since all their pants are falling off. That fashion trend is the most nonsensical to me. Doesn't it make looting and running away even more difficult if your pants are falling off?

What does this add in any way to the conversation other than subtle racism?

[Mike F]

Originally Posted by wittynickname

Let's be honest here:

If Darren Wilson was just joe schmo and shot an unarmed man, and he wasn't a police officer, the DA would've made sure this went to trial. Grand juries very rarely reach an agreement to not indict a defendant.

If a joe schmo shoots an unarmed man, the DA doesn't believe that charges are warranted, and there's no massive pressure to avoid a PR disaster, it shouldn't go to trial or a grand jury.

As for juries rarely reaching an agreement to not indict, that's because of the completely imbalanced nature of the grand jury system, and an indictment of the system itself. Likely why the US is the only common law country to still employ it, and even in the US half the states don't use them.

I think it's telling that, from the vast majority of commentators I've read, there's little criticism of the grand jury's decision, only criticism of the DA's approach. I.e. "Ya, the jury was reasonable in deciding not to indict after seeing all of the evidence, but the DA could have used the inherent biases of the system to ensure an indictment but didn't, which was wrong."

As I said before, a DA's choice to present all of the evidence and let a jury decide seems like a completely just process.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by nik-

What does this add in any way to the conversation other than subtle racism?

I'm not trying to contribute to the debate. It was just an observation based on looking at images of what's going on down there. This trend is common to youth of different ethnicities and I think it's a nonsensical and impractical fashion choice either way, especially when you are looting. If I was looting, I'd pull my pants up so I could move better or get away. Looking at images of urban discord or chaos has always fascinated me whether it's Ferguson or Stanley Cup loss Vancouver.