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Post by Deleted on Aug 18, 2014 12:33:30 GMT
So... I figured a few days of protests, a riot. But, we're going on 9 days of protesting and riots now.. Yikes. I feel for the family of the boy who was shot and for the families who live in Ferguson. Many of the rioters/looters aren't even from the town. Super big mess, that is for sure.
At first the police were definitely heavy-handed in their response. But, now, with Molotovs being thrown at them, shots fired at police cars, and continued looting of stores I'm not sure I blame the police (and now the Missouri National Guard) from getting involved.
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Post by tantalyr on Aug 18, 2014 15:00:41 GMT
Echoing the Bard, in these terrible circumstances I shout "A pox on both your houses!"
The officer who shot Brown at least initially appears to have used excessive force in shooting him, particularly in light of today's preliminary autopsy report which concludes that (a) Brown was shot at range, not during some scuffle with the officer, and (b) the two fatal headshots were fired from ABOVE Brown (each had a downward trajectory), meaning that Brown was either falling, or on his knees or on the ground. The police showing up in full military gear (apparently just to intimidate civilians) didn't help matters at all and, in fact, likely exacerbated the tensions after the shooting. And the idiot police chief who subpoenaed and then released the store security video of Brown (apparently) stealing some cheap cigars should be fired immediately. All he did by uploading that video to the media (indeed the entire Internet universe) was (a) engage in post hoc character assassination (particularly given the undisputed fact that the officer who shot Brown was NOT responding to that robbery report when he encountered Brown), and (b) mark that convenience store for pillaging--which in fact occurred the night the video was released.
On the other hand, I would point out that the vast majority of the businesses which have been looted and burned by the almost-all black "protestors" were themselves owned by African-Americans and other minorities. So I would ask in all sincerity how looting and wrecking those businesses reflects any sort of anger or protest against the WHITE justice system or police force. Protests are all well and good. Indeed, peaceful protests are one of the bedrock rights of any democracy. But there is NO excuse, NO justification, for robbing and pillaging businesses (or residents).
Again I shout: "A pox on both your houses!"
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Post by FrithRae on Aug 18, 2014 18:18:03 GMT
That's always the case with riots... if they made sense and were logical they wouldn't be riots.
People don't bus out of town to a suburb and THEN riot. They walk out their house and RIOT.
Destroying their own neighborhoods and being asshats in the process. They deserve their own consequences.
But to me its lasted so long because of the ongoing building anxiety and aggression between the government/law enforcement and the growing tension in this country in class warfare. It all gets to "let off some steam" and spill over into stuff like this.
The biased media reports painting an increasingly negative, aggressive, and hostile view of anyone with a uniform and how much they abuse power - the growing meta-anxiety of the downfall of the state/economic collapse of civilization (how many survival shows, Armageddon shows, and 'holy shit the world is goin got hell tomorrow' shows do we watch on documentary programming now?) - all of it feeds the fuel when shit like this happens.
On top of showing up in military gear when the populace is already convinced you're too violent and aggressive....
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Post by Deleted on Aug 18, 2014 20:47:10 GMT
In this case, however, a lot of the people involved are NOT from Ferguson. Many of the Ferguson residents have been disavowing those who are doing the rioting and looting, preferring instead to have peaceful rallies.
In the first few days of rioting the police arrested quite a few who had looted stores and the media published their names on the news. Turns out most were from other towns and they drove in to Ferguson to loot.
So far I believe the majority want a peaceful resolution. However, they do want a resolution.
They showed a bunch of video today and yesterday on the local news of people throwing molotovs and it mostly appeared to be young men. We know that the Black Panthers were in town so I wonder how much they are involved with the latest violence.
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Post by FrithRae on Aug 20, 2014 17:35:40 GMT
True.. people will bus in to riot...
But they don't bus out to roit - heh...
Many people bus/drive/go in simply because its a chance to do chaos and not get in trouble. Ahhh /humanity...
But I do agree with that publishing names on the news thing - I think they should do that with everyone who gets arrested/caught rioting... definitely heh.
I do believe most want a peaceful resolution. Unfortunately, the only resolution that will "keep peace" or "be a resolution" at all is if the guilty cop is hung out to dry and they admit he shouldn't have shot. I somehow don't see that happening, regardless of what the truth is.
Anything short of that and no, the people wanting the resolution won't be happy and they'll be more rioting.
Its always amusing to me when people say "I just want this resolved. I just want you to understand." When in actuality they mean, "you only understand and its only resolved if you do what I say/the way I want..."
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Post by Deleted on Aug 20, 2014 18:17:02 GMT
Oof... www.cnn.com/2014/08/20/us/ferguson-column-police-reaction/index.html?hpt=hp_t1 LA cops are already known for being heavy-handed and brutal. So no surprise this guy has this attitude. But yikes, that's scary. I think Sunil Dutta (and likely the majority of the rest of America) needs to remember that respect is a two-way street. You have to give to get. You cannot get true respect with a gun or just because you have a badge.
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xaeris
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Post by xaeris on Aug 21, 2014 4:18:22 GMT
It's a vicious circle.
People have this "Fuck the police!" attitude, and so the police are prone to using force at any sign of danger to themselves because a large portion of the public (especially minorities) are prone to be hostile to police.
Picture yourself as a cop. You pull someone over, you don't know what that guy is doing. You don't know what he has in his car. You don't know if he's hostile to police. You walk over to his car and you give him instructions and he's not completely cooperative and seems to not like you very much. You instruct him to keep his hands on the steering wheel where you can see them, but suddenly he reaches for the passenger seat.
What do you do?
Do you repeat your commands to keep his hands where you can see them? He could be reaching for a gun. Do you open fire in the heat of the moment? There's a good chance that he might have been reaching for something non-threatening and then you're suddenly front-page news and not in the good way.
A lot of these situations are lose-lose for the cops. They either hesitate and get shot, or they shoot first and end up having to resign after a huge shitstorm over their actions, warranted or not.
I can't say I disagree with some of the things Dutta says in the article you linked. If you're not doing anything wrong, then just cooperate. The minute you get hostile with the police is the minute you give them a reason to suspect you of something. Now, true, like he says, there Are crooked cops, but resisting/being hostile to them isn't going to help you even if it is a crooked cop. It just gives him an excuse.
Fighting the police at the scene of an arrest never gets you anywhere. It will likely (as Dutta said) get you shot, sprayed, tackled, or tasered or any combination of the above.
It is a sad world, but the truth of it is, there are a Lot of minorities that end up in gangs and other illegal activities. I am not a racist; I have nothing against minorities or anybody whatsoever based upon their skin color or any other trait... but one has to accept simple statistics. If you see this hispanic or black guy walking around covered in tattoos with a shaved head, with piercings everywhere, then you're bound to have certain first impressions about this guy.
That's just how it goes.
I'm not, however, condoning shooting kids but again, I'm sure there've been cases with teenagers with real guns, you just don't know anymore. At the end of the day, the cops wanna live to see the end of their shift and go back to their families.
It ain't the cops' fault if there are so many violent criminals around these days. I certainly can't blame them for being a bit twitchy and quick to assume the guy they're pulling over is a threat.
But then you can't really blame the people for having a poor opinion of the police, either. Like I said, it is a vicious circle -- the "Fuck the Police!" attitude going around makes cops jumpy and prone to using force at the smallest sign of danger. The cops using force at the first sign of danger makes the public hate them more which leads to the "Fuck the police" notion. It just goes on and on and on.
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Post by Pharcellus on Aug 23, 2014 19:28:30 GMT
It is even worse. Kajieme Powell was killed by police in a "suicide-by-cop" altercation that lasted 23 seconds.
In the amateur video, it was clear he wanted them to kill him, and it appeared he didn't want anyone else to get hurt. He kept looking back, checking to see who was behind him, and changing his position so the cops, if they shot him and missed, wouldn't hit the people nearby.
It is weird to see someone so intent on getting shot and killed worried about involving other people. Normally, you wouldn't expect someone in that state of mind to care anymore.
The question is, did police use excessive force? Experts (police experts, of course) say "no". However, with so many other methods of de-escalating and subduing people at their disposal, you will note that the cops always go for the quickest and easiest solution to any situation: deadly force, and LOTS of it.
They didn't discharge their weapons in defense of themselves, they executed a man. You don't keep shooting someone when they are going down. Likely, the same exact thing happened to Michael Brown; it is unfortunate that we don't have as good a video evidence of it, but the autopsy reports give us a pretty good inkling of what happened.
The police are excessively militarized, poorly trained, and a good number of them are psychologically unfit for the job. To the first point, even, it seems like they are BEGGING for a problem that they can break out their "toys" and go play "soldier". It is sickening and stupid, and we really need to crack down on the people and process that keeps fueling this bullshit.
On a related note, the Black Panthers Gun Club in Texas sported an #OpenCarry rally; do you think this will end well? I am sure I can hear the NRA coming out in full support of them any minute now...
..yep, any minute..
..just wait for it..
*crickets*
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Post by FrithRae on Aug 25, 2014 17:36:58 GMT
No you aren't suppose to keep shooting someone as they are going down.
But once adrenaline is high and someone pulls a trigger - people overestimate just how much awareness and "in control" a human (without LOTS of training) is in at that point.
And no, our cops don't have near enough training to NOT respond the way 90% of us would respond if we were about to shoot someone/just shot someone.
90% of us when surrounded by others with guns, who started fighting, would also start firing (i.e. if just one person misfires or jumps the gun, literally, the whole squad is going to follow the bang...) - even if we had no intention on firing.
90% of us, when finding ourselves in a situation where we have to pull the trigger of a gun to protect ourselves, would continue to pull that trigger - without a single conscious awarenss/thought about it - until that chamber was empty. Whether the person was dead, down, or not.
Its called what happens when shit hits the fan - when there's an emergency and you're body is flooded with adrenaline and other hormones - and instinctual reactions (like tensing up so much you're firing 10 rounds when you are only consciously aware of 2...) that our body engages in once we hit "fight or flight" mode.
The training required to overcome those reactions, to make people "use" to riding that wave and being REALLY in control - is much more than 3 months of Police Training and rounds at the gun range a few times a year in practice.
It requires more money to actually do something about this issue... money to train the cops the way they SHOULD be trained... money to PAY the cops so you get you know.. people WORTH having as cops... As the states continue to cut funding all the way around to everything but "prisons" and their own personal pensions... well.
Then you're going to get less and less training over time, less and less qualified individuals even wanting to do the job due to the shit pay and danger, but more and more auto-safe/auto-aggressive equipment (to make up for that lack of training).
Anyone assuming they'd be able to maintain their logical thinking, controlled, presence of mind to only conduct themselves in the "right and approved professional" ways once they are put into a confrontation that could at any minute go life-or-death - is fooling themselves unless they've already had the experience and know what they would do.
No, you (people..) don't know how/what you would do. You have no idea.
If they want to change something, edumacate....edumacate... edumacate....
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Post by Pharcellus on Nov 25, 2014 4:00:35 GMT
A sagely person once said somewhere:
"There's a time-honored axiom in the law, Kula, that goes like this: "A prosecutor could indict a ham sandwich." Given the processes of a grand jury--including that the targeted defendant cannot testify on his own behalf unless he's "invited" to by the prosecutor, and even when the defendant testifies he cannot have his counsel with him in the grand jury room--it's pretty much of a charade. It's the very poor prosecutor who, in such a one-sided process, cannot get a grand jury to indict whomever he's after. Scary thought, but it's true."
Perhaps they should have charged a ham sandwich instead. Even given the fact that Michael Brown didn't choke to death on one, maybe there would have been a better chance of getting an indictment than a white cop killing an unarmed black man.
We can decry all the violence and riots all we want, but when we continue to shit on people's rights, can you ultimately really blame them?
I blame the system more than I blame the people.
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Post by tantalyr on Nov 25, 2014 14:55:00 GMT
Initially I must confess my great surprise to hear the DA last night state that the prosecutors offered the grand jury only five possible indictments--ranging from first degree murder to involuntary manslaughter, all of them felonies. I would have thought that the prosecutors would have also given the grand jury the opportunity to indict for such misdemeanor offenses as official repression so that the grand jurors could reject the felony offenses considering all the circumstances, but still indict Officer Wilson for misdemeanor offenses in order to "save face."
That said, and assuming the truth and accuracy of the DA's remarks last night with respect to all of the evidence gathered and presented to the grand jury, it seems to me that the justice was indeed served. The jury heard from dozens of witnesses--many of whom either kept changing their stories, or admitted their version of events wasn't based upon actually seeing the shooting but upon what they had heard or assumed, or whose testimony conflicted with all the physical evidence (e.g., two autopsies, location of shell casings and blood stains, etc.)--as well as questioning and listening to forensic medical examiners and examining all the physical evidence. Unlike us (or any of the talking heads and bloggers and politicians out there), the grand jurors were in the sole position of judging the credibility of all the witnesses. And as in any trial, the credibility of the witnesses here was the key here.
Credibility is not determined simply from the spoken testimony--like has the witness's story changed over time, or does the story match up to the physical evidence--but from such factors as the witness's body language, and voice tone and inflection. So simply reading the transcript of all those witness's testimony will not give anyone the full impression of the credibility of those witnesses.
At the end of the day, as happens in any trial, at least four of the grand jurors (apparently in Missouri it takes at least nine grand jurors to agree on an indictment)determined that some witnesses were more credible than others due to any number of factors. They apparently believed those witnesses to the actual shooting who consistently stated (both to the police in the initial investigation and in testimony before the grand jury) that Michael Brown--who was 6'4" and weighed 300 pounds--was charging Officer Wilson when he was shot and killed. And this after, undisputedly, he had robbed a convenience store and twice punched Officer Wilson in Wilson's police SUV.
The shooting was indeed a tragedy. But don't believe for a moment that the justice system did not work in this case. From all appearances, the system worked precisely as it is designed to do.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 25, 2014 16:55:34 GMT
The system failed Michael Brown, plain and simple. It may have worked as intended to exonerate the police officer, but the system failed the victim from the start. When police officers resort to deadly force as a first-resort rather than a last-resort then the system has failed.
Officer is punched and fires gun in car twice. Victim runs. Rather than calling for backup and stating he'd been attacked, officer gets out of his car and pursues. Simple enough (if you aren't enraged) to sit back and think... hey, we'll catch this guy. WE have his description, we know where he lives, etc. Instead, the officer chased and when confronted fired 10 shots.
In addition, he didn't carry a Taser which he could have used to great effect to subdue instead of kill. His reasoning? "Its uncomfortable to wear". So is a bullet-proof vest, but you do it to protect your own life. The officer seems to have forgotten that he is mandated with protecting other's lives as well, including the man he killed.
However, the officer isn't the only one to fail Michael Brown. Local governments, the prosecutor, and even the Governor failed Michael Brown and the entire community by not taking more decisive action on the racial tones, on the militarized police response, and on the future of police response in these communities.
Its a sad nation we live in, one that has become all too obsessed with guns and death, when it can be treated so callously.
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Post by tantalyr on Nov 25, 2014 17:35:56 GMT
One small correction Amon: According to the DA last night, Officer Wilson did indeed call for backup before exiting his vehicle and chasing Brown. That backup police unit (again according to the DA) arrived at the scene within seconds after Brown was shot and killed.
Carry on.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 25, 2014 17:37:06 GMT
I stand corrected, though it makes one wonder why he didn't wait for the backup he called.
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Post by Pharcellus on Nov 25, 2014 20:33:32 GMT
Eyewitness testimony has long been known to be wholly or mostly useless in determining the facts of a case. The general public are notoriously bad witnesses to anything.
That said, "justice" was not served. A highly-trained, well-armed police officer shot and killed an UNARMED youth. I don't care how big he was; "officer" Wilson was no pantywaist, had years of martial training and experience himself, and yet the ONLY tactic he employed was to "stand his ground" and fill the kid full of bullets. In other words, the "easy way out". Michael Brown wasn't worth saving, in his mind, because he was not white, and he was a suspected criminal. I don't have to be a psychologist with multiple PhDs to figure that part out. The scientific evidence of the bullet-ridden corpse of Michael Brown testifies to that fact.
Which is irrelevant, since Wilson had no way to know, for sure at that time, that Michael Brown was indeed the perpetrator. A police officer, for good reason, is not intended to be judge, jury, and executioner. Acting like one should be considered reprehensible and punished accordingly.
I saw the "after" pictures of Wilson. His face had hardly any marks or swelling from the supposed "punches" of a 6'4" 300lb male. On the other hand, I don't think there is any question about the source and nature of the damage inflicted on Michael Brown -- multiple terminal kinetic energy poisoning events. A less measured and proportional response I cannot easily imagine.
The so-called "justice" system most definitely did work as intended. A member of the detritus of society was publicly euthanized by someone sworn to uphold the status quo. The problem is that this is hardly an isolated incident. It is only one of a string of events happening across the country that are indicative of a WHOLESALE SYSTEMIC FAILURE.
If this is the way the system was designed, I think it is high time to tear it all down and rebuild it from scratch. Looks like the people of Ferguson are already a step ahead of me.
I would even have a tiny bit of sympathy for Wilson *IF* he had, fairly soon afterwards, went to the family and apologized to their faces. THAT would have been respectful. THAT would have been the honorable thing to do. If I had ever killed someone in the line of duty as a police officer, regardless of the circumstances, I would be so remorseful, that NO ONE would stop me from trying to go to the victim's family and apologizing in person. I wouldn't grovel or beg their forgiveness, but they would know, in no uncertain terms, just how much their child's/spouse's/parent's life did mean to me and that it was my failure that they were dead -- that I couldn't figure out any other way to deal with the situation than what happened, and that I would accept whatever judgment they, and the legal "system" saw fit to punish me with. It would all pale in comparison to what I would do to myself internally.
I don't give a DAMN about the legal consequences of doing that. Sometimes, the RIGHT thing to do isn't the most LEGALLY APPROPRIATE thing to do. We all know that the LAW is not congruent with ethics. We shouldn't be a nation of laws, we should be a nation of ethics.
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