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Michael Brown Shooting

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Were the reporters conducting interviews inside the restaurant? A McDonalds is not a public place. Could they have been causing a crowd and disturbance which interfered with patrons wishing to buy a meal and sit down to eat?
 
Cylinder said:
Since we seldom agree on issues, I hope you don't take this as snark. Use your common sense and that inner alarm system when you're out, be mindful of crowds, etc... It's probably not the time to be getting lost in an unfamiliar neighborhood with your family, etc...

The violence seems to be very isolated (and you can report that here better than I can assert it from media impressions. Just be careful, buddy. Crap like this has potential for getting very ugly very quickly.
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I very much appreciate that, but I was not a fan of Ferguson before all this went down. The cops there have had a bad reputation for a long time, even in the opinions of other cops I know.

eta: But to your concern, I don't generally go to Ferguson and, so far, none of the violence has drifted south to where I am.
 
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William Parcher said:
Were the reporters conducting interviews inside the restaurant? A McDonalds is not a public place. Could they have been causing a crowd and disturbance which interfered with patrons wishing to buy a meal and sit down to eat?
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I don't know. My understanding is that they were using it as a place to file reports and confer with one another. I have no reason to believe that they were preventing anyone from eating or that they were not also buying food there, themselves.
 
William Parcher said:
Were the reporters conducting interviews inside the restaurant? A McDonalds is not a public place. Could they have been causing a crowd and disturbance which interfered with patrons wishing to buy a meal and sit down to eat?
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No, this isn't like that Burger King with all the old Koreans hogging space. The manager said he was "shaken up", and was not involved.
 
A little more detail on the McDonalds reporter thing. Nothing to indicate that the McDonalds did not want the reporters there and it certainly wasn't full enough that the reporters were preventing the restaurant from doing business.
 
Again, sorry if I'm repeating.

The Ferguson police chief has denied that Brown had been in possession of the gun or that he, Brown, ever fired on the officer.

He said the officer who killed Michael Brown was the only person who fired the gun, disputing claims that Brown wrestled the gun away momentarily and attempted to shoot the officer. The chief added that the officer in question was taken to the hospital to be examined for facial injuries. Jackson said one side of the officer's face was swollen.
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Lowery was illegally instructed to stop taking video...
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Is it actually illegal to tell the reporter to stop taking video? Or, is it only illegal to prevent him from taking video?
 
William Parcher said:
Is is illegal for a cop to utter the words "stop filming" and do nothing more than that?
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I am not really sure. Here's an article that discusses the question.

http://reason.com/archives/2012/04/05/7-rules-for-recording-police

Here is the law in Missouri.

http://www.rcfp.org/reporters-recording-guide/state-state-guide/missouri

In-person conversations: It is unlawful to record an “oral communication,” which is defined as “any communication uttered by a person exhibiting an expectation that such communication is not subject to interception under circumstances justifying such expectation.” Mo. Ann. Stat. § 542.400. Thus, a journalist does not need consent to record conversations in public where there is no reasonable expectation of privacy. - See more at: http://www.rcfp.org/reporters-recording-guide/state-state-guide/missouri#sthash.nIzXOnFg.dpuf
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Given the stress of police work and the dynamics at work I'm not that surprised at this incident.

A couple of years ago in Brooklyn an emotionally disturbed person was shot and killed by police. Members in the community charged the police had executed this man and they were shocked and outraged. NYPD agreed to investigate it but they said they thought the charges were completely unfounded if not totally preposterous. Police officers don't execute people.

Then Internal Affairs detectives found footage from a store surveillance camera. It clearly showed an officer, a lieutenant, walking up to the suspect and shooting him several times while other officers stood watching. The lieutenant was arrested and charged with murder. While out on bail he killed himself.

Strange world we live in.
 
William Parcher said:
The news article implies that it is illegal for the cop to utter the words stop filming .
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In police work, there are actions defined as lawful requests (or lawful order), such as asking a crowd of onlookers to move away from an accident scene so paramedics can get in and do their job. Officers are allowed to arrest those who do not comply with a lawful request.

These requests are focused to specific situations and incidents. If they are broadly-defined, then they would actually be laws, instead.

Not every request an officer makes has to be lawful. For example, asking a speeder, "Do you mind if I search your vehicle?" The speeder is under no obligation to comply.

But an unlawful request is not an illegal action. An officer can tell people to stop filming, but he can't arrest them if they fail to comply. A person may be obstructing police/emergency work in the process of filming, but it is not the act of filming itself that is the problem.

I have never heard of an officer facing anything more than a stern talking-to for giving an unlawful request.
 
dudalb said:
Just checked out a few major news website comment boards.The out and out racism is disgusting. I knew those are cesspools,but now they are overflowing.
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Whether intentional or not, I think we are seeing a classic divide and rule strategy WRT the militarization of the police. These people spewing racist invective would otherwise shriek in outrage if and when white people were treated like this by the police (which they are BTW, it just doesn't happen as much as it does to as black people). These useful idiots are letting their racism distract them from the fact that big gubmint is using the police like a domestic army to put down citizen protests against government abuses.
 
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