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Michael Brown Shooting

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In simplest terms, and resisting my natural inclination toward wordiness:

If you assault a police officer, injure his head, and make a grab for his firearm - he is completely justified in believing you've just made an attempt on his life. If he gains control of the firearm and you then run some distance from him, and do anything other than absolute and prompt surrender and compliance... I think that officer is completely justified in "executing" you. And if you do some sort of last instant pseudo-surrender after bullets are already flying, I'm not going to judge the officer too harshly if he didn't recognize it in time and you still end up going down.

Those are the sorts of actions which a criminal can take which make the encounter a whole other ball game. Those are the sorts of actions which a person should EXPECT to be killed by the officer for engaging in.
 
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tyr_13 said:
Unless the officer was about as tall as Brown, such a shot from distance would have been next to impossible with Brown standing or on his knees, even with head bent down. The lack of powder burns on his flesh make those shots specifically to be very unlikely done from close range. It was the clothing that the family's autopsy didn't have access to. It's also extremely unlikely that the police autopsy did or could remove such burns from the top of his head. At least part of the witness recollections have to be wrong in order to be consistent with the autopsy we have linked to. EDIT: For example, he could have had his arms up after getting shot, head down, on knees and bent forward.

That of course doesn't mean the ways in which they are wrong are purposeful or that even them being wrong means the shooting was justified.
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I'm not one who ever thought the couple informal claims he was executed while on the ground were credible. So I'm not quite sure which scenario you are ruling out here.

The injuries are consistent (but not yet confirmed) with Brown trying to surrender with hands up then moving to get down on the ground where you would put your head down and your arms out to get down with.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
I'm not one who ever thought the couple informal claims he was executed while on the ground were credible. So I'm not quite sure which scenario you are ruling out here.

The injuries are consistent (but not yet confirmed) with Brown trying to surrender with hands up then moving to get down on the ground where you would put your head down and your arms out to get down with.
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And also consistent with a man who was charging, head downward, at someone or something with intent to tackle.

See: a football game.
 
Who here really believes you should be able to assault a police officer and try to take his firearm, and expect to come out of that situation alive?

Who here really believes someone who does that cannot reasonably be seen as a threat to society at large if he's allowed to escape?
 
The injuries are consistent with Brown charging at Wilson, and Wilson firing until Brown hit the ground, as far as I am concerned.

Unless there is new info, I guess we are just going to disagree amongst ourselves for now.
 
LTC8K6 said:
The injuries are consistent with Brown charging at Wilson, and Wilson firing until Brown hit the ground, as far as I am concerned.

Unless there is new info, I guess we are just going to disagree amongst ourselves for now.
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That describes most of the thread ? ;)
 
I should add one more thing. There were injuries to Brown's face that Dr Baden said were likely caused post-mortem (or ante-mortem) when the last head shot killed him instantly and he dropped like a stone.

Meaning he wasn't yet on the ground, but his head was bent over when the top of his head was struck.

Unless one believes the far fetched charging like a bull scenario, Brown was getting down on the ground when he was killed.

You can excuse the officer as having shot so fast he didn't stop in time when Brown tried to surrender. Like I said, negligent excessive use of force. But this officer acted rashly, like a pissed off cop.

I don't see a calm, controlled scenario where Wilson felt threatened that would end with that top head shot.
 
LTC8K6 said:
Baden says there was a shot that entered the top of the head, traveling at an angle downwards, as if the head was bent over.

There are, of course, numerous ways to have that happen, some of which favor one version of events, soem of which favor other versions of events.

Praying for mercy.

Charging like a bull.

Surrendering with head bowed.

Falling forward as the last shots hit him.

Etc.
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You don't fall forward before the shot that made you fall forward hits you.

The other head shot was also top down> in the eyebrow, out the eye, in the jaw, out the jaw, in the chest. If that caused him to fall, it too was with the head bent down.
 
LTC8K6 said:
Well, Baden said it was the last shot.

It's beyond me how he can tell.

I presume, since he doesn't think any of the arm shots were fatal,or had any fatal fragments or ricochets, he is just going with the two head shots being last, and logically if you are falling forward, they would be in order.

If you think the head was already bowed or down, then I don't know how you define the order.

So, I think Baden thinks the head was falling forward as the last 2 shots were fired.
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Baden clearly said you cannot tell the order of the wounds. But the kill shot did drop Brown for two reasons, it was an instant kill injury to the brain, and Brown had facial injuries from a deadweight fall.

Baden only said it was likely the two head shots were last.

I'm guessing Wilson was finally close enough to hit his target. But that's not an evidence based guess.
 
tyr_13 said:
I'm not sure how he can tell that exactly, but I can think of several ways to help narrow down the likely order without strict medical knowledge.
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I interpreted his finding to mean that Brown would have been medically unable to stand almost instantly after the head shot. Since he fell forward (covering his chest) and every indicator seems to point to Brown standing when he was shot, the head shot becomes the final one.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
You don't fall forward before the shot that made you fall forward hits you.

The other head shot was also top down> in the eyebrow, out the eye, in the jaw, out the jaw, in the chest. If that caused him to fall, it too was with the head bent down.
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I'll remind you that the county autopsy leak said 6 or 8 GSW, and this:

Michael Brown was shot in the head and chest multiple times, according to Mary Case, the St. Louis County medical examiner.
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I'm thinking we may have a direct chest shot or two.

“It sounds consistent,” Benjamin Crump, an attorney for Brown’s family, told The Washington Post. Brown’s attorneys believe Darren Wilson may have fired more than six shots, but “we wanted to err on the side of caution.”
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Skeptic Ginger said:
I should add one more thing. There were injuries to Brown's face that Dr Baden said were likely caused post-mortem (or ante-mortem) when the last head shot killed him instantly and he dropped like a stone.

Meaning he wasn't yet on the ground, but his head was bent over when the top of his head was struck.
Unless one believes the far fetched charging like a bull scenario, Brown was getting down on the ground when he was killed.
You can excuse the officer as having shot so fast he didn't stop in time when Brown tried to surrender. Like I said, negligent excessive use of force. But this officer acted rashly, like a pissed off cop.
I don't see a calm, controlled scenario where Wilson felt threatened that would end with that top head shot.
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I'm not clear on how you're determining that he has to have either been charging head down like a bull OR kneeling as a surrender. How have you ruled out falling forward? Another extremely well known ME (Cyril Wecht), on CNN just said falling forward was the most likely scenario for those wounds! Like 10 minutes ago. So I certainly don't see how you're seemingly ruling that out.

Lastly, would you not be pissed off if someone just unexpectedly and unprovoked attempted to murder you so they could avoid getting busted for stealing cigars?
 
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