Michael Brown shooting II

[davefoc]

You're definitely right about this in my opinion. The Ferguson PD ought to have immediately released the video of Mike Brown in the Ferguson Market and detailed the charges he'd have faced if he'd actually surrendered. A legend was born from that information void that buried Darren Wilson and the Ferguson PD.

The ones that arrested the reporters in the McDonalds were utter morons too. That's one of those things that's so stupid it makes you wonder if they were getting paid by Crump!

I am not quite sure what you are saying with regard to the release of the video. The problem with the release of the video was the way it was done. It looked like the police department was attempting to smear Brown as a way of indicating that the shooting was justified. It was a stupid thing to have done IMO. If they were going to release evidence they needed to release the evidence that provided information about the events related to the shooting including that video.

But I'm not sure there was a way to accomplish what I am saying. Clearly nobody was going to believe the police department if they released a bunch of self serving statements. The only thing that might have worked would have been an objective overview of the case released within the first couple of weeks but that kind of thing might have hindered the investigation in the long run. I don't think cops should be allowed to keep their jobs that invoke their right against self incrimination, but that is the way it is today. Would things have been better if a statement by Wilson had been released immediately? My guess is yes, but legally there was no way to compel him to make a statement early on as I understand it.

 

[qayak]

I am not quite sure what you are saying with regard to the release of the video. The problem with the release of the video was the way it was done. It looked like the police department was attempting to smear Brown as a way of indicating that the shooting was justified. It was a stupid thing to have done IMO. If they were going to release evidence they needed to release the evidence that provided information about the events related to the shooting including that video.

Exactly. They did not know Brown was involved for several days.

 

[qayak]

You need to stop living in your fantasy world, you clearly haven't read the GJ documents. For a start, you aware that the private autopsy done by the family was entered into evidence?

The document dump is another disturbing feature of all this. It just isn't done. SCOTUS has ruled that the way this GJ was run is unconstitutional. They have also ruled that the document dump does not satisfy requirements under the Constitution.

Justice Antonin Scalia explained the function of the grand jury in United States v. Williams as follows:

t is the grand jury’s function not “to enquire . . . upon what foundation [the charge may be] denied,” or otherwise to try the suspect’s defenses, but only to examine “upon what foundation [the charge] is made” by the prosecutor. [citations omitted] 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.

Every principle Scalia cited was violated in this case. The grand jury was asked to determine whether Wilson acted in self-defense. Wilson was allowed to give four hours of self-serving testimony to the grand jury. And for three months, prosecutors presented both incriminating and exculpatory evidence.

Something interesting that all you detectives seem to have missed, but San Francisco public defender, Jeff Adachi, caught was this:

“Prosecutors never asked Wilson why he did not attempt to drive away while Brown was allegedly reaching through his vehicle window or to reconcile the contradiction between his claim that Brown punched the left side of his face and the documented injuries which appear on his right side. ”

Also:

In Tennessee v. Garner, the Supreme Court held that an officer cannot arrest an unarmed felony suspect by shooting him dead. If the suspect threatens the officer with a weapon, or there is probable cause to believe he has committed a crime involving the infliction or threatened infliction of serious physical harm, deadly force may be used if necessary to prevent escape. Although there is a dispute about whether Wilson knew that Brown was suspected of stealing cigarillos before stopping him, Brown had likely committed petty theft – a non-violent misdemeanor, not a felony.

http://www.blog.saltlaw.org/

 

[WildCat]

Exactly. They did not know Brown was involved for several days.

Who is "they"? The police knew from the very first day. Darren Wilson knew they fit the suspects description when he drove his cruiser back to confront Brown and Johnson the second time.

 

[WildCat]

The document dump is another disturbing feature of all this. It just isn't done. SCOTUS has ruled that the way this GJ was run is unconstitutional. They have also ruled that the document dump does not satisfy requirements under the Constitution.



Something interesting that all you detectives seem to have missed, but San Francisco public defender, Jeff Adachi, caught was this:



Also:



http://www.blog.saltlaw.org/

Those court rulings don't say what you think they say.

 

[stanfr]

I do remodeling/rehabbing, plumbing, electrical, carpentry, etc. 2 weeks ago I sat on a Federal Court jury in a civil case, which I suspect is more experience in a courtroom than you've ever had.

Haha...and you base your suspicions apparently the same way you base all your conclusions, completely ignoring common sense and devoid of evidence. But thanks for your response, I should take up your profession since I would love to have unlimited free time. Oh, and incidentally, since you enjoy evidentiary digs, why don't you go back and find the first snide remark made between us in this thread. I wonder who made it...

 

[WildCat]

Haha...and you base your suspicions apparently the same way you base all your conclusions, completely ignoring common sense and devoid of evidence.

Yeah, evidence. Did the prosecution have any?

But thanks for your response, I should take up your profession since I would love to have unlimited free time. Oh, and incidentally, since you enjoy evidentiary digs, why don't you go back and find the first snide remark made between us in this thread. I wonder who made it...

Yeah, funny how people don't usually tear up their kitchens and bathrooms during the holidays, which means this time of year I usually have lots of free time.

Have you found a reason to put Wilson on trial yet that doesn't involve appeals to emotion?

 

[PhantomWolf]

I am not quite sure what you are saying with regard to the release of the video. The problem with the release of the video was the way it was done. It looked like the police department was attempting to smear Brown as a way of indicating that the shooting was justified. It was a stupid thing to have done IMO. If they were going to release evidence they needed to release the evidence that provided information about the events related to the shooting including that video.

But I'm not sure there was a way to accomplish what I am saying. Clearly nobody was going to believe the police department if they released a bunch of self serving statements. The only thing that might have worked would have been an objective overview of the case released within the first couple of weeks but that kind of thing might have hindered the investigation in the long run. I don't think cops should be allowed to keep their jobs that invoke their right against self incrimination, but that is the way it is today. Would things have been better if a statement by Wilson had been released immediately? My guess is yes, but legally there was no way to compel him to make a statement early on as I understand it.

You're the second person on this board today to declare that Police should have less rights that normal people.

As to releasing a statement from Wilson, no-one that had already made up their minds would have believed it anyway.

 

[stanfr]

For me it's because I have faith that most Juries are willing to look at the evidence and judge the case on that, not on biased emotions that have nothing to do with what actually happened.

The Physical Evidence doesn't lie, and the scene and the autopsies (all three of them) tell a story of their own. Even if we totally ignore every speck of eye witness testimony and just look at the physical evidence we start to get a story develop.

We have blood and tissue from Brown inside the car, and a near contact wound in Brown's hand the bullet exiting higher in the arm.

We have two shell cases in or near the car.

We have a cluster of shell casings 100-150 feet down the road

We have an audio recording of the shots, 6 rapid, a pause for about a second, and then four more rapid shots.

We have a clear blood trail that shoes that Brown headed away from the vehicle, and then turned and came back towards it.

We have the path of three bullets that were lodged in Brown's head and torso showing that his head and torso where pointed towards the shooter at the time he was hit.

We have a through and through wound to Brown's arm showing that his arm was not in front of his head at the time that bullet struck him

We have a grazing shot that indicates the same

I'd love to see a chart of the wounds because the direction of the bullet wounds to the arms would confirm and lot of things.

We have the position of the body when it fell, with the arms down at his side, not up above his head.

We have Brown's shoes and the spacing of the blood drops indicating he was running

We know that Brown covered 15-20 feet in a matter of seconds under fire based on the turning point, the time take to fire the final 10 shots, and his body position.

Why do we need eye witnesses? The physical evidence by itself pretty much tells us all we need to know, and it has no biases and doesn't lie.

Thanks, that was a thoughtful response and I appreciate your politeness, its refreshing after some of the retorts here.
I disagree that witnesses were not needed. In fact the witnesses are crucial here I would say. Many people have been convicted of murder at trial based on the testimony of ONE witness, if believed. Of course, the testimony has to be scrutinized to see if it matches the evidence. Here, the majority of the witnesses say Brown was doing something that was either surrendering or not acting in a threatening matter. Some of the witnesses were clearly more believable than others, but on a whole my reading of the statements given seem to indicate Brown did not pose an imminent threat (of course, the reasonable belief of the cop is another hurdle to clear...) Witness 14 for example, struck me as credible and I think one could indict based on that alone unless something contradicted it. I disagree with your numerous conclusions about what the forensics said. I also don't see how anything you stated gives a "clear picture" which exonerates Wilson. One interesting thing I note in the witness statements which are backed up by the evidence is that we all apparently agree that Brown turns around at some point, and comes back towards the officer. Many of the witness statements say that it was a result of him being shot while fleeing. Regardless, it poses the question, why would a person who has been shot and initially fleeing, come back for more? That's a puzzling question, and to me it makes no sense at all that he was coming back in order to disarm/hurt/kill Wilson. Again, thanks for your thoughts.

 

[PhantomWolf]

The document dump is another disturbing feature of all this.

Hah! Damned if you do, and damned if you don't. If they hadn't released the documents you'd be saying that they were hiding the evidence.

It just isn't done SCOTUS has ruled that the way this GJ was run is unconstitutional. They have also ruled that the document dump does not satisfy requirements under the Constitution.

Really, when did the SCOTUS rule on this case?

Something interesting that all you detectives seem to have missed, but San Francisco public defender, Jeff Adachi, caught was this:

Wow trying to recall a tussle he gets the side of the face wrong... OMG, that just proves all the physical evidence completely wrong, just like that!

Also:

In Tennessee v. Garner, the Supreme Court held that an officer cannot arrest an unarmed felony suspect by shooting him dead. If the suspect threatens the officer with a weapon, or there is probable cause to believe he has committed a crime involving the infliction or threatened infliction of serious physical harm, deadly force may be used if necessary to prevent escape. Although there is a dispute about whether Wilson knew that Brown was suspected of stealing cigarillos before stopping him, Brown had likely committed petty theft – a non-violent misdemeanor, not a felony.

http://www.blog.saltlaw.org/

You are aware that Brown was not actually shoot to arrest him or preventing him from escaping? He was shot in self defence when he started back towards Wilson in a way that looked like he meant to tackle and attack him.

 

[stanfr]

Have you found a reason to put Wilson on trial yet that doesn't involve appeals to emotion?

The witness statements are readily available, I suggest you read them.

 

[qayak]

Hah! Damned if you do, and damned if you don't. If they hadn't released the documents you'd be saying that they were hiding the evidence.

Obviously you have no clue as to how GJs work and what their purpose is.

Really, when did the SCOTUS rule on this case?

1980

In the 1980 case of Richmond Newspapers v. Virginia, the Supreme Court declared that the press and public have a First Amendment right of access to criminal trials. In the words of Justice William Brennan, “Open trials are bulwarks of our free and democratic government: Public access to court proceedings is one of the numerous ‘checks and balances’ of our system, because ‘contemporaneous review in the forum of public opinion is an effective restraint on possible abuse of judicial power.’ ”

The fact that 12 jurors witnessed the proceedings in St. Louis does not cure the constitutional violation. While jurors can function as surrogates for the public and a check on government misfeasance, the court affirmed in Richmond Newspapers that by impaneling a jury, the community did “not surrender its right to observe the conduct of trials” or its ability “to satisfy themselves that justice was in fact being done.” Disclosing results alone, the court declared, will not “satiate the natural community desire for ‘satisfaction,’ ” and “an unexpected outcome can cause a reaction that the system at best has failed and at worst has been corrupted.”


While the Supreme Court has never declared a right of access to grand jury proceedings, it has held that closure of pretrial proceedings that function like trials is unconstitutional. In Press Enterprise, for example, a 41-day probable-cause hearing was closed to the press and the public. Under California law, the probable-cause hearing was designed to determine whether the defendant could stand trial for the charges, much like in a grand jury proceeding. But, the court noted, the state process allowed broad introduction of evidence, meaning that it was “often the final and most important step in the criminal proceeding” and “the sole occasion for public observation of the criminal justice system.”

Wow trying to recall a tussle he gets the side of the face wrong... OMG, that just proves all the physical evidence completely wrong, just like that!

If that is the case, why are you so afraid that an attorney be allowed to question him on it? You want to bypass the system when it goes against your prejudices.

You are aware that Brown was not actually shoot to arrest him or preventing him from escaping? He was shot in self defence when he started back towards Wilson in a way that looked like he meant to tackle and attack him.

You are aware that evidence of witnesses that were closest to the scene was left out by the prosecutor during the GJ are you not? Their testimony and the autopsy evidence contradict the fabrications of Wilson.

The prosecutor made a mockery of the process and people are mocking it. It is a joke. If there is nothing to hide why did he use a secret GJ to present his case instead of using it to get an indictment and letting this go to a public preliminary hearing and trial if necessary. He bypassed the very system he insists others have faith in.

 

[stanfr]

Based on his actions it seemed to me Brown was acting out as though he were (temporarily) emotionally disturbed. Did Wilson use racially inflammatory language on him? We don't know but given the history in Ferguson it certainly seems possible. A wide range of legal and political persons had suggested from the start that McCulloch's office should recuse itself and allow a special prosecutor to be appointed. For one thing, long before the incident in which Michael Brown was shot to death, McCulloch had a reputation within the black community as a racist.

well, I think that Wilson made a lot of mistakes and missed opportunities to diffuse a situation that could have been diffused. I don't believe either Wilson or Johnsons account of the initial encounter. The truth is usually in between the two extremes. I suspect it is when Wilson backed up, either intentionally or not he struck Brown, words were exchanged, and that led to the scuffle at the car. I think a poor choice of words probably came from both mouths--the difference is, as a cop you're supposed to be able to handle an insult or two and not let it affect your behavior.

 

[qayak]

Yeah, evidence. Did the prosecution have any?

We'll never know because in this case the prosecutor turned out to be the defence attorney who held a trial of his own in secret that exonerated a cold blooded killer.

Great system that.

Just look at all the lawyers, public defenders, and prosecutors around the country who have said they have never seen a GJ run like this before and that it is against the law.

 

[stanfr]

Oopps, I have to admit to being wrong, it was actually 49 feet between the point Brown turns and his body, assuming that the police drawing is correctly to scale.

Based on that Brown covered 49 feet in 7 seconds (the time it took the shots to occur)

That's 7 feet a second or just over 2m/s, about 7.5 km per hour. Not a sprint, but it's about the speed a 1,000m runner goes at, so way faster than a stumble or stagger. Although this also assumes that he didn't slow on being hit by the two shots to his body, he might have started out faster

I'd also point out that there was no reason that he would have been staggering anyways, a shot to the arm doesn't make a person stagger, and all three shots to the torso indicate that he was bend down towards the shooter so he didn't bend over and stagger from one of them unless it was towards the end of the charge.

Aside from the assumption of 'correct scale', that also assumes the first shots were fired with Brown moving forward. I don't think that has been conclusively demonstrated, but im sure you'll correct me if i'm wrong

 

[stanfr]

Why is there an appearance of impropriety? Is it because of anything that the prosecutor did?

No, it is not.

The entire appearance, such as it is, is due to the actions of a third party. And it only even appears as an impropriety to people who don't actually understand what happened.

Is it your position that third parties should be able to create an "appearance of impropriety" even when the officials have done nothing improper, such that these officials will be forced to recuse themselves from some issue? Because that standard is ripe for abuse.

Why would a group which is ostensibly on the side of the prosecutor try to undermine him and get him recused? You're not making any sense. Look at it from the side of Brown's family (you know, the people the prosecutor supposedly are representing)--if some group taking donations for the killer was boasting it was giving funds to a group with heavy ties to the prosecutor, how would that make you feel? I'm sure you would be able to shrug it aside and say, nah, im not in the least bit concerned...

 

[qayak]

This isn't the first time the prosecutor has used this technique to protect police officers and he is known to lie to GJs in order to defend their murdering of innocnet people.

http://www.newsweek.com/ferguson-prosecutor-robert-p-mccullochs-long-history-siding-police-267357

Fourteen years ago, the two officers who shot Murray and Beasley were also invited to testify before the grand jury. Both men told jurors that Murray’s car was coming at them and that they feared being run over. McCulloch said that “every witness who was out there testified that it made some forward motion.” But a later federal investigation showed that the car had never come at the two officers: Murray never took his car out of reverse.
An exhaustive St. Louis Post-Dispatch investigation found that only three of the 13 detectives who testified had said the car moved forward: the two who unloaded their guns and a third whose testimony was, as McCulloch admitted, “obviously…completely wrong.” McCulloch never introduced independent evidence to help clarify for the grand jury whether Murray’s car moved forward.

 

[stanfr]

A little consistency in their testimony (people will see details and even big things differently so I don't just dismiss it totally out of hand) and corroboration from the physical evidence. Not only does the physical evidence not corroborate the testimony that Brown was no threat, it contradicts it.





The physical evidence together with witness testimony makes me conclude that the shooting was justified. 'Deserved' doesn't enter into it, as that's a loaded term.

For all my criticism of how Ferguson operates, and the police reactions, following the evidence doesn't let me find any other way. I'm also unmoved by your complaints about the process, which seems to boil down that for once a grand jury worked as intended without the prosecutor cherry picking to get the desired outcome and that there won't be the chance to get a jury biased against Wilson. Oh, and something about thinking that Wilson would have taken the stand and been cross examined. I don't believe that Wilson would have taken the stand in a trial, and I don't believe a cross examination would have provided any more evidence than was already presented.

What physical evidence "contradicts" the no threat part?

 

[jhunter1163]

sorry, I don't see anything that contradicts my statement, you'll have to be more specific.

The post I quoted was referencing the Cleveland shooting, not the Brown case. It was intended to show that police officers are trained not to use Tasers in deadly-force situations, as they do not reliably stop aggressive suspects.

 

[stanfr]

I'm implying no such thing, do you have a problem reading for comprehension?

It appears the state of Missouri is satisfied no impropriety, nor the appearance of one with regards to Robert McCulloch took place in this case, if you have information that says differently please post it.

The fact stanfr believes there's an air of impropriety shown by the prosecuter in this case, yet has no evidence to support such a claim does indeed make it a conspiracy or do you not understand the term either?

You are completely missing the nuances here. Or perhaps you are intentionally misquoting me. I have no where stated that the prosecutor was aware a group that was fundraising for Wilson was claiming it was providing funds to an organization in close ties to the prosecutor. That's your misinterpretation. What I have said is the fact that those representations were made raises the issue of conflict of interest, through the appearance of impropriety (which does not require conclusive proof that the prosecutor knew about the fund-raising issue) and is just one more reason why this prosecutor should not have been in charge here.