Michael Brown shooting II
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The Central Scrutinizer
Penultimate Amazing
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The Warriors will not appreciate the irony.
davefoc
Philosopher
I don't think it's weird. When you are in the minority it is difficult to determine sometimes whether you're getting screwed because of your minority status. Bad stuff happens to people even when they belong to a majority group, but it is also true that people may have biases that lead to mistreatment of your group. I think it's a natural thing to want to have a review of the situation by people that you trust more than the majority group. Unfortunately, from my point of view, I agree with the Wilson cheerleaders in this thread that there is pandering going on by black activists to advance their own agenda and I am concerned that there self interest will make it difficult for this approach to produce credible results.
The cheerleaders for Wilson in this thread have consistently wanted to turn this into a slam dunk situation in which every piece of evidence is examined with an eye to figuring out how it wasn't Wilson's fault. I'm not black and I'm skeptical of the motivations of the people in this thread that have done that although, I think, in this thread other biases than racial prejudice are at work.
Bogative
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100% according to what one of the organizers said when he announced the alternative grand jury back on December 12:
Maybe he's just clairvoyant?
The Central Scrutinizer
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http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/michael-brown-grand-juror-sues-st-louis-county-prosecutor-asking/article_e88d07f3-5e9d-57d9-a7a1-cdcd85de9633.html
Translation: I want to write a book and try to cash in.
Translation: I want to write a book and try to cash in.
tsig
a carbon based life-form
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It's the American Way.
plague311
Great minds think...
In this case it seems like they're starting with confirmation bias because they're in a minority. So they're using people only of that minority to "confirm" there was bias.
I guess the relevant question would be, do you think the Grand Jury got it wrong? Just a simple question. Was the Grand Jury decision right or wrong? Leave all skin color out of it.
I find people I trust, and know fairly well are the people I don't ask for a non-bias answer. Humans have a tendency to side with the people they know and trust no matter what.
Little poisoning the well there, I like how that was slid in there. If you feel the Grand Jury got it right, then you're a Wilson cheerleader.
I think the activists picked the wrong case to get behind. The Eric case was deplorable, and illustrated social injustice much more clearly.
It's happened on both sides of the fence, and your implying that it's only "Wilson Cheerleaders" that are guilty is showing where you actually stand. Take a look at the beginning of the thread. Every small piece of information that was provided was used by some to prove that Brown was innocent. This is just petty "he said, she said" style arguing, it furthers nothing.
Black, white, blue, green, hazel, it doesn't matter. As I said before, it's happening on both sides of the fence. Just more "he said, she said".
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davefoc
Philosopher
I think the grand jury probably got it right, although I have some reservations based on the comments about the cross examination of Wilson mostly. It was the prosecutor's job to explore Wilson's claims with a tough cross examination. If they didn't do that I have some qualms about the process.
But I don't think the most important question was whether the grand jury got it right or wrong. Reasonably enough from my point of view it is difficult to find a police officer guilty of a crime related to excessive force. The same rules of beyond a reasonable doubt apply there as they do to anybody else accused of a crime and society pays these guys to be in harms way and gives them weapons to enforce the law and it is very difficult to second guess what is often a split second decision in a highly charged situation. Most of us are concerned about what we would do under a similar situation.
My concern here was that the important questions about whether Wilson followed proper police procedures were lost in the binary discussion about whether or not the grand jury should have indicted him. It might have been either that it was likely that Wilson committed a crime but there wasn't enough evidence to sustain an indictment or that Wilson was guilty of improper actions but that those improper actions didn't rise to the level of a crime.
I think the evidence suggests that Wilson acted improperly but I'm less sure that the evidence supports the notion he committed a crime and I think that the evidence doesn't support a beyond a reasonable doubt decision that he did commit a crime.
Other than that I pretty much agree with every one of your comments although I wouldn't put myself in the Wilson cheerleader group because I think he probably acted in a way that was improper and cowardly by my standards although I'm far from sure of either.
William Parcher
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The Central Scrutinizer
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Mike!
Official Ponylandistanian National Treasure. Re
What good is being a lawyer if you can't screw someone out of their home once in a while?
plague311
Great minds think...
Was that actually their job? They exposed a few liars, but overall I was under the impression that the Grand Jury members asked the questions. The prosecutors just guided them through the process. If I am wrong, feel free to correct me.
Your following explanation is nice, but I have to respectfully disagree. I think that is absolutely the most important question here. Was there enough evidence, at all, to convict Wilson for any wrong doing? No.
I am not concerned with what I would do, because I am irrelevant in regards to this event. A) I never would have been put in that situation, B) I have no training at all to be able to handle the situation, C) It's not my job to know how to handle any of this. If I were in this situation I would have been dead. I don't carry guns, or any weapon at all. I have also never needed one. Easy as that.
I think that's because proper police procedure was taken into account. Most of what I hear opposing factions to Wilson claim is that he got over zealous. He reacted too quickly, and shouldn't have shot; however, that is rarely supported with any evidence. Mostly because there isn't any, not because Wilson did everything perfect but because we don't have constant surveillance of what happened that day to prove otherwise.
Whether Wilson may have blemished a bit or whatever the case, the physical evidence seems to follow a narrative which shows Wilson to be within his rights to act the way he did. I'm not saying it's a rock solid case. I'm saying that while you are requiring Wilson to be absolutely perfect in every decision he made, there is absolutely no issues in hand waving away the multiple times that Brown could have made, literally, any other decision and he would have been alive. That's what the problem is here, in my humble opinion.
False dichotomy, it could also be that Wilson acted appropriately, but in the end someone lost their life because of a series of their own irresponsible decisions.
I disagree, I see the evidence pointing towards Wilson making appropriate decisions that resulted in a loss of life. I think people are more than willing to look at this event through a rear view mirror. They can slow it down, pick it apart piece by piece and examine each event in it's entirety. That doesn't happen in the real world, and this whole thing took place in, what was it? Like 90 seconds or something? I do IT work, it takes me more than 90 seconds to get into a server room, and I haven't even had to make decisions.
Far from sure, but have absolutely no issues poisoning the well to imply he was inappropriate in his actions. I find that to be a bit...weird.
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davefoc
Philosopher
There is no doubt that everybody that wants to see this as a binary issue thinks that or the opposite. Guy did something bad, he did something bad again, he did something bad again, and then he was shot numerous times and he died. Case closed, next issue. Or they think the opposite. Policemen hassled and scared a guy, the guy reacted badly pissed policemen off and then the policemen shot him for not being sufficiently subservient to the jerk policeman who had created the dangerous situation in the first place.
If I was forced by my inclination to seek a single answer to choose one of those ideas I'd probably choose the first one. The evidence seems to be the best fit for it and I don't need to think too much about the possibility that the police that I think mostly do a good job might not have done a good job here as well. After all I'm not out robbing liquor stores so I don't have much to worry about from cops like this.
As it is I see a cop that had shown a proclivity for hassling people and lying about it in the Arman video, I see a cop that acted irrationally when he backed up to confront Brown and Johnson. I see a cop that fired three shots into the head of somebody that was probably crashing to the ground from the previous rounds he had hit him with that didn't need to be fired if the cop had merely retreated.
As to whether it was the prosecutor's job to aggressively interrogate Wilson: I think so. there were inconsistencies in Wilson's story. He put together the final details only after he'd had a pretty good chance to fit it in to the evidence against him. I don't think it was the prosecutors' job to go for an indictment that they didn't believe in, but I don't think it was the prosecutor's job to turn the grand jury into a show trial for the purpose of making Wilson look as innocent as possible. The legitimate purpose of the grand jury was to get as close to the truth about this issue as possible and challenging Wilson on his story was an integral part of that in my opinion.
Mike!
Official Ponylandistanian National Treasure. Re
You seem to have completely forgotten the fact that scant minutes earlier the "Guy" had just strong arm robbed a convenience store. No, he didn't 'shoplift', he strong armed the store clerk. Period. That is an established fact. Ignoring that fact doesn't change it. He wasn't just some guy walking down the middle of the street, minding his own business when Wilson rolled up on them. His actions from the moment he walked into the store set him on a path to self destruction that day. It didn't have to end that way though. He had enumerable options that would have left him alive today, had he chose them over the ones he did.
Why is that so hard to understand?
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davefoc
Philosopher
Is there a single post you can point to where I have suggested that Brown didn't commit strong arm robbery? Is there a single post you can point to where I said something to the effect that this is irrelevant with regards to making an estimate of what happened?
One of our biases is to move towards a view that doesn't involve shades of grey I think that bias can mask the best estimate of what the truth is. It is very easy to form an opinion and from then on one interprets all evidence in a way that support their initial conclusion.
In this case there is significant evidence to suspect that Wilson's actions were a contributing factor to the death of Brown. It is unequivocal that Brown's actions led to his death but I don't think that necessarily means that all actions by Wilson were appropriate.
Sometimes it is hard for people who have formed strong opinions on an issue to imagine that the process by which they arrived at that opinion was driven by a thought process that favored certainty over truth.
Several times in this thread people have made the statement that there is no evidence that Wilson acted inappropriately. That is, of course, categorically not true. It is a view arrived at by simply rationalizing away all evidence that doesn't support their view as not being evidence.
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Cl1mh4224rd
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I get the impression that most of those people view Brown's actions as completely nullifying any inappropriateness on the part of Wilson. Because Brown already proved to be an aggressive criminal, nothing Wilson himself did could have unnecessarily escalated the situation in their mind. And because Wilson's actions in the Brown shooting were entirely appropriate, any past examples of inappropriate behavior by Wilson (like the Arman video incident) can be safely dismissed as irrelevant.
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I don't think you understand the physical/mental dynamics of a gunfight and the training for that. Those last 3 shots were fired strictly from muscle memory in accordance with his training. They did not involve rational thought or analysis at all. Brain function does not allow that in very stressful life threatening situations.
EVERYONE who carries a firearm (that specifically includes police) train to stop the threat and they will keep firing until that threat is stopped. PERIOD.
tyr_13
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What evidence is there that Wilson acted inappropriately? Could he have? Yes, but so what? What's the evidence? What is the specific accusation? Just 'maybe' and 'could have' are meaningless.
Could he have escalated the situation? Yes, and he definitely did, but the ways in which we know he did were not inappropriate. Affecting an arrest is certainly an escalation after all.
Brown did prove himself aggressive and violent at least on that day, and the strong armed robbery is exactly what he was being sought by the police for. It is of course much more relevant to he case than the Arman video. Even if we are to accept that the Arman incident shows a pattern of behavior for Wilson, the inappropriate behavior is arresting people on trumped up charges. Could he have done that to Brown? No, Brown was to arrested for the completely valid reason of the strong armed robbery.
We cannot argue that less than optimal outcomes indicates wrongdoing. That sad outcome is completely possible with Wilson following all best practices. Furthermore, there is an entire range of actions not simply 'criminal', 'inappropriate' and 'perfect'. Wilson could well have acted in ways that were not optimal, not best practice, but still not inappropriate. He may have acted in ways which are arguable if they are inappropriate or not. What matters is what we have evidence or indication that he did.
Furthermore, what does it change? What do you want done about it if he did something inappropriate but not criminal? Just to validate...something? The bad feelings against Wilson? Is it really that necessary that Wilson be in the wrong in some way?
I know you and dave think there is evidence he acted inappropriately, but I'm still unconvinced. You have some that he could have, some that he has in the past maybe once, and then some that is not evidence at all. That people disagree doesn't mean what you assert here, although I grant that it is possible with some posters. What it is though is a straw man well poisoning because I don't see where anyone has stated that position.
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