Michael Brown shooting II

[dudalb]

Yeah, let me know when Holder comes down on the city run by Obama's former CoS. The I'll know this isn't 100% political.

Have you looked at the evidence in the report?
I agree this report had some political motivation, but to me the evidence of misconduct by Ferguson authroites is overwhelming.

 

[jimbob]

Yeah, let me know when Holder comes down on the city run by Obama's former CoS. The I'll know this isn't 100% political.

Do you accept that there was racial profiling in the police searches of stopped vehicles at the very least?

 

[dudalb]

No more than they do when they step in to all other cop shootings. Because that's what the DOJ does, I guess.

I am sick and tired of people on both sides who conflate the issues of the Brown Shooting and the overall conduct of the Ferguson police department.

So the DOJ should not investigate complaints about bad conduct by police? Interesting concept.

 

[dudalb]

Do you accept that there was racial profiling in the police searches of stopped vehicles at the very least?

I think we are dealing with a case of ODS here;Anything the Obama Adminsitration does is automatically bad.

Not the other side can't be just as bad;we have one individual here who seems to justify the two cops being shot on the grounds it was a "response" of the community to police harassment.

 

[jimbob]

I think we are dealing with a case of ODS here;Anything the Obama Adminsitration does is automatically bad.

Not the other side can't be just as bad;we have one individual here who seems to justify the two cops being shot on the grounds it was a "response" of the community to police harassment.

TBF, I think the latter is a minority view.

I think it was you who also made the point in an earlier thread that criminals still have the right to due process. Apart from the obvious problem that a systematic lack of due process will eventually catch innocent people.

Just because someone is a thug - it doesn't mean that the procedures couldn't be improved.

An extreme situation occurred in British politics, when the SAS shot three IRA terrorists who were preparing a bomb attack in Gibraltar.

In March 1990, almost two years after the shootings, the McCann, Savage, and Farrell families began proceedings against the British government at the High Court in London. The case was dismissed on the grounds that Gibraltar was not part of the United Kingdom, and was thus outside the court's jurisdiction.[102] The families launched an appeal, but withdrew it in the belief that it had no prospect of success.[62] The families proceeded to apply to the European Commission of Human Rights for an opinion on whether the authorities' actions in Gibraltar violated Article 2 (the "right to life") of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).[103] Issuing its report in April 1993, the commission criticised the conduct of the operation, but found that there had been no violation of Article 2. Nevertheless, the commission referred the case to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) for a final decision.[103][104]

The British government submitted that the killings were "absolutely necessary", within the meaning of Article 2, paragraph 2, to protect the people of Gibraltar from unlawful violence, because the soldiers who carried out the shootings genuinely believed that McCann, Savage, and Farrell were capable of detonating a car bomb, and of doing so by remote control. The families contested the government's claim, alleging that the government had conspired to kill the three; that the planning and control of the operation was flawed; that the inquest was not adequately equipped to investigate the killings; and that the applicable laws of Gibraltar were not compliant with Article 2 of the ECHR. The court found that the soldiers' "reflex action" in resorting to lethal force was excessive, but that the soldiers' actions did not—in their own right—give rise to a violation of Article 2. The court held that the soldiers' use of force based on an honestly held belief (that the suspects were armed or in possession of a remote detonator) could be justified, even if that belief was later found to be mistaken. To hold otherwise would, in the court's opinion, place too great a burden on law-enforcement personnel. It also dismissed all other allegations, except that regarding the planning and control of the operation. In that respect, the court found that the authorities' failure to arrest the suspects as they crossed the border or earlier, combined with the information that was passed to the soldiers, rendered the use of lethal force almost inevitable. Thus, the court decided there had been a violation of Article 2 in the control of the operation.[105][106]

As the three suspects had been killed while preparing an act of terrorism, the court rejected the families' claims for damages, as well as their claim for expenses incurred at the inquest. The court did order the British government to pay the applicants' costs incurred during the proceedings in Strasbourg. The government initially suggested it would not pay, and there was discussion in parliament of the UK withdrawing from the ECHR. It paid the costs on 24 December 1995, within days of the three-month deadline which had been set by the court.[103]

 

[tyr_13]

Because it is an strange usage of the word, verging on blaming the victim. Would you say women who wear skimpy clothes "enable" rape? Would you say that this usage of the word "enable" would also apply to the gun manufacturer?

If not, why not?

It is neither a strange usage of the word, nor victim blaming. First of all, the protestors for once were not the victims. This is a mistake repeated by luchog.

It would be a strange situation indeed that would have skimpy clothing enabling a rape. It is more likely that being out in a specific place or without other measures would be things that enable rape. Kind of useless to try to dissect with no specific incident. Yes, the availability of guns enabled this attack, in fact the invention of guns, and of police. But that's getting several steps removed from the incident too and discussed in many other places on these boards.

With all cost/benefits and risk analysis, we do not pretend that there are no cost nor risks simply because we don't think these costs or risks should exist, or because we believe the benefits outweigh them.

I don't think anyone is saying it was a random event. I also think it's fair to say that the shooter(s) used the protest as a distraction in order to take the shots. What I don't think is fair to say is that the protest was a cause of the shooting nor that the protest is responsible for the shooting. That burden lies solely on the shooter(s) and any accomplices.

I went out of my way to point out how the protestors have little recourse for eliminating bad actors from their ranks. This also means they have little to no responsibility for these bad actors. I'm not holding the protestors responsible for the shooting.

I am saying that their actions can and have been used as cover for crimes, that this was foreseeable, that there are ways to mitigate these risks that have not been taken, and that I wish they would. My belief is shared by some of the protestors themselves, or at least it was earlier when I was taking WildCat and Scrut to task for implying that all the protestors were looters and rioters, and I found quotes on how to cut down on these things from some protestors trying to protect life and property.

That is just patently ridiculous blame-the-victim nonsense. You could just as easily say that women who dress provocatively or drink too much "enable" rapists. Or that by crossing a road legally, I'm "enabling" getting hit by an idiot running a red light. Or that by going outside my house with money in my pocket I'm "enabling" robbers. Or by owning a house with stuff in it I'm "enabling" burglars. Or by voting to keep the city from turning a public park into a commercial development, I'm "enabling" the people who go there to bash GLBTs.

Do you see how stupid that sounds?

Yes it sounds stupid. No, not for the reason you seem to think.

Neither is broad-brush painting. There are plenty of people who are not protestors, who have no interest in the issues being protested, who go to protests for the sole purpose of causing this sort of trouble. Do some protestors become violent as part of their protests? Of course, but they're far in the minority. I know by personal experience that there are plenty that will use the cover of any protest to commit vandalism and violence just because that's what they do. And there have been plenty of documented examples of agents provocateurs being sent to masquerade as protestors to discredit them.

But there are too many here in the thread who claim that all the protestors are "tainted with evil" because of the actions of a few who may not even have been part of the protest to begin with. It's just more attempts to shift blame away from the real problem here, and demonize those who are trying to bring attention to it and do something about it.

I'm well aware. They were saying it months ago. I strongly argued against it months ago.

Let's be clear, this is something terrible.

But let's also be clear that this is the clapback. The police attacked the community, and this was one person's response to that.

This is far closer to victim-blaming than anything I said, yet it's not been called out as such. This appears to be only because the protestors have a subtle mental bias of 'victim' and the police 'villain'. The fact that 'the protestors were not the victims this time' might be cognitively acknowledged, yet it's not been assimilated into the thinking fully. So my comments are 'victim blaming' and this somehow gets a pass.

 

[Wolrab]

I think that is exactly what a lot of the FPD were doing, in the British sense of the term.

A culture that the FPD were not public servants but above the law.

The link that Upchurch posted.

Sounds like taking the piss

I read through a few and most of those the response is, "Cool story bro'."

I would be willing to wager most of those one sided stories didn't play out exactly as described.

 

[jimbob]

I read through a few and most of those the response is, "Cool story bro'."

I would be willing to wager most of those one sided stories didn't play out exactly as described.

Why do you think that? These paint a picture that is consistent with documented behaviours of the FPD, where they haven't been documented.

There is plenty of other evidence in the report to show police malpractice, a lot of it either documented by the police themselves, or missing from police records when they shouldn't be.

Read the section of the report on use of force - most of which is taken from the officers' own documentation.

'Perhaps the greatest deviation from FPD’s use-of-force policies is that officers frequently do not report the force they use at all. There are many indications that this underreporting is widespread. First, we located information in FPD’s internal affairs files indicating instances of force that were not included in the force files provided by FPD. Second, in reviewing randomly selected reports from FPD’s records management system, we found several offense reports that described officers using force with no corresponding use-of-force report. Third, we found evidence that force had been used but not documented in officers’ workers compensation claims. Of the nine cases between 2010 and 2014 in which officers claimed injury sustained from using force on the job, three had no corresponding use-of-force paperwork. Fourth, the set of force investigations provided by FPD contains lengthy gaps, including six stretches of time ranging from two to four months in which no incidents of force are reported. Otherwise, the files typically reflect between two and six force incidents per month. Fifth, we heard from community members about uses of force that do not appear within FPD’s records, and we learned of many uses of force that were never officially reported or investigated from reviewing emails between FPD supervisors. Finally, FPD’s force files reflect an overrepresentation of ECW uses—a type of force that creates a physical record (a spent ECW cartridge with discharged confetti) and that requires a separate form be filled out. It is much easier for officers to use physical blows and baton strikes without documenting them. Thus, the evidence indicates that a significant amount of force goes unreported within FPD. This in turn raises the possibility that the pattern of unreasonable force is even greater than we found.'​

This is a force that charged someone for damaging police property after bleeding on their uniforms after a police beating. It arrested 14-people solely for "resisting arrest". It wrongfully arrested reporters from the Washington post who were covering the disturbances, and did that with plenty of evidence.

Why should I think those are one-sided stories?

 

[newyorkguy]

I read through a few and most of those the response is, "Cool story bro'." I would be willing to wager most of those one sided stories didn't play out exactly as described.

Why do you think that?

I would say probably the real reason is, if someone is biased in favor of the police versus minorities or poor people or urban youth the easiest way to defend against some of the harsher realities is to just say, "Sorry I don't believe it."

 

[jimbob]

I read through a few and most of those the response is, "Cool story bro'."

I would be willing to wager most of those one sided stories didn't play out exactly as described.

One of those "Cool story Bro" quotes

'
In January 2013, a patrol sergeant stopped
an African-American man after he saw
the man talk to an individual in a truck
and then walk away. The sergeant
detained the man, although he did not
articulate any reasonable suspicion that
criminal activity was afoot. When the
man declined to answer questions or
submit to a frisk--which the sergeant
sought to execute despite articulating no
reason to believe the man was armed--the
sergeant grabbed the man by the belt,
drew his ECW, and ordered the man to
comply. The man crossed his arms and
objected that he had not done anything
wrong. Video captured by the ECW's
built-in camera shows that the man made
no aggressive movement toward the
officer. The sergeant fired the ECW,
applying a five-second cycle of electricity
and causing the man to fall to the
ground. The sergeant almost immediately
applied the ECW again, which he later
justified in his report by claiming that the
man tried to stand up. The video makes
clear, however, that the man never tried
to stand--he only writhed in pain on the
ground. The video also shows that the
sergeant applied the ECW nearly
continuously for 20 seconds, longer than
represented in his report. The man was
charged with Failure to Comply and
Resisting Arrest, but no independent
criminal violation.
'
​

 

[Wolrab]

I would say probably the real reason is, if someone is biased in favor of the police versus minorities or poor people or urban youth the easiest way to defend against some of the harsher realities is to just say, "Sorry I don't believe it."

Then you would be wrong. you could have saved some words and just out and out called me racist.

Several of the stories in the link are one sided and make the supposed victims into martyrs or saints. Sorry if I don't buy into everything I read.

It reminds me of the story of the girl who was using milk to wash out teargas from her eyes. Everything she said was gosh golly/gee whiz and everything Wilson was reported to have said was violent, threatening, and profanity laced.

 

[jimbob]

And the DoJ managed to sort through that. The list in the blog also came from a DoJ report.

 

[newyorkguy]

Then you would be wrong. you could have saved some words and just out and out called me racist. Several of the stories in the link are one sided and make the supposed victims into martyrs or saints. Sorry if I don't buy into everything I read.

What are you saying? You think there is a problem or not? I think any person of good will would qualify the statement by writing that they do concede there is a problem and that the police behavior in Ferguson at times was pretty bad. You could add -- and I think almost anyone would agree -- that not all the stories are 100% truthful.

Only you don't do that. When any compelling evidence of really egregious police behavior, like a video, is presented you seem to ignore it. Yes I find a lot of the posts here are based on the poster's own bias. You know what they say. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it's a duck.

My own personal feeling is, so many of the posts in this thread seem so obviously biased in favor of the police I wouldn't even bother to try and discuss some of them. The message I posted was directed to another poster. I don't envy some of them trying to reason with people who can't be reasoned with.

 

[Wolrab]

Another "Cool storey bro.":

We spoke with one African-American man who, in August 2014, had an argument in his apartment to which FPD officers responded, and was immediately pulled out of the apartment by force. After telling the officer, "you don't have a reason to lock me up," he claims the officer responded: "N*****, I can find something to lock you up on." When the man responded, "good luck with that," the officer slammed his face into the wall, and after the man fell to the floor, the officer said, "don't pass out motherf****r because I'm not carrying you to my car."

"He claims." That is enough evidence for you?

How about this?:

Officers in Ferguson also use their arrest power to retaliate against individuals for using language that, while disrespectful, is protected by the Constitution. For example, one afternoon in September 2012, an officer stopped a 20-year-old African-American man for dancing in the middle of a residential street. The officer obtained the man's identification and ran his name for warrants. Finding none, he told the man he was free to go. The man responded with profanities. When the officer told him to watch his language and reminded him that he was not being arrested, the man continued using profanity and was arrested for Manner of Walking in Roadway.

Do you believe this is exactly how this went down?
Here the cop was being nice and letting him go, but the moron wouldn't shut up. I don't love the cops, but I probably would have done the same thing as long as the guy had broken a law as he seems to have done by dancing in the GD street.

 

[Monketi Ghost]

Given that a goodly amount of the testimony against Officer Wilson turned out to be bold faced lies, I'd say only some percentage of that is believable.

 

[Wolrab]

I come from a very lower middle class family of 8 kids and my father was the sole breadwinner. At times we qualified for food stamps. From the outside, we were probably viewed as poor.

In my youth I had some run ins with the law as did my friends. If you were to ask us about those run ins the story you would hear would be quite different from what the cop would say. People embellish their stories to make themselves more sympathetic. Some of the stories in that link were nothing more than that.

I know there are A-hole cops out there, I've met several. In the past around here, many of the deputies were dumb jock types, I knew them from school and knew them as sadistic punks. That seems to be changing as newer cops are better educated and trained.
I can't tell you about the FPD but I would imagine there are A-hole cops and good cops. There are also people who have gripes about cops, some deservedly and some not. I'm not swayed by cool stories as I have used them myself as have all of us.

 

[jimbob]

Then you would be wrong. you could have saved some words and just out and out called me racist.

Several of the stories in the link are one sided and make the supposed victims into martyrs or saints. Sorry if I don't buy into everything I read.

It reminds me of the story of the girl who was using milk to wash out teargas from her eyes. Everything she said was gosh golly/gee whiz and everything Wilson was reported to have said was violent, threatening, and profanity laced.

OK, now I am not on my phone I'll answer in a bit more detail
Some are simply witness testimony - albeit ones that are consistent with observed behaviour. Others aren't. Spoilered for brevity

'In an incident from 2013, a woman sought to reach her fiancé, who was in a car accident. After she refused to stay on the sidewalk as the officer ordered, she was arrested and jailed. While it is sometimes both essential and difficult to keep distraught family from being in close proximity to their loved ones on the scene of an accident, there is rarely a need to arrest and jail them rather than, at most, detain them on the scene. '



​

This should also have records to support it:

'In one instance from May 2014, for example, a man rushed to the scene of a car accident involving his girlfriend, who was badly injured and bleeding profusely when he arrived. He approached and tried to calm her. When officers arrived they treated him rudely, according to the man, telling him to move away from his girlfriend, which he did not want to do. They then immediately proceeded to handcuff and arrest him, which, officers assert, he resisted. EMS and other officers were not on the scene during this arrest, so the accident victim remained unattended, bleeding from her injuries, while officers were arresting the boyfriend. Officers charged the man with five municipal code violations (Resisting Arrest, Disorderly Conduct, Assault on an Officer, Obstructing Government Operations, and Failure to Comply) and had his vehicle towed and impounded. '​

And this:

'For example, in July 2012, a police officer arrested a business owner on charges of Interfering in Police Business and Misuse of 911 because she objected to the officer's detention of her employee. The officer had stopped the employee for "walking unsafely in the street" as he returned to work from the bank. According to FPD records, the owner "became verbally involved," came out of her shop three times after being asked to stay inside, and called 911 to complain to the Police Chief. The officer characterized her protestations as interference and arrested her inside her shop. The arrest violated the First Amendment...Indeed, the officer's decision to arrest the woman after she tried to contact the Police Chief suggests that he may have been retaliating against her for reporting his conduct.'​

This example will also have records

'In another case, from March 2013, officers responded to the police station to take custody of a person wanted on a state warrant. When they arrived, they encountered a different man-- not the subject of the warrant--who happened to be leaving the station. Having nothing to connect the man to the warrant subject, other than his presence at the station, the officers nonetheless stopped him and asked that he identify himself. The man asserted his rights, asking the officers "Why do you need to know?" and declining to be frisked. When the man then extended his identification toward the officers, at their request, the officers interpreted his hand motion as an attempted assault and took him to the ground. Without articulating reasonable suspicion or any other justification for the initial detention, the officers arrested the man on two counts of Failure to Comply and two counts of Resisting Arrest. '​

The use of Tasers is more well documented due to the automatic recording:

'In August 2011, officers used an ECW (electronic control weapon, such as a Taser) device against a man with diabetes who bit an EMT's hand without breaking the skin. The man had been having seizures when he did not comply with officer commands.'

'In January 2013, a patrol sergeant stopped an African-American man after he saw the man talk to an individual in a truck and then walk away. The sergeant detained the man, although he did not articulate any reasonable suspicion that criminal activity was afoot. When the man declined to answer questions or submit to a frisk--which the sergeant sought to execute despite articulating no reason to believe the man was armed--the sergeant grabbed the man by the belt, drew his ECW, and ordered the man to comply. The man crossed his arms and objected that he had not done anything wrong. Video captured by the ECW's built-in camera shows that the man made no aggressive movement toward the officer. The sergeant fired the ECW, applying a five-second cycle of electricity and causing the man to fall to the ground. The sergeant almost immediately applied the ECW again, which he later justified in his report by claiming that the man tried to stand up. The video makes clear, however, that the man never tried to stand--he only writhed in pain on the ground. The video also shows that the sergeant applied the ECW nearly continuously for 20 seconds, longer than represented in his report. The man was charged with Failure to Comply and Resisting Arrest, but no independent criminal violation.'

'In April 2013, for example, a correctional officer deployed an ECW against an African-American prisoner, delivering a five-second shock, because the man had urinated out of his cell onto the jail floor. The correctional officer observed the man on his security camera feed inside the booking office. When the officer came out, some of the urine hit his pant leg and, he said, almost caused him to slip. "Due to the possibility of contagion," the correctional officer claimed, he deployed his ECW "to cease the assault." The ECW prongs, however, both struck the prisoner in the back. The correctional officer's claim that he deployed the ECW to stop the ongoing threat of urine is not credible, particularly given that the prisoner was in his locked cell with his back to the officer at the time the ECW was deployed. Using less lethal force to counter urination, especially when done punitively as appears to be the case here, is unreasonable. '

'In a January 2014 incident, officers attempted to arrest a young African-American man for trespassing on his girlfriend's grandparents' property, even though the man had been invited into the home by the girlfriend. According to officers, he resisted arrest, requiring several officers to subdue him. Seven officers repeatedly struck and used their ECWs against the subject, who was 5'8" and 170 pounds. The young man suffered head lacerations with significant bleeding. '
​

This example has another officer as a witness:

'In a January 2014 incident, officers attempted to arrest a young African-American man for trespassing on his girlfriend's grandparents' property, even though the man had been invited into the home by the girlfriend. According to officers, he resisted arrest, requiring several officers to subdue him. Seven officers repeatedly struck and used their ECWs against the subject, who was 5'8" and 170 pounds. The young man suffered head lacerations with significant bleeding. '

Most of these have other fairly independent witnesses.

'In still another case, a lieutenant of a neighboring agency called FPD to report that a pizza parlor owner had complained to him that an off-duty FPD officer had become angry upon being told that police discounts were only given to officers in uniform and said to the restaurant owner as he was leaving, "I hope you get robbed!" The allegation was not considered a complaint and instead, despite its seriousness, was handled through counseling at the squad level.'

'We found additional examples of FPD officers behaving in public in a manner that reflects poorly on FPD and law enforcement more generally. In November 2010, an officer was arrested for DUI by an Illinois police officer who found his car crashed in a ditch off the highway. Earlier that night he and his squad mates--including his sergeant--were thrown out of a bar for bullying a customer. The officer received a thirty-day suspension for the DUI. Neither the sergeant nor any officers was disciplined for their behavior in the bar. '

'At times, the constitutional violations are even more blatant. An African-American man recounted to us an experience he had while sitting at a bus stop near Canfield Drive. According to the man, an FPD patrol car abruptly pulled up in front of him. The officer inside, a patrol lieutenant, rolled down his window and addressed the man:

Lieutenant: Get over here.

Bus Patron: Me?

Lieutenant: Get the f*** over here. Yeah, you.

Bus Patron: Why? What did I do?

Lieutenant: Give me your ID.

Bus Patron: Why?

Lieutenant: Stop being a smart ass and give me your ID.

The lieutenant ran the man's name for warrants. Finding none, he returned the ID and said, "get the hell out of my face." These allegations are consistent with other, independent allegations of misconduct that we heard about this particular lieutenant, and reflect the routinely disrespectful treatment many African Americans say they have come to expect from Ferguson police. That a lieutenant with supervisory responsibilities allegedly engaged in this conduct is further cause for concern.'

'In October 2012, police officers pulled over an African-American man who had lived in Ferguson for 16 years, claiming that his passenger-side brake light was broken. The driver happened to have replaced the light recently and knew it to be functioning properly. Nonetheless, according to the man's written complaint, one officer stated, "let's see how many tickets you're going to get," while a second officer tapped his Electronic Control Weapon ("ECW") on the roof of the man's car. The officers wrote the man a citation for "tail light/reflector/license plate light out." They refused to let the man show them that his car's equipment was in order, warning him, "don't you get out of that car until you get to your house." The man, who believed he had been racially profiled, was so upset that he went to the police station that night to show a sergeant that his brakes and license plate light worked. '

There is plenty of other evidence of an institutional culture of malpractice.

 

[Wolrab]

Those incidents are pretty damning. I just think a bunch...need a citation. A report from the DOJ should be a tad more researched than being, " consistent with observed behaviour".

The bad cops should be fired and or prosecuted. There is no doubt about that. The FPD needs to change. This is the time the people of Ferguson need to act by voting in candidates that will reflect their values and flush the turds out of local government.

 

[jimbob]

ETA: The DoJ webpage about this is here:
http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justi...civil-rights-investigations-ferguson-missouri

with the PDF here

The 102-pages are pretty thorough.

 

[Mumbles]

This is far closer to victim-blaming than anything I said, yet it's not been called out as such. This appears to be only because the protestors have a subtle mental bias of 'victim' and the police 'villain'. The fact that 'the protestors were not the victims this time' might be cognitively acknowledged, yet it's not been assimilated into the thinking fully. So my comments are 'victim blaming' and this somehow gets a pass.

This isn't "She had a short skirt on." This is "Hey, you attacked us, so we're going to fight back." Again, it's all terrible, but I don't know what the people are supposed to do.

Personally, I'd have let people just protest, and march up and down the street, and left it at that. These cops decided to shoot tear gas at people, to rough them up, and so on.