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Could we find a post where you called Trayvon Martin a thug but made excuses for why George Zimmerman was not one?

I'm assuming that this is, among other things, a tacit admission that black people, in the US, are judged far more harshly than white people are. Not that I needed any such thing.

So, let's move on: what's the relevance to this? Well, apparently, Wilson drove up to Brown and Johnson walking down the street, and was enraged by them immediately telling the to :get the eff off the street". When Brown told him off, he swerved his car to block them, and then attacked them.

Several witnesses claim that Wilson was chasing Brown while shooting at him.

Now, put aside the police's violent response to protests. The MRAPs, the uniforms, The photo of the anonymous black guy with his hands up getting accosted by police. The video of the police harassing journalists, and even the video of police shooting rubber bullets at a guy because he was in the street.

The central question is simple: Was Wilson justified? And what, exactly, happened?

SG, I apologize for calling you out here, but you seem reasonable, so I figured your post to jump off from, and focus on the main issues at hand.
 
For my clarification (and because it seems more on topic than the rest of the discussions ...)

I don't know that the bracelet has any relevance, but it does look like it was on Johnsons wrist at the store, and is now on the ground by the SUV.

What does the rubber band have to do with anything ?

A rubber band like in this photo ?
How is that relevant ?

By all accounts, the door was closed when Wilson and Brown were fighting.
All accounts ?
Belmar said the incident started when Brown physically assaulted the police officer, pushing him into the officer's vehicle.

Would it be consistent with all accounts to say Wilson tried to emerge from vehicle, and was pushed back in the vehicle, and then altercation ensued through the window ?

<SNIP>
So, let's move on: what's the relevance to this? Well, apparently, Wilson drove up to Brown and Johnson walking down the street, and was enraged by them immediately telling the to :get the eff off the street". When Brown told him off, he swerved his car to block them, and then attacked them. <SNIP>
You say wilson was enraged. What does Dorian Johnson have to say:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/236754541/Dorian-Johnson-Q-A
So, were both headed home and the officers approaching us and as he pulled up on the side of us, he didnt say freeze, halt or nothing like we were committing a crime. He said get the eff on the sidewalk. More like chastising from a father or something, where you are doing something wrong, you know, not committing a crime

So, not really enraged, is he?

As far as "attacked them" ... you are putting the cart before the horse. Part of the discussion is to see if we can reasonably determine what may or may not have happened.
 
One claim we have heard is that Brown attempted to take Wilson's firearm. And that if any of Brown's DNA is found on the gun, it would prove he attempted to take the weapon.

But if the first shot was taken at close range, we would expect blood to spray out from the impact. Can the forensic experts reliably distinguish between touch DNA from Wilson attempting to take the gun and DNA from a blood splatter?
 
If there was no time for MB to taunt OW, how was there time to say he didn't have a gun and was giving up?
 
The difference in status between the robbery investigation and the on-going investigation of Brown's death was explained up-thread.
Shall I re-post it for you?
And I explained to you the hypocrisy. Either the store video is part of the investigation of Brown's death and should not have been released or it is not relevant. You cannot have it both ways by claiming it is a separate crime that the investigation is completed. If that is true then it is not relative to the Brown shooting.

You're quite wrong there.
We've known for some time a BOLO was sent out and when it was sent out.
I didn't say there was no BOLO. I merely posted a slew of inconsistent reports about it, and about Wilson hearing it before shooting Brown.
 
And I explained to you the hypocrisy. Either the store video is part of the investigation of Brown's death and should not have been released or it is not relevant. You cannot have it both ways by claiming it is a separate crime that the investigation is completed. If that is true then it is not relative to the Brown shooting.

I think you might be confusing the difference between legally relevant, and relevant to a discussion on an online forum. While the video from the store is NOT relevant, legally, to the investigation of the death of Mr. Brown. It can be used as evidence to his mind set when discussing the confrontation that led to his shooting on an internet forum. They mean two completely different things, the video is relevant to our discussion, not the investigation. Mr. Brown, nor Officer Wilson, are being tried here today, on this forum. The situation is being discussed, however.

I didn't say there was no BOLO. I merely posted a slew of inconsistent reports about it, and about Wilson hearing it before shooting Brown.

It has been confirmed up thread that Officer Wilson definitely knew about the robbery as it was communicated by dispatch before any shots were fired. See the timestamps on Cylinder's posts above. It was absolutely known. We can now disregard that as it is fact.
 
It's not relevant to me. But there are reports that there was no BOLO. I'm only posting information that relates to whether Wilson did or did not go back because Brown and Johnson fit the description on a BOLO.

We've already gone over the issue of whether Brown struggled with Wilson inside the car including the chief's statement. Why are you asking a question that was just addressed?

As for the BOLO, there was a report that Wilson heard it and a report that Wilson was only addressing the walking in the street. There's been a couple Net reports that there was no BOLO for a couple different reasons. The dispatch recording has not been made public. [ . . . ]

Could you pass along links to those Net reports, please?



Regardless of what the store's attorney asserts, FPD was collecting evidence, canvassing the neighborhood with multiple units, trying to locate witnesses and even ticked the little willing to prosecute box on the incident report.

There are multiple references to BOLO-type advisories by FPD:

[imgw=500]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=853&pictureid=9051[/imgw]

This seems to be the initial response to the stealing report. Before the officer arrived on-scene, description had already been dispatched.

Another unit interviewing witnesses received a more detailed description of Brown and Johnson, radioed that description and began to canvass:

[imgw=500]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=853&pictureid=9052[/imgw]

Another unit reports getting a description by some unknown means, canvassing the area and observing another unit conducting a canvass:

[imgw=500]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=853&pictureid=9053[/imgw]

There's even a reference to the canvass on what I take to be an in-car messaging system by a unit:

[imgw=500]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=853&pictureid=9054[/imgw]

So, yeah, the idea that the police were sort of shrugging their shoulders on the strong-arm robbery really doesn't bear scrutiny.

THanks for clearing up the doubts about the BOLO.





And I explained to you the hypocrisy. Either the store video is part of the investigation of Brown's death and should not have been released or it is not relevant. You cannot have it both ways by claiming it is a separate crime that the investigation is completed. If that is true then it is not relative to the Brown shooting.

I didn't say there was no BOLO. I merely posted a slew of inconsistent reports about it, and about Wilson hearing it before shooting Brown.

No, it's not hypocrisy at all. Proposing false dichotomies doesn't aid your argument.
All this has been explained to you before in this thread. Shall I repost the explanation for you?

As far as I can see, you didn't post the sources for that slew of inconsistent reports about the BOLO. I'd be interested in reading the sources.


Thanks for the link, plague311. I live for links.
[ . . . ]We don’t know all the facts and cannot at this point make a proper assessment. We can, however, state that Michael Brown was a violent subject who had just committed a felony whether this was known by the officer or not. He committed a felony assault on a police officer, may have attempted to disarm the officer and resisted arrest. He had multiple opportunities to comply with the officer’s lawful authority and failed to do so and was subsequently shot and killed.[ . . . ]
http://www.officer.com/article/11675120/ferguson-facts-and-force
 
A rubber band like in this photo ?
How is that relevant ?
Wow, more irrelevant thug pictures. :rolleyes:

You say wilson was enraged. What does Dorian Johnson have to say:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/236754541/Dorian-Johnson-Q-A
So, were both headed home and the officers approaching us and as he pulled up on the side of us, he didnt say freeze, halt or nothing like we were committing a crime. He said get the eff on the sidewalk. More like chastising from a father or something, where you are doing something wrong, you know, not committing a crime

So, not really enraged, is he?
There Wilson was merely displaying his power. He would have gotten angry when they didn't kowtow. Wilson's emotions escalated when Brown pushed the door into Wilson's face. And he would have reached the level of enraged when he started shooting at Brown who was still not respecting Wilson's authority.

Just speculating, mind you, like showing images of Brown or Johnson looking like thugs.
 
If there was no time for MB to taunt OW, how was there time to say he didn't have a gun and was giving up?
Because taunting takes longer than saying, "Don't shoot, I don't have a gun."


I found an opinion piece by a previous officer. Despite him being on the force the article written isn't one sided or anything. He takes a lot into account, but at the end basically says no concrete judgement can be made until more information is available.

If anyone wants to read it:

http://www.officer.com/article/11675120/ferguson-facts-and-force
Sorry, but the article is very one sided.
a police officer performing a lawful act, asking two males to get out of the street.
Asking or ordering with profanities? He is essentially saying the cop is legally allowed to treat people anyway he feels. I don't find that unbiased.
we know that Brown does not run away and is not shot in the back with his hands raised as his companion and another witness have claimed.
That's not what witnesses said. Mitchell said Brown jerked. All three said Brown turned around and tried to give up. I don't recall any of them saying Brown raised his hands and was shot in the back.
What we don’t know is what events transpired after Brown assaulted Wilson in the patrol car and the final shot caused Brown’s death.

Was Brown stationary or did he rush toward the officer? We don’t know.
Like every other Wilson supporter, the eye-witness accounts are simply set aside and it would appear Wilson's saying Brown was charging at him, even though that is as illogical as a Richard Wiseman illusion, is given equal weight to multiple eye witness accounts.
Michael Brown was a big man – even at 18 years old, he was 6’4” tall and 292 lbs. Officer Wilson looks nowhere near that size in the photos we’ve seen.
I don't think the description "nowhere near that size" is exactly neutral. Wilson looks nearly as tall as Brown and he's not thin. Is Brown bigger? Sure. Is nowhere near that size an exaggeration? I think so.
So the media’s notion that Brown was “an unarmed teenager” is a simplistic assessment because Brown was certainly physically capable of beating Officer Wilson unconscious or causing his death.
That presumes Brown would taunt a man who already shot at him saying, "you won't shoot" and charges at a man 20-30 feet away while he actually is shooting at him. So the author of the article is not giving an unbiased account. He's giving an account that gives Wilson, not just every benefit of the doubt, but every benefit of nullified multiple eyewitness accounts.
Michael Brown could have run 30 feet within this same two second period.
We addressed this and that's an exaggeration. But it doesn't matter. Look where Brown's body is relative to the SUV. Wilson may have closed the gap, but Wilson would have had to run twice the distance away in order to run 30 feet back toward the SUV.
He had multiple opportunities to comply with the officer’s lawful authority and failed to do so and was subsequently shot and killed.
And this is supposed to be an unbiased account?

If by that he means, Brown should have got the :rule10 on the sidewalk, yes. Shouldn't have shoved the door, struggled with Wilson and shouldn't have run, yes. But just as the author tells us again and again, "we don't know", he doesn't know if Brown was shot trying to surrender.


I think you might be confusing the difference between legally relevant, and relevant to a discussion on an online forum. While the video from the store is NOT relevant, legally, to the investigation of the death of Mr. Brown. It can be used as evidence to his mind set when discussing the confrontation that led to his shooting on an internet forum. They mean two completely different things, the video is relevant to our discussion, not the investigation. Mr. Brown, nor Officer Wilson, are being tried here today, on this forum. The situation is being discussed, however.
I'm not confusing anything. The video did not need to be released at the time it was because of any legal reason. The feds specifically asked them not to release the video. I think they know the law about release of information requests. Rationalizing that it had nothing to do with Ferguson police trying to bias public opinion is an unsupportable conclusion.

Not to mention, how did the press even know about the robbery being connected to the shooting?


It has been confirmed up thread that Officer Wilson definitely knew about the robbery as it was communicated by dispatch before any shots were fired. See the timestamps on Cylinder's posts above. It was absolutely known. We can now disregard that as it is fact.
Regardless of Cylinder's post, there were mixed reports from the chief in his first press conference that Wilson had not heard the report, and later reports that he had. I don't know if he did or didn't and I also don't think it's relative anyway.
 
A rubber band like in this photo ?
How is that relevant ?

The claim is that Johnson had an object around his arm at the store, that was missing after the shooting, and thus the object must be a bracelet, dropped next to the police car, blah blah blah.

The fact that Johnson very clearly has a rubber band on his wrist right after the shooting puts a massive hole in that theory. In fact, unless you can actually show, and not just using grainy photos, that he dropped a bracelet near the police car, we can dismiss the idea entirely.
 
I value my anonymity and wonder why my birth origin is think it relevant to the discussion.

I understand fully the desire to protect your identity - and that's why I asked in the manner I did. If you had told me "I'd rather not say" I'd understand.

However, your name/avatar suggest that you do not live in the US. And I suspect that the use of "thug" for black people is restricted to the US. That's all.
 
I found an opinion piece by a previous officer. Despite him being on the force the article written isn't one sided or anything. He takes a lot into account, but at the end basically says no concrete judgement can be made until more information is available.

If anyone wants to read it:

http://www.officer.com/article/11675120/ferguson-facts-and-force

This is really good, and seems to echo a lot of opinions on this forum and the theories expounded thus far. His summation is excellent, though he sides with Wilson, he backs up his opinion with facts:

We don’t know all the facts and cannot at this point make a proper assessment. We can, however, state that Michael Brown was a violent subject who had just committed a felony whether this was known by the officer or not. He committed a felony assault on a police officer, may have attempted to disarm the officer and resisted arrest. He had multiple opportunities to comply with the officer’s lawful authority and failed to do so and was subsequently shot and killed.
 
I think that based on the audio, we've now narrowed it down to between 10-13 shots. We think there are 11 because of the natural pause that would have occurred as Wilson exited his SUV before shooting again. Some people have speculated that there could have been 2 more shots before the audio begins. As I've said before, if the police report more than 11 shells, then we'll have to revise our understanding. If there are only eleven shells, and the audio captures the last 11, then Darren Wilson's account is called into serious doubt.

We shall see.

I missed this earlier, and have not seen it mentioned, FWIW:

http://stlouis.cbslocal.com/2014/08/26/report-alleged-new-audio-of-michael-brown-shooting/

Twelve shell casings—all from police weapons—were recovered at the scene.
 
I think you might be confusing the difference between legally relevant, and relevant to a discussion on an online forum. While the video from the store is NOT relevant, legally, to the investigation of the death of Mr. Brown. It can be used as evidence to his mind set when discussing the confrontation that led to his shooting on an internet forum. They mean two completely different things, the video is relevant to our discussion, not the investigation. Mr. Brown, nor Officer Wilson, are being tried here today, on this forum. The situation is being discussed, however.

This is entirely correct. There's only one problem - the police have alleged that Brown tried to grab Wilson's gun, while it was still in the holster. And again, there's a huge chasm between Brown's acts in the store (namely, supposedly stealing some cigarellos, and pushing the sales clerk), and his alleged actions while walking down the street (trying to kill a cop!) I do not agree that the former action makes the latter behavior likely.

It has been confirmed up thread that Officer Wilson definitely knew about the robbery as it was communicated by dispatch before any shots were fired. See the timestamps on Cylinder's posts above. It was absolutely known. We can now disregard that as it is fact.

The police's official statements on this matter are all over the place. and that's why, as I and many other people have said, it's important to see what Wilson said immediately after the shooting - we cannot draw anything definitive without his statement, and the blank report from the Ferguson PD is just putting them in a somewhat worse light than their known actions have.
 
I missed this earlier, and have not seen it mentioned, FWIW:

http://stlouis.cbslocal.com/2014/08/26/report-alleged-new-audio-of-michael-brown-shooting/

Twelve shell casings—all from police weapons—were recovered at the scene.
They say 12 casings recovered.

That means, one from the car, and 10 on the audio. Either he only shot once at Brown as Brown fled, or the six shots of which at least some entered through the front occurred as Brown turned.

Or, the last 4 shots all hit, the one from the car hit, and the graze on the arm was from one of the 6 shots that occurred as Brown was fleeing and he turned during the 3 second lag in shooting.

In other words either there was only one shot as Brown fled
All six shots were fired as he fled
Or Brown turned during the six shots.
 
This is really good, and seems to echo a lot of opinions on this forum and the theories expounded thus far. His summation is excellent, though he sides with Wilson, he backs up his opinion with facts:

Quote:
We don’t know all the facts and cannot at this point make a proper assessment. We can, however, state that Michael Brown was a violent subject who had just committed a felony whether this was known by the officer or not. He committed a felony assault on a police officer, may have attempted to disarm the officer and resisted arrest. He had multiple opportunities to comply with the officer’s lawful authority and failed to do so and was subsequently shot and killed.

How do we know he "committed a felony assault on a police officer"? I find it just as easy to believe that Wilson grabbed Brown by the shirt and drew his gun on him.
 
Because taunting takes longer than saying, "Don't shoot, I don't have a gun."

":rule10:"

No, I don't see how it takes longer.

<snip>
Regardless of Cylinder's post, there were mixed reports from the chief in his first press conference that Wilson had not heard the report, and later reports that he had. I don't know if he did or didn't and I also don't think it's relative anyway.

There was a report Wilson had not heard the report, it was corrected.

Assume you meant relevant. And if Wilson knew that Brown and Johnson were possible suspects in a robbery, I don't see how you can think it's not relevant. It provides context, either way.
 
The claim is that Johnson had an object around his arm at the store, that was missing after the shooting, and thus the object must be a bracelet, dropped next to the police car, blah blah blah.

The fact that Johnson very clearly has a rubber band on his wrist right after the shooting puts a massive hole in that theory. In fact, unless you can actually show, and not just using grainy photos, that he dropped a bracelet near the police car, we can dismiss the idea entirely.

I think if you can show he had a bracelet/watch, and then he didn't. And there is an evidence marker near something that looks like said bracelet/watch which is otherwise unidentified...then you may have something worth discussing.

But for now, your right. No reason to speculate. We''l find out one way or another in time. But I know which guess I'm putting my money on ...
 
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