Michael Brown Shooting

[johnny karate]

I don't know what to believe yet. And you Johnny don't know if the only actual witnesses were those who saw charging.

1) We don't know if they were actually witnesses.

2) They don't actually say Brown charged the officer.

Please bookmark this post for future reference.

 

[GWCarver]

From your link:

St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch said today that a grand jury will begin hearing evidence in the Michael Brown shooting case next week.

"We are doing it as we go along" rather than wait to present entire body of evidence to grand jury, McCulloch said in a brief phone interview.
​

I wonder if this is a good idea and related to the protest presence and rioting?

I don't think it is a good idea with regard to the protesting and rioting because grand juries are secret proceedings. That is probably why Corey cancelled Zimmerman's grand jury and proceeded to indict him herself. I suppose one could say it was to appease the lynch mob. (The "Information" certainly was not proved in court, at least according to the jury.)

 

[Skeptic Tank]

What it demonstrates is that there are still little fiefdoms where unrepentant bigots have managed to cling to power.

Little fiefdoms like New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Chicago, and Washington D.C.? This isn't just a problem in Bumpkinville, Arkansas this is an ever-present problem in the great, enlightened metropolises of the north (even San Fran), going back decades and continuing today. Most of the "getting better" has been in the area of trying to hide some of it, teach officers they'll lose their job if they're too blatant about it. Periodically it's proven that it's still there, alive and well, under the surface. And still impacting the policing practices. At least that's what those articles I linked claim.

Granted that nobody likes the taste of crow. I'll willingly admit to being wrong if the coming reports show the cop wasn't justified in shooting.

And how can we trust anything that comes out at this point, after the entire process has now been tainted by race, intimidation, appeasement, fear, and politically influenced "preferable outcomes"? Places where optics, "community reaction", the "strained relationship between police and this community", and the "history of blah blah blah" are being considered, even a little bit, are places where justice and due process go to die.

George Zimmerman was tried with 2nd degree murder and put in a position where he easily could've spent decades in prison, when according to the law and evidence, he'd committed no crime. Attested to by a thorough and prolonged review by the police, and by the district attorney's office.

We've already seen willingness to pander for the sake of optics here in this case. Bringing in the black police leader guy, making sure he is on camera a lot, and fawning over him both by other officials and of course the media (amazing how the media can go from hatred of cops to fawning love just by changing the flesh tone) and them asking Eric Holder's DOJ to get involved so rapidly. Think a DOJ headed up by a white Attorney General would've been invoked so quickly and mentioned so much in tense meetings?

And as with Trayvon, once the president weighs in on some trivial local matter, a mundane event like a criminal being shot by a police officer, that in and of itself taints everything about the process irrevocably.

I saw the attorney for the Brown family this morning on a cable news channel talking over the headline " Brown family requesting second autopsy ".
Does anyone know if the details of the first one have been released yet?
I wonder why a second one is requested.

They're having trouble accepting what sort of person their deceased relative was. It's a lot easier to rage at the police and presume anything and everything that comes from them is a lie.

You can essentially pay an expert to present findings which say whatever you want, within limits. There are some who are too ethical to do that, but you can always find some who aren't. Kendrick Johnson case is the perfect example of that with a second autopsy.

It looks like the little guy starts it and the big guy reacts to that aggression.

lol

 

[William Parcher]

2) They don't actually say Brown charged the officer.

What did they actually say?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

...
Second edit: I looked it up. The mighty Internet tells me it was Johnson's warrant, for a theft charge. Ironic that the guy with the theft warrant doesn't want to steal. Maybe he strayed from the path of thuggery himself.

Not that Johnson didn't steal what he was accused of, but it wasn't a conviction, it was a charge.

 

[johnny karate]

What did they actually say?

The video was posted upthread. Feel free to listen for yourself.

Of course, you're missing the larger point. We don't know if they are actually witnesses. We simply hear two unidentified people discussing the incident. At no point does one of them say "I saw the whole thing and this is what happened...".

Therefore... We don't know if they are actually witnesses.

 

[tyr_13]

I'm not sure how that follows from this exchange:

Oh I see. You quoted the part of my post that was quoting and addressing what Unabogie said, specifically, 'I see that some people have decided that since Mike Brown was not a "gentle giant", they can simply dismiss all of the witnesses as liars and proclaim that his life was forfeit once he stole those cigarettes.' I thought that it followed from that.

But even going by only what you quote there, William Parcher wasn't saying that those alleged eye witnesses are reliable while the others are not, but asking why those ones are dismissed while the others are not. If one does put stock in to what witnesses allegedly allege, why only pick some? I think that's the argument at any rate.

If those witnesses are witnesses (which apart from Brown's friend it isn't certain who is and isn't), then their report does defend the officer just like the other witnesses reports defend Brown. But I don't know who actually saw what, so other evidence is required.

EDIT: Oh, right. The people never even identified themselves as witnesses. They could have just been repeating what...someone...said.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

The video was posted upthread. Feel free to listen for yourself.

Of course, you're missing the larger point. We don't know if they are actually witnesses. We simply hear two unidentified people discussing the incident. At no point does one of them say "I saw the whole thing and this is what happened...".

Therefore... We don't know if they are actually witnesses.

If you are referring to this, it's interesting what people think they hear. I don't hear the word "charging" or anything suggesting anything aggressive in this quote from the video:

"the next thing I know he was coming back toward [the cop], [snip] I was thinking the police must be missing, then he kept coming toward him."

With the exception of not saying, "his arms in the air", the account is consistent with the witnesses that were closer to the victim.

 

[Mike!]

If you are referring to this, it's interesting what people think they hear. I don't hear the word "charging" or anything suggesting anything aggressive in this quote from the video:

"the next thing I know he was coming back toward [the cop], [snip] I was thinking the police must be missing, then he kept coming toward him."

With the exception of not saying, "his arms in the air", the account is consistent with the witnesses that were closer to the victim.

One has to wonder what sort of individual would make any effort to approach an officer, or anyone else for that matter, firing a weapon in their direction, under any circumstances, is thinking.

 

[Skeptic Tank]

It'd be hard to take any neighbor witnesses too seriously at this point. Emotion and the community rage about this has gotten so prominent that it would take someone of outstanding mental clarity and moral fortitude to say anything which supported the officer's versions of events, or put Michael Brown in a bad light for even part of the encounter.

I'd certainly trust earlier sworn statements over any more recent changes, and I'd continue to view the officer's statement and the physical evidence as the best sources of information on what really happened out there.

Dorian Johnson has obvious reasons to lie, and as for the community member witnesses?

1.) May dislike and distrust police under the best of circumstances. Amplified by the context of "he's shooting/has just shot a young black man" and that will only have gotten amplified more by the passions which have raged since.

2.) May have only started really looking at what was going on after they started hearing gunfire, and may have initially been concerned about the danger that gunfire posed to them, which might have led to an even longer delay in really looking at what was going on out there in the street.

3.) May have missed crucial events early in the interaction, like how it began, and this may taint their ability to properly contextualize what they did see later on.

4.) May feel saying anything that supports the officer, even slightly, would be snitching and would make them a pariah.

Heck, we had Mary Cutcher in the Zimmerman case literally not see anything whatsoever until after it was all over, and told police she'd seen nothing when initially interviewed. Then as the media attention built, and the ancient pictures of Trayvon were on TV constantly... she started deciding she was a witness and went from confidently asserting that no sounds of a struggle and no cries for help happened out there, to later saying with equal confidence that the cries for help were clearly from a "little boy" etc. She sort of disappeared after stuff came out proving without a doubt that there was a fight/struggle out there. Yet, to this day she's cited as a key source of information by some loons.

So before I'd feel remotely comfortable sending this officer to prison over this, I'd need to see his version pretty flatly refuted by a video or by physical evidence. It'd need to be a very compelling refutation. Especially if ballistics prove a shot was fired inside the cruiser, and especially if that shot trajectory shows he was on his back in the cruiser, and especially if he had documented injuries.

If Michael Brown's body had no bullet wounds to the back (and possibly even if it did) I just have a very hard time imagining anything rising to the level of proof to where you'd want to send a police officer to prison for murder, when we know he was dealing with a felon coming fresh from his latest violent crime, and when (assuming proven injuries) we know the officer was attacked by him. That's a very high bar to clear.

 

[johnny karate]

Oh I see. You quoted the part of my post that was quoting and addressing what Unabogie said, specifically, 'I see that some people have decided that since Mike Brown was not a "gentle giant", they can simply dismiss all of the witnesses as liars and proclaim that his life was forfeit once he stole those cigarettes.' I thought that it followed from that.

But even going by only what you quote there, William Parcher wasn't saying that those alleged eye witnesses are reliable while the others are not, but asking why those ones are dismissed while the others are not. If one does put stock in to what witnesses allegedly allege, why only pick some? I think that's the argument at any rate.

If those witnesses are witnesses (which apart from Brown's friend it isn't certain who is and isn't), then their report does defend the officer just like the other witnesses reports defend Brown. But I don't know who actually saw what, so other evidence is required.

EDIT: Oh, right. The people never even identified themselves as witnesses. They could have just been repeating what...someone...said.

We're on the same page now.

 

[GWCarver]

The second autopsy was ordered by Eric Holder.

http://news.yahoo.com/justice-depar...-153233316.html;_ylt=AwrBEiQBzfBTLAkAIvDQtDMD

 

[Unabogie]

One has to wonder what sort of individual would make any effort to approach an officer, or anyone else for that matter, firing a weapon in their direction, under any circumstances, is thinking.

Why? Do you know what Wilson was saying? Is it possible he was saying "freeze! turn around with your hands in the air!" If so, the natural response would be to turn around and return to the authority giving you those orders. Walking towards a cop with your hands up at 35' is not in the same planetary system as "charging" the cop, and there would be no justification to shoot him five times.

 

[Skeptic Tank]

Walking towards a cop with your hands up at 35' is not in the same planetary system as "charging" the cop, and there would be no justification to shoot him five times.

Which is a pretty good tip off to us that that probably isn't what happened.

Likely, this violent thug was shot while posing an ongoing threat to the police officer, and some hysterical neighbors retroactively interpreted it as "he was executed in the street" (I've even seen a major news outlet posting an article in the last 24 hours with a headline about "shot execution style")

It can be traumatizing for people to see a young man laying dead in the middle of THEIR street. They'll know or assume immediately this is one of the neighborhood kids, and he was killed by a cop? Why? oh god WHY?

This isn't the greatest situation for sober and rational assessment of the facts.

We shall see (or maybe we won't.)

 

[Unabogie]

Here's another eyewitness who says Brown had his hands up, saying "don't shoot!"

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-ferguson-michael-brown-20140817-story.html

A woman who lives in the complex and asked not to be identified for fear of being targeted by residents and police said she heard the commotion and ran to her balcony. She said Brown threw his hands up in the air, shouting, "Don't shoot!"

"The officer kept shooting and he fell to his knees, begging for his life," the woman said. "That's when he finished him off, shot him in the head."

The woman said she works in a warehouse and moved here in March with her 2-year-old daughter to escape the violence in inner-city St. Louis.

So she says he was on his knees with his hands up when he was shot in the head. Who wants to dismiss what she says here? Who thinks it's important that Mike Brown stole some cigarillos prior to this happening?

 

[Unabogie]

Which is a pretty good tip off to us that that probably isn't what happened.

Amazing logic you have going here. It would be bad if Mike Brown was shot five times with his hands up like several witnesses say. And since that would be bad, this is proof that it didn't happen.

 

[Unabogie]

Apparently the store owner (or his attorney) is on CNN right now giving his side of the story, but I can't watch it. Can anyone recap?

 

[Skeptic Tank]

So she says he was on his knees with his hands up when he was shot in the head. Who wants to dismiss what she says here?

I do.

It reads like something out of a movie. Perhaps in future versions she'll want to add something about him clasping his hands together and tearfully telling the officer about starting college next week, and how he just wants to hug his mamma again.

I find it telling that she apparently hasn't shared her name or her account with police up to this point.

Amazing logic you have going here. It would be bad if Mike Brown was shot five times with his hands up like several witnesses say. And since that would be bad, this is proof that it didn't happen.

It's not that it would be bad, it's that it is hard to believe. It strains credulity.

Again, I am prepared to believe the officer executed Brown after he knew Brown to no longer be a threat, simply out of racist bloodlust and in retribution for an earlier, concluded attack. I just am going to require some pretty convincing and clear evidence of that. And that does not include improbable, emotional, cinematic accounts from the same neighbors who likely would be telling officers they didn't see anything if it had been Dorian Johnson who shot down Michael Brown out there.

 

[Unabogie]

I do.

<snip>

Well, duh.

 

[Mike!]

Why? Do you know what Wilson was saying? Is it possible he was saying "freeze! turn around with your hands in the air!" If so, the natural response would be to turn around and return to the authority giving you those orders. Walking towards a cop with your hands up at 35' is not in the same planetary system as "charging" the cop, and there would be no justification to shoot him five times.

I see no order to return above, only to "Freeze!, Turn around with your hands in the air!" ... No wonder he shot him.

From SG's post above...
"[snip] I was thinking the police must be missing, then he kept coming toward him.""

What was the police officer "missing", himself, his shoes, his car keys or Michael Brown? How was he "missing" him? Were they childhood friends he hadn't seen in many years whom him longed to re-associate with, or was he firing a weapon at him? I think we can agree it's safe to say he was shooting his weapon at him, and possibly not hitting him is what is implied by, " I was thinking the police must be missing, then he kept coming toward him." right?
Again, speaking only for myself, I don't care what the cop is saying, if he's shooting AT me, I'm looking for cover or being as motionless as possible, with my hands in the air as high as I can reach. The last thing I'm doing is walking toward him. But, then again, I'm just Mike!, not Superman or Michael Brown, and ALL of this is hearsay, including anyone who testifies on TV, for now.