Michael Brown Shooting

[Axiom_Blade]

The better question would be "why not shoot at his chest", but he apparently did that. If you're shooting a gun at someone, you're trying to kill them, period.

Then you shouldn't be shooting. Isn't this why cops are trained in non-lethal weapons like batons and tasers? Sorry, I just can't see a justification for killing this young man. At least not with the evidence we currently have.

Here's the real question - why would Brown run down the street, and then turn around and begin running back?

Why indeed?

 

[marplots]

You seem to be condoning your soon starting bar fights. Unless you have a vastly different view of acting aggressively than i do. Please tell me I'm wrong, otherwise i don't really think i can keep up the conversation as our views on violence are so completely opposed.

I think that might be it - a difference in meaning for physical aggression. I see a huge gap between a fight (as, for example, in hockey) and a life-threatening situation calling for deadly force as a response.

This could be because I was raised in Detroit with a lot of older brothers and in a neighborhood where fighting was common. Fighting with a weapon, though, was in a different class of behavior. Grappling, shoving, or a punch or two? Nothing to write home about. So I have a hard time thinking all the kids I grew up with were violent felons deserving bullets to the noggin.

 

[Axiom_Blade]

I love the way worshippers at the church of St Michael;s use the word "shove" for what Brown did.

Oy, this "St. Michael" stuff again. Do I have to be a saint to not get gunned down in the street like a dog?

 

[Cylinder]

Assuming that he was actually charging, and Wilson was in fear for his life...why not shoot him in the legs? Why aim for the head?

Using a firearm in self defense is deadly force regardless of outcome. Missouri Revised Statutes 563.011(1) defines deadly force in the context of the defense of justification:

"Deadly force", physical force which the actor uses with the purpose of causing or which he or she knows to create a substantial risk of causing death or serious physical injury;​

There's a bit of the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy here in that one could as easily argue that Wilson was aiming for his arms -- where two thirds of the strikes actually hit.

The doctrine Wilson -- like every other LEO -- was taught is that once the decision to use lethal force is made, he should continue to fire at center-of-mass until the threat no longer exists.

 

[Mumbles]

Then you shouldn't be shooting. Isn't this why cops are trained in non-lethal weapons like batons and tasers? Sorry, I just can't see a justification for killing this young man. At least not with the evidence we currently have.



Why indeed?

And this is why I believe the witnesses, and not the police chief - it makes no damn sense to run *towards* a person who is actively shooting at you, especially if they're a cop. It *does* make sense to just give up in a case like that, particularly if you've already been shot once. How're you going to outrun the cop, with the car, if you're wounded? And even if you *do* outrun him, um, you've got that bullet to take care of, which basically means a hospital visit and once that happens, you're caught.

It's starting to look pretty bad for Officer Wilson, just as far as ethics and job prospects go. Unless he can find evidence that Brown really was going for his gun, he'll have no real excuse for his conduct. Legally, he may still be in the clear, though. And of course, the folks doing the investigation are the same ones driving around and blasting innocent people with tear gas, so I'm sure they'll work to protect him at this point.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

In through the eyebrow, and out through the eye.....huh?

What, you think I made it up or you know more than one of the top medical examiners in the country?

If it exited through the eye, how did it come back in? Did it bounce off of the ground, or something?

In the forehead, out the eye, back in the top of the jaw, out the bottom of the jaw, into the chest. You really need to keep up, that was explained about a dozen pages back.

ftfy

No, you didn't. You don't even understand the basic autopsy report, I don't think it's me you need to be correcting here.

It's an impossible flight path, bullets don't leave the body then go back in.

OMG, are you really having that hard of a time here?

I snipped the rest, I'm too flabbergasted by your post.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

And here's what else he said.

“It can be because he’s giving up, or because he’s charging forward at the officer.”

Funny how you ignore that part.

Funny how you ignore the entirety of the evidence and cherry pick what fits your POV.

Hint: Witnesses, autopsy, audio recording.

 

[Axiom_Blade]

And this is why I believe the witnesses, and not the police chief - it makes no damn sense to run *towards* a person who is actively shooting at you, especially if they're a cop.

Isn't the police chief just repeating Wilson's account back to us?

 

[Ladewig]

There is more evidence, we don't have it yet, so more hypotheticals, which means no conclusions.

Yes. I understand that. It was a hypothetical question to determine how certain posters viewed what we already have. It would be quite inappropriate to draw final conclusions before we get all the rest of the evidence.

Imagine a 190m asteroid landed on Ferguson and all witnesses were killed, all autopsy reports were destroyed, all forensic reports were destroyed, all official crime scene photos were destroyed, Wilson's cruiser was destroyed, all county and state investigatory files were destroyed.

All we have is what was presented through the press and the internet up until today. With only that, how many posters believe that is there enough evidence to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt ¹ that Wilson committed murder?

...............
(1) in the US, the standard for criminal conviction is that the state has proved its case beyond reasonable doubt.

 

[lionking]

I'll just join in to say that shooting at the legs is idiocy. Every police force (I'm pretty certain) trains officers to fire at the body mass. Mind you, most of them insist that shooting at someone is the absolute last option, and should only be done when someone's life is at risk. Shooting someone who is fleeing in the back, or trying to, is not in the instruction manual.

 

[Mumbles]

Isn't the police chief just repeating Wilson's account back to us?

The police chief's story has changed, and the incident report he gave us was blank, so not really.

 

[This is The End]

The sarcastic, snarky comments have bothered me too. I think they serve at least two purposes for the posters who make them: one it's a way to marginalize Michael Brown, to trivialize his death, to make clear their lack of compassion and two it's a passive-aggressive way to flame posters that obviously take this matter very seriously.

Well put.

 

[This is The End]

It's strange to see such an effort to minimize the aggressive theft, which we KNOW occurred, while at the same time maximizing the imagined bad actions of the cop, when we simply don't know.
That's bias in its raw, pure form.

You know what else has no place?

It's strange to see such an effort to maximize the aggressive theft, which we KNOW occurred, while at the same time minimizing the imagined bad actions of the cop, when we simply don't know.
That's bias in its raw, pure form.

And it has no place on a skeptics forum, except as a source of amusement.

A fake skeptic, seeped in bias, would only claim that one of the two extremes has no place. Not even noticing the other extreme that matches his bias. While a true skeptic would always be aware of and clearly acknowledge both extremes.

 

[This is The End]

Scary.

Actually that is the correct verdict. Note that he was asked to decide with only what we know now. In other words, that is literally all the defense presents as their justification for the shots fired.

We do not have the evidence yet of the assault on the officer. We also do not have the evidence yet of the suspect charging back. Therefore that evidence would not be presented in the hypothetical.

If that was the case presented as justification it would be an easy guilty.

What is "scary" would be your claim that you would find him not guilty on zero evidence of justification presented.

 

[Jim_MDP]

What, you think I made it up or you know more than one of the top medical examiners in the country?

In the forehead, out the eye, back in the top of the jaw, out the bottom of the jaw, into the chest. You really need to keep up, that was explained about a dozen pages back.

In the bits I could stomach of his vid with the wicked witch Nancy, he said... in the eye(brow), then out the jawbone and into the clavicle. Exactly what I picked up from the text reports of his and Baden's report last week.

Where did the extra exit and entry come from. You've repeated it here at least five times but I didn't watch the earlier vids, or did he leave that out of the *gack* Nancy Grace interview?

 

[This is The End]

Oh yeah, and you have to make Brown a violent felon for stealing cigars and pushing the store clerk.

And, don't forget, assaulting the police officer.

We have solid evidence of the stealing cigars and pushing the store clerk. We do not have solid evidence for the assault on the police officer... yet.

If there is solid evidence for the assault on the police officer leaking it might calm a lot of nerves... I believe that was tried but it wasn't exactly solid, and if it isn't solid it will have the opposite effect on nerves.

 

[This is The End]

Perhaps officer Wilson fired an initial volley at Mr. Brown that mostly missed

Why do you say "perhaps" there like you just thought of this? Isn't that exactly what the police and witnesses agree upon, and has been discussed for days?


I just posted about it yesterday in fact:

Why are you imagining that all were when he was "charging"? Didn't the police state that there were shots fired in 3 separate time-frames in one of their press releases?

AFAIR they said there was:

1: One in the car.

2: An unknown number as the suspect fled. (We have since found from the Baden autopsy that only one of those was possibly a hit; unless of course the suspect was fleeing backwards (backpedaling) which no-one claims.)

3: An unknown number as the suspect returned aggressively. (We have since found from the autopsy that the majority, or all, of the hits were here.)


Also, that police statement correlates closely with one of the primary witnesses. That witness said one shot in the car, then some shots while the suspect fled (the witness interpreted one of these as a hit and that it made the suspect jump but that was likely the witness misreading the suspect flinch around in the fear that being shot at produces), and then the lethal volley of shots when the suspect turned around.


Both "sides" seem to agree on that basic grouping (though the actions of the suspect after he turned around are not agreed upon).

What is not as clear and agreed upon by the police and the witnesses are the exact facts on which the police officer was basing the right to shoot. I believe the police have claimed a punch to the face and a reach for the weapon, correct me if I am wrong.

I suspect more details than we have about those two facts, and potentially others, are being presented to the grand jury.

Also, they are openly, clearly, and specifically not claiming that the theft of the cigars or the jaywalking are part of that right to shoot.

 

[This is The End]

Getting down or falling down both are more likely and make more sense that an 18 yr old with no criminal record except he stole cigars and shoved a store clerk would suddenly 'bullrush' a cop who was shooting at him.

Exactly. It is possible, but it seems to be the less likely of the possibilities. Stopping fast and turning around and then freezing is the normal response to being shot at. Stopping fast and turning around and then charging at the person with the gun is not a normal response to being shot at.

 

[Jim_MDP]

Exactly. It is possible, but it seems to be the less likely of the possibilities. Stopping fast and turning around and then freezing is the normal response to being shot at. Stopping fast and turning around and then charging at the person with the gun is not a normal response to being shot at.

That is true... it is not "normal". But then again, when I pick up smokes, I invariably pay for them. That's "normal" for me.

Aggressively approaching a firing weapon is ludicrous to me, but anyone who claims it has never happened is an idiot, and I'm not talking about "combat" examples.

Not claiming that's what Brown did (don't know), but it does happen.

 

[Aber]

Aggressively approaching a firing weapon is ludicrous to me, but anyone who claims it has never happened is an idiot, and I'm not talking about "combat" examples.

Not claiming that's what Brown did (don't know), but it does happen.

If you accept the sound recording, then turning round and charging seems unlikely. What seems more likely is:

6 rounds fired at Brown fleeing

Pause when he stops and turns around

2 deliberate shots which hit Brown in the arm

2 rapid shots into the top of Brown's head


If Brown started charging then it would seem more likely that those last 4 shots would have been much more rapid.

Would a court consider the 3 groupings of shots separately? ie 6 rounds at a fleeing unarmed man as attempted murder, 2 deliberate shots as self-defence, final 2 shots as ?