Michael Brown Shooting

[Mike!]

You seriously don't want to be defending that website. I'm just going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you do not know about the website you are seemingly defending. It does matter how one goes about being right even if one is right. A openly and apologetically racist clock is correct at least twice a day.

As Mumbles said, not only is that site a disgrace to the word "conservative", it is a disgrace to the word "treehouse"!

Anyone who links to something on a skeptics forums should be aware of and vet the site that hosts it. Ignorance is no excuse.

Thanks, and I'll have to plead ignorance in this case. It was only on the second viewing I saw Brightbarts picture and figured out, at least partially, why it wasn't 'welcome' here.

 

[TheL8Elvis]

You're going to start this crap again? Pretty sure everything was already said. Except maybe, ever hear of the principle that you can't make a more precise measurement than your tool is capable of?

The claim that 28 feet is some kind of accurate measurement is unsupportable. Can you tell us the margin of error in that measurement?

Apparently near zero.

Using the 20ft Google map scale comparing my street to Canfield Dr, mine is 22, Canfield is 28.

There, happy?

It's not about me being happy, it's about whether or not you are being open to a reasonable discussion.

Yes, it does. They often use yellow reflectors here, not paint. You can see them better in the winter rain. The street in front of my house is designated arterial.

Based on the laws of my own state, VA, and the examples in posts like the ones below, reflectors are not a substitute for yellow lines, but a supplement. The lines have specific legal meanings, i.e. solid double yellow = no passing.

IOW, I doubt that the reflectors in your road are legally equivalent to a double yellow line.

Actually I would go by the lane markings. No line down the middle = very little traffic. White line, a bit more traffic, yellow line, even more traffic, double white line, even more traffic and double yellow, maximum traffic. The shooting scene road had a double yellow line.

I don't know about you but where I live a no line road is a street with houses and is not used by most people to get from point A to point B unless they actually live on that street (I live on such a street). A single yellow line is a feeder road to the no line at all streets. The closest intersection to me is such a street (and happens to be much less wider than my street). The streets with double yellow lines are main roads on which pretty much everyone drives on to get to the feeder roads which go to the no line roads. The street behind where I live is one of those streets (and is about as wide as my no line street).

I guess my point is that width isn't always an indication of how much traffic uses the road but traffic markings usually are. The crime scene and memorial photos all show a double yellow line so take that as you will.

That is exactly consistent with my experience of the way things are in Southern California where I live.

Makes absolutely no difference in my argument (as I already said). It's a residential street and no cop here in my world would ever care that someone was walking in the middle of a residential street unless there was a reason in addition to just being in the street.

Well, the shooting didn't happen in your world.

But we can be finished talking about street now.

 

[Monketi Ghost]

Amazing that SG knows what cops should do and what they would care about, it's like we have our own LEO Sylvia Browne.

 

[TheL8Elvis]

No evidence AT ALL of that. None. Not one iota. Just the word of a killer cop.

They found nothing or they would have released that. Because they have been doing everything possible to demonize the victim here.

Testosterone and contempt.

Hmmm....Such skepticism. So very robust.

 

[jhunter1163]

Yes they are, but, amazingly to some, other methods to neutralise threats are preferred. During the 1980s, in the aftermath of several police being killed, a number of criminals were shot and killed by Victorian Police. A major training effort (Project Beacon) led to police shootings reducing sharply. I worked for Vicpol for much of the 1980s, so saw this cultural change first hand.

Today there are very few shots fired by police, and there have been no deaths in recent years IIRC.

There are 12,500 Victorian Police, one of the world's largest forces.

In my hometown (Spokane, WA, a city of some 200,000 people at the time) in the late 1970s, there were four criminals killed by police in the space of about six weeks. There was a marked drop in crime after that; the police had earned something of a "shoot first, ask questions later" kind of reputation. IIRC all of the shootings were found to be justified but I'm told it was commonplace on the local firing ranges for people to empty a clip as fast as they could and then yell "Freeze! Spokane Police!"

 

[TheL8Elvis]

Yes, the original police story said that Wilson's gun went off while Wilson was still in the car. I presume that this shot hit Brown, since that's what accounts for all the shots.

Which we can now guess was a poor choice of words. Brown was never inside the car, but Wilson was and they were wrestling there. That's when the first shot was fired, by all accounts. It makes sense that a point blank shot would hit.

Yet the autopsy claims no powder burns on brown ?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/...render-position-when-Darren-Wilson-killed-him
DR. BADEN: no gunpowder was present on his [Brown's] body.

How exactly does that happen at point blank range ?

 

[TheL8Elvis]

There's three sets of shots. One in the car, some more while giving chase, then four more which are likely the fatal shots. Josie claimed that between sets two and three, Brown stopped and taunted Wilson and then charged him. The tape makes that impossible since there is not enough time for this to have occurred.

How much time, exactly, does it take to turn around, taunt, and move toward someone ?

Is it possible for some of those events to be simultaneous ?

I'm quite sure it's not impossible. We know brown turned around. We have a witness saying brown moved toward wilson.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYqrAhpo_w4 Interview with anderson cooper

Michael Brady saw a tussle. Although he says he didn't know Brown, he had "seen him around"

He didn't hear a shot at the car, the first shot was at browns back at least 20 feet away. 1 or 2 shots, and wilson didn't hit brown.

By the time Brady gets outside,brown was facing the officer, hands balled around stomach, halfway. He took one or two steps toward the officer. Brady didn't see a "surrender"

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Yet the autopsy claims no powder burns on brown ?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/...render-position-when-Darren-Wilson-killed-him
DR. BADEN: no gunpowder was present on his [Brown's] body.

How exactly does that happen at point blank range ?

Do we know that gels with the original autopsy?

When Baden had his turn hadn't the body already been embalmed which would indicate it had also been cleaned up..

Just thinking that some details of the official autopsy are being kept under wraps pending the Grand jury investigation.


It would seem that any details, if they exist, of evidence of gunshots taking place in the police vehicle are being withheld also...

 

[Distracted1]

Do we know that gels with the original autopsy?

When Baden had his turn hadn't the body already been embalmed which would indicate it had also been cleaned up..

Just thinking that some details of the official autopsy are being kept under wraps pending the Grand jury investigation.


It would seem that any details, if they exist, of evidence of gunshots taking place in the police vehicle are being withheld also...

if officer Wilson did not hit Mr. Brown from the front, at the car.
And if the volley of six shots was ( as some have asserted ) fired at Mr. Browns back as he fled. The final volley of four shots must somehow be responsible for at least five of the six entry wounds Mr. Brown sustained.

 

[TheL8Elvis]

Is the consensus right now that the first shot on the recording is the shot in the car?

Based on what I understood Josie's story to be I expected more of a lag between shots one and two. The separation of shots looks more like Wilson fired a shot from within the car and kept firing or Wilson wasn't in the car when the first shot went off. .636 seconds doesn't seem like enough time to get out of the car, re aim and fire off a shot. And the idea that Wilson gave chase before he fired off his next shot seems obviously false, unless for some reason the first shot wasn't recorded. ETA: Is it possible that Wilson was firing on the run? Is that considered acceptable police procedure? Is it possible to shoot with any accuracy on the run?

The last two shots bare a strange similarity to the last two shots in the video I linked to above. The victim was lying on the ground there was a pause in the shooting and then somebody pumped two more shots into the victim.

ETA:I wonder if blood spatter analysis and blood trail evidence when combined with the audio information and the shell casing locations might provide a pretty clear of what happened here. If it can be worked out that Brown is more than 20 feet away from Wilson when the final shots are fired will Wilson be in trouble?

ETA: What is the most pro Wilson narrative that is consistent with the audio evidence?

These are good questions that need to be addressed.

I believe the claim is that the recording started after shot 1 (or 2 ) ?

The police know how many shots were fired.
The police know if there was a ahot fired in the car or from the car.
The police know if there is powder or powder burns on brown

The police are not trying the case in the media, so we don't know these things yet.

The cynical me says Crump and Parks would have leaked the number of shots fired (a) if he knew and (b) if he thought it helped browns side.
So either they don't know, or it doesn't help.

 

[TheL8Elvis]

Agreed. I think this recording demolishes the "Josie" story, and I really hope Wilson told that lie to someone who wrote it down.

That would be especially nice, since her story never made any sense in the first place.

Brown slams his door shut once, attacks him, goes for his gun, the gun goes off, Brown starts running...and the standard procedure here is to pursue!?

http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/26/us/michael-brown-ferguson-shooting/

But a woman who identified herself as a friend of Wilson called into a St. Louis radio show last week with what she said was the officer's version of events. The caller, who identified herself only as "Josie," said Brown taunted the officer and charged at him. Her account accurately matches what Wilson has told investigators, a source with detailed knowledge of the investigation told CNN.

Well, there you go. If her story was demolished, and her story matches wilson ...

 

[steve s]

Yet the autopsy claims no powder burns on brown ?

Baden was the third person to autopsy the body, after StL County and the Feds. Perhaps it got wiped off during those other autopsies.

Steve S

 

[Newtons Bit]

That would be especially nice, since her story never made any sense in the first place.

Brown slams his door shut once, attacks him, goes for his gun, the gun goes off, Brown starts running...and the standard procedure here is to pursue!?

Exactly. The police should always let people that attack them go.

 

[casebro]

Yet the autopsy claims no powder burns on brown ?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/...render-position-when-Darren-Wilson-killed-him
DR. BADEN: no gunpowder was present on his [Brown's] body.

How exactly does that happen at point blank range ?

That CTH site that everybody disses had something not shown elsewhere. A bullet at the second floor level of one of the buildings there. It's impact point jibes with the first shot being a miss out the window. So, not being a close range hit, it would not have left powder burns on the body. Perhaps on the clothing there is plenty of residue.

And from other news snippets, there is supposedly incontrovertible evidence tha Brown was trying to take the gun in the car. Fingerprints, or skin residue on the sharp parts?

 

[Polaris]

That CTH site that everybody disses had something not shown elsewhere. A bullet at the second floor level of one of the buildings there. It's impact point jibes with the first shot being a miss out the window. So, not being a close range hit, it would not have left powder burns on the body. Perhaps on the clothing there is plenty of residue.

And from other news snippets, there is supposedly incontrovertible evidence tha Brown was trying to take the gun in the car. Fingerprints, or skin residue on the sharp parts?

If you're talking about that hole above the window, that's not a bullet hole unless the CSI carved the whole thing out of the wall.

 

[GWCarver]

You seriously don't want to be defending that website. I'm just going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you do not know about the website you are seemingly defending. It does matter how one goes about being right even if one is right. A openly and apologetically racist clock is correct at least twice a day.

As Mumbles said, not only is that site a disgrace to the word "conservative", it is a disgrace to the word "treehouse"!

Anyone who links to something on a skeptics forums should be aware of and vet the site that hosts it. Ignorance is no excuse.

There will probably be more useful information coming from the Treehouse on this case than The New York Times, a hopelessly biased left-wing propaganda sheet.

 

[carlitos]

An antagonistic relationship is often a two- way - street. Sometimes one that is somewhere between 20 and 28 feet wide

LOL

I suggest it is standard operating procedure for cops in Ferguson to see young black men as lawbreakers, and seeing these two in the middle of the street was viewed with that confirmation bias.

If they were walking down the middle of the street, they were breaking the law. No confirmation bias was needed.

Not much traffic? The street in front of my house is considered a "busy" residential street. You could still walk down the middle and only see cars sporadically.

Cool anecdote.

 

[Unabogie]

Baden was the third person to autopsy the body, after StL County and the Feds. Perhaps it got wiped off during those other autopsies.

Steve S

Baden said he wasn't given access to the clothing, and so there could be GSR on the clothes but not Brown's skin.

 

[Unabogie]

It seems to be the consensus that the door was shut, among many posters here.

When I hear " pushed him back into the car " it seems like the door would be open.
Although, Mr. Browns companion told a different story originally about the door which may also turn out to be true, the narrative put forth by what hearsay there is about officer Wilson's version of events has me picturing an open door.

I don't read it that way. I read it that Wilson TRIED to open the door, but Brown shoved it closed. This matches what all the witnesses say, even the police version, which as we've noted before, uses poor word choices and is, in my opinion, intentionally light on details.

 

[Monketi Ghost]

Question...

You're a cop. A six-foot-something man that outweighs you by a hundred pounds hypothetically charges you from X distance.

Do you wait for him to reach/tackle you and employ your high school/collegiate level wrestling to engage him? Maybe you have some slick grappling skills and you take a second to imagine how you're going to get the guy down, maybe hope to control his body size and arms with your impassable open guard techniques? Since a closed guard on an opponent that size isn't feasible...

Or do you use your service weapon?

I'm the cop, I use the service weapon in that hypothetical every time. I'm not going to let anyone wrestle my gun away from me.