# The Gangsters of Ferguson - Ta-Nehisi Coates on the DoJ's Ferguson Reports



## asher (Mar 6, 2015)

> Darren Wilson was innocent. If only the city's cops offered their own citizens the same due process he received.



The Ferguson Report - The Atlantic

It's an excellent, excellent piece - as is most everything Coates writes, really.

I am completely ready to say that I was wrong about the Wilson/Brown shooting - *now that there has been a full and proper examination of the evidence* - which was a point I was continually trying to make before; the case deserved much more than an extremely unusual (at best) grand jury hearing could ever provide.


----------



## bostjan (Mar 6, 2015)

I'd like to know more details about the "hands up, don't shoot" part of the evidence. The article says that


> That claims that Brown had his hands up "in an unambiguous sign of surrender" are not supported by the "physical and forensic evidence," and are sometimes, "materially inconsistent with that witness&#8217;s own prior statements with no explanation, credible for otherwise, as to why those accounts changed over time."


I have seen so many confusing news reports about this aspect of the incident that I just don't have any conclusions at this point. Maybe information will trickle out to set that straight for me.


----------



## asher (Mar 6, 2015)

I'm assuming the Darren Wilson DoJ report is out in full somewhere. I haven't read it except for summations - they cleared Wilson of any legal wrongdoing.


----------



## bostjan (Mar 6, 2015)

asher said:


> I'm assuming the Darren Wilson DoJ report is out in full somewhere. I haven't read it except for summations - they cleared Wilson of any legal wrongdoing.



I just did a quick google search after reading the article you posted. I didn't see anything that looked too promising, but if these sites are summarizing it, then you are absolutely right that it is out there somewhere.

This is only tangentially related, but, whenever it was that the news reports broke that people (one or two of my coworkers) interpretted as "NASA admits global warming is wrong," I had to search pretty hard to find the actual report, which had been summarized and paraphrased so much that by the time the telephone game was over, the information was completely different than what the source material said.


----------



## asher (Mar 6, 2015)

http://www.justice.gov/usao/moe/news/2015/march/DOJ Report on Shooting of Michael Brown.pdf

Found in about thirty seconds with "department of justice Wilson report"


----------



## bostjan (Mar 6, 2015)

asher said:


> http://www.justice.gov/usao/moe/news/2015/march/DOJ Report on Shooting of Michael Brown.pdf
> 
> Found in about thirty seconds with "department of justice Wilson report"



Perfect (+imaginary erep)!

There are a huge number of witnesses who said that Brown had his hands up in surrender when the kill shot was fired, but a vast majority of them changed their stories, denied physical evidence, or failed to appear in court to testify. That, for me, and this is going to be contrary to popular opinion, adds a smidge of doubt.

If I was on the jury, given that evidence, and those testimonies coupled with each witness's criminal background, I would have absolutely acquitted Ofc. Wilson, since there is no proof of murder here.


----------



## pushpull7 (Mar 8, 2015)

To me, no matter what the facts are, people will believe what they want to believe.


----------



## bostjan (Mar 9, 2015)

pushpull7 said:


> To me, no matter what the facts are, people will believe what they want to believe.



This is true, so much so, that I was just discussing the report with someone a couple hours after I read it, and said person had no interest in the report, dismissing it as "gubment gonna say whatever gubment gonna say to make them right." 

The major concern for me was the "hands up, I surrender" aspect of all of this. If someone really put his hands up to surrender and got shot as a result, then anarchy ensues. But then, if the perception is that he surrendered and was shot as a direct result, then what actually happened only affects people's actions if they are receptive to facts.

Honestly, I really wanted there not to be any wrongdoing on the officer's part, because it makes my world just a little easier to live in.


----------



## asher (Mar 9, 2015)

bostjan said:


> Honestly, I really wanted there not to be any wrongdoing on the officer's part, because it makes my world just a little easier to live in.





I'm confused by what you mean here. Is it because then we don't have any reason to think he's a horrible person or something, or that we should have more faith in the system?


----------



## bostjan (Mar 9, 2015)

asher said:


> I'm confused by what you mean here. Is it because then we don't have any reason to think he's a horrible person or something, or that we should have more faith in the system?



Faith in the system.


----------



## asher (Mar 9, 2015)

I'm still confused.

You were wishing Wilson was innocent - which the DoJ has found him to be - so that we can have faith in the PD and local justice system - which is both mostly unrelated to Wilson's personal actions and factually proven *not* something you should do?

Whether Wilson was guilty or innocent is in many ways irrelevant. We saw the entire way the PD handled every bit of the proceedings and the way the local law put on anything but due process. Is that not reason enough?

We may just be talking past each other - what am I missing here


----------



## 7 Strings of Hate (Mar 9, 2015)

asher said:


> Whether Wilson was guilty or innocent is in many ways irrelevant. We saw the entire way the PD handled every bit of the proceedings and the way the local law put on anything but due process. Is that not reason enough?



To be fair, I live in St.Louis. To the outside world, it seemed as so the PD acted crazy to the community. 

The truth of the matter is that the mob of people were unreasonable. They didn't care about the facts. They just wanted to "burn this mother ....er down" with no solid facts to go on.

Did the PD in ferguson act how they should have? I dont know. Probably not. But at the same time, there is no proper way to handle a community of people that arnt listening to reason, only rage. 

People who listen to reason don't loot and flip and burn cars. There were alot of people being peaceful, but even so, you cant just ignore the trouble makers. I totally support the right for the peaceful people to protest. But in this situation, everyone wants to rail the police for handling it as they did.

They handled it like they did because there was a crowd of angry people that were going off the deep end. Any one could have pulled out a gun or any number of things.

At the end of the day, we have to be realistic and many people just arnt. The police were backed into a corner. They had to handle it someway. I want all the people that critize the police responce to try to be an officer that didnt shoot anyone, but a thousand people are ready to murder you. Its not easy. It IS easy to critize though. 


And for the record, I ....ing hate cops. As much as I hate them, I cant just make stuff up so its convienient for me to shit talk them. Alot of people in america are.


----------



## asher (Mar 9, 2015)

Meeting peaceful marches with APCs, heavy machine guns, tactical combat gear and fatigues, and teargassing media.

Deliberately demolishing and desecrating memorials. Repeatedly.

Definitely backed into a corner, yep.


----------



## 7 Strings of Hate (Mar 9, 2015)

asher said:


> Meeting peaceful marches with APCs, heavy machine guns, tactical combat gear and fatigues, and teargassing media.
> 
> Deliberately demolishing and desecrating memorials. Repeatedly.
> 
> Definitely backed into a corner, yep.



But thats not what happened. You know that. We all know that.

You can watch the verdict of the grand jury be told to the crowd and the step father of michael brown litterally said "burn this mother ....er down".

Peaceful protesters don't go from being peaceful, to being looters and fliping and burning cars because of a police response in a matter of minutes. In fact, the police respond to people looting and burning cars. Not the other way around.

Machine guns, tactical combat gear, and tear gas are necessary to protect the "community" from violent people. That crowd was filled with violent people. The police didnt loot anything. The police didnt burn anything.

You are like many that watched the highlights on the 10 second sizzle real that your local news showed. Its easy to glance at it and see injustice.

The police were backed into a corner by violent people and people like you that paint a picture with a broad brush that is out of context.

When you show me a sizzle real of what they showed with no context, then yea, it look like injustice.

I'l explain that to the 3 year old (black)girl that my wife watches. She lives blocks away from the burning and looting. I'l explain to her that she was irational to be afraid that night that someone was going to burn down the house or kick in her front door.
I'l explain to her that she was made to feel scared for her own life, in her own home, with straight up thugs down the street taking advantage of a shitty situation because some casual observers somewhere across the country saw a news clip and it appears there is injustice.

I just dont get the idea of letting those thug run wild and that the police are wrong for trying to stop that.

There are other people in that community too. Other people that are just trying to live their lives that dont have an opinion one way or the other.

Luckily, that little girl and her family still have a home that wasnt burned or looted. Other people in that neighborhood wern't so lucky. 

But because some people see a clip on the news, out of context, the police should'nt make an effort to save them according to you.


If there had been a rape or murder that night, then people like you would cry about how not enough was done to stop the violence. You cant have it both ways.
And that is exactly what I'm talking about when I refer to the police being backed into a corner.



Out of context, a video of the killing of Osama bin Ladin probably looks like injustice too. A group of trained marines, heavily armed, killing an unarmed man? But it wasnt. You know the back story and why it was justified.
You don't know the back story very well here. But go ahead and make smug comments from your armchair.


----------



## 7 Strings of Hate (Mar 9, 2015)

I also dont know what memorials your refering to. Not sure what your talking about or how it relates, but ok.


And again, for the record, I hate cops. I hate having to defend these ....ers. But I'm not going to just make shit up to make me feel better about hating them.


----------



## FILTHnFEAR (Mar 9, 2015)

bostjan said:


> This is true, so much so, that I was just discussing the report with someone a couple hours after I read it, and said person had no interest in the report, dismissing it as "gubment gonna say whatever gubment gonna say to make them right."
> 
> The major concern for me was the "hands up, I surrender" aspect of all of this. If someone really put his hands up to surrender and got shot as a result, then anarchy ensues. But then, if the perception is that he surrendered and was shot as a direct result, then what actually happened only affects people's actions if they are receptive to facts.
> 
> Honestly, I really wanted there not to be any wrongdoing on the officer's part, because it makes my world just a little easier to live in.





7 Strings of Hate said:


> But thats not what happened. You know that. We all know that.
> 
> You can watch the verdict of the grand jury be told to the crowd and the step father of michael brown litterally said "burn this mother ....er down".
> 
> ...


----------



## asher (Mar 9, 2015)

Thank you for making lots of assumptions. As it happens, I was following the protests live, both on social media and attempting to get corroborated by various media reports as much as possible.

But I promise you, I'm not making shit up:



> As darkness fell on Canfield Drive on August 9, a makeshift memorial sprang up in the middle of the street where Michael Brown's body had been sprawled in plain view for more than four hours. Flowers and candles were scattered over the bloodstains on the pavement. Someone had affixed a stuffed animal to a streetlight pole a few yards away. Neighborhood residents and others were gathering, many of them upset and angry.
> 
> Soon, police vehicles reappeared, including from the St. Louis County Police Department, which had taken control of the investigation. Several officers emerged with dogs. What happened next, according to several sources, was emblematic of what has inflamed the city of Ferguson, Missouri, ever since the unarmed 18-year-old was gunned down: An officer on the street let the dog he was controlling urinate on the memorial site.



I bring up the police obliterating a memorial to illustrate that they bear a *large* portion of responsibility for escalating the situation, repeatedly.

Michael Brown's Mom Laid Flowers Where He Was Shot

So backed into a corner they... open fire on peaceful protests?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO1SKC6dK7o&t=183

It's stuff like this: going back on their word, violently handling obviously peaceful events. I don't really have much of an issue with measures being taken against people throwing rocks, cocktails, trash, etc. That was NOT the majority of what was happening:



> In fact, the promises Jackson did make about what police would do on Wednesday were quickly broken by the police on the scene. He said repeatedly that protesters would be allowed to continue to assemble, even after sunset (although the Ferguson police and city government had asked protesters to leave 5pm), as long as they were peaceful and weren't blocking the road for more than a brief time.
> 
> That's not what happened &#8212; guns and tactical vehicles were aimed on protesters on the sidewalk, even hours before sunset, and the confrontation between police and protesters after sunset began when police started demanding that protesters retreat 25 feet from where they'd been standing peacefully for hours.



Why there wasn't accountability for the police in Ferguson - Vox

This has a nice assortment of evidence and links in the protest timeline.

An uneasy peace in Ferguson - Vox

There's a lot of evidence that the vast majority of protesters were peaceful and outside agitators or very small bunches were responsible for lootings and burnings (links taken from the vox article):

https://twitter.com/ryanjreilly/statuses/500536864399695872
https://twitter.com/WesleyLowery/statuses/500529190010359808

From Anarchists to Tibetan Monks, Here Are Some of the Outsiders Joining Protests in Ferguson | Mother Jones

And that many of the protesters tried to stop the looting:
A firsthand account of how protesters protected Ferguson Friday night - Vox



> On Monday, when Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon signed an order to bring in the National Guard, he cited "violent and criminal acts of an organized and growing number of individuals, many from outside the community and state." On Tuesday, US Sen. Claire McCaskill said on MSNBC that the protesters "have now been invaded&#8230;by a group of instigators, some coming from other states, that want a confrontation with the olice." An officer told the Washington Post that visitors to Ferguson are engaging in "looting tourism."
> 
> Arrest statistics appear to bear them out, up to a point. Of the 78 people arrested Monday night, police told reporters, 68 percent were from the St. Louis metro area, but 18&#8212;or 23 percent&#8212;had come from out of state, some from as far away as New York and California.



This does not break down the arrests by circumstance; they could all have been arrested for looting, or all for some undefined violation while protesting peacefully.

TNC Exclusive: Communist Group Revcom From Chicago Bussing Members Into St. Louis To Hijack The #Ferguson Protests And Start A Revolution



> The website TNC assembled photographs from Wednesday night of people wearing Revolutionary Communist Party T-shirts in a crowd that was apparently making Molotov cocktails. Justin Glawe of the Daily Beast reports that RCP members helped gin up resistance to Saturday night's curfew. In a series of tweets Monday night and Tuesday morning, St. Louis Alderman Antonio French accused RCP members of trying to incite a riot and provoke a fight with police.



French himself was arrested for... something, while sitting in his vehicle in a protest area that was being gassed.

Meet the St. Louis Alderman Who's Keeping an Eye on Ferguson's Cops | Mother Jones

The large vox article is well sourced, a good timeline, and does a bit to explain the large amount of tension, please read it.



> Machine guns, tactical combat gear, and tear gas are necessary to protect the "community" from violent people. That crowd was filled with violent people.



The evidence does not point to the crowds brimming with violent people. The evidence points to the crowds, by and large, being peaceful, and even if you want to give the PD some slack, it's nonsensical to argue that they HAD to respond these ways, were backed up into a corner, and held no part in significantly escalating the situations.


ed: and that's largely ignoring repeated harassment and assaults on media, this being an easy one:
http://www.thewrap.com/police-tear-gas-not-fired-at-al-jazeera-news-crew-intentionally-video/

double edit: Initially, I wasn't even (intending to, I didn't make it clear enough) reference the protests specifically, save the dog-pissing. I was referring to how poorly they handled the initial information releases, released contradictory information, released information in ways that seem very strongly to be attacks on character, and how the prosecutor handled the grand jury proceedings, despite there being very good grounds for conflicts of interest with his involvement, the rarity of using a grand jury at all, how it proceeded, etcetcetc. The parts that really had more to do with the article in the OP, because bostjan was talking about having faith in the system. *The report tells us why we shouldn't.*


----------



## bostjan (Mar 10, 2015)

asher said:


> The parts that really had more to do with the article in the OP, because bostjan was talking about having faith in the system. *The report tells us why we shouldn't.*



Sorry, the faith I needed in the system was my ability to surrender to a police officer without being summarily executed in the process. I didn't mean to open up the whole can of worms just to get to that one, but my intentions and a handfull of change won't even get you a cup of coffee anymore.

The rest of the worms, while very interesting to discuss, I will leave to the rest of you to hash out, while I stand by and listen.


----------



## asher (Mar 10, 2015)

bostjan said:


> Sorry, the faith I needed in the system was my ability to surrender to a police officer without being summarily executed in the process. I didn't mean to open up the whole can of worms just to get to that one, but my intentions and a handfull of change won't even get you a cup of coffee anymore.
> 
> The rest of the worms, while very interesting to discuss, I will leave to the rest of you to hash out, while I stand by and listen.



Ahhh, okay. This makes a lot more sense to me now 

I'm white and I'm still leery. I actually think the Eric Gardner incident has done more to damage the perception of officers everywhere than Ferguson - but I'm from Oakland, I already didn't particularly trust them, at least not after Occupy.

I think we're getting more and more glimpses at a system that needs some serious house keeping to get an old guard out.


----------



## FILTHnFEAR (Mar 10, 2015)

bostjan said:


> Sorry, the faith I needed in the system was my ability to surrender to a police officer without being summarily executed in the process.



So are you saying you really believe that Michael Brown was surrendering himself to Officer Wilson?


----------



## Eliguy666 (Mar 11, 2015)

Even if he wasn't, there was no excuse to kill Brown, treat his body the way the police did, use military gear to suppress protests, justify his murder by spreading footage of him shoplifting in an incident unrelated to his death, and ensure that Wilson didn't face the criminal justice system.
It disgusts me that people can look at the cases of Brown, or Garner, or Rice, or Martin, and not see that black people are dying for things white people wouldn't even be stopped for.
It disgusts me that people defend racial violence in this millennium.


----------



## bostjan (Mar 12, 2015)

FILTHnFEAR said:


> So are you saying you really believe that Michael Brown was surrendering himself to Officer Wilson?



No, not at all. That's why I wanted to read the report asher posted, so I could feel good about one little thing out of this whole mess.


----------



## FILTHnFEAR (Mar 12, 2015)

Eliguy666 said:


> Even if he wasn't, there was no excuse to kill Brown, treat his body the way the police did, use military gear to suppress protests, justify his murder by spreading footage of him shoplifting in an incident unrelated to his death, and ensure that Wilson didn't face the criminal justice system.
> It disgusts me that people can look at the cases of Brown, or Garner, or Rice, or Martin, and not see that black people are dying for things white people wouldn't even be stopped for.
> It disgusts me that people defend racial violence in this millennium.



The other cases aside. Michael Brown was asking for it. Shooting some piece of shit that is attacking you is racial violence? Give me a ....ing break. Guess you'd just let some thug pummel you instead of defending yourself. 

So his theft wasn't related to his death? He was stopped by police for his theft and he proceeded to attack the officer, but that's not related?


----------



## FILTHnFEAR (Mar 12, 2015)

bostjan said:


> No, not at all. That's why I wanted to read the report asher posted, so I could feel good about one little thing out of this whole mess.



Ah, gotcha. I misunderstood.


----------



## asher (Mar 12, 2015)

Most of what I've read, and initial reports by the police, said Wilson was unaware of the robbery, and started the encounter by telling Brown to get out of the street.


----------



## Explorer (Mar 12, 2015)

So the dispatch that went out about the strong-arm robbery by two suspects wasn't received by the officer? Because that's part of the factual timeline. 

The DoJ did find it likely that Brown attacked the officer while the officer was inside the cruiser, so that would have been reason enough for the officer to take Brown as a threat, even if the officer wasn't aware of Brown's physical assault on the store owner. 







Brown yanked him (you see the owner't foot coming off the floor), shoved the owner down, started to leave, and then turned and started to go after the owner again.

Just as Brown apparently went after the cop, started to leave, and then started to go after the cop again. 

Vid for those who haven't seen it, just so there's no doubt Brown had no problem with doing this kind of thing. 



I think it's worth examining the possible unspoken implication that the officer and the store owner, in initiating an encounter with Brown (the owner might have let the robbers just walk out) had somehow been party to Brown initiating violence on the store owner and the officer. 

It's possible that such an implication wasn't intended, but since it's possible someone might read it that way, it's better to address it.


----------



## Eliguy666 (Mar 12, 2015)

"Michael Brown was asking for it."
No, there are no ****ing reports of Michael Brown saying "Hello Mr. Wilson, would you kindly shoot me several times in the chest even after I've stopped moving? That would be wonderful."
I don't imagine that much other than that qualifies as asking to be shot in the chest several times, but apparently you disagree.
What exactly do you think the limit for shooting somebody to death is?
As to it being racial, Darren Wilson did go on record describing Brown as "it". I don't see exactly how that leaves room for ambiguity.


----------



## Eliguy666 (Mar 12, 2015)

"The DoJ did find it likely that Brown attacked the officer while the officer was inside the cruiser, so that would have been reason enough for the officer to take Brown as a threat"
There's a few enormous problems with that, however.
-Brown was not, in fact, a grizzly bear and was therefor unlikely to tear open a car to get to Wilson.
-The Ferguson police force are famous for racial profiling, even by their own admission. It requires an extreme amount of unwarranted faith in them to trust their ruling.
-Generally, the first response to somebody unarmed acting threatening is not to shoot them to death. That's really self-explanatory.


----------



## 7 Strings of Hate (Mar 12, 2015)

Fact of the matter is, if I assaulted a cop in any way, I would expect that some would use deadly force. Any idiot knows that.


----------



## Eliguy666 (Mar 12, 2015)

That doesn't make it right, though, just probable.


----------



## sevenstringj (Mar 12, 2015)

asher said:


> Most of what I've read, and initial reports by the police, said Wilson was unaware of the robbery unaware that Brown was a suspect, and started the encounter by telling Brown to get out of the street, and then realized that Brown and his friend matched the description of the robbery suspects.



ftfy

Darren Wilson: Ferguson police officer who fatally shot Michael Brown identified - CBS News

Wilson's testimony changes little, though evidence questions some points - CNN.com

http://www.stltoday.com/news/multim...tml_79c17aed-0dbe-514d-ba32-bad908056790.html

etc etc


----------



## asher (Mar 12, 2015)

Ah, thanks, I thought I might have misremembering something.

Point stands though.

ed: not that i'm saying that force isn't going to be met with force when attacking an officer, just that the theft is basically unrelated since the doesn't seem to be evidence Wilson knew he was connected.


----------



## kmanick (Mar 12, 2015)

Eliguy666 said:


> Even if he wasn't, there was no excuse to kill Brown, treat his body the way the police did, use military gear to suppress protests, justify his murder by spreading footage of him shoplifting in an incident unrelated to his death, and ensure that Wilson didn't face the criminal justice system.
> It disgusts me that people can look at the cases of Brown, or Garner, or Rice, or Martin, and not see that black people are dying for things white people wouldn't even be stopped for.
> It disgusts me that people defend racial violence in this millennium.



so are you saying that if a cop is sitting in his car and a thug reaches in and tries to take his gun after he smashes his face he should "use his words"
to talk it out? If it was a white guy they would've just sat down and had a cup of coffee?

for all of you guys that say you hate mother ....er cops.
why don't you try to see if you can get on a ride along in some of the worst sections of town and see what a cushy job they have. You might have a little bit of a different opinion when you see what these guys, who leave their wives and children every day to go out on their shifts have to deal with on a daily basis.
It's real easy to be judgmental righteous douche bags when you're sitting in the nice safe comfy confines of your houses typing away on your computer.
I'm no "go cops Yay!!" type of person but all of this cop bashing is ....ing ridiculous. Are there some bad seeds out there? of course there are.
Are the majority of cops racist pricks? I highly doubt it. 
Deal with pieces of shit every day and then tell me what you think of about shit.


----------



## Eliguy666 (Mar 12, 2015)

kmanick said:


> so are you saying that if a cop is sitting in his car and a thug reaches in and tries to take his gun after he smashes his face he should "use his words"
> to talk it out? If it was a white guy they would've just sat down and had a cup of coffee?



No, I'm saying that a tazing would have been a better approach. I don't get where you get the whole false-dilemma between "lethal force" and "nothing at all", but it must be entertaining to watch if you take the same attitude to everyday life and can't open your bedroom door in the morning because you don't want to go all out and shoot it.
As to if it was a white guy, of course not. But I guarantee that a white guy would not have been stopped for jaywalking in the middle of a day on a low-traffic road in a small town. I also find it unlikely that a white-dude would lead to a Missouri lieutenant talking about how he wanted to "make the jail cells more colorful", but who knows?


----------



## asher (Mar 12, 2015)

So about that tough neighborhood stuff. Quoting myself from one of the Ferguson threads I just spent 30m looking for to find the link (lol):



asher said:


> Stumbled across this and just want to drop it in.
> 
> Use of deadly force by police disappears on Richmond streets - ContraCostaTimes.com
> 
> Richmond, CA: in 2004, the *12th most violent city in the nation,* and probably the most in the Bay. Since 2008, there's been an average of *one officer in a shooting incident a year* and *one officer-killed person since 2007.*, and violent crime has plunged.



Going to ignore the douchebag and instead also be sad but not surprised he's not a person, he's a "thug".



> ...Nolan, who worked for *27 years as a cop in Boston* and now directs graduate programs in criminology at Merrimack College in Massachusetts. "If they haven't had an officer-involved shooting that's resulted in death *in a city like that*, it's commendable."



Emphasis mine.


----------



## Eliguy666 (Mar 13, 2015)

I really can't stand that term. Even past the racial context, the United States has a serious problem with dehumanizing criminals.


----------



## TRENCHLORD (Mar 13, 2015)

Eliguy666 said:


> I really can't stand that term. Even past the racial context, the United States has a serious problem with dehumanizing criminals.



Isn't that the point?

We should definitely dehumanize some criminals, like child molesters, murderers, rapist, and maybe to a lessor (but not much lessor) degree thieves and bandits. I say dehumanize them !!!,

but it's not really like calling them names is all that dehumanizing is it? I like the term "thugs" when it applies accurately.


----------



## Captain Butterscotch (Mar 13, 2015)

He was a thug. Whether he be white, black, Latino, Asian, or Vulcan. His actions dictate that word, not his race. Get off your damn horse.


----------



## Explorer (Mar 13, 2015)

Eliguy666 said:


> No, I'm saying that a tazing would have been a better approach. I don't get where you get the whole false-dilemma between "lethal force" and "nothing at all", but it must be entertaining to watch if you take the same attitude to everyday life and can't open your bedroom door in the morning because you don't want to go all out and shoot it.



First off... what? I don't how you got to that second sentence. It seems like you're reaching. 

Addressing your first point, based on what we know at this point:

The Department of Justice had no problem criticizing the Ferguson Police Department on many specific points. 

The Department of Justice found that Brown reached in and assaulted the officer while the officer sat in the vehicle. 

The video of Brown's strong-arm robbery shows Brown to be willing to assault others without hesitation. 

Many states, including Missouri (which contains Ferguson), have police department guidelines which automatically authorize an officer to use deadly force if a suspect tries to grab the officer's gun. 

The Department of Justice found no evidence to contradict the officer's statement that Brown had gone for the gun.

----

Given that the DoJ was willing to point out the failings of the Ferguson PD, there is reasonable argument or evidence supporting an assertion that they would not also be just as truthfully critical regarding the claim that Brown had gone for the officer's firearm. 

*Absent evidence for that conspiracy theory, that leaves two ways to prevent a shooting like this.

People like the one committing that robbery in that video up-topic need to not be violent towards others, especially not police officers, and should especially avoid going for the officer's gun.

Police departments need to not authorize lethal force when a suspect goes for an officer's gun, instead requiring the officers to use tasers and such against the person seeking to gain control of the officer's gun. 

Is there another possibility regarding a situation where a suspect attempts to gain control of an officer's gun?*


----------



## asher (Mar 13, 2015)

Captain Butterscotch said:


> He was a thug. Whether he be white, black, Latino, Asian, or Vulcan. His actions dictate that word, not his race. Get off your damn horse.



It should be, but the term has a long history of being a dog whistle and almost exclusively being used in the context of young black men.


----------



## vilk (Mar 13, 2015)

^Nahhhhhhhh "thug" is neither race nor age related. I associate the word "thug" with organized crime/gangs above anything else, and maybe it's just because I watch too much TV but Italian/1st gen Slavic European people come to my mind with use of the word 'thug', maybe even before black thugs.


----------



## asher (Mar 13, 2015)

Ehhh.

I usually see it thrown at Brown, or Gardner, or hell, Richard Sherman post superbowl interview.


----------



## bostjan (Mar 13, 2015)

Eliguy666 said:


> No, I'm saying that a tazing would have been a better approach. I don't get where you get the whole false-dilemma between "lethal force" and "nothing at all", but it must be entertaining to watch if you take the same attitude to everyday life and can't open your bedroom door in the morning because you don't want to go all out and shoot it.
> As to if it was a white guy, of course not. But I guarantee that a white guy would not have been stopped for jaywalking in the middle of a day on a low-traffic road in a small town. I also find it unlikely that a white-dude would lead to a Missouri lieutenant talking about how he wanted to "make the jail cells more colorful", but who knows?



The report said:



DoJ report said:


> Wilson explained that he resorted to his training and the use of force triangle to determine how to properly defend himself. Wilson explained that he did not carry a taser, and therefore, his options were mace, his flashlight, his retractable asp baton, and his firearm.
> Wilsons mace was on his left hip and Wilson explained that he knew that the space within the SUV was too small to use it without incapacitating himself in the process. Wilsons asp baton was located on the back of his duty belt. Wilson determined that not only would he have to lean forward to reach it, giving more of an advantage to Brown, but there was not enough space in the
> SUV to expand the baton. Wilsons flashlight was in his duty bag on the passenger seat, out of his reach. Wilson explained that his gun, located on his right hip, was his only readily accessible option.


----------



## Eliguy666 (Mar 13, 2015)

Would mace not have sufficed?


----------



## bostjan (Mar 13, 2015)

Eliguy666 said:


> Would mace not have sufficed?



I guess what he was trying to say was that if he sprayed Brown with mace through the window would have somehow incapacitated himself in the process. I'm not sure how that works, TBH.


----------



## vilk (Mar 13, 2015)

But, he didn't fire the gun from within the car anyway? He got out of the car and shot the kid. There was a whole running around section of the ordeal, bacon had more than enough time to get out of that car and grab any one of the other non-lethal weapons he had.


If it were the case that the cop shot the kid right there as soon as he reached into the car, then it makes sense that he used the gun since it was the only thing he could get at properly (oh yeah I'm sure that passenger seat is soooo hard to reach for a flashlight). But during the course of the guy moving away from the car etc. that he could have busted out the mace or baton or flashlight.


----------



## Explorer (Mar 13, 2015)

So you're saying that someone in a rushed situation, after being assaulted, should be able to make a reasoned choice. Let's see how it works out when someone has time to put together a reasoned response. 



vilk said:


> ...*bacon* had more than enough time to get out of that car and grab any one of the other non-lethal weapons he had.



Wait... how do you expect someone who was just assaulted, and who was within department regulations after someone went for his gun, to be more likely to do so, when you had time to put together a well-reasoned response and went for an insult instead? 

Thanks for the attempted counter-example. Too bad it was laden with fail.


----------



## asher (Mar 13, 2015)

It's a decent question, even if it had unnecessary insults (YMMV).


----------



## Explorer (Mar 13, 2015)

I think the answer to his question is contained within his post.

If he can't demonstrate that he can do better when he has time to think, it's unreasonable to assume a police officer should do even more after a suspect attempts to grab his gun.


----------



## Eliguy666 (Mar 13, 2015)

The issue is that Vilk isn't entrusted with public safety. We need to expect the best of those granted the duty to defend.


----------



## Explorer (Mar 13, 2015)

So you're saying, those who authorize police to use lethal force when a suspect attempts to take a gun are wrong.

Because that's where the determination was made that this was a reasonable response to someone attempting to grab an officer's gun. 

If you're saying that these people authorized an unreasonable response to a suspect attempting to grab an officer's gun, then make it about those who authorized that. 

This seems like other discussions where the police shoot a crazy person who has a hammer, and then someone starts talking about how the police should have handled the situation. In fact, there was already discussion of how fast Brown could have covered the ground between himself and the officer, and why the officer would have shot into center of mass in that situation. You're not bringing anything new to the table, and definitely nothing realistic.


----------



## asher (Mar 13, 2015)

Explorer said:


> I think the answer to his question is contained within his post.
> 
> If he can't demonstrate that he can do better when he has time to think, it's unreasonable to assume a police officer should do even more after a suspect attempts to grab his gun.



1. That's complete bullshit and you know it.

2. Okay, answer me instead.



> But, he didn't fire the gun from within the car anyway? He got out of the car and shot the kid. There was a whole running around section of the ordeal, Wilson had more than enough time to get out of that car and grab any one of the other non-lethal weapons he had.


----------



## Explorer (Mar 13, 2015)

You mean, why didn't the officer take his attention away from a suspect who had assaulted a person unprovoked and who had attempted to get control of a lethal weapon, in order to dig out a non-lethal option, while that assailant continued to be the threat the assailant himself had revealed himself to be?

I imagine the officer didn't in this situation for the same reason that officers don't turn away from others who show themselves to be possible lethal threats. 

Any alternative response requires ignoring that revealed threat as far as i can determine, but make the argument while explicitly stating that revealed threat, not just to the officer but the other civilians in the area, and let's see how reasonable ignoring that reality actually sounds when you say that it's in there, but should be handwaved away.


----------



## asher (Mar 13, 2015)

We know, after the scuffle in the car, Brown ran away.

THAT window.

Also, what other civilians?


----------



## Explorer (Mar 13, 2015)

asher said:


> Also, what other civilians?



You mean you're not aware that a host of people claim to have been witnesses to the incident? 

Or are you saying they were involved, and were additional potential threats?

Additionally, there was another person, Brown's accomplice in the robbery, who was present when Brown assaulted the officer, no? I'm not sure if that would count as a civilian witness or another potential threat, but either way, just another factor for the mix.


----------



## Eliguy666 (Mar 13, 2015)

Explorer, usually I agree with you, but pretty much everything you've said on this topic has been either an enormous stretch or irrelevant.


----------



## Explorer (Mar 14, 2015)

An attempt to grab an officer's gun is irrelevant to his behavior to follow?

The willingness of Brown to physically assault a store owner is irrelevant to his willingness to assault an police officer?

The Department of Justice's report which cleared the officer?

All three are irrelevant only in your mind. 

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion about the facts, but one is not entitled to one's own facts. That's why I'm interested in your opinion as long as it takes those facts into account. 

However, if facts have no bearing on your opinions, feel free to assert that they are irrelevant to your world view.

----

Edit: I'd be open to you explaining why those factors are irrelvant.

"The officer should have taken his attention off the guy who assaulted him in the car and tried to grab his gun, as well as the person who had been walking with his assailant, and instead looked away and started looking for alternate nonlethal options in case the guy again either walked towards him or even ran at him, because..."

"The officer shouldn't have thought of the assailant as a threat to himself and others because..."

Since your claim has an assumption that it is a mistake for different jurisdictions to authorize lethal force against those who attempt to grab an officer's gun, you could also argue about how all those regulatory bodies are in the wrong. 

In the absence of a good argument about why those things are all completely irrelevant, your dismissal of those factors is just waving your hands and hoping they'll disappear like a magic trick.


----------



## Eliguy666 (Mar 14, 2015)

Explorer said:


> Everyone is entitled to their own opinion about the facts, but one is not entitled to one's own facts.



Then it may suit you to reread the DoJ ruling and realize that it did not find evidence of Brown reaching for Wilson's gun, but failed to find evidence that it did not happen. Considering that to be proof parallels the idea that God exists because it cannot be definitively disproven.
Brown's robbery of the store is irrelevant to a police assault because the robbery of the store was profit-based whereas an assault of Wilson would have been passion-based, and the two incidents were related only in time.
The legal system has a habit of justifying racial crimes. Whether you decide to look at the grand jury's lack of indictment of Bryant and Milam in the murder of Emmet Till in 1955 or the lack of indictment for Eric Garner's killer Daniel Pantaleo in 2014 (for Garner's death) or in 2013 (for ordering two black men to strip naked in the street for a search), it is absurd at this point to trust the American justice system on these topics. It is bizarre that all of the critical perception typical of you is here absent and replaced with confirmational faith.


----------



## kmanick (Mar 14, 2015)

Eliguy666 said:


> No, I'm saying that a tazing would have been a better approach. I don't get where you get the whole false-dilemma between "lethal force" and "nothing at all", but it must be entertaining to watch if you take the same attitude to everyday life and can't open your bedroom door in the morning because you don't want to go all out and shoot it.
> As to if it was a white guy, of course not. But I guarantee that a white guy would not have been stopped for jaywalking in the middle of a day on a low-traffic road in a small town. I also find it unlikely that a white-dude would lead to a Missouri lieutenant talking about how he wanted to "make the jail cells more colorful", but who knows?



You know what you are the perfect example of the high on his horse liberal who obviously has no real world experience with someone trying to beat the crap out of you or worse yet kill you. My attitude in every day live?
lets get the facts straight, he didn't stop him for jay walking he told them to get out of the street.
Then as most :thugs" love to do , he told him to .... off or kiss his black ass or whatever. Then not only did he reach in and try to take his gun but he smashed him in the face.

WFT is the matter with you? that type of behavior is unacceptable no matter what color you are, if you have the audacity to smash a cop in the face and reach for his gun while the cop is still sitting in his car, you deserve what you get. 
Oh but I regress he was the "gentle giant, he was a good boy on his way to college"
ya right 
and in my everyday life ? is someone reaches into my car and smashes me n the face? he better smash me good because here I come


----------



## Chokey Chicken (Mar 14, 2015)

asher said:


> We know, after the scuffle in the car, Brown ran away.
> 
> THAT window.
> 
> Also, what other civilians?



We also know that he made his way back towards the officer and we know he wasn't shot while actively retreating.

Edit: there's also a point when you don't want to leave shit to chance. Mace wouldn't even be considered by me after an attempted murder, and if you miss or get unlucky a stun gun is equally useless. The situation was already escalated to the point where the cop knew the kid would use lethal force given the chance. De-escelating while your adversary is still escalated is the kind of thing that leads to your own death.


----------



## Explorer (Mar 14, 2015)

Eliguy666 said:


> Then it may suit you to reread the DoJ ruling and realize that it did not find evidence of Brown reaching for Wilson's gun, but failed to find evidence that it did not happen. Considering that to be proof parallels the idea that God exists because it cannot be definitively disproven.



In fact, let's see where they confirm your claim in the report, on page 6.

http://www.justice.gov/sites/defaul...4/doj_report_on_shooting_of_michael_brown.pdf



> Brown then grabbed the weapon and struggled with Wilson to gain control of it. Wilson fired, striking Brown in the hand. Autopsy result s and bullet trajectory, skin from Brown&#8217;s palm on the out side of the SUV door as well as Brown&#8217;s DNA on the inside of the driver&#8217;s door *corroborate Wilson&#8217;s account that during the struggle, Brown used his right hand to grab and attempt to control Wilson&#8217;s gun.*


Wait... what?

They found evidence to corroborate the officer's testimony?

That's very different from there being no evidence to corroborate it. In fact, they listed many factors in their report. 

Maybe Brown was just trying to give the officer a hug!



> Wilson and other witnesses stated that Brown then reached into the SUV through the open driver&#8217;s window and punched and grabbed Wilson. This is corroborated by bruising on Wilson&#8217;s jaw and scratches on his neck, *the presence of Brown&#8217;s DNA* on Wilson&#8217;s collar, shirt, and *pants*, and Wilson&#8217;s DNA on Brown&#8217;s palm. While there are other individuals who stated that Wilson reached out of the SUV and grabbed Brown by the neck, prosecutors could not credit their accounts because they were inconsistent with physical and forensic evidence, as detailed throughout this report.


Okay, so either Brown was reaching for the officer's gun, or he was reaching for the officer's love gun. *laugh*

Okay... so a moment ago, you were saying that someone shouldn't conclude that if there is no evidence disproving something, that it was proven that it did. Maybe there was a struggle, but Brown never came near the gun*. 

*


> According to three autopsies, Brown sustained a close range gunshot wound to the fleshy portion of his right hand at the base of his right thumb. Soot from the muzzle of the gun found embedded in the tissue of this wound coupled with indicia of thermal change from the heat of the muzzle *indicate that Brown&#8217;s hand was within inches of the muzzle of Wilson&#8217;s gun when it was fired*. The location of the recovered bullet in the side pane l of the driver&#8217;s door, just above Wilson&#8217;s lap, also *corroborates Wilson&#8217;s account of the struggle over the gun and when the gun was fired,* as do witness accounts that Wilson fired at least on e shot from inside the SUV.


Well, not only does that seem quite different from your claim of no proof, but apparently sometimes dead men *do* tell tales. 

The stippling in the wound and thermal change in the hand are facts which establish the distance from the firearm at the point it was discharged.

The calculated trajectory of the bullet embedded in the door use established ballistic principles to determine where the gun was when it was fired.

Therefore, they know that Brown's hand was on the other side of Wilson's body near the firearm (and not the officer's junk as you might try to argue), and the establishing facts corroborate the officer's story. 

*It turns out that you are asserting something which was disproven, that there was no corroborating evidence for the officer's account. 

Will you now embrace the path you were urging, of abandoning your claim which is not only unsupported, but actually disproven?
*


----------



## Eliguy666 (Mar 14, 2015)

Alright, I'm kinda tired of typing out the same stuff over and over again (I've said several times, with historical and contemporary synthesis, why police investigations aren't to be trusted in areas with histories of police racism like Ferguson), so just take a quarter hour to watch John Oliver explaining the topic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUdHIatS36A&ab_channel=LastWeekTonight


----------



## Explorer (Mar 14, 2015)

So your explanation of the three independent autopsies (county, Brown family, DoJ) all noting the hand wound is... police conspiracy?

All righty, then!

I think the DoJ report is a great summary of all the evidence. You see it as invention, but don't offer any reason why other than an unsupported conspiracy theory. 

If you can draw your conclusions from the evidence, instead of dismissing the evidence which doesn't fit your predetermined conclusion, you might be better able to convince others. However, your predetermined conclusion will have to be discarded first, and it flies in the face of the evidence like a conspiracy-rabies-infected bat.


----------



## Eliguy666 (Mar 14, 2015)

> The legal system has a habit of justifying racial crimes. Whether you decide to look at the grand jury's lack of indictment of Bryant and Milam in the murder of Emmet Till in 1955 or the lack of indictment for Eric Garner's killer Daniel Pantaleo in 2014 (for Garner's death) or in 2013 (for ordering two black men to strip naked in the street for a search), it is absurd at this point to trust the American justice system on these topics. It is bizarre that all of the critical perception typical of you is here absent and replaced with confirmational faith.





> I've said several times, with historical and contemporary synthesis, why police investigations aren't to be trusted in areas with histories of police racism like Ferguson.





Explorer said:


> If you can draw your conclusions from the evidence, instead of dismissing the evidence which doesn't fit your predetermined conclusion...


----------



## asher (Mar 14, 2015)

Oh, so, Eli, are you saying that Holder's Department of Justice report (on Brown, vs. the one on the PD) is just as untrustworthy as the Ferguson PD's investigation into the killing, or? I'm actually a bit confused, genuinely.


----------



## Eliguy666 (Mar 14, 2015)

Not just as, but I do, yes. Partially because I doubt the criminal justice system's ability to act impartially on this issue and partially because I would not doubt that Wilson or the Ferguson police tampered with the evidence in the many hours which Brown's body was not properly respected.


----------



## Explorer (Mar 15, 2015)

Eliguy666 said:


> Then it may suit you to reread the DoJ ruling and realize that it did not find evidence of Brown reaching for Wilson's gun, but failed to find evidence that it did not happen. *Considering that to be proof parallels the idea that God exists because it cannot be definitively disproven.*



So, your theory that someone fired a shot in the police SUV along a trajectory matching that of the officer's testimony, another accomplice messing with the wound to add a burn, to make sure any wound matched the trajectory at which the bullet was added to the vehicle, the DNA on the officer's clothing, the addition of gun detritus to Brown's hand wound... all part of an amazing interlocking conspiracy which also tampered with the witnesses who verified the officer's account, *and* tampered with the accurate witnesses by making them discredit themselves by then giving versions which didn't match their earlier testimonies.

And, of course, that conspiracy had to go back in time to fix the wounds matching those previously accurate witnesses' testimony, in order to repair the original wounds which showed Brown with his hands up, and then add new wounds showing that his hands were down. 

I included that quote from you because you were willing to make a case, in what you assumed was an absence of evidence regarding the assault (DNA, lacerations to the officer, Brown's DNA on the clothing, the trajectory of the bullet wound to the hand and the bullet in the door matching a gun firing from a particular space corroborating the officer's story). 

*And now, suddenly, you're all about how no one can disprove this time-traveling conspiracy, so it's valid in the universe in your head.* 

Dude, again, with the huge pile of interlocking evidence (DNA, the witness statements which didn't change over time, the ballistics) which you are trying to magically wave away, you really need to provide more evidence than "because conspiracy!"


----------



## Eliguy666 (Mar 15, 2015)

You know what, Explorer, you're right. Instead of the list of incredibly tenuous circumstances that'd lead to _me_ being right, it's the list of incredibly tenuous circumstances that support _you_ which are correct.


----------



## Eliguy666 (Mar 15, 2015)

I haven't made this as clear as I should have: I do not necessarily dispute the physical evidence, but the courts' ruling on it is unjustifiable. Even at Wilson's own admission, he shot Brown to death while inside a police SUV while Brown was over 100 feet away.
Given that, it is absurd to say that Wilson acted in self defense.


----------



## pushpull7 (Mar 15, 2015)

When I was a kid, I hoped by this point in time this nonsense would be resolved. Isn't it time people stopped caring about race and started holding people accountable regardless?


----------



## sevenstringj (Mar 15, 2015)

Eliguy666 said:


> Even at Wilson's own admission, he shot Brown to death while inside a police SUV while Brown was over 100 feet away.



I think even the most diehard fu_c_k-the-police black nationalist anarchist african liberationist would slap the shit outta you.


----------



## UnderTheSign (Mar 15, 2015)

pushpull7 said:


> When I was a kid, I hoped by this point in time this nonsense would be resolved. Isn't it time people stopped caring about race and started holding people accountable regardless?


When there's frat boys singing racist chants and people still facing discrimination based on their race, yeah I'd say it's about time racism dies off but so far not everyone seems to be capable of making it so. 

I'm not sure what happened with Mike Brown but regardless of what happened, the situation in Ferguson (and after that, Eric Garner and countless others) has shown us how racial issues are still a huge thing.


----------

