Cop in MO kills unarmed black teen

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TideEngineer08

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And don't leave out the head hate-monger himself. You know, the one living at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave..
He is the worst possible person to lead at the worst possible time in this country's history. A certain portion, maybe all, of the bill for the damages Ferguson has incurred should be billed to him and his AG.
 

cbi1972

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The social justice warriors should at least pick an instance of abuse worthy of the fury this event has generated.
There is nothing at all sympathetic about Michael Brown, who by most accounts is a violent criminal slain in the act of being a violent criminal.
 

Bama Reb

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The social justice warriors should at least pick an instance of abuse worthy of the fury this event has generated.
There is nothing at all sympathetic about Michael Brown, who by most accounts is a violent criminal slain in the act of being a violent criminal.
In the words of "National Titles 15", "you just don't understand us" Personally, I think the greatest majority of us understand more than he'll ever realize.
 

graydogg85

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Is racism alive and well in America? Yes, absolutely. But I think the question no one is asking is why.

This is an unfortunate truth about human existence: people develop stereotypes, prejudices, and preconceived notions via experience. It's simple behavioral psychology. And large, typically very visible portions of the black community in America perpetuate these stereotypes on a daily basis. Does this lead to law enforcement profiling, arresting, prosecuting and even brutalizing the black community at a much higher clip? You bet it does.

This is a real shame for the decent, law abiding citizens in this country who happen to be black (and there are many). It makes life quite a bit more difficult for those folks. But were I a member of the black community, what would disappoint me the most would not be the predicament I was in - it would be the fact that the vocal faces of the black community refuse to take ownership of these issues, instead deferring blame on the system, or on whites, or on the government, or on virtually anyone but themselves. I would argue that in 2014, where knowledge and information are more readily available to the average person than at any time in human existence, true "old school" racism (i.e. I'm better than you simply because I'm white and you're black - the kind of racism the civil rights movement fought against in the 1960s) has been largely quelled and replaced by stereotype-driven racism. And it will continue to propagate and proliferate as long as the vocal leaders of the black community allow a culture of victimization and zero personal accountability to define their struggle.
 

TIDE-HSV

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I'll say this - I've not read all the evidence (nor am I planning to), but assuming the WP got this right, there are some glaring differences in the officer's testimony vs the witnesses.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/national/ferguson-grand-jury-findings/
Had it gone to jury trial, one of the thrusts of the of the defense would have been to put each of those witnesses on the stand, including the four who perjured themselves by testifying that he was shot in the back, and let the jury listen. And, Lord help any of them who tried to change or amend his/her story. A good defense lawyer would take that and chew the eyewitness testimony to shreds. This has been an interesting study in denial. Brown's parents and supporters say that their son would never use language like that with a police officer. Then there's that uncomfortable video of Brown's strong-armed robbery of a convenience store, using the identical language - that's obviously a total fake. Their son would never grab an officer's gun, so his DNA, from his blood, spread all over gun must be a government fake. The last time I saw denial this wide was during the OJ trial...
 
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snake plissken

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Had it gone to jury trial, one of the thrusts of the of the defense would have been to put each of those witnesses on the stand, including the four who perjured themselves by testifying that he was shot in the back, and let the jury listen. And, Lord help any of them who tried to change or amend his/her story. A good defense lawyer would take that and chew the eyewitness testimony to shreds. This has been an interesting study in denial. Brown's parents and supporters say that their son would never use language like that with a police officer. Then there's that uncomfortable video of Brown's strong-armed robbery of a convenience store, using the identical language - that's obviously a total fake. Their son would never grab an officer's gun, so his DNA, from his blood, spread all over gun must be a government fake. The last time I saw denial this wide was during the OJ trial...
It's just amazing and scary how many people are in denial and cannot see the evidence for what it is. I never knew there were so many people blinded by their hatred until I saw all these protesters across the country. The "kid" would never use that language, but did you see what his father was screaming on top of the car? The "kid" would never assault the officer, but did you see his mom is under investigation for assault? Judging by his parents actions, I don't think he ever had a chance to grow up as a productive citizen in our country.
 

selmaborntidefan

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Had it gone to jury trial, one of the thrusts of the of the defense would have been to put each of those witnesses on the stand, including the four who perjured themselves by testifying that he was shot in the back, and let the jury listen. And, Lord help any of them who tried to change or amend his/her story. A good defense lawyer would take that and chew the eyewitness testimony to shreds. This has been an interesting study in denial. Brown's parents and supporters say that their son would never use language like that with a police officer. Then there's that uncomfortable video of Brown's strong-armed robbery of a convenience store, using the identical language - that's obviously a total fake. Their son would never grab an officer's gun, so his DNA, from his blood, spread all over gun must be a government fake. The last time I saw denial this wide was during the OJ trial...
You mean even though OJ was found COMPLETELY INNOCENT you still say that?

And before that.....Oliver Stone's "JFK." About the same level of thinking.
 

Skeeterpop

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Our society has become a fragmentation of multiple groups who can not and will not ever look at the same facts objectively and without biases. These groups have their minds made up and the facts never matter because their uneducated thought process and character controls their unfiltered mouths to spew absolute nonsense and drivel all in the name of their race or political agenda. Its ironic how similar it is to sports fans of rival teams. They see the same play but yet scream for totally opposite results based on what benefits their team or in this case their cause or agenda.

Its just sickening to watch people act like totally wild animals over a group of lies and hate. It boils down to they are uneducated, racist, hate preaching individuals who have no respect for their fellow man nor themselves.
 

gmart74

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Our society has become a fragmentation of multiple groups who can not and will not ever look at the same facts objectively and without biases. These groups have their minds made up and the facts never matter because their uneducated thought process and character controls their unfiltered mouths to spew absolute nonsense and drivel all in the name of their race or political agenda. ...........

Its just sickening to watch people act like totally wild animals over a group of lies and hate. It boils down to they are uneducated, racist, hate preaching individuals who have no respect for their fellow man nor themselves.
and the numbers of uneducated, angry people are growing. You look at every country in the world with entrenched, poverty stricken diversity and you will find war and chaos. This country is over, but it was pretty good while it lasted.
 

Skeeterpop

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What amazes is me is the number of people who have not read ALL the evidence yet are convinced one way or the other.
This should not amaze anyone. Most people who are agenda driven do not want to know the truth. They only want to push their opinions and cause regardless if there is any factual evidence to back it up. This crap about wanting a fair trial, a different prosecutor, etc is only attempts at a do over. Unless the officer was charge zero of these people screaming would ever thought the process was fair.
 

NationalTitles18

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Had it gone to jury trial, one of the thrusts of the of the defense would have been to put each of those witnesses on the stand, including the four who perjured themselves by testifying that he was shot in the back, and let the jury listen. And, Lord help any of them who tried to change or amend his/her story. A good defense lawyer would take that and chew the eyewitness testimony to shreds. This has been an interesting study in denial. Brown's parents and supporters say that their son would never use language like that with a police officer. Then there's that uncomfortable video of Brown's strong-armed robbery of a convenience store, using the identical language - that's obviously a total fake. Their son would never grab an officer's gun, so his DNA, from his blood, spread all over gun must be a government fake. The last time I saw denial this wide was during the OJ trial...
I knew we were headed toward trouble when my AA scholarly doctorate degree holding friend said waiting on the facts was not necessary. The facts never mattered from the beginning. Michael Brown was the martyr they were waiting on and the truth was going to do nothing to change it. They were not going to have another Trayvon Martin situation where the truth got in the way. It was never about truth. Or justice. It was far bigger. The needed a spark. They needed kindling. And they needed to nurture the fire that resulted. The goal is a big change. A transformation. Their goal approaches a rebellion. That is the goal of the leaders. The only question is will the foot soldiers be willing to carry it through to the end. I know that is a huge accusation, but I'm only going on the evidence I've seen.
 

selmaborntidefan

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What amazes is me is the number of people who have not read ALL the evidence yet are convinced one way or the other.
Not to sound snide (as I'm a lab guy evidence is.....sort of a big deal in medicine, not really that different from CSI-type stuff just at a lower level) but how has anyone other than the grand jury had time to go through all of it? I was going to look at it today and it's like 24 volumes or something. Maybe I'll read some of it on my flight tomorrow.

What's indisputable is this: yet again, the narrative they tried to get out there "Bonfire of the Vanities" style once again didn't work. It didn't work with the Trayvon Martin situation and it didn't work here. And the fact this same narrative keeps showing up is what concerns me. I'll grant I've not looked at all the evidence yet and I'm cautiously thinking at this point it's correct (it took me another month to simply process the Zimmerman case for example) but this repetitive narrative is what is really starting to get me.

The job in journalism is to tell the OBJECTIVE truth of the story. Those days are gone. There are repeated references to Brown as "unarmed" - the implication being "unarmed" is synonymous with "not a threat" or "not dangerous." They could just as easily have referred to "dopehead" Mike Brown but for some reason they don't want to do that.

Here's one I'd like to know and I think I already know the answer: does Darren Wilson have a "history" with black people a la Mark Furhmann? I think the answer must be NO, because we'd have heard about that the first day if he did. That pretty well renders any attempts to blame this on personal racism right out the window. But with the obvious exception of Fox News's pro-LEO spin, all I get from the media are "white cop shoots unarmed black man who was retreating." Uh, why is the RACE important? Consider the differences in journalistic responsibility:

White cop shoots unarmed black teenager

Cop shoots charging suspect

Cop shoots thief who attacked him

White cop shoots unarmed law-abiding citizen who had his hands up

Cop 1, Thugs 0

The insistence on "pristine" suspects amuses me. Why can't the media tell the truth at the FIRST STAGE about things like Trayvon Martin? I mean, it's going to come out anyway at some point. Why did they try to paint the kid as a 12-year old who was just minding his business (and didn't want to mention he was suspended from school for the third time for drugs)? Those who want to say, "Well it doesn't matter" - it obviously does it the reporting of his drug use bothers you. Same thing here. We've gone from this guy being an innocent bystander to a guy who stole smokes to a guy who attacked the cop and the DNA puts him in the cop car.

That may not be totally decisive but it may also be that the prosecutor took one look at it and said, "There ain't no way on the planet this guy will lose."
 

selmaborntidefan

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This should not amaze anyone. Most people who are agenda driven do not want to know the truth. They only want to push their opinions and cause regardless if there is any factual evidence to back it up. This crap about wanting a fair trial, a different prosecutor, etc is only attempts at a do over. Unless the officer was charge zero of these people screaming would ever thought the process was fair.
CA's point (I think) is aiming this towards both sides, particularly those who haven't really paid attention to it. Facebook is full of self-appointed law scholars who know it inside and out. Heck, I run into it with lab stuff, too. (CSI is not real, people - not like the show).
 

mikes12

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I knew we were headed toward trouble when my AA scholarly doctorate degree holding friend said waiting on the facts was not necessary. The facts never mattered from the beginning. Michael Brown was the martyr they were waiting on and the truth was going to do nothing to change it. They were not going to have another Trayvon Martin situation where the truth got in the way. It was never about truth. Or justice. It was far bigger. The needed a spark. They needed kindling. And they needed to nurture the fire that resulted. The goal is a big change. A transformation. Their goal approaches a rebellion. That is the goal of the leaders. The only question is will the foot soldiers be willing to carry it through to the end. I know that is a huge accusation, but I'm only going on the evidence I've seen.
I keep hearing about change, but it's always in vague terms. The only concrete example of a proposed change that I've heard so far is mandatory police-worn cameras, which is one I can get on board with. Other than that, I'd like to know what changes they want.
 

NationalTitles18

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I keep hearing about change, but it's always in vague terms. The only concrete example of a proposed change that I've heard so far is mandatory police-worn cameras, which is one I can get on board with. Other than that, I'd like to know what changes they want.
That's a good question. I'd like to know the "list of demands". If it is generally for justice then I can get behind that. If it is for a lynching of a cop doing his job then no, not getting behind that.

It's not that I don't think the cop did anything at all wrong, because I do; but his shooting of what appears to be a man who was trying to take the cop down seems justified. I do feel that in the beginning the cop needlessly escalated the situation by cornering the suspects. I think this was an unnecessary escalation and put the suspect and the officer himself in a bad place. That was a mistake, IMHO. Would the end result have changed? I don't know. I saw similar actions by SL LEO's with the guy with the knife at the convenience store. They pull right up and corner him. They seem to be trained to do this. Maybe there is a reason for it and I'm not privy to it, but it seems to me that you'd want to put a little distance there and try to calm the situation down if possible. I mention the 2nd incident because it also led to a dead citizen, although once the situation was set circumstances built up to both being at least probably justified. IOW, I feel the cops set the scene in such as way as to cause a build up of tension rather than to cause a calming down. That, to me, is a recipe for bad things. It's like going into a criminally mentally ill patient's room, letting the patient get between you and the door, and turning your back on the patient. You are setting yourself up for bad things. It's not your fault when it happens, but you might have done something different to set the scene better.
 

chanson78

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I keep hearing about change, but it's always in vague terms. The only concrete example of a proposed change that I've heard so far is mandatory police-worn cameras, which is one I can get on board with. Other than that, I'd like to know what changes they want.
I have a few that you don't hear a lot about.

If a community is 67% minority ( it sounds weird to say it that way) yet the government is made up by the majority (white folk) why isn't there a concerted effort to take over the government through democratic means? Unless the felony provision of being an eligible voter is preventing a full 17% or more of the minority from voting, my apathy meter gets pegged.

If there is a significant portion of the community on public assistance, there would seem to be an abundance of "free time" to make things better for the next generation.

Now I know that there are some circumstances that could possibly make these more difficult than it would seem on their face, yet these seem fairly easy to channel all the angst and tension into. The biggest difference between these and the instant self gratification of looting and rioting would seem to be in the temporality of results. Voting, organization, and community building are the ultimate in delayed gratification exercises. It would be interesting to see if there are any sociology/psychology studies to determine if there is a correlation between systemic poverty and the ability to delay gratification.
 

TIDE-HSV

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That's a good question. I'd like to know the "list of demands". If it is generally for justice then I can get behind that. If it is for a lynching of a cop doing his job then no, not getting behind that.

It's not that I don't think the cop did anything at all wrong, because I do; but his shooting of what appears to be a man who was trying to take the cop down seems justified. I do feel that in the beginning the cop needlessly escalated the situation by cornering the suspects. I think this was an unnecessary escalation and put the suspect and the officer himself in a bad place. That was a mistake, IMHO. Would the end result have changed? I don't know. I saw similar actions by SL LEO's with the guy with the knife at the convenience store. They pull right up and corner him. They seem to be trained to do this. Maybe there is a reason for it and I'm not privy to it, but it seems to me that you'd want to put a little distance there and try to calm the situation down if possible. I mention the 2nd incident because it also led to a dead citizen, although once the situation was set circumstances built up to both being at least probably justified. IOW, I feel the cops set the scene in such as way as to cause a build up of tension rather than to cause a calming down. That, to me, is a recipe for bad things. It's like going into a criminally mentally ill patient's room, letting the patient get between you and the door, and turning your back on the patient. You are setting yourself up for bad things. It's not your fault when it happens, but you might have done something different to set the scene better.
(First, sorry for the length of this post.) IDK. I'm not sure that the LEO asking the two kids walking down the middle of the street to move to the sidewalk is "cornering them." My thinking is colored in the direction that the kid's behavior was reminiscent of his behavior in the earlier robbery. The grand jury would have had access to that material. I don't, of course, have any knowledge about the LEO's demeanor in dealing with the kids and whether it was abrasive or not. It's just my personal opinion, but the kid's actions really seemed to indicate chemical impairment, and I doubt that it was just THC, although I have no knowledge of what drug tests they run in St. Louis county.

Look, I know as well as anybody that black folk do not get a fair shake from LEOs. I do question what the present rioting tactics really accomplish, other than gain some notoriety for persons whose main agenda is keeping their faces in front of the TV cameras. I represent an elderly black man who is widely respected in our community. He's done all the right things - successful business until retirement, solid church man, etc. Not very long ago, in his neighborhood, there was a chase of a fugitive. A neighbor told the LEOs that she'd seen him duck into my client's driveway. Two LEOs came to their door and threatened to break the door down. There was one white LEO and one black. I'm not going into a lot of detail, but suffice it to say that they handled the affair very badly, once my client admitted them voluntarily. (He could have told them to go back and get a search warrant, since their suspicions were not really based on probable cause which would have stood legal challenge.) I was able to obtain a phone call and apology from the mayor and discipline from the chief for the LEOs (meaning a lecture to not do it again). That didn't really satisfy my client, but it was the best I could do and we both knew it.

Now, there isn't the slightest doubt in the world that my client and his wife were treated very differently from the way a white couple with a similar residence, etc., would have been treated. OTOH, I don't have any idea on earth that he would agree with what's happened in Ferguson. Since we're in communication on another matter presently, I'll ask him and I'll report the result back here.

As many have pointed out, we have a large underclass, who are unemployed or under-employed, and who think they have nothing to lose by rioting. I don't know the definitive answer to that problem. However, I do feel that it has to be solved, because I just don't know how long our society can endure with the widening gap between the haves and have-nots. Watching the closest examples of the fabric of society tearing and leading to a permanent schism, leading to a permanent armed rebellion, you have to look at South/Central America. Once, we hosted a young exchange student for a while who was from Colombia. She was upper class, although I felt I could discern some NA and AA ancestry. While she was here, there was some incident which came up in her country, a riot, I think, during a strong-arm government. To my surprise, she didn't identify at all with anyone not in her class in her native land. For her, people rioting in the street were simply a threat to her privileged stratus. We must do what we can to keep class mobility in and permanent stratification out of our society. The "let them eat cake" dead end has no legitimate role in our world. Sorry for the length.
 
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