Ferguson

[davek]

Twitter activity in US as Grand Jury decision was made public: http://www.buzzfeed.com/tasneemnash...ter-looked-like-during-the-ferguson-grand-jur

 

[peteblue]

Looks like the free Christmas shopping is spreading to other cities in the US
.

Obamacare..........

 

[peteblue]

It can be difficult to make 'good' decisions when you've just had somebody trying to grab for your gun and possibly end your life. It's very easy to sit on an internet forum and talk in hindsight about officer training.

I think think is an important point. All the training in the world can go out of the window depending on circumstances. If you were an armed Police Officer, who then had a large man charge at you, what would you do ?. If you were a young man, knowing that an armed Police Officer was chasing you, would you turn around and charge him and not expect to be shot ? I think both men made a mistake, but the man with the gun was the only one that could be left standing........

 

[donalmclean]

I think think is an important point. All the training in the world can go out of the window depending on circumstances. If you were an armed Police Officer, who then had a large man charge at you, what would you do ?. If you were a young man, knowing that an armed Police Officer was chasing you, would you turn around and charge him and not expect to be shot ? I think both men made a mistake, but the man with the gun was the only one that could be left standing........

Imo the officer would have needed to take the same action no matter what colour his attacker was.

 

[GwladysBlue]

The people who have heard/seen the most evidence being the jury have found him not guilty, why do a bunch of celebrities and protestors on the street think they know better?

The fact is race is only being brought into it because it was a black man shot by a white man. Maybe America does need change, their gun laws are ridiculous but should Michael Brown really be the face of that change? He wasn't some innocent man shot at random here, he was in the process of stealing from a shop to add to his already big criminal record that included crimes such as assault and robbery.

 

[RaleighBlue]

The people who have heard/seen the most evidence being the jury have found him not guilty, why do a bunch of celebrities and protestors on the street think they know better?

The fact is race is only being brought into it because it was a black man shot by a white man. Maybe America does need change, their gun laws are ridiculous but should Michael Brown really be the face of that change? He wasn't some innocent man shot at random here, he was in the process of stealing from a shop to add to his already big criminal record that included crimes such as assault and robbery.

It's an issue of trust.

Large portions of the American populace do not trust the system to protect them, and believe that the system will protect itself at their expense. There are many examples of this being the case, so the lack of trust is understandable. Race is being brought into it because the question is whether he would have been shot if he was a white man.

The grand jury setup is all a bit odd anyway. Generally a person is charged before being brought before the grand jury, Wilson was not. Generally the defense has no say in a grand jury. Wilson spoke for 4 hours to the grand jury...that's more than a bit odd.

However, I will say that the release of the grand jury documents was a good move.

Brown likely had no previous criminal record:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/crime/brown.asp

 

[Brennan]

Other than Darren Wilson's testimony how do you know he did? Even so, if he did the first shot may have been justified, the rest were not. Wilson could have called for immediate backup. Ferguson is not that big, another 2-3 patrol cars could have been there in minutes and apprehended Brown. Wilson made a conscious decision to get out of the car and fire his weapon at a fleeing suspect on his own. Why? For what purpose? If the suspect was running away he was no longer in danger. He chose to use his weapon with forethought to kill Michael Brown.

There's a word for that.

Been covered already. The officer had, according to the evidence, just been attacked in his police vehicle. He then rightly or wrongly (in hindsight) chose to pursue the attacker.

What followed is apparently that Brown charged towards the officer in question, and then he was shot again.

That's not murder, and there's not proof that one took place.

 

[RaleighBlue]

Been covered already. The officer had, according to the evidence, just been attacked in his police vehicle. He then rightly or wrongly (in hindsight) chose to pursue the attacker.

What followed is apparently that Brown charged towards the officer in question, and then he was shot again.

That's not murder, and there's not proof that one took place.

Wilson wasn't on trial. Proof is not the measure of a trial.

If there is any reasonable question then it should have gone to trial by jury.

 

[canuckblue]

Wilson wasn't on trial. Proof is not the measure of a trial.

If there is any reasonable question then it should have gone to trial by jury.

Obviously the grand jury, having looked at all of the physical evidence, thought there was no reasonable question. Eyewitness testimony, as any legal expert will tell you, is often very unreliable. And in this case, you had as many versions being proffered as there were "eyewitnesses."

 

[RaleighBlue]

Obviously the grand jury, having looked at all of the physical evidence, thought there was no reasonable question. Eyewitness testimony, as any legal expert will tell you, is often very unreliable. And in this case, you had as many versions being proffered as there were "eyewitnesses."

Oh I know. I was just correcting the 'proof' statement.

Whether this was justified or not is actually separate from my main point. The entire system is broken when law enforcement and the legal system engender this degree of distrust amongst the populace. It needs to be fixed.

I question whether the prosecutor even did his job properly simply because he let Wilson on the stand for 4 hours during a grand jury. I guarantee Brown wouldn't have gotten the same option had he killed Wilson.

 

[canuckblue]

Oh I know. I was just correcting the 'proof' statement.

Whether this was justified or not is actually separate from my main point. The entire system is broken when law enforcement and the legal system engender this degree of distrust amongst the populace. It needs to be fixed.

I question whether the prosecutor even did his job properly simply because he let Wilson on the stand for 4 hours during a grand jury. I guarantee Brown wouldn't have gotten the same option had he killed Wilson.

Agreed, but to me it's a chicken-and-egg thing in a way. Which came first -- the increasing disrespect being shown to authority by a lot of the younger generation causing the police to crack down, or police cracking down causing the disrespect? I may be an old fart at 52, but in my eyes there's an increasing sense of entitlement in the younger generations, and with that a matching "what are you going to do about it?" attitude because they know there aren't sufficient consequences to their actions. There's little to no personal accountability any more -- almost a kopite-level sense of the problems always being someone else's fault.
And it's a much broader issue than just cops vs. citizens. I would wager that the vast majority of youths who are killed in circumstances like this come from single-parent families, usually with the father having abandoned the scene. For every success story you hear about, especially of a pro athlete raised by his mother or grandmother, there are likely 20 that end tragically. If more men were to do their parental duty, it might help. And I know the timing is bad to mention him, but Bill Cosby did say something along those lines a few years back with specific reference to the black community, which appears to have a bigger problem with this.

 

[bluemangroup]

Yeah, them anarchic young people.....that's totally a new thing.

 

[RaleighBlue]

Agreed, but to me it's a chicken-and-egg thing in a way. Which came first -- the increasing disrespect being shown to authority by a lot of the younger generation causing the police to crack down, or police cracking down causing the disrespect? I may be an old fart at 52, but in my eyes there's an increasing sense of entitlement in the younger generations, and with that a matching "what are you going to do about it?" attitude because they know there aren't sufficient consequences to their actions. There's little to no personal accountability any more -- almost a kopite-level sense of the problems always being someone else's fault.
And it's a much broader issue than just cops vs. citizens. I would wager that the vast majority of youths who are killed in circumstances like this come from single-parent families, usually with the father having abandoned the scene. For every success story you hear about, especially of a pro athlete raised by his mother or grandmother, there are likely 20 that end tragically. If more men were to do their parental duty, it might help. And I know the timing is bad to mention him, but Bill Cosby did say something along those lines a few years back with specific reference to the black community, which appears to have a bigger problem with this.

You remember the late 60's then?

 

[canuckblue]

You remember the late 60's then?

Mate, I was born in 1962. I barely remember the moon landing. I see your point, however. I'm just going by what I see today.

 

[SerenityNigh]

I think think is an important point. All the training in the world can go out of the window depending on circumstances. If you were an armed Police Officer, who then had a large man charge at you, what would you do ?. If you were a young man, knowing that an armed Police Officer was chasing you, would you turn around and charge him and not expect to be shot ? I think both men made a mistake, but the man with the gun was the only one that could be left standing........

If these events were a one off circumstance, I don't think anyone would bat an eye. But Ferguson represents a much larger issue, circumstances that seem to repeat over and over...