Can the Police Really Do that?

[Cardinal_Fang]

<p>

When a police officer says get out of the street you are supposed to get out of the street. Refusing to do so is a basis for arrest and prosecution. Brown was a bad guy not a good guy,

</p>

<p>On my scale of values, belligerent teenage kids who walk down the middle of the street and don’t move to the side when Officer Jerk asks them to rank far, far above cops who kill unarmed teenage kids.</p>

[razorsharp]

<p>

razorsharp, you are probably right that the mindset of Michael Brown was not one of an obedient choir boy.

</p>

<p>There is also a cultural difference that no one wants to talk about but is probably in existence. The concept of not being disrespected appears to be of major significance among African American males. Brown may not have complied with the officer’s lawful instruction for fear of being perceived by his friend as having been disrespected by the police officer. After all, he just robbed a store, what does it care about what some police officer thinks. </p>

<p>The correct answer when a police officer tells you to get out of the road is to get out of the road and not get into a confrontation with the police officer. If African America mothers have having that conversation with their sons, that is a pretty good conversation to have because it is what everyone is supposed to do. </p>

[NYMomof2]

<p>razorsharp, that is not the conversation. </p>

[Cardinal_Fang]

<p>Interesting that some drunk kids were looting last night, but older and cooler-headed residents attempted to stop them, with some success earlier in the night.
<a href=“An uneasy peace in Ferguson - Vox”>An uneasy peace in Ferguson - Vox;

[beachlover15]

<p>So many stereotypes in one response. Good job razorsharp.</p>

[cobrat]

<p>

razorsharp, you are probably right that the mindset of Michael Brown was not one of an obedient choir boy. For one thing, he was 18 and full of the typical bluster that a lot of 18-year-olds have. For another, there seems to have been an undercurrent of tension between the community and police in Ferguson (meaning that the officer likely had a negative mindset of his own).

</p>

<p>And that tension is highly likely to have been stoked by years of abuses by the Ferguson PD as shown in the article I posted earlier which showed they were caught making blatant contradictory statements in court about being assaulted by a Black man because blood was splattered on their uniforms…due to the fact they were beating him up after finding they picked up the wrong man. </p>

[electronblue]

<p>

In my neighborhood (even on streets that look more traveled than I suspect this one was) teenage boys often toss footballs and goof around until they see a car coming. Jaywalking is also something pretty much everybody does. I certainly would never expect to need the police to intervene–most people are not causing any trouble just by being in the road.

</p>

<p>I think one’s experience with this will vary with where one lives. I live in a racially mixed working class area. I have seen young black people walking very slowly down the middle of the street who won’t get out of the way until you are almost stopped. It usually strikes me as a way for them to exert control. They know you aren’t going to hit them. </p>

[TonyK]

<p>This will drag on and on like the Zimmerman case. Michael Brown’s accomplice’s version of the incident won’t be given much creedence in court. Now the police are offering the notion that the officer thought Brown might be a suspect once he saw the box of cigars in his hands. I can’t see how this won’t be use of excessive force unless Brown was actually wrestling the officer and was about to grab his gun.</p>

<p>There are two versions of why the officer arrived at the scene. One, he had finished up his prior call and happened to be driving past but may not have known he was confronting two robbery suspects. Two, he was still on his other call but left as he was the closest policeman to the robbery. Wouldn’t that mean he knew there had been a robbery and two youths were involved?</p>

<p>I know…I just said “youths.”</p>

[razorsharp]

<p>

So many stereotypes in one response. Good job razorsharp.

</p>

<p>Actually, I can back up what I am saying and it is not stereotype. Here is just one article comparing African American males with Lations. </p>

<p>

Furthermore, being stopped and disrespected was statistically significant only in predicting African American students’ respect for the police. No difference was found between Latinos who were stopped and disrespected and those who were stopped and respected on this outcome variable.

</p>

<p><a href=“http://wcr.sonoma.edu/v10n1/Lurigio.pdf”>http://wcr.sonoma.edu/v10n1/Lurigio.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>There are also studies explaining why the police would have arrested the reporters for no reason, but I won’t bore you with those.</p>

<p>People should be treated the same, but it is silly to presume that everyone is the same or that many different cultures do not exist in America. Culture refers to how things are done among different groupings of people and those groupings can vary by race, age, gender, geographic location, occupation (such as law enforcement) just to name a few variables.</p>

[sally305]

<p>

The concept of not being disrespected appears to be of major significance among African American males.

</p>

<p>Just take out “African American” and your quote is accurate. There are wanna-be tough guys of every race and in every community.</p>

[sally305]

<p>

I have seen young black people walking very slowly down the middle of the street who won’t get out of the way until you are almost stopped. It usually strikes me as a way for them to exert control.

</p>

<p>And I see young white kids doing the same thing all the time in my midwestern college town. What’s the difference?</p>

[NYMomof2]

<p>^^ That’s exactly what I was thinking, sally305. </p>

[beachlover15]

<p>A group of black men/boys strikes fear into the hearts of MANY. </p>

[Flossy]

<p>What happened after the walking down the middle of the street is important. Most likely the police will claim he attacked the officer and his witness will deny it. Hopefully, forensics will tell the story.</p>

[electronblue]

<p>In my experience, where I live, the white kids get out of the way quickly. And by no means are all black kids walking in the street behaving this way. SOME black kids in the street walk very slowly with seeming intent to make you slow down and stare you down. </p>

[electronblue]

<p>And in my experience, it’s just as often girls as boys doing this.</p>

[razorsharp]

<p>

What happened after the walking down the middle of the street is important.

</p>

<p>The real problem with this case is that there was no dashboard camera in the police car. That would have cleared the police officer if he acted appropriately. Relying on Brown’s partner in theft does not seem like a good idea but he seems to be speaking loudest at this time.</p>

[Lergnom]

<p>As I’ve been reading about this and focusing just on the eyewitness accounts, I’m struck by how consistent they are, though they were from different places. They are also relatively contemporaneous to the shooting, which matters because it’s tougher at the time to make up consistent stories than to fabricate them later. All say the kid was away from the police car, that he was running and stopped. I’ve read 2 that say almost the same thing: that 2 or so shots were fired, the kid stopped, turned around and raised his hands and then 5 or so shots were fired from close range. I also note that per some reporters - reliability is always questionable - shell casings were near the body not the car. And finally, I note I’ve been unable to find anything reliable that describes what “injuries” the officer was treated for. </p>

<p>My legal training says this is bad. I note that it’s impossible to read things anymore without ridiculous insertions of bias. I have read the most absurd “analysis” and even worse “reporting”. I’ve seen, for example, assertions the kid was show while reaching into the car, which is obviously not true given where the body was in the street, and that the officer was severely beaten, which is also not true because no ambulance arrived, the officer wasn’t taken away from the scene, etc. Some of this “reporting” is a mess: saying the police stopped the kid because of a robbery is apparently not what the police said but what they implied by releasing video. </p>

[sally305]

<p>

In my experience, where I live, the white kids get out of the way quickly. And by no means are all black kids walking in the street behaving this way. SOME black kids in the street walk very slowly with seeming intent to make you slow down and stare you down.

</p>

<p>Sure. So what do you think came first–white people’s racism toward blacks or hostility among some black youth toward white people, especially police? </p>

[beachlover15]

<p>Just to humor me, how many people on this thread are black or the parents of black/biracial children?</p>