<p>The PD is incompetent but at the same time, it might work in their favor if this goes to trial. </p>
<p>The tweets are interesting. He said he was running. Someone asks if he was shot from behind and the answer is that he turned around after two shots. So, was he running toward the officer?
It’s a question.</p>
<p>In what world would running TOWARDS a cop make any sense?</p>
<p>Especially one who’s shooting at you. </p>
<p>It’s contemporaneous though and says nothing about surrendering or having his hands up in the air. Instead, it says he turned around after two shots and it says he was shot while running. Weird.</p>
<p>@LasMa
I don’t watch Rachel Maddow or her network – I generally watch CNN as they’re probably closest to the center among major cable news networks. Regardless, yes, this is a police dept that was not prepared for this.</p>
<p>A couple of things. First, if he turned around when he was 35 feet away to face Officer Wilson, the “charging” thing doesn’t make sense. Think about it–35 feet is a pretty good distance. No one in their right mind would rush toward an armed police officer who had already shot them multiple times–they would know he had a gun and wasn’t afraid to use it.</p>
<p>This also calls into question Officer Wilson’s training and expertise. At 35 feet away, he couldn’t have felt “threatened” or fearful of an unarmed young man who had already been shot multiple times. He could have said “STOP RIGHT THERE” if he thought Michael Brown might continue to approach, but he was in no immediate, grave danger at that particular moment.</p>
<p>Second, can we PLEASE discontinue the use of the word “felon.” Michael Brown may have been suspected of a felony crime, but he hadn’t been charged or convicted. It is misleading to cast MB as a convicted criminal when as far as I we know he did not even have a record.</p>
<p>These tweets seem to indicate he was shot in the back first, then turned around but don’t indicate he was threatening the officer in any way.
Two seperate shots, then a barrage of gunfire.
<a href=“This Guy Appears To Have Live-Tweeted Michael Brown’s Shooting – Mother Jones”>http://m.motherjones.com/mojo/2014/08/guy-appears-have-live-tweeted-michael-browns-shooting</a></p>
<p>Flossy, it does sound weird if you only have access to the witness’ live tweets. If you read both sides of the conversation, it becomes a little clearer. Bruh tweets that he doesn’t know why the police shot MB because he was just running. The other guy asks “from behind?” And Bruh responds that the first two were, then MB turned around. So it appears the tweeter is saying that MB was running away and was shot at twice in the back. [not sure if all the shots actually hit MB.]. Then he turned around and was shot several more times in the front. </p>
<p>Thanks, hayden. That’s exactly how I read it. Except that he initially says he was shot while running. When asked if he was shot in the back he says he turned around after two shots. He says nothing about having his hands in the air and surrendering or ceasing to run. I find that a little strange but we’ll see.
It could be nothing.</p>
<p>35 feet can be covered pretty quickly, to which anyone who has played football/basketball/hockey or run track can attest.</p>
<p>Could the cop have opened his door and gotten out of the car to safely arrest Brown before a mobile Brown could reach the SUV first? </p>
<p>Just one more question that, if applicable, can be cleared up.</p>
<p>But what would he arrest him for? The cop knows nothing about the convenience store. </p>
<p>He knows seconds later when he sees the stolen cigars. There’s also the whole assault on an officer thing which if it happened would have been a reason to arrest him. It’s another felony.</p>
<p>^^^^</p>
<p>Yeah, beachlover, the chief said (version 2.0 …) that the cop recognized the cigars. We might be talking about a matter of a handful of seconds, but that could be long enough for him to make the cognitive connection to the robbery report he heard over the radio. </p>
<p>Chief ALSO said Wilson didn’t know about the robbery. Did the call out about the robbery also have a description of Brown or what was stolen? If not…racial profiling…</p>
<p>I think what probably happened, then, was this: Brown was walking down the middle of the road. The cop asked or ordered him to get put of the road. And then someone made a move at the other, starting it all, basically. Hopefully we’ll learn the truth, make sense of it (if possible), and assign blame/guilt where it belongs. If the cop is at fault, he needs to be convicted.</p>
<p>Michael Baden is doing the family autopsy. This could end up being the battle of the forensic experts and a local coroner is not likely to win that one. </p>
<p>If it was your unarmed teenager who was gunned down by a police officer, wouldn’t you want an expert to do the autopsy?</p>
<p>I don’t know who Michael Baden is. If it were me, I’d want the best, most unimpeachable coroner in the world to do the autopsy.</p>
<p>So the police story is that Brown was trying to get the cop’s gun. But, as we know, he didn’t. When did this gun come out of its holster, and why? Why did the cop shoot the kid while the cop was still in the car? This story makes no sense to me.</p>
<p>The police story is also that the officer asked the kids to go to the sidewalk and the two kids mouthed off and refused. And then the officer pulled his car across the street, right up next to the kids. This suggests to me that the officer was picking a fight. And one thing to consider about this is that these young men had surely already had a lifetime of cops picking fights with them for ticky-tack things. White kids in my upscale suburban neighborhood don’t have cops picking fights with them. They don’t have cops pulling out guns for trivial offenses. They don’t have cops in their face for trivial offenses. But black kids in other neighborhoods do have that experience.</p>
<p>There are way too many similarities to the Trayvon Martin case for me to feel good about justice being served here. The “law enforcer” pursuing the kids after making up his mind that they were trouble. The trigger-happy response. The insignificant injuries to the law enforcer. The suspension of disbelief that it happened the way it did. The character assassination of the victims and witnesses. And of course, the race factor.</p>