<p>WE DON’T KNOW IF THAT HAPPENED. How many times do we have to say this?!</p>
<p>The irony, though, is that the bubbas who want to carry around their guns in public in case someone steps in front of them in line at Safeway don’t REALLY want Brown and his ilk carrying guns. If Brown had been armed, the second amendment fetishizers would not have been all over his right to walk down the street carrying a gun. </p>
<p>Please don’t yell at me 
And, I didn’t say it necessarily happened here. You’re right. We don’t know. We don’t know the cop was a racist killer, either. I think the scuffle and the robbery are close to confirmed though aren’t they? </p>
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<p>PG,</p>
<p>Way to miss the point. </p>
<p>To spell it out for you, your White son would have much more likely been treated with kid gloves by the cops/prosecutors and given much more of a benefit of the doubt due to his being White and coming from a higher SES family living in a nice upper-middle class suburb. </p>
<p>In contrast, a Black or other minority adolescent/teen is much more likely to be treated more harshly and not given any benefit of the doubt when it comes to sentencing or “second chance” programs. Moreso, if they come from lower SES backgrounds and areas. </p>
<p>If the cops in the larger Cleveland area wanted a large public drug bust which’d make national news at the time I attended, all they would need to do is carry out a massive raid of my undergrad college. </p>
<p>Somehow, they don’t despite the fact the prevailing marijuana/psychedelic use was practically out in the open to anyone who knew anything about the college or more importantly, lived in the area. </p>
<p>Wonder if the fact my college was 74% White and most of the students coming from higher-SES families have anything to do with it…</p>
<h1>662 The officers would also be swarming the neighborhood for eyewitnesses.</h1>
<p>I keep telling people, if minorities in this country decided to arm themselves to the nines, we would finally have comprehensive gun legislation in this country.</p>
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<p>It cannot be “obvious” enough that no one would check for a sign of life. That is inexcusable.</p>
<p>We don’t know that happened, either.</p>
<p>Flossy, I can’t believe you’re comparing Trayvon to this. A person minding his own business is under no obligation to acquiesce to the request of a private citizen. A person IS obligated to acquiesce to the request of a police officer. TM did not provoke GZ; GZ provoked TM. Trying to compare these two is stupid. </p>
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<p>The historic treatment of Ferguson residents at the hands of the Ferguson PD might have something to do with the “inflamed” community. </p>
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<p>One only needs to look at how Richard M. Nixon, the GOP & other Conservative groups*, and the NRA used such fears from the late '60s onward to tap into latent White fears of angry Black protestors and/or armed self-defense groups to get elected and to encourage them to get more guns. </p>
<p>Pretty darn effective if history’s any indication… </p>
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<li>I.E. Willie Horton campaign ad of GHWB in 1988, fears of Muslim-Americans/South Asians/Mexicans in this past decade.<br></li>
</ul>
<p>True PG, and that’s not the part I was comparing. Instead the part I am comparing is the part where the same civil right’s attorney portrays both victims as wonderful young men gunned down by racists in the press and the same activists rile up the community demanding an arrest. That’s similar. imho.</p>
<p>There is an appalling undercurrent in this thread that says Michael Brown’s life wasn’t worth as much as others because he did something illegal, and that his parents should not be outraged at his death because their son was not a perfect kid. I find this beyond vile. I live in Seattle, where the infamous Green River Killer case happened, and the detective who helped solve it spent years-decades-working to find the killer of dozens of prostitutes and presumed prostitutes. He didn’t shrug his shoulders and think that these young women didn’t deserve to live because they were criminals.</p>
<p>Michael Brown WAS NOT A SUSPECT when he was shot. That is all that matters. He deserves justice if he was killed for no reason, EVEN THOUGH he may have done something criminal. He was still human. He still had a right to live. Who knows whether he’d have ever done anything like that again? We will NEVER know, because his life was cut short and that is a tragedy-he was only 18 years old, for god’s sake.</p>
<p>I work at a church in the office. One of the things we do is allow people to work off community service hours after committing crimes. We get all ages-people can turn their lives around even at 30, 40, 50 and older. I’ve seen it happen. To imply as I’ve seen here that this kid was somehow a lost cause and his death is not a great loss is just heartbreaking.</p>
<p>I have seen, first-hand, white people getting preferential treatment in schools, jobs, the legal system, even on public transportation. I have also seen, first-hand, black in-laws and my husband (who is black), singled out by police for no good reason.In fact, I do not know a black males who has NOT been singled out by police for some reason that turned out to be nothing. Pastors, white-collar professionals, elected officials, and of course, teen age boys. Any one who thinks the system isn’t biased is kidding themselves.</p>
<p>Flossy, how do you know that either of these kids wasn’t a wonderful young man? Again, if we are willing to excuse thuggish behavior among white middle-class kids as “youthful indiscretion” and accept that on the whole they are “good people,” why can’t we excuse the convenience store incident the same way–no matter how bad his behavior was in that brief span of time? By all accounts, Michael Brown had never been known for trouble in or out of school. He had dreams and aspirations for his future. There’s no evidence he was destined to a life of crime.</p>
<p>Supposedly (knowing the media isn’t always accurate,) the family attorney acknowledged he was the kid in the store video, as well as Johnson saying.</p>
<p>And somehow, the media (something feeding into CNN,) was able to interview multiple witnesses and note that their stories corroborated each other.</p>
<p>And if we white people don’t know we generally get it easier, then our heads are in deep doodoo. I wish I could find the old NPR piece about the Harvard prof who owns a Mercedes and repeats the mantra to his son, never drive the Mercedes in sweats, always dress up.</p>
<p>Sad.</p>
<p>And thug has been used in our lingo at least a hundred years.</p>
<p>@#692 – “beyond vile.” Well said. </p>
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<p>Other than a video of him stealing in broad daylight and shoving and intimidating a much smaller clerk who was trying to get his property back. That’s enough evidence for me. Brown was a bad guy, not a good guy and there is a video that proves it.</p>
<p>Sally - Reality did not match the introductory presentation in ether case. I don’t think we need to excuse or not excuse the robbery because no-one thinks he was shot because of the robbery. The part we don’t know anything about is the interaction with the cop before he fired his weapon. But, I don’t think many minds are going to be changed. Whatever happened, some will believe the cops and some will believe the cops are lying. And with three competing autopsies everyone will have some evidence to cling to and make their case. That’s my prediction.</p>
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<p>Less than a century ago, it was still acceptable to use racist epithets…especially the N word in polite White company. Then again, less than a century ago, it was widely acceptable among polite White society to join the KKK(1910s and '20s). </p>
<p>Heck, I myself am old enough to remember how some parents would minimize and make excuses for kids using racist epithets and attacking me for being Chinese American back in the early '80s. </p>
<p>My only saving grace was attending a Catholic elementary school where the admins weren’t having any of it from such parents after they wanted me suspended for reacting angrily and retaliating after their much larger and older son attacked me in second grade. </p>
<p>If anything, they recited multiple reported instances of them sending reports of that older bully’s bad behavior only to be ignored or excused by said parents and then told them if their son doesn’t reform, he’ll need to find himself a new school to attend as bullies like him weren’t welcome here and they already gave him too many second chances. </p>
<p>In short, words which may have been acceptable among polite company in one era may not be in another due to changing social and historical contexts. </p>
<p>One good case of that, calling a woman 18+ a “girl” was still considered commonly acceptable among many older male colleagues/coworkers in many workplaces back in the early '80s and some of those attitudes trickled down to boys of that period. </p>
<p>One older former colleague who hasn’t learned to stop calling 18+ women he doesn’t know “girls” is still wondering why he was read the riot act by some, given the cold shoulder by many women, and yes, even slapped a few times. </p>
<p>CF, that is the response I would hope for in my neighborhood, but until the police dept is reworked frim scratch, that is not the response I would necessarily expect.
As a white middle aged woman, I have experienced pretty offensive words and behavior from local police, so it is easy to imagine an instance with a teen escalating pretty quickly.</p>
<p>The police force these days does not often attract calm, prudent individuals who want to work with the community.
No more Mayberry RFD.
I did grow up in a suburb with a helpful police force who went out of their way to build relationships with teens, but I expect it is too big & moneyed now to have that as a priority.</p>
<p>I agree about the time put in to catch Gary Ridgeway, but imo prostitutes hurt themselves more than they hurt others, it is the johns & pimps who are the real criminals.( although according to his supervisor, Reichert was more of an impediment to that investigation, than a help)</p>