<p>Ferguson police released surveillance video of that robbery on Friday, but then emphasized that Wilson stopped Brown not because of the theft, but because Brown and a friend were “walking down the middle of the street blocking traffic.”</p>
<p>Acting, we all have media sources we trust more than others and you know I hardly trust any of them until more details become apparent. it’s uncertain whether the officer knew of the robbery. at all, at that point… Some reports have him driving that street already- and possibly an ambulance already en route to another call (what I saw on that was confusing.) </p>
<p>"Jackson said that the officer who shot Brown was responding to a call about the robbery.
Later in the day, Jackson revised that comment, saying the officer approached Brown not because of the robbery, but because he was “walking down the middle of the street, blocking traffic.”</p>
<p>Melissa Harris-Perry has tied the killings of unarmed black men to the Dred Scott decision. Stunning. I think of DS as being ancient history. She’s connected it to today:</p>
<p>This suspect issue was a big deal all day on CNN on Friday. They ended with the officer considering him a robbery suspect when he spotted the stolen goods and I think it may be what the officer thought that matters here. Do we trust CNN? If people are going to pick and choose there news sources it’s no wonder there is division. There’s no reality, anymore.</p>
<p>And if one wants to extend it back further, fear of slave rebellions like Nat Turner’s in the early 1830’s and before going back to the first colonizations of the original 13 colonies. </p>
<p>Incidentally, White southerner fears of such slave rebellions are one reason why state supported military colleges like the Citadel were founded during the early-mid 19th century. </p>
<p>Here is an incident from my community which demonstrated the a zero to sixty escalation ending in a police shooting. To set it up, local First Nations wood carver and known chronic inebriate is seen crossing the street (using the crosswalk with the light) in the middle of the day at a busy intersection. As seen in the officers dash cam he is carrying a piece of wood to carve a totem pole (which he sold to a local curio shop) and a carving knife with a 3 inch blade. He crosses in front of the officer and the officer gets out of his vehicle, gun drawn, and follows after the man. From the first time he tells the carver to drop his knife to dead with 6 gun shots is 4 seconds. The victim was under the influence, deaf in one ear. He was struck by 4 bullets in the side of his body indicating that he was just starting to turn to look but was not facing the officer and wielding his knife. Do I think the officer had evil in his heart and got up that morning intending to kill someone? Of course not. But what kind of thought process and hair trigger sense of threat and power goes into a trained officer choosing to gun down a man on a busy sidewalk like this? I would say the same in the Brown case.</p>
<p>From the Seattle Times article:
Speaking clearly and calmly, Seattle police Officer Ian Birk testified Tuesday that he fatally shot John T. Williams because there was “no doubt in my mind that an attack was coming.”</p>
<p>“I was left with no reasonable alternative but to fire,” said Birk, who told an inquest jury that Williams, a woodcarver and member of Nuu-Chah-Nulth First Nations in British Columbia, had threatened him with a knife.</p>
<p>beachlover, we probably will never know what happened re the scuffle at the car. But it’s important to note – Flossy – that the scuffle at the car isn’t what killed him. Surrendering outside the car is what killed him. Once the officer wasn’t in danger (and no one else was in danger), use of deadly force was unjustified. And he was not in danger once Brown started running away from him, and then turned with his empty hands in the air.</p>
<p>LasMa, we don’t know he surrendered with his hands in the air any more than we know he didn’t. I’m less convinced we ever will know for sure though. Right now, we still don’t even have the cops version of the events. There will be one. And, I think forensic experts are going to bicker about what the evidence means happened and everyone will pretty much believe whatever they want to believe, anyway. </p>
<p>Flossy, oh, I’m sure they’re working up an official version of events even as we speak, although it’s a mystery to me why it has taken more than a week to write a simple narrative. </p>
<p>Eyewitness accounts are consistent, as are contemporaneous accounts on twitter, video, etc: Brown was trying to surrender when he was killed. Not a single person says that Brown was threatening the officer when he was killed except, you say, a friend of the officer’s who was NOT an eyewitness. (I still can’t find that btw; would you please post a link?)</p>
<p>I was a teenager in Miami during the race riots of 1980 that resulted from four cops being acquitted after beating a black motorcyclist to death. It was a scary time.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the Miami police continue to have issues managing their rage against unarmed black men, with 7 being killed in a 16-month period and a DOJ investigation taking place as a result.</p>
<p>So where is the outrage? Shouldn’t ALL of us be concerned about these incidents, or is it just something to passively observe since they usually don’t affect us personally? And if we do want to do something, what exactly can we do?</p>
<p>Really? I didn’t want to post it because I didn’t feel like being beaten up about it all day but there is also a contemporaneous witness video with a background conversation that suggests as does that Twitter account that Brown was running toward the cop so I expect that will be their story. They’re probably waiting for a toxicology report. Don’t blame me. I like to look at everything.</p>
<p>No sally, that’s not it. It’s a play by play from a friend that was on a local radio show. </p>
<p>Thanks, sally. So it wasn’t even a friend of Wilson’s who was relaying his statements about this incident. It was just someone who knew him. That’s your “evidence,” Flossy?</p>
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<p>And if it shows that Brown was high? The killing was justified? Just trying to clarify.</p>
<p>ETA – Sorry, Flossy, I missed your last reply #735. Seems like that friend’s play by play would be big news, since it contradicts every other account out there. Do you have a link to a transcript? Any link where local TV or newspapers picked it up? Or often radio stations/programs have segment recordings? What are the call letters of the station?</p>
<p>And not much changed with the Rodney King beatings and the resulting riot after the acquittal of officers involved despite being caught on video beating him with nightsticks. Funny coincidence the acquittal was at the hands of a near all-White jury in a near all-White suburb of Simi Valley. </p>
<p>Similarly, the case of Amandou Diallo also ended in acquittal of all 4 officers who fired 41 shots by a jury in Albany NY. Also a funny coincidence considering upstate NY tends to be much more White and sympathetic to LEO narratives…especially if the LEOs are White. </p>
<p>Also, I was watching an interview with residents in majority White areas of St. Louis where they unsurprisingly are adamant the mostly Black Ferguson residents “shouldn’t be angry at all” and are dismissive of any discussion about Ferguson PD’s troubled history regarding race relations, brutality, lax keeping of brutality records, etc. </p>
<p>The friend knows what Darren Wilson says happened that day.The friend is not a witness. But, I bet it’s going to be the police version or very close to it if the evidence ends up supporting that version of the events.</p>
<p>We will never “know” to the extent that none of us was physically there ourselves. But there are at least three or 4 eye witnesses who are not related who have told their stories including one who tweeted it in real time, and the stories are consistent. </p>
<p>I just read the cnn story LF posted in #720, and it was enlightening. It actually supports my own speculation that this was caused by a police officer feeling disrespected. The idea of MB assaulting the police officer for no reason made no sense to me, just as the idea of the police officer shooting MB for no reason made no sense. </p>
<p>But the cnn story just rings very true from human nature: According to the cnn details, the officer was offensive to Brown (“Get the f*** off the street”) which Brown reacted to by being rude back, so the officer grabbed him. MB pulls back to free himself, which knocks Wilson’s head against the car window. Then Wilson reacts in anger. He pulls out his gun, and MB runs. </p>
<p>That account from Johnson (whom we have already seen is honest enough to put the cigars back on the counter when he could have walked out with them) fits the sketchy facts we have, and just sounds like it makes sense. It certainly fits experience with human nature. </p>