<p>Their character is their character, though. When you see a video of him grabbing the neck of a store clerk it’s not real hard to imagine him assaulting an officer 15 minutes later.</p>
<p>Why yes AdvMom, I join your in your confidence that legitimate protesters were reassured by the fact that their hometown police deployed armored and bombproof assault vehicles, surplus armaments from the war on terror mind you, instead of rolling out vintage Sherman tanks to intimidate the crowd. Perhaps next the constabulary will fire-off classic Sidewinder missles to control the protesters. After all, Sidewinders are Cold War and Vietnam era weapons, and not similar to the heavier fancy stuff used by the military these days, right?</p>
<p>Oh, no. I do understand that. But does it excuse the officer’s excessive shots? One’s character is their character. Yes, but what I don’t fall for is pulling out all these bad things to cover up the wrong that they have done, as well. </p>
<p>“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.” </p>
<p>Look how bad this person was. They’ve roughened people up. They are a thief. A hinderance our society…but I didn’t know that when I shot him. </p>
<p>I want facts. I want to know what happens minus the propaganda and defenses. Is that so hard?</p>
<p>The police chief’s character is his character, too. When he releases pictures of the alleged robbery without mentioning that the police officer didn’t know about the alleged robbery, it’s not hard to believe that we can’t trust anything else he says because he is not operating in good faith.</p>
<p>The issue is, was the killer in mortal danger when he killed Michael Brown? Evidently not, because Michael Brown was 25 feet away from him and unarmed. Robber or no robber, it’s murder to kill a suspect who is surrendering, and it looks like the police chief is uninterested in letting us find out the true circumstances of the shooting.</p>
<p>Right, we still don’t really know why he was shot. But, something happened and now both sides are unchangeable in their opinions although no-one really knows all the facts. I want facts, too. I don’t think that he was surrendering is a fact, yet.</p>
<p>Sorry, LakeWashington, but I am tired of some of the misinformation being presented in various social media including actual pictures of tanks which I think were later proven to be from pictures from Egypt, not Ferguson. I don’t for one second believe that the local police which includes Ferguson, Saint Louis County, Saint Louis City, and other municipalities, have handled everything correctly. I also fully support an independent investigation of the shooting of Micheal Brown and would like to see the officer prosecuted if the shooting was not justified. But the idea that all of the protesters were peaceful and the police came out in tanks to shut them down is just ridiculous. </p>
<p>Cardinal Fang, yes, the police tear gassed Al Jazeera and repositioned Al Jazeera’s camera. The incident was recorded by local TV who were at a distance from Al Jazeera. </p>
<p>actingmt, one step that would help would be if the police complied with the law and released the police report of the actual shooting. </p>
<p>AdvMom, maybe you are up on all the details of military vehicles, and you know a tank from the kind of armored military vehicle with an armored sniper on top that was deployed by the Ferguson police. But most of us look at these armored camo-dressed guys with their high-tech military weaponry and their military vehicles, and we say, Why are they using tanks with army guys against protestors? Technically the vehicles are not tanks, I suppose, but they are military vehicles. The proper kind of vehicle to use for crowd control at unarmed protests is a bike:</p>
<p><a href=“Bike cops better than snipers for crowd control”>Bike cops better than snipers for crowd control;
<p>Well, I agree with that. They are probably saying the investigation has been taken over by some other agency. That’s a perennial government problem.</p>
<p>I’m not understanding how the officer didn’t connect him to the robbery. The dispatch went out before the stop. A big guy in a red baseball cap seems too easy to miss a connection.</p>
<p>Well, these weren’t unarmed protests as shots were fired and molotov cocktails thrown. So I will disagree with you that the police should have only had bikes. I will agree that standard patrol cars should have been enough. I had no idea what a bearcat armored vehicle was until I googled it.</p>
<p>Hoping for a peaceful night for all tonight.</p>
<p>@ Post #148; You said it far better than I, Cardinal Fang. Also, glad to see AdvMom agree with Rev. Al Sharpton that some hooligans infiltrated the legitimate protesters.</p>
<p>Right Fang, it was Al Jazeera which was attacked by the police for no reason (except that the police obviously didn’t want the world to see what they were doing). I only mentioned the local crew because I wanted it to be clear that no one has to take Al Jazeera’s word for it. It’s on film.</p>
<p>Who brought the hooligans? I also heard that many arrested during the melee were not from Ferguson. </p>
<p>LasMa, seriously? There were cameras everywhere. There were cameras pointed at them as they allegedly tear gassed cameras in an effort to prevent filming. Really?</p>
<p>Dealing with hooligan infiltrators does not require an army. It requires police who are competent, with competent leaders, something that was absent in Ferguson.</p>
<p>Flossy, can you think if another reason they would spend so much time going in, disassembling the tv gear and carefully pointing all the cameras down? The police who felt so in danger of the crowds seemed to spend an awful lot of time fiddling with cameras and arresting journalists. </p>
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<p>What’s your explanation of the police tear-gassing a camera crew which was not endangering anyone, was not interfering with anyone, and was filming outside the perimeter established by the police? What’s your explanation of their deliberately turning the camera to the ground?</p>
<p>While another camera was on them? It doesn’t make a lot of sense. Anyway, what is the point? I just think it was a small town police department overwhelmed by a riot, not a conspiracy.</p>
<p>The video does change my perception of what might have happened in this case. The way Brown uses his size, the body language, is very menacing. I can imagine a scenario where the officer told him to move and rather than complying he moved towards the officer. Some sort of altercation happened, and the officer reacted in fear. Yes, it does matter to me that Michael Brown is not the gentle giant he was purported to be. I feel for the helplessness of the store owner, and in another place it could have very easily been him doing the shooting.</p>