<p>As I posted on another thread, if the Ohio police and prosecutors wanted a major drug bust which’ll get them in the news, they just needed to carry out a massive raid at my private LAC when I attended to achieve that. However, that didn’t happen which many not be a surprise considering the student body was overwhelmingly upper/upper-middle class and White(74% when I attended). </p>
<p>Moreover, it is well known in legal research literature the disparity in arrests/sentencing and its effects on White and Black populations for the same types of drug and other criminal offenses. </p>
<p>I understand how upset the parents are, but I just heard the mom say that she was positive the officer just had determined he was going to kill someone that day. Nuts. A police officer who had never, apparently, pulled his gun on anyone before…just decided he wanted to kill someone on that day.</p>
<p>I guess she probably doesn’t believe the video of the robbery, or any of the testimony or evidence that backs up the police officer. Must all be forgeries and lies.</p>
<p>Just something I recalled seeing months ago about the racial disparities in Ferguson:
Megan McArdle may have an axe to grind, be in on the conspiracy in other words, but I expect the numbers are right.</p>
<p>If I was advising anyone here, it wouldn’t be the whites. The majority needs to elect the leadership they want and then force them to build that perfect police force they need.</p>
<p>post this in #326, posting gain to get more votes</p>
<p>Don’t know if this has been proposed or not.</p>
<p>Why don’t we have an experiment here. Everyone answer this question - knowing what you know now, if you were on that grand jury, would you vote “yes” or “no” for indictment. Don’t need to give any reason. We will count all vote by Sunday.</p>
<p>Personally I struggle with the this but I am going to vote “NO” </p>
<p>“I wouldn’t be so sure of that considering they make up most of the electorate who continues to elect the nearly all-White local town governments who, in turn, create policies which enabled the hiring and continuing defense of the nearly all-White Ferguson PD…a PD with documented past abuses and issues with the majority Black town.”</p>
<p>I love how knowledgeable you are about what it’s like there when you’ve never even set foot in Ferguson in your life. I have. It’s an unexceptional suburb. That’s really all it is. It is not some KKK revival. </p>
<p>He may not have necessarily had the deliberate intent to kill someone at the beginning of that day, but his prior life history and his first police job working in a troubled local police department which had such a troubled history with a majority Black town may have influenced how he approached policing and Black citizens. </p>
<p>That prior department was so troubled after a series of incidents the town council ended up disbanding the entire police force and ended up rehiring only a tiny minority of those who were part of the prior force into the newly organized from scratch police department. Wilson was one of those officers who was let go after that department’s disbanding which eventually led to him working for Ferguson PD:</p>
<p>"I’m tired of hearing what a “thug” Brown was. What difference does it make? Should we just give blanket amnesty to anyone who kills or injures a “thug”? "</p>
<p>It makes a huge difference to me. I abhor how this man has been portrayed as a “gentle giant” by people who overlook the fact that he had a significant arrest record and had just come from knocking over a convenience store and shoving the owner. It makes all the difference in the world to me that that was who he was, versus an innocent young man just merrily walking down the street. It’s tragic that young men have to go that route, but plenty of young, poor black men don’t need to resort to crime; they know what’s right and they do what’s right.</p>
<p>I take it you didn’t see my posted links to articles which indicated kkk threats of violence against protestors or how they are suspected in setting fire to a church which has provided support to the Brown family and protestors.</p>
<p>Anonymous, in turn, has responded to threats and taunts from the kkk by unmasking them. Some of the unmasked members are members of St. Louis area police forces…</p>
<p>And anyway: 1) being arrested is not the same as being convicted; 2) black males are arrested disproportionately to white males for the same offenses.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t have indicted Wilson either. I am sorry for his family. I believe that this was a horrible event that could have been avoided if Brown was raised with respect. His poor choices led to his death. Did he deserve to die ? No, of course not. I am all for peaceful protests, but when they turn to violence , looting and vandalism, credibility is gone.
There needs to be personally responsibility . I don’t see any of that from his mother or stepfather.</p>
<p>Why would you get tired of hearing the truth? Brown was a thug and acted like one. It is quite different from having amnesty or a license to kill any thugs and acting on the thuggish behavior. Should we really believe this is was his first time acting in that manner, and especially given the attitude displayed by his family after the verdict? </p>
<p>Should we not get tired of seeing “babyface” pictures of a huge man? Should we not get tired of hearing those stories that visibly are only meant to obscure the truth about what Brown did the day he was shot and try to make his behavior at the convenience store irrelevant. </p>
<p>Perhaps we should ask the store employee to tell us what he thought about Brown! </p>
<p>This was posted on Twitter Monday evening, and from the time stamp may have been a few hoirs before McCulloch’s ridicululous defense-attorney-type speech began:</p>
<p>The fundamental danger of a non-indictment is not more riots, it is more Darren Wilsons.</p>
<p>— jay smooth (@jsmooth995) November 24, 2014</p>
<p>So much of how this case was handled was HIGHLY unusual from the get-go ( from how the crime scene was handled and onward. Will post more on that later.)</p>
<p>The grand jury process was handled in an extremely bizarre manner.
Check this out, from the Supreme Court Case of US vs Williams, explaining what the role of a grand jury has been for hundreds of years:</p>
<p>“It is the grand jury’s function not ‘to enquire … upon what foundation denied,’ or otherwise to try the suspect’s defenses, but only to examine ‘upon what foundation is made’ by the prosecutor. Respublica v. Shaffer, 1 Dall. 236 (O. T. Phila. 1788); see also F. Wharton, Criminal Pleading and Practice § 360, pp. 248-249 (8th ed. 1880). As a consequence, neither in this country nor in England has the suspect under investigation by the grand jury ever been thought to have a right to testify or to have exculpatory evidence presented.”</p>
<p>Note that this opinion was written by Justice Scalia.</p>
<p>Interesting piece on the changing mindset and culture of many police departments. The article is about yet another shooting of an unarmed black man who, the officer said, was threatening him. Unfortunately for this officer, his dashboard camera recorded the encounter, in which the victim not only doesn’t threaten the officer, but is fully complying with orders. </p>
<p>Police today all too often see the public as dangerous enemies, not as people they’re sworn to protect and to serve. The military weapons, gear and vehicles only foster that perception. So I don’t think we need to assume that Darren Wilson woke up on August 9 and decided that today was the day he was going to kill a black man, in order to understand that he may have been primed to see Michael Brown as a deadly threat from the first moment he saw him. Every moment of their encounter reflects that thinking.</p>
<p>I can abhor the mischaracterization of a person in the news while at the same time, object to those that are judging Wilson’s actions based on the character of Brown. That’s wrong. Plain and simple.<br>
When you say that his history makes all the difference in the world to you, what do you mean? I just don’t get that? Do you think that kids that are “Thugs” just have it coming? </p>
<p>Here is the video of the 12 year old boy who was shot the other day. He was sitting at a picnic table in the snowy park with nobody in the immediate vicinity. I don’t care if the airsoft gun looked real. Why drive right up to him and shoot him in 3 seconds without finding out? Why no “standoff” or extended talking to? I bet they could have easily figured out that it wasn’t real and defused the situation. It seems that officers in many situations are just more willing to shoot first and ask questions later when the subject is black or brown.</p>
<p>" Why don’t we have an experiment here. Everyone answer this question - knowing what you know now, if you were on that grand jury, would you vote “yes” or “no” for indictment. Don’t need to give any reason. We will count all vote by Sunday."</p>
<p>Here’s the problem. Unless I was in the grand jury, in the room, watching, listening, and there for every detail, I don’t think I could give an accurate answer. I suspect I probably would not indict, based upon my life views of considering police officers as the good guys, and being more aware of the risk of slight hesitation than many. But I don’t know how anyone could give a true answer, if they weren’t actually part of the grand jury. Most people will just pick the parts out of the evidence that supports their viewpoint and choose to believe that, while dismissing everything else.</p>
<p>BTW, the full video records Officer Groubert’s phone conversation with a supervisor, in which he concocts a story about his victim’s “threatening” actions. Apparently he doesn’t realize that his camera was rolling and would prove him a liar. </p>
<p>If all cops wore uniform cams, somehow I think we’d see a drastic reduction in these “he threatened me” shootings.</p>
<p>I am not sure who has been mischaracterized in the news. It it was how some tried to underplay the actions of Brown or attempt to make his criminal activity on that day, I would have to admit there was a micharacterization. </p>
<p>There is a huge difference in suggesting that all thugs have it coming and suggesting that the police has the right --if not the obligation-- to respond to thugish and unrepentant behavior. What is the alternative? Allowing people like Brown to roam the streets, rob convenience stores, and use violence against anyone who attempts to stop them? Call him a kid all you want, but that changes nothing about his behavior and aggressivity. </p>
<p>Did we need Brown to actually kill the officer to be allowed to see his character as relevant? Or should be believe he might not have been capable of such action? </p>
<p>I really, really would like to know what all of his supporters would have have thought had they been … entering that store when this “kid” was about to exit. </p>