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<p>In some jurisdictions, cops can pull people over for driving too slowly for a given roadway. Especially if they feel the individual is blocking/slowing traffic down. </p>
<p>Had a friend who got stopped several times on the highway for that very reason. </p>
<p>This is why so many us are frustrated</p>
<p>[img]<a href=“https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/v/t1.0-9/10484775_10205389771889154_553449126712130060_n.jpg?oh=2b8aa1e39e4ade9973eedc2d0adf3741&oe=55123730&__gda__=1427567706_5b39e24698b0ec35d69ff7c2f1cfe216[img]”>https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/v/t1.0-9/10484775_10205389771889154_553449126712130060_n.jpg?oh=2b8aa1e39e4ade9973eedc2d0adf3741&oe=55123730&__gda__=1427567706_5b39e24698b0ec35d69ff7c2f1cfe216[img]</a></p>
<p>"Don’t cops always assume that any suspect of any color is dangerous? Protecting themselves is always the first priority. That’s why on a highway stop they approach the car carefully and order the driver to exit the vehicle. "</p>
<p>I’ve never been ordered out of my vehicle. I was always taught that you put your hands on the steering wheel as the officer approaches, so he can see you are not reaching for something (such as a gun) - you wait for him to ask for your ID and insurance card, so he sees you beginning to dig around. It’s also my understanding that they approach you from behind and that they have their hand on their gun as they stop you. And, of course, you say yes sir, no sir and thank you sir. </p>
<p>“Notwithstanding the questionable conduct of the police, there is no denying the fact that Mike Brown was a bit of a horse’s ass. A straight up criminal? I don’t know. What I would sure like to know is why he reached for Wilson’s gun and then charged the cop. Doesn’t make any sense to me but I guess we’ll know more when additional information is disclosed.”</p>
<p>Oh, come ON. Of course you know. Haven’t you seen the video? Normal people don’t go shoplifting things from convenience stores. People who shoplift things from convenience stores, and rough up the clerk in the process, are what we call thugs. No matter what color they are. </p>
<p>Last night’s unrest didn’t happen in a vacuum, and it’s a mistake to look at the particulars of this case as if it’s an isolated incident. In fact, the tragedy of the Brown case and all of the errors and miscalculations and bad faith on the part of the police and judicial system are deeply embedded in the fabric of this country. </p>
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<p>[Ferguson’s</a> grievance](<a href=“http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/editorial/bs-ed-ferguson-20141125-story.html]Ferguson’s”>http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/editorial/bs-ed-ferguson-20141125-story.html)</p>
<p>Regarding that last point – why on God’s green earth would anyone have thought it was a good idea to announce this at 8 p.m.? There was no reason whatsoever that it couldn’t have been announced immediately, in the early afternoon. Or better yet, at 8:00 a.m. today. And why the long detailed defense-attorney summation? The only explanation I can come up with is that McCulloch knew or hoped that an after-dark announcement would result in exactly what we saw last night. Thus would his position – that this whole mess is the fault of those troublesome black people – would be vindicated. If anyone has a better explanation of the asinine timing, I’d like to hear it.</p>
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<p>I’ve seen the driver of our van* not only being ordered out of the vehicle by a cop(Ohio state police), but also at gunpoint. The cops also interrogated her for around 30 minutes while the rest of us college classmates waited in the van. Driver is a South Asian woman who is around 5’4". And this was well before 9/11 when people who looked South Asian or “Middle Eastern” became heavily suspect for many Americans. </p>
<p>Your not being asked to get out of the car is likely because your appearance is that of an upper-middle class White woman. A demographic which isn’t viewed as threatening by most cops. </p>
<p>The story tends to be very different if we’re talking someone who doesn’t fit that demographic…say my South Asian female college classmate or an older Black male college classmate who was routinely stopped and ordered out of his Mercedes because cops assumed he must have gotten it illegitimately. Some of those cops were bold enough to even say it to his face during the stop. </p>
<ul>
<li>College road trip to Asian grocers to buy ingredients for an Asian cooking event.<br></li>
</ul>
<p>^ I agree. It made no sense. They knew hours earlier the grand jury decisions. </p>
<p>In my opinion the particulars of the case or any case are all we should be looking at because the case was blown-up into a national outrage even though the particulars suggest that it isn’t close. Although, no-one cares.</p>
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<p>Reginald Denny. They did not want tv footage of a white motorist being pulled out of a car and beaten. Businesses could close, people could get home and lock their doors. </p>
<p>Given my experience with prosecution, I’d say the prosecutor decided to have the grand jury not indict. The usual way this works is that you present evidence a crime has been committed - by this person, within this jurisdiction - and you don’t present exculpatory evidence unless not doing so would be a travesty (like when the accused has an airtight alibi like he was at the White House). That’s the point of a Grand Jury: to determine whether there’s probable cause to believe a crime has been committed not to determine guilt. It would be a simple matter to say a crime may have been committed and then let the criminal justice system work that out through investigation, pre-trial and trial. </p>
<p>In Animal House terms, this was a bag job. A sophisticated bag job but a bag job nonetheless. Note I’m not expressing any opinion about whether the officer should have been found guilty or not, just about the indictment process. </p>
<p>If the Brown shooting were the only shooting of an unarmed black person, the Brown case wouldn’t have been blown up either. It’s the pattern, the “oh, not another one” that causes the outrage. </p>
<p>I also find it interesting the phrases used by some forum posters blaming outsiders and media coverage sounded remarkably similar to phrases and statements made by '50’s and '60s era segregationists who blamed northerners and media for “creating” the problem of racial strife and disharmony when the real cause was decades of Jim Crow laws and discriminatory practices by local/state authorities and local elites. </p>
<p>Similarly, antebellum southerners routinely blamed abolitionists and northerners for being “agitators” in stirring up strife between Southern White slaveowners/overseers and their supposedly “happy slaves”*.</p>
<p>Even more ironic considering the St. Louis/Ferguson area has had its own history of such discriminatory laws and practices by said authorities and local elites themselves per articles in #59.</p>
<ul>
<li>Remarkably, there are still some idiotic politicians who argue slavery was a good thing for Black people as seen here: <a href=“Jon Hubbard, Arkansas Legislator, Defends Pro-Slavery Comments | HuffPost Latest News”>HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost;
</ul>
<p>“Regarding that last point – why on God’s green earth would anyone have thought it was a good idea to announce this at 8 p.m.? There was no reason whatsoever that it couldn’t have been announced immediately, in the early afternoon. Or better yet, at 8:00 a.m. today.”</p>
<p>People who want to loot and burn buildings are going to do so whether it’s 8 am or 8 pm. This seems trivial to me.
All the same, as my family used to live in Clayton close to the courthouse, I’m very glad my family is no longer there. I would have feared for their safety last night.</p>
<p>“Your not being asked to get out of the car is likely because your appearance is that of an upper-middle class White woman. A demographic which isn’t viewed as threatening by most cops.”</p>
<p>I wonder why upper middle class white women aren’t viewed as threatening to cops. Let’s hypothesize here, shall we?</p>
<p>Cobrat, St. Louis is not a southern city. Give it up.</p>
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<p>The Atlantic article I posted in #59 show otherwise in terms of its discriminatory racial policies in areas of local/state government and housing. </p>
<p>I understand why you have an interest in believing there were no such issues when evidence shows otherwise. It’s a reaction common among antebellum southerners on the issue of slavery during the 1850’s and more recently, segregationists or their fellow travellers during the 1950’s and '60s…</p>
<p>I suspect they announced at 8pm so that many people were home and off the streets. The evening commute was over.</p>
<p>I completely disagree that the prosecutors did not present the full evidence and that it was a “bag job”. That’s just ridiculous. </p>
<p>The prosecutor knew there was no case against this officer but he also knew he would be called biased because he comes from a cop family and his own father was unfortunately killed by a black suspect when he was a 12-year old kid. So, he threw everything in front of the grand jury and let them decide. Would everyone who wanted an indictment have been happier with a trial that ended in acquittal? Somehow, I doubt it.</p>
<p>Hayden posted earlier about a “lens” that many people in this country view black males through, and LakeWashington posted about white police “pre-determining” ideas about black individuals. It’s pretty obvious to me that several posters here are viewing this tragedy through their own “lens” using their own “pre-determined” ideas about how the events unfolded. The forensic evidence (3 separate, independent autopsies) all support the officer’s version of events in this case, and the “eyewitness” testimony swearing that Brown was “running away with his hands up” was proven to be complete falsehoods. Many of the “eyewitnesses” admitted after their initial statements that they hadn’t even seen all of (or in some cases any of) the events of the shooting themselves. They were just echoing what they’d “heard on the street”.</p>
<p>Many of the loudest voices on this thread are the same ones who went on for several pages about the “blatant racism” in the circumstances surrounding the young black actress and her white boyfriend in LA recently, yet were never heard from again once the whole thing was revealed to be a PR stunt perpetrated by the actress herself. You jumped to conclusions then, and not one of you had the guts to admit you were wrong when the facts came to light in that case. I wonder…will any of you condemning the grand jury process in this case actually review the evidence with an impartial eye and form an opinion based on the FACTS OF THIS CASE as opposed to events in other cities or historical issues in Ferguson?</p>
<p>Racism is still a problem in this country, and unfortunately probably always will be to some extent. As someone else upthread mentioned, simply having one black and one white individual involved in an altercation doesn’t automatically imply there was a racial basis to the altercation. Those of you who immediately assume racism and, worse yet, refuse to acknowledge when you’re proven wrong do more to hurt than help the dialogue that’s necessary for us to move forward as a country. People on both sides of this tragedy need to stop the hyperbole and actually study the facts (note…I didn’t say the “news” reports) surrounding these events to determine what really happened. Anyone who had their minds made up prior to the release of the evidence that’s only now becoming public only shows their own personal biases…on both sides. Shame on all of you that did.</p>
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<p>Agree. If the indictment question had been handled via a preliminary hearing, rather than being sent to the grand jury, I think the reaction would have been much different (but might actually have resulted in an indictment, which McCulloch wanted to avoid). This situation has cried out for transparency since Day 1, and it’s hard to iimagine how it could have been more opaque. The anger that we’re seeing is the expression of the idea that for African Americans, especially poor African Americans, the normal justice system simply is not available to them. </p>
<p>In August, there was little destruction and rioting, certainly not anything like we saw last night, as the police chief noted. The black community was told to wait, that justice was not to be obtained by violence, but by believing in the justice system. But when people feel like the fix is in, and there is absolutely nothing they can do to change that, then yeah, they tend to get angry.</p>
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