DOJ report on racism and shakedown-artistry in the Ferguson PD

[unregistered]

 

[KingOrfeo]

He would have definitely been shot in my town.

By the police? Doubtful.

 

[unregistered]

 

[Que]

I don't think he would have been shot if he'd been white so no the rest of this wouldn't have happened.

Cops are trained to fire for center of mass at any threat regardless of color. Did you actually read the DOJ report? Do so. The magic number is 21 feet or 7 yards. Anyone advancing on a cop within that radius is considered a deadly threat. There is case law that says so. Failure to comply with a cops directive to get down is considered reasonable fear for ones safety. Reasonable people do not continue to advance against cop voice. The case that made the case law, it looks as if the person was confused and basically stumbled at the cop. Doesn't matter. Cop has to decide and he has a second to do so.

If you read the report there were three separate series of shots.

The first was when Brown had his hand on the gun, and was wrestling for control. Absolutely justified there.

Next was when (according to Wilson and corroborated by witnesses) Brown turned and had his hand in or near his waistband. These shots, though not fatal are iffy. It was a judgment call. Personally I think Brown's hand hurt from being shot near the base of his thumb in the SUV, and he was just holding it near his side. The fact that when Brown did not come up with a gun Wilson stopped firing shows clearly that Wilson was evaluating threat level and responding, not firing blindly.

The last series of shots occurred almost exactly at 21 feet, and continued until Brown was felled just before he could reach Wilson. This is why they teach the 21 foot rule. Because a charging suspect can reach you before you can stop him, if you do not start firing at 21 feet. It takes 1.5 to 2 seconds to travel from a standing start to the cop 7 yards away. It takes about that long to make a decision and place an accurate shot under pressure.

All of the witness statements that said anything different either were from people that could not possibly have seen what happened, or contained impeachable elements to their story because they directly contradicted the actual, physical evidence from the crime scene. It could not possibly have happened the way some people said it did. The only reason we know for sure they were mistaken, embellishing, or lying is that Brown, himself, left a very clear record of his direction of travel and how long it took him to do so because of the blood trail. Dexter would have solved this one at the scene.

 

[Que]

The DOJ report was quite clear that he could not be prosecuted period. It goes on to say, essentially, that even if this was a bad shooting (which the previous 75 pages proves it was not) it was not willful abuse of Brown's constitutional rights.

The people that have pushed this narrative focus on that as if Wilson "got off on a technicality" which is not what the report says. The report says it was a good shooting, that Wilson's statements were consistent, corroborated by evidence and witness statements, and that his actions under the circumstances were reasonable in the eyes of the law.

Them pointing out that there would not be a federal case, even if all of the above were not true was garnish, not the meat and potatoes of the report. I read the entire report.

Every witness was not only evaluated for credibility, it was carefully explained how they reached their conclusions on each witness. The DOJ team was more than thorough on this. The showed exactly how each witness statement would be very credible in court, very impeachable, or neutral. Some of the impeachable statements still provide background that supports Wilson's statements.

This is not a case of we cannot prove he did something wrong, this is a case of being able to exonerate Wilson.

Lots of people are emotionally invested in that not being true, but Eric Holder's DOJ says it is true. My biggest beef is that the DOJ knew that prior to the 2014 election and held off saying so while the riots were going on.

 

[sr71plt]

That's why, although police overreaching certainly is an issue that needs attention, the Brown case is not a good one to make a "he's a victim" stand on. He was a hopped-up bullying thug, who had just robbed a convenience store and bullied the cashier (it's pretty much there on tape for anyone to see) and was walking down the middle of the street, just egging for a confrontation. It doesn't really matter what Wilson knew about the robbery beforehand. Brown's attitude and actions were on him--as was the result.

And, yes, a white guy in the same situation is likely to get the same response.

It's not that police brutality doesn't exist or need to be curbed--obviously in Ferguson as well--it's that Brown is the one who is responsible for what happened to Brown, and this isn't a good case to go after on either police brutality or white vs. black.

The local grand jury probably was biased in wanting to see this. The DOJ wasn't. Folks need to get over that this isn't the case to go ballistic for the "victim" over. It's quite obvious that Brown wasn't intending to be the victim--he was hopped up to make others victims.

 

[Ulaven_Demorte]

That's why, although police overreaching certainly is an issue that needs attention, the Brown case is not a good one to make a "he's a victim" stand on. He was a hopped-up bullying thug, who had just robbed a convenience store and bullied the cashier (it's pretty much there on tape for anyone to see) and was walking down the middle of the street, just egging for a confrontation. It doesn't really matter what Wilson knew about the robbery beforehand. Brown's attitude and actions were on him--as was the result.

And, yes, a white guy in the same situation is likely to get the same response.

It's not that police brutality doesn't exist or need to be curbed--obviously in Ferguson as well--it's that Brown is the one who is responsible for what happened to Brown, and this isn't a good case to go after on either police brutality or white vs. black.

The local grand jury probably was biased in wanting to see this. The DOJ wasn't. Folks need to get over that this isn't the case to go ballistic for the "victim" over. It's quite obvious that Brown wasn't intending to be the victim--he was hopped up to make others victims.

Actually, there are scores of examples of this not being the case.

For example:
Last May, an armed Michigan man had a standoff with the police as he stood in front of a Dairy Queen waving a loaded rifle around and angrily shouting. When cops arrived, the man, Joseph Houseman, refused to identify himself, grabbed his crotch, flipped the bird, and cursed them out. Houseman was intoxicated and didn’t have an ID. For 40 minutes, the police tried to get the belligerent man to put his weapon down. All the while, he was screaming, “The revolution is coming,” and accusing the cops of being a “gang." He told the police he had a legal right to "threaten" police officers and their families.

Excerpt from their encounter:

JOSEPH HOUSEMAN: That's my First Amendment right.

POLICE: No it's not. You can't swear.

HOUSEMAN: That's bullshit. I can threaten you if I want to.

POLICE: That's incorrect.

HOUSEMAN: I can threaten you. I can threaten your family. I didn't threaten your family; I said I could.

POLICE: You said a war was coming.

HOUSEMAN: I didn't say a war was coming.

POLICE: You said a revolution is coming.

HOUSEMAN: Think about it. You know it is.

When Houseman refused a Breathalyzer test, officers decided not to give him his gun back. Instead, he was told to come to the police station and claim it the next day. He did, and his gun was safely returned.

Can you guess if the perpetrator was Black or White?

or this:

In August, a San Diego man got out of his parked car with a loaded 9mm pistol and proceeded to point it at police officers and small children who were playing in a local park. The police proceeded to spend the next hour trying to talk the man, Lance Tamayo, into putting down his weapon.
As terrified children were forced to hide in the bathroom, Tamayo rushed toward the officers with his weapon pointed at them and at a police helicopter flying overhead.

Eventually, an officer shot Tamayo once in the stomach to put him down. He fell to the ground, but his gun remained within reach. The police then called Tamayo on his cell phone and spoke with him for 15 minutes before he agreed to surrender. He was arrested and charged with exhibiting a firearm in the presence of peace officers.

Can you guess if the perpetrator was Black or White?

or this:
Just this month,Pennsylvania State Police arrested a man after he reportedly pulled a gun on officers. Jed Frazier had driven his car off the road into a ditch. When police approached the vehicle, the man pulled a handgun from his coat pocket and pointed it at police.

Officers took shelter and tried to talk the man into dropping his loaded weapon. Finally, the police broke the windows of his car, extricated the man and arrested him, all without firing a shot.

Can you guess if the perpetrator was Black or White?

or this:
Just before the new year, a Tennessee woman was arrested after driving around shooting at passersby, leading police on a chase and pointing her gun at an officer. Two people were at a stop sign when Julia Shields pulled up in a sedan and fired shots into their vehicle, hitting and disabling the radiator. A rash of 911 calls reported Shields pointing her firearm at people as she passed, and firing at another vehicle in the same area. Once cops arrived, she led them on a short chase. She was arrested without incident or injury.

or this:
Two Idaho men were taken into custody after shooting up a Walmart with a BB gun. Both were intoxicated. They walked into the Post Falls Walmart and proceeded to remove BB guns from boxes, before loading one and firing it four times while in the store. Walmart security contacted police, saying the two men “started shooting the gun in the store and made comments that they were going to shoot the store up.” According to one Walmart employee, the drunken men approached him and asked if he wanted to join them in their shooting spree.
The two white guys were taken into custody without incident, instead of being shot and killed on the spot.

However, on August 5, John Crawford III was shopping at a Walmart in Dayton, Ohio when he picked a BB rifle off the shelf from the sporting goods section. As he walked around the store fiddling with the gun and talking on his cell phone, another shopper called police to report a black man carrying an AR-15 assault rifle. The shopper told police that Crawford, “looked like he was going to go violently.” Crawford was shot and killed by police while in the store.

On the 911 call, the dispatcher can be heard saying “Walmart, a black male, six foot, wearing a blue shirt, blue pants, in the …section, holding a gun, pointing…”

Two incidents involving men carrying BB guns in the same chain store: the white men were arrested and the black man was killed.

Yeah, exactly the same responses from police regardless of skin color.

 

[Sean Renaud]

It's funny, Holder is apparently an honest AG now

-snip-​

If you read the report there were three separate series of shots.

The first was when Brown had his hand on the gun, and was wrestling for control. Absolutely justified there.

Next was when (according to Wilson and corroborated by witnesses) Brown turned and had his hand in or near his waistband. These shots, though not fatal are iffy. It was a judgment call. Personally I think Brown's hand hurt from being shot near the base of his thumb in the SUV, and he was just holding it near his side. The fact that when Brown did not come up with a gun Wilson stopped firing shows clearly that Wilson was evaluating threat level and responding, not firing blindly.

The last series of shots occurred almost exactly at 21 feet, and continued until Brown was felled just before he could reach Wilson. This is why they teach the 21 foot rule. Because a charging suspect can reach you before you can stop him, if you do not start firing at 21 feet. It takes 1.5 to 2 seconds to travel from a standing start to the cop 7 yards away. It takes about that long to make a decision and place an accurate shot under pressure.

-snip-​

.

The Micheal Brown in this story is the badest motherfucker ever. He gets shot multiple times and is advancing from wrestling in the car to a distance of 21 feet. That's how I advance, I get farther and farther away with each instance.

And not only is that distance based on knife vs gun (and it doesn't actually mean the gun loses, just that there are good odds the guy with the knife takes you with him him) The cop still had a car, Brown's not the fucking hulk, get in, roll up windows, call for back up.


But like I keep saying this individual case is not the issue at all. It's that shit like what's happening in Ferguson happens all the fucking time. Just like the 1992 riots were not really about Rodney King, they were about the condition of blacks nation wide in general and in South Central Los Angeles in particular. Nothing remotely close to this happens over a single event no matter how horrific, it's about patterns and trends and how the community feels it is being treated. Or nobody with more than a rudimentary understanding of WWI believes it was really and truly about the Arch-Duke. These are sparks but the gunpowder is there and has been there for years. Which is why I keep saying the community has a problem with silence. The various socioeconomic issues that allowed this to happen are not spoken about openly and honestly on a regular basis, instead we sit quietly and docile like well trained animals until something comes along that we simply cannot ignore and then it becomes about that. And then it goes away. The only thing special here is that we've had such a rash of issues lately that this group has kept at it.

You want to take a huge step? The next time this happens arrest the guy day fucking one. Have a trial, one like so many others that were largely televised. Cus it's really hard to convince me that you ever even considered the cop could possibly have been wrong if he's still walking around. IF the roles were reversed it wouldn't matter if there was video tape of him kicking in my door at 2am and getting shot because all I saw was a guy dressed in dark clothes holding a gun in my house near my kids bedroom. (The odds of my beating the rap are low but I'd be spending the night in prison and I would be tried.)

I notice that the closest anybody has come to defending how the cops are treating the blacks in Ferguson as a fund raising device is "hey other small towns do it and some of them are white!"

And Vette can spin all the bullshit he wants about if this had been his neighborhood a white kid would have gotten shot too. Lets ignore that the stats simply don't bear that out, you aren't particularly likely to get shot if you're white. But lets move past that. Have you seen the pics of where Vette claims to live? He used to post them all the time. It's a nice quaint community. Where he lives most likely even a black kid wouldn't have been harrassed to begin with. Hell where I live unless you couple Jay Walking with giving the cops the finger the most they are gonna do is flash the siren at you to get you out of their personal way.

 

[RobDownSouth]

The Micheal Brown in this story is the badest motherfucker ever. He gets shot multiple times and is advancing from wrestling in the car to a distance of 21 feet. That's how I advance, I get farther and farther away with each instance.

And not only is that distance based on knife vs gun (and it doesn't actually mean the gun loses, just that there are good odds the guy with the knife takes you with him him) The cop still had a car, Brown's not the fucking hulk, get in, roll up windows, call for back up.


But like I keep saying this individual case is not the issue at all. It's that shit like what's happening in Ferguson happens all the fucking time. Just like the 1992 riots were not really about Rodney King, they were about the condition of blacks nation wide in general and in South Central Los Angeles in particular. Nothing remotely close to this happens over a single event no matter how horrific, it's about patterns and trends and how the community feels it is being treated. Or nobody with more than a rudimentary understanding of WWI believes it was really and truly about the Arch-Duke. These are sparks but the gunpowder is there and has been there for years. Which is why I keep saying the community has a problem with silence. The various socioeconomic issues that allowed this to happen are not spoken about openly and honestly on a regular basis, instead we sit quietly and docile like well trained animals until something comes along that we simply cannot ignore and then it becomes about that. And then it goes away. The only thing special here is that we've had such a rash of issues lately that this group has kept at it.

You want to take a huge step? The next time this happens arrest the guy day fucking one. Have a trial, one like so many others that were largely televised. Cus it's really hard to convince me that you ever even considered the cop could possibly have been wrong if he's still walking around. IF the roles were reversed it wouldn't matter if there was video tape of him kicking in my door at 2am and getting shot because all I saw was a guy dressed in dark clothes holding a gun in my house near my kids bedroom. (The odds of my beating the rap are low but I'd be spending the night in prison and I would be tried.)

I notice that the closest anybody has come to defending how the cops are treating the blacks in Ferguson as a fund raising device is "hey other small towns do it and some of them are white!"

And Vette can spin all the bullshit he wants about if this had been his neighborhood a white kid would have gotten shot too. Lets ignore that the stats simply don't bear that out, you aren't particularly likely to get shot if you're white. But lets move past that. Have you seen the pics of where Vette claims to live? He used to post them all the time. It's a nice quaint community. Where he lives most likely even a black kid wouldn't have been harrassed to begin with. Hell where I live unless you couple Jay Walking with giving the cops the finger the most they are gonna do is flash the siren at you to get you out of their personal way.

Tsk, Sean! Whut part of #ScaryBlackMan do you not understand?

 

[Sean Renaud]

Tsk, Sean! Whut part of #ScaryBlackMan do you not understand?

The part where even in query's version of the story he appears to be backing away. When the guys justifying the shooting think the victim was backing away it's . . .maybe he's the Flash and he was getting close to the distance needed to run around the world before the office could react?

 

[KingOrfeo]

Yes by the police, many have been shot for a lot less.

Then your local police need to be disbanded (if not arrested), and replaced by some force from a higher level of government.

 

[Boxlicker101]

There is little or no doubt that more white men then black men are killed by cops.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/02/politics/kristoff-oreilly-police-shooting-numbers-fact-check/

You might say the percentage of black men is higher, and you would be right but, if you start talking about percentages, you should also be willing to admit the percentage of black people who are criminals is also much higher.

 

[unregistered]

 

[Que]

The Micheal Brown in this story is the badest motherfucker ever. He gets shot multiple times and is advancing from wrestling in the car to a distance of 21 feet. That's how I advance, I get farther and farther away with each instance.

And not only is that distance based on knife vs gun (and it doesn't actually mean the gun loses, just that there are good odds the guy with the knife takes you with him him) The cop still had a car, Brown's not the fucking hulk, get in, roll up windows, call for back up.


But like I keep saying this individual case is not the issue at all. It's that shit like what's happening in Ferguson happens all the fucking time. Just like the 1992 riots were not really about Rodney King, they were about the condition of blacks nation wide in general and in South Central Los Angeles in particular. Nothing remotely close to this happens over a single event no matter how horrific, it's about patterns and trends and how the community feels it is being treated. Or nobody with more than a rudimentary understanding of WWI believes it was really and truly about the Arch-Duke. These are sparks but the gunpowder is there and has been there for years. Which is why I keep saying the community has a problem with silence. The various socioeconomic issues that allowed this to happen are not spoken about openly and honestly on a regular basis, instead we sit quietly and docile like well trained animals until something comes along that we simply cannot ignore and then it becomes about that. And then it goes away. The only thing special here is that we've had such a rash of issues lately that this group has kept at it.

You want to take a huge step? The next time this happens arrest the guy day fucking one. Have a trial, one like so many others that were largely televised. Cus it's really hard to convince me that you ever even considered the cop could possibly have been wrong if he's still walking around. IF the roles were reversed it wouldn't matter if there was video tape of him kicking in my door at 2am and getting shot because all I saw was a guy dressed in dark clothes holding a gun in my house near my kids bedroom. (The odds of my beating the rap are low but I'd be spending the night in prison and I would be tried.)

I notice that the closest anybody has come to defending how the cops are treating the blacks in Ferguson as a fund raising device is "hey other small towns do it and some of them are white!"

And Vette can spin all the bullshit he wants about if this had been his neighborhood a white kid would have gotten shot too. Lets ignore that the stats simply don't bear that out, you aren't particularly likely to get shot if you're white. But lets move past that. Have you seen the pics of where Vette claims to live? He used to post them all the time. It's a nice quaint community. Where he lives most likely even a black kid wouldn't have been harrassed to begin with. Hell where I live unless you couple Jay Walking with giving the cops the finger the most they are gonna do is flash the siren at you to get you out of their personal way.

Since you are obviously emotionally invested in the death of the unfortunate Mr. Brown, why don't you READ the DOJ report. No, Holder is not honest. His mistake was he sent 30 FBI agents to Ferguson and there was no way he was going to get 30 of them to doctor their findings to fit his narrative.

Brown had already assaulted a cop. As outlined in the report, Wilson had a duty to pursue when Brown tried to flee because a reasonable officer, knowing he had already committed strong-arm robbery and assaulted a cop, Brown was a danger to anyone in his path. It says this in the DOJ report.

If he had continued to flee, Wilson would likely not have taken any additional shots, pursued, kept him in sight, back-up would have arrived. Brown changed his mind. Decided to turn around and returned. I would have to look up the distance traveled.

He was AWAY from the vehicle, turned and came back. Wilson paused, ordered Brown down, brown continued to charge. Once he was inside of 21 feet Wilson shot.

Why do you need for every black engaged in a felonious assault to be an innocent?

This is not your poster"child'.

You diminish your otherwise valid points about the state of race relations, blacks vs cops and etc when you pretend that Brown gave Wilson any choice at all. Hundreds of people that do this for a living looked at the evidence and the evidence says this was a good shooting. Not a few cherry-picked witness statements, not Wilsons account. The evidence.

 

[Que]

It is not "knife vs gun." It is person vs person where there is already a gun present. Just because the officer is armed does not mean that he can assume he will be able to retain control of that weapon.

Given that Brown had already attempted to wrest control of the gun (per evidence, not just Wilson's statement) a reasonable officer would assume that Brown would try again. Says that in the DOJ report too.

 

[Que]

That's why, although police overreaching certainly is an issue that needs attention, the Brown case is not a good one to make a "he's a victim" stand on. He was a hopped-up bullying thug, who had just robbed a convenience store and bullied the cashier (it's pretty much there on tape for anyone to see) and was walking down the middle of the street, just egging for a confrontation. It doesn't really matter what Wilson knew about the robbery beforehand. Brown's attitude and actions were on him--as was the result.

And, yes, a white guy in the same situation is likely to get the same response.

It's not that police brutality doesn't exist or need to be curbed--obviously in Ferguson as well--it's that Brown is the one who is responsible for what happened to Brown, and this isn't a good case to go after on either police brutality or white vs. black.

The local grand jury probably was biased in wanting to see this. The DOJ wasn't. Folks need to get over that this isn't the case to go ballistic for the "victim" over. It's quite obvious that Brown wasn't intending to be the victim--he was hopped up to make others victims.

Much more succinct than how I put it.

The DOJ report says Wilson did realize after asking them to get out of the street that Brown was the suspect. He still was planning on calling it in and letting his back-up handle it because he was enroute to lunch with his fiancée. Wilson did not pick this fight, Brown did.

 

[unregistered]

 

[phrodeau]

This is what was said: https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2014/08/12/president-obama-issues-statement-death-michael-brown

Obama basically eulogized Brown and Holder insisted on a full investigation by the DOJ. How often do either of those events happen when a street thug gets killed while attacking a cop? ETA: Do you think it would have happened if Brown would have been white?

Where does it say he took Brown's side on anything?

 

[Sean Renaud]

It is not "knife vs gun." It is person vs person where there is already a gun present. Just because the officer is armed does not mean that he can assume he will be able to retain control of that weapon.

Given that Brown had already attempted to wrest control of the gun (per evidence, not just Wilson's statement) a reasonable officer would assume that Brown would try again. Says that in the DOJ report too.

I stand corrected, I took the time to look it up. It's not "knife vs gun." It's edged weapon vs gun still in holster. The official term is the Tueller Drill named after Sergeant Dennis Tueller of Salt Lake City. So we're back to Brown unarmed, and Wilson with gun in hand invalidating the 21 foot rule.

A guy twenty one feet away is going to get to you before you pull the trigger? Not before you unholster and pull the trigger, but before you pull the trigger?

I don't give a shit about Brown because I know by June we'll have this same conversation again and it wont' matter if a cop tells him to get his license and he reaches into his car to get it, or if he's bedridden oldman. We'll be right back here and you'll find away after the Grand Jury declares no charges telling me how they were within 21 feet of this man (after kicking in his door) and they had every right to defend themselves. Forgive me if I have little faith in the system when it comes to protecting blacks against the police. And oh. . .look at the date. . 2011. . .who was President then? It was Bush right? There is NO reason why I should add this to the list of Dear Obama, why don't you seem to really give a shit about what's happening to your community? The truth is Obama and Holder don't really seem to care, whether it's an honest indifference or how strongly the white conservative community reacts when they do they don't come out of their hidey hole unless it is politically impossible to remain in any longer.

 

[KingOrfeo]

This from the OP bears repeating:

This thread is not about Brown/Wilson, we've got other threads for that.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Where does it say he took Brown's side on anything?

I said he basically eulogized Brown. A eulogy is a speech in which the speaker expresses praise and respect for a dead person, as Obama did here. How often does a POTUS do so for a dead hoodlum?

 

[phrodeau]

I said he basically eulogized Brown. A eulogy is a speech in which the speaker expresses praise and respect for a dead person, as Obama did here. How often does a POTUS do so for a dead hoodlum?

Dunno. Do you think Michael Brown was a hoodlum? What was he ever convicted of?

 

[KingOrfeo]

This from the OP bears repeating:

This thread is not about Brown/Wilson, we've got other threads for that.

 

[IrezumiKiss]

Police suddenly found their tasers for this dude:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CAaWFJvU8AAaVU_.png:large

but yeah, keep on selling me that supreme bullshit on the big bad black demon thug that had just cause to be deaded on sight.

 

[Que]

In addition, even assuming that Wilson definitively knew that Brown was not armed, Wilson was aware that Brown had already assaulted him once and attempted to gain control of his gun. Wilson could thus present evidence that he reasonably feared that, if left unimpeded, Brown would again assault Wilson, again attempt to overpower him, and again attempt to take his gun. Under the law, Wilson has a strong argument that he was justified in firing his weapon at Brown as he continued to advance toward him and refuse commands to stop, and the law does not require Wilson to wait until Brown was close enough to physically assault Wilson. Even if, with hindsight, Wilson could have done something other than shoot Brown, the Fourth Amendment does not second-guess a law enforcement officer’s decision on how to respond to an advancing threat. The law gives great deference to officers for their necessarily split-second judgments, especially in incidents such as this one that unfold over a span of less than two minutes.

This is why when a police officer tells you "GET ON THE GROUND!" you do it. He can and likely will shoot you if you continue to advance. They yell that dort of thing a lot. Most people drop like a stone. The ones that do not are threats, because they are not complying.

I didn't find it yet, but case law says even if his hands are up, if he is advancing, 8 shots was deemed not excessive, and that guy was unarmed. You probably haven't heard of him because he was not black.