Yes, i know, but it was pretty much localised to ferguson, wasn’t it? International media coverage of this was pretty poor, so i wouldn’t know. This seems to be a pattern in the usa, where demonstrations are localised, and therefore, unless they are in a big urban center, pretty small. Nation wide protest should have been in order.
I have the same nagging feeling. Even the “Hands up, don’t shoot” campaign strikes me as depressing in that in indicates that anything short of planting flowers in your side-yard means you are asking to be shot. It almost suggests a burden of evidence that says “if you can reasonably prove that he didn’t have his hands up, well, death sentence, I guess!” Not blaming the protestors, they are just meeting the debate where it stands, which seems to be “PROVE that this kid didn’t deserve to die, prove that he did EVERYTHING he could to not be shot by this cop. Did he beg? no? death sentence. Did he cry? no? death sentence.” That isn’t how I want lethal force to work in my fucking world.
This insane lethal force rate has to be some kind of mixture of cowardice and racism. People love to argue that being a cop is a dangerous job. Honestly, I think it should be. The nature of the work is dangerous, and occasionally confrontational, hence the honor and uniforms and formality and shit. But give police the right to react to their job in such a way that preserves their safety over that of everyone else, and it makes the sane ones more-trigger-likely, the nervous ones trigger-happy and the racist/unstable ones downright trigger-ecstatic. Where is their incentive to de-escalate a situation if as soon as things get a little out of hand they can literally end the situation? Would we still say a firefighters job was dangerous if he sprayed gasoline all over a small garbage can fire and then called in a helicopter to dump flame retardant on it?
13 Likes
Who said it’s journalism?
6 Likes
Sounds like your commenting priorities about this case are pretty twisted. Call this what you will, but don’t pretend it’s ethics in crime journalism.
14 Likes
Yes, international media covereage is pretty poor, perhaps because U.S. corporate media coverage is also pretty poor.
1 Like
Given the evidence dumps on various places, I don’t think any reasonable person would have indicted Wilson. Now I have seen bureaucracies clamp down with uncharacteristic efficiency when in danger, and it’s possible that evidence was tampered with, but a jury has no reason to believe that, given incoherent witness testimony.
1 Like
I’ve found the BBC News livestream to be much more informative than any US media outlet.
2 Likes
Now it’s unreasonable to expect an opinion piece not to be written as if it were a factual article that repeats all the rumors and speculation about the case as if they were facts? Any chance you got swept away with the media and social blitz surrounding this case and are a sore loser. Because you did and are.
Really, BB? 9 HOURS? Whatever happened to a simple 1 hour cool-off before being able to “like” with abandon again?
5 Likes
I’ll be interested in hearing the evidence the Grand Jury viewed. I figure it must be compelling enough to get everyone to agree and not end up with a hung jury.
Even if this case was justified, it still doesn’t negate the fact that too many cops are trigger happy out there.
6 Likes
Yes, nor the fact that so many young black men, especially, are murdered as a result,
Too many people think the current protests are just about the killing of Mike Brown. He’s just the tip of the iceberg that is de facto white supremacy.
12 Likes
It also doesn’t negate the fact that we can’t scapegoat Officer Wilson for crimes perpetrated by some of his peers and contemporaries. This is the real problem with Ferguson. I wish there were a better example of a case like this that everyone latched onto. We know there is a problem. The black community knows there is a problem and that justice for them is not the same as justice for me. This just turned out to be a bad example.
This isn’t the miscarriage of justice you’re looking for.
Do you think that’s maybe because they are happening in Ferguson immediately after the verdict about his case was announced? Hmmmmmm…
Of course, but only in part. It’s also because so many people don’t know just how often black men, especially, are gunned down by cops and other authority figures (including self-appointed ones like George Zimmerman).
This isn;t the isolated case of black-male death you seem to be looking for, and which you also (already) seem to be looking to dismiss.
ETA: And as I said above, the protests aren’t only happening in Ferguson.
5 Likes
Unfortunately for your argument, it’s not cops who are gunning down all the young black men.
for one example…
You mean, like WW1 was about an assassination?
12 Likes
You almost went full Godwin. Never go full Godwin.
1 Like
Nor can we hold him meaningfully responsible for the death he definitely caused.
9 Likes
Recently I drove past the Ferguson neighborhood on the freeway, and saw a place that’s been neglected by the city, by capitalism, certainly easy to imagine it being neglected by police and government. Yeah, this story is about racism on all levels.
But it’s also about a complete lack of accountability by the police, that impacts everyone no matter how white you are or how well connected you are. When that unarmed white napster executive was killed by a policeman,(for no good reason) it generated even less noise than this killing. Yes, we need less bigotry on the force. More than that, we need accountability. When the Governor pre-emptively declared a state of emergency, he was making official something the poor have always known: we are not safe. That was never a bug, it’s a feature.
8 Likes
again, your insertion of the word ‘all’ into someone else’s statement to render it something you can vigorously disagree with… is tiresome.
You’ve said your peace, son. Move on.
3 Likes
It’s funny what is revealed in 12 hours. Prosecutor Robert McCulloch threw the case. Disbar McCulloch and fire him.
4 Likes
