No official complaints or prior reprimands on the officerâs record doesnât mean no past problems. The residents of Ferguson are in a better position to verify the claim than anyone.
Unfortunate typo, guys.
Iâm going to put aside the urge to snark and simply point out that while a few psychopaths will begin addressing their death threats differently, the police chiefâs disclosure of the name of the shooter still isnât literal vigilante justice. Itâs part of the process of being a relatively transparent, somewhat democratically-elected, nominally republican state. It was his job to make the disclosure, and he could have defused the situation earlier by either making the disclosure or by stating that the disclosure was forthcoming.
Instead, Chief Jackson and his department made the conscious decision to be dick-waggling unprofessional scumbags and it took international attention as well as the governor and the president to force him toward accountability and sense.
Basically they said nothing about the shooting but gave a press conference on Michael Brown on a Friday so thatâll dominate the weekend news cycle.
A prediction. The Sentence for Mr. Wilson, after only 6 months of his (paid) home arrest: 6 more months of home arrest, but this time, with out pay. There is a special back-pay program for cops who shoot unarmed people and accidentally get caught, in most states.
Have I over snarked my bounds?
Iâve noticed that when I watch a funny video on youtube, that I am presented with several related videos to watch, but when I watch a serious video, I am presented with ONLY funny videos to watch. I want to learn more about the serious topic, but the related videos are harder to find. This held true for the âbruhâ video in this story.
This sounds like the take home message is the usual âblack kid was a thug, so he had it comingâ.
Could this be a case of âcop shoots unarmed suspect thatâs getting away, simply so he doesnât actually get awayâ?
Attempting to paint Mr. Brown in a poor light does not absolve the officer in the shooting of an unarmed man, in the back, who had his hands up in a display that he had no weapons.
And to address the supposed statement of âdonât shoot meâ, it seems like the logic with cops would be to shut the hell up. Yell âdonât shoot me!â⌠get shot. Say âdonât taze me bro!â⌠get tazed. Itâs almost like these assholes are taking it as a dare.
Thatâs not the message Iâm getting. I admit that until a few moments ago I had no idea that Mr. Brown had robbed and assaulted a store owner. That still doesnât give the cop the right to shoot him as he was running away. Did the store owner report that the guy who robbed him had a gun? More questions need to be answered.
There is a number of racist deflections that get spewed in every situation like this. A popular one is âBlack people kill each other every day in CHICAGO, so why arenât we hearing about that?â
Having lost the street battle, the cops are ramping up the media battle. Unfortunately, theyâll probably be a lot more effective on that terrain. Because despite everything weâve seen this week, for some reason the news media and the general public still reflexively trust the cops to be honest and act in good faith. Weâre so quick to forgive - to eagerly accept even the sloppiest and most half-hearted reconciliation.
Itâs a hard habit to break, but at some point we need to be able to say âYour words, your claims are meaningless to us. You have lost the right to be believed or taken seriously in any way. The only thing we want from you is to surrender your power.â
Sadly yes. So many (mostly white) people ignore the larger (mostly white) context.
MLK didnât ignore it:
You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations. I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes. It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the cityâs white power structure left the Negro community with no alternative.
http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html
Do you mean:
Missouri Governor Jay Nixon today reveled the name of the police officer who shot and killed 18-year-old Michael Brown last weekend,
Agreed, This brings to mind something Iâve been reading up on the last few days; Fourth generation warfare. Hereâs the Wikipedia article to get you started: Fourth-generation warfare - Wikipedia
The role of media is quite problematic because once it starts to uncritically spread this new âspinâ, it becomes an accomplice, not because it wants to, but because its interests are orthogonal to the truth.
Because if you look closer, a lot of people in Chicago are getting shot by the police, too.
It doesnât take much digging to find people that believe blacks get a free ride from the criminal justice system and donât go to jail, based on watching gangster movies of the 1930s I guess.
The way I always hear these deflections is âWell if black people can shoot each other randomly without going to jail, then white people should be able to kill blacks randomly without going to jail,â which happens to be the circumstances of many âstand your groundâ shootings.
Not in so many words no, but this is just more of the same old same old attempting to smear the dead to justify a fundamentally unjustifiable act. By focusing on the criminal activity (yeah, the twit pics of Brownâs altercation with the store owner seem pretty damning) of the deceased, they hope to deflect the focus from the CRIMINAL activity of one of their own.
And it really doesnât matter if he had a weapon or not. When heâs at the point that heâs effectively surrendered, running away, with hands raised, and hands empty, heâs no longer a threat that could possibly justify lethal force. Unless heâs running away from the cop and towards someone yelling âIâm going to kill you!â (wherein one could possibly justify lethal force to save someone elseâs life) thereâs no fucking possible way to rationalize this sort of execution.
There are far too many cases of âwell we thought he had a weaponâ that turn out to not be the case (Amadou Diallo for one). Or even cases where cops claim that, and are later shown to have planted the weapon themselves (L.A. Rampart division).
Iâve said this before, and Iâll say this again. Thereâs no justification for shooting someone unless they present an immediate and clear danger to the life or significant well being of someone else. In this case, even if the cop had been told that Brown had a weapon, those conditions certainly werenât met.
Anyone know what to make of this?
sonofbaldwin:
This Mountain Dew tastes like urine.
The Ferguson Police Department says that Bryan Willman isnât the shooter, Darren Wilson is.
I have questions.
The only Darren Wilson I know about is a black cop in St. Louis who is attempting to dismantle racism in the police force there.
Why would he, then, turn around and murder a black kid in cold blood as has been described by several witnesses?
Are they throwing him under the bus because heâs a troublemaker on the force? Is this them trying, literally, to kill two mockingbirds with one stone?
Thatâs a different Darren Wilson. http://fox2now.com/2014/08/15/the-other-darren-wilson-st-louis-city-sergeant-not-the-cop-who-shot-michael-brown/
Exactly. Do we really think the local police can be trusted on this? No. They have proven themselves untrustworthy on many fronts, and it was right for the governor and staties to overrule them and take over. Doesnât still mean the locals are fully overruled. They will still monkeywrench this as much as they possibly can to cover their own. Only public shame will shed sunlight to disinfect that town.
