If the young man tried to seize the officer's weapon, he opened the deadly force door.
Sent from my DROID RAZR using EO Forums mobile app
CNN and MSNBC stirring racial unrest in Ferguson, MO.
- Thread starter aristotle
- Start date
If the young man tried to seize the officer's weapon, he opened the deadly force door.
Sent from my DROID RAZR using EO Forums mobile app
A door which closed tight as soon as he fled.
There can be no justification for shooting an unarmed man who is fleeing, or standing there with his arms up in surrender. I know, I know, but even if it's a black man it still can't be justified. It just can't.
And the response from Missouri law enforcement since the shooting indicates thoroughly that it wasn't justified at all.
But, people are buying it. Even coming up with their own justifications, like if you're stupid enough to walk in the middle of a residential street, well, then of course you deserve to be shot. Duh!
Suppose he wasn't fleeing? One important thing to remember is the distance involved between Brown and the cop - about 35 feet(11-12 yards). That's not much, especially for a 6'4" 18 year old. As Leo said, it would take him about 2 SECONDS to cross that distance running. That's how long the cop had to decide his course of action in light of the altercation that immediately preceded it, and with the additional knowledge that Brown had just robbed a convenience store. My guess is that anyone confronted with an individual 6'4" & 292 lbs that's intent on inflicting bodily harm is legally justified in using deadly force to protect themselves.
For what it's worth, there's also a part of police training for dealing with edged weapons called the "21 foot rule"; although loosely interpreted, it states that if an assailant with a knife or other edged weapon gets that close to you and decides to charge, you're gonna get cut. How many people can accurately estimate - in a fraction of a second - a distance of +/- 10 yards under stress? This may or may not have been a factor in the officer's judgement since Brown wasn't armed - but anyone that size doesn't need to be armed to be considered a lethal threat.
For what it's worth, there's also a part of police training for dealing with edged weapons called the "21 foot rule"; although loosely interpreted, it states that if an assailant with a knife or other edged weapon gets that close to you and decides to charge, you're gonna get cut. How many people can accurately estimate - in a fraction of a second - a distance of +/- 10 yards under stress? This may or may not have been a factor in the officer's judgement since Brown wasn't armed - but anyone that size doesn't need to be armed to be considered a lethal threat.
"And the response from Missouri law enforcement since the shooting indicates thoroughly that it wasn't justified at all."
Where have you read that? I have yet to see anything like that, can you post it please?
I have not read where people are saying walking down the middle of the street is justification for a shooting either. Walking down the middle of a city street will bring "special attention" on one's self which most people would rather avoid. I have always found is smart to NOT call attention of the authorities upon yourself by acting in an "odd" or illegal manner.
Where have you read that? I have yet to see anything like that, can you post it please?
I have not read where people are saying walking down the middle of the street is justification for a shooting either. Walking down the middle of a city street will bring "special attention" on one's self which most people would rather avoid. I have always found is smart to NOT call attention of the authorities upon yourself by acting in an "odd" or illegal manner.
But he was.
You could suppose all kinds of things, I suppose, but from both the accounts of the police and of witnesses, there was a scuffle where he was really, really, close to the officer, and then when he was shot by the officer he was farther away from the officer, which doesn't indicate that he was doing anything other than moving farther away from the officer.
Another important thing to remember is he was unarmed and had his hands up.
But at the time the cop stopped Brown, and at the time of the shooting, the cop didn't know that Brown had just robbed a convenience store.
Guess again. Deadly force requires a reasonable expectation of a deadly threat or a reasonable threat of great bodily harm. Police officers are trained to deal with "giants" as someone here put it, even giants that are twice their size, without having to resort to using their firearm. Whether Brown was half a second away, or 2 seconds, or whatever, there was no threat with his arms up in the air in surrender.
It's worth almost as much as a diversion as the policing releasing the convenience store video with respect to relevance in the the shooting.
An I the only one who finds it interesting that so many people instantly became emotionally invested in making sure this shooting is justified? The dead guy was an unarmed teenager shot while surrendering, and the police response in the aftermath has been outrageous. "No, no, no! He was 18, a man, not a teenager, and he was really big, really big. And what if this or that. No, the shooting was justified. The dead guy deserves to be dead." Unbelievable.
If the dead guy was white, he probably wouldn't be dead. That's the reality. The US Constitution does not permit police to fire at unarmed, nonviolent, fleeing suspects unless there is a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or the public. Even if they're black.
Last edited:
Are there not conflicting reports that state the Mr. Brown "bum rushed" Mr. Wilson? It is well known that in almost every case eyewitness accounts can vary greatly.
From what I have been able to read, so far, there has been no conclusion as to the "facts" of this case and we are likely a long way off from that.
From what I have been able to read, so far, there has been no conclusion as to the "facts" of this case and we are likely a long way off from that.
I haven't read it anywhere. It's a conclusion drawn by being observant. The police have been in CYA Panic Mode since the shooting. Rather than release facts, they release things that make the dead guy look bad and the police look like Oz the Great and Powerful. When they are finally forced to release the name of the shooter, at the same time they release a wholly irrelevant convenience store robber video, saying they didn't want to release it, but they had to, they just had to, because of all the FOI requests for it. No one knew that Brown was a suspect in the robbery, so there was no reason for a deluge of FOI requests for it, and at any rate, this may be a record for the time from a FOI request and the information being released. So that whole deal is concocted. Then you've got this thoroughly over-the-top military response (how dare you question Oz the Great and Powerful!) that does nothing but put people on the defensive and surprisingly prompts violence in response, which is what they wanted to begin with to divert attention, which it did. They also arrested members of the press for not being in the designated approved press area, they were at McDonald's instead.
If the shooting were justified, they'd release the facts and come out with the fact that it's justified. But they're done everything and anything other than do that.
So, now you're read it.
I have not read enough "evidence" to assume anything. I don't back the police, I don't back anyone. I want to see what shakes out.
NOW,
I don't trust the police to do a "good" investigation, I trust the DOJ, and Mr. Holder, even less. I don't know if we will every be "sure" of the facts.
I was not there, I could not observe anything and cannot assume facts that are not in evidence.
Do I believe it possible the cop was wrong? Yep. Do I believe it possible Mr. Brown "bum rushed" the cop? Yep. Do I believe we will ever be told the entire truth? Nope.
What shakes out is what we've known for a few hundred years - America isn't for black people.
At same time that police in Ferguson, Mo. were tear-gassing people protesting the killing of 18-year-old Mike Brown Monday night, police in Los Angeles were shooting another young, unarmed black man. 25-year-old Ezell Ford was lying on the ground, complying with officers, when he was shot multiple times in the back. Police, however, immediately entered CYA panic mode with the predictable narrative. They say they were conducting an “investigative stop” when “a struggle ensued, which resulted in an officer-involved-shooting.”
The police press release said that no officers were injured, but police gave KTLA a rather novel theory as to what happened. Stop me if you’ve heard this one:
“LAPD says that this shooting was warranted, they say they’re also looking at the possibility of the officer’s weapon being involved in the struggle.”
Oh, well, if he was going for the cop's gun, then all bets are off. That's a get out of jail free card, literally.
The history of these sorts of incidents tells us that unless there’s video, most people will believe the police acted appropriately, and if there is video, will want to see more of it to see the teeny tiny thing that shows the police acted appropriately. If you doubt that Ezell Ford was being treated as a de facto threat by the cops, if you doubt his mother’s account of being forced to the ground, if you doubt that black communities are treated like occupied enemy territory, ask yourself when’s the last time you saw some crap like this in a press release about a white person:
“During the stop a struggle ensued, which resulted in an officer-involved-shooting. It is unknown if the suspect has any gang affiliations.”
Ezell Ford was severely mentally handicapped.
America is in dire need of some serious self reflection, or as Jack Nicholson's Joker said, America needs an enema. While slavery and the fight for equal civil rights is over from a legal point of view, systemic racism and violence towards black people is still very much alive and well. This is, after all, a country that exonerated a man who executed a black teenager carrying nothing more than a can of iced tea and some candy who was running away from him. If it had been a white teenager is would have been murder, but in this case it was self defense.
The notion that black people are inherently criminalistic is so embedded in the American psyche that the majority of Americans aren’t even aware that they are racist. If you don't believe it, a segment from ABC’s ‘What Would You Do?’ social experiment series should set the record straight. The producers of the show set up a scene in a park where three people tried to steal a bike during broad daylight. At different times during the day, a white teenage boy, a black teenage boy, and a blond girl attempt to saw through the lock or cut the chain with bolt cutters in front of passersby. The reactions from the public are, well, like night and day, depending.
America Is Not For Black People
Part of the reason we're seeing so many black men killed is that police officers are now best understood less as members of communities, dedicated to keeping peace within them, than as domestic soldiers.
Officers have tanks now. They have drones. They have automatic rifles, and planes, and helicopters, and they go through military-style boot camp training.
The worst part of outfitting our police officers as soldiers has been psychological. Give a man access to drones, tanks, and body armor, and he'll reasonably think that his job isn't simply to maintain peace, but to eradicate danger. Instead of protecting and serving, police are searching and destroying.
If officers are soldiers, it follows that the neighborhoods they patrol are battlefields. And if they're working battlefields, it follows that the population is the enemy. And because of correlations, rooted in historical injustice, between crime and income and income and race, the enemy population will consist largely of people of color, and especially of black men.
Throughout the country, police officers are capturing, imprisoning, and killing black males at a ridiculous clip, waging a very literal war on people like Michael Brown.
Sorry, each incident must be taken on it's own merits.
I don't believe that there is any chance in hell of getting honest answers out of the investigation into THIS INCIDENT. The lines are already drawn and the primary political players are known.
The rioting and looting MUST stop. People are going to lose lives and livelyhoods and it is the responsibility of the "authorities" to insure the safety of everyone involved. Under the circumstances the Ferguson police should remove themselves from that task and other forms of law enforcement brought in to end the looting and restore order.
People SHOULD stay home, let calm restore itself and THEN address the issues. There is no excuse to riot.
Do I understand they are frustrated and angry? Yes I do. Do they share any responsibility in their plight? Yes they do. Do the city officials? Yes they do.
There are good, decient, people there trying to calm things down. People should take heed of them. Get off the streets, stay off, or this could become worse that Detroit was in '67. The 82nd Airborne was brought into Detroit back then. We don't want to every see that again. Each individual has the responsibility to end this.
I don't believe that there is any chance in hell of getting honest answers out of the investigation into THIS INCIDENT. The lines are already drawn and the primary political players are known.
The rioting and looting MUST stop. People are going to lose lives and livelyhoods and it is the responsibility of the "authorities" to insure the safety of everyone involved. Under the circumstances the Ferguson police should remove themselves from that task and other forms of law enforcement brought in to end the looting and restore order.
People SHOULD stay home, let calm restore itself and THEN address the issues. There is no excuse to riot.
Do I understand they are frustrated and angry? Yes I do. Do they share any responsibility in their plight? Yes they do. Do the city officials? Yes they do.
There are good, decient, people there trying to calm things down. People should take heed of them. Get off the streets, stay off, or this could become worse that Detroit was in '67. The 82nd Airborne was brought into Detroit back then. We don't want to every see that again. Each individual has the responsibility to end this.
Yes,there are conflicting accounts whether Brown bum rushed the officer.
Michael Brown shooting recording casts doubt on claims he surrendered to Darren Wilson | Mail Online
They did know he was a suspect in the robbery.
Limbaugh on Brown: Media Knew About The Robbery All Along | Truth Revolt
Limbaugh on Brown: Media Knew About The Robbery All Along | Truth Revolt
Yes there are.
"They" did, but "they" didn't at the time of the shooting, and neither did the cop. The robbery was irrelevant to the shooting itself. That's why releasing the video made so many people so angry.
But none of that even matters, unless you have a deep-seeded interest in making sure this was a justifiable shooting and exonerating that cop of any and all wrongdoing, and in smearing the dead guy.
It's astonishing that people are able to find a political line to draw here. Astonishing.
What ever happened to innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, or are policemen not entitled to that right?
Most cops aren't prosecuted even when they are guilty. There's always something like "the perp was going for my gun" get-out-of-jail-free card that gets played. Have you never noticed how often the unarmed black dead guy went for the officer's gun? It's like every time.
SO, just ignore the law, DON'T investigate this (like Holder really would anyway) and put him on death row. Saves a lot of money, no trail needed and all.
Don't hold the looters responsible for their actions either. It's not their fault to be sure. DO prosecute any store owner that uses force, which is their right by the way, to defend their property, lives and livelyhood. After all the "MOB" forced those people into looting and maybe killing. It certainly is NOT the fault of the looters.
That's not what I'm saying at all.
You keep focusing on the looting, as if that's the most important thing here. Wow.
I think they should go after the looters. Plenty of video tape to review for that. I do believe that is a separate issue from the shooting. The guy is going to get charged, and it will be a whole show on race. Whether his "get out of jail card" will work will depend if any evidence shows up. Which could take a month or longer. If no evidence, he likely will walk unless the jury is mostly minorities.