St Louis County - Police Officer Fatally Shoots 18-Year-Old (Michael Brown)

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Devil Ledbetter

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Does anyone else think that sometimes the internal investigations following these incidents are deliberately dragged out in the hopes that tempers will cool before the facts are presented? It's like we're trained to sit back saying "Well, we can't know what really happened there yet. Let's not rush to judgment. I mean, yeah he was an unarmed teen in shorts and flip flops and every witness said he had his hands in the air, but the officer may have felt, I dunno, like he was a threat in some way we just don't understand yet, and the investigation will probably show how the shooting was justified, can't we all calm down and wait and see?"

And then, by the time the investigation fails to show justification and the killer cop is slapped on the wrist, it will all be old news. We'll be too busy awaiting the results of the next case of police brutality to get angry about it.
 

Cella

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Tempers have not cooled; if anything, the police waiting 18 hours to release ANY kind of statement to the public only made things worse.
 

Cella

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For those of you who have been concerned about me, thank you for your messages and well wishes. We are relatively safe and don't see any imminent danger making it's way up our hill. We are thankful there weren't any deaths in last night's fiasco, as the ingredients for worse chaos were certainly all there.

On another note, I'm going to refrain from posting further about this for the time being because I am likely too close to see it as objectively as possible.
 

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Tempers have not cooled; if anything, the police waiting 18 hours to release ANY kind of statement to the public only made things worse.

I think it's gotten worse too. They just announced that they aren't releasing the officer's name. I'm not hopeful that this will help the situation, but I understand keeping his name private. He hasn't been charged with a crime yet, and releasing his name will endanger him and his family.




Devil, we probably are trained to have a wait and see attitude in situations like this, but I think that's good. We need to give the FBI some time to piece together as many details as they can. This just happened. A quality investigation can't possibly be completed in a matter of days.
 

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I'm not normally one to defend the cops. And I'm an ex-cop.

But keep in mind that when your body thinks you're in a fight-to-the-death, it doesn't just shut off like a switch. If, for instance, there really was an altercation at the cruiser door for the cop's gun, or he reasonably believe one was happening, it's hard for him to shut off the adrenaline, the oh-my-god-he's-trying-to-kill-me-i-have-to-shoot-him-right-now-or-I'm-going-to-die rush that is forcing him to draw his weapon.

If the officer believed the other man was trying to get his duty weapon away from his, that's a lethal force situation, and all bets are off.

Basically just a reminder that it's easy for us to second-guess things from the safety of our keyboards.

Agreed. I was an MP a long time ago and grew up around cops so I understand that adrenaline doesn't stop instantly.

And while the whole story is unclear, based on what the police chief has said so far, it appears that the officer made a mistake. Going for a cops gun is definitely a deadly force scenario, but i don't know of any police force use of force policy that allows for the use of deadly force after the threat is lessened. Suppose Brown did go for the cops gun. That's a deadly force situation. By all means the officer should use any and all means to defend himself. But once the weapon is retained and the subject is no longer close enough to attempt to take the weapon, the justification for deadly force is gone.

I agree that we don't know the whole story and it's easy to armchair general these situations. I was mainly agreeing that the police story didn't make sense and that the only way it could make sense is if the officer screwed up, which is an odd way for the police to handle situations like these. Usually they at least try to give the officer the benefit of the doubt, but this story seems like they are implying that the officer made a mistake.
 

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Does anyone else think that sometimes the internal investigations following these incidents are deliberately dragged out in the hopes that tempers will cool before the facts are presented? It's like we're trained to sit back saying "Well, we can't know what really happened there yet. Let's not rush to judgment. I mean, yeah he was an unarmed teen in shorts and flip flops and every witness said he had his hands in the air, but the officer may have felt, I dunno, like he was a threat in some way we just don't understand yet, and the investigation will probably show how the shooting was justified, can't we all calm down and wait and see?"

And then, by the time the investigation fails to show justification and the killer cop is slapped on the wrist, it will all be old news. We'll be too busy awaiting the results of the next case of police brutality to get angry about it.

I think a lot has to do with PR as well. The police can drag the investigation and the updates they provide are in the officer's favor. In this particular case they haven't interviewed the eyewitness, even when he made himself available. This allows them to feed the officer's account to the media without having to acknowledge the other side.
 
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Xelebes

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For those of you who have been concerned about me, thank you for your messages and well wishes. We are relatively safe and don't see any imminent danger making it's way up our hill. We are thankful there weren't any deaths in last night's fiasco, as the ingredients for worse chaos were certainly all there.

On another note, I'm going to refrain from posting further about this for the time being because I am likely too close to see it as objectively as possible.

Well, at least post what you can see. Looks like you got a frightening front row seat there.
 

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The videos and pictures I'm seeing on Twitter are chilling.
 

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backslashbaby

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Cella, take care and I'm so sorry you are going through this!

I do think the segregation has to be part of this situation. I read this in the NYT last night:

...Ferguson, a city of 21,000 northwest of St. Louis, has shifted substantially over the last decade, with blacks, once a minority, now making up two-thirds of the residents, after many white families moved out to surrounding suburbs. The town’s leadership and the police have remained predominantly white.
In 2013, the suspension of a black superintendent of schools by an all-white school board stirred protests. And the Justice Department has a continuing investigation into racial disparities in legal representation for juveniles in Family Court.
Continue reading the main story
“The community is still highly segregated,” said Karen Knodt, interim pastor of the Immanuel United Church of Christ, whose congregation has 800 members, only four of whom are black. “The institutions of power don’t yet reflect the changing demographics of the county.”

I can't imagine an 800-person church with only 4 Black members or a town with that many cops having so few Black ones. I didn't realize that as this story came out.

Why are the police not releasing the name today after they said they would? That doesn't sound like a good idea at all.

I think the FBI need to get their butts up there quickly, too, and they could watch for civil rights violations. Twitter last night was filled with folks upset about police brutality, meaning the tear gas and rubber/beanbag bullets. The cops made some of the press leave an area, threatened with arrest and gas, apparently.

I know some of the those things are really legal, but the FBI should keep watch just in case, no? Is it legal to make the press leave?

There were shots in the area, so maybe it was legal. (I had to go back inside my own house once because cops with guns drawn at the neighbor's motioned me to sternly when I went outside to see what was up [they knew he had a gun in the home]). Apparently the press thought the gunshots in the area were nothing, but the cops might get to make that call, legally. It was also still a protest, so it looks bad that the press was ordered away.

That sort of thing should be explained in press conferences ASAP, I think. It doesn't sound like this police department cares about that sort of communication, though.
 

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With the level and type of activity going on, I can certainly understand them not releasing the officer's name. The temptation for mob justice against him and his family would likely be too high without getting him out of the city first. On the other hand, withholding information, especially after they said they would release it, is not going to help the situation any. It really seems like a choice between which decision is going to spark less violence.
 

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I can understand that, Shaun.

Unfortunately, Twitter is abuzz right now (I just checked) with some cop's name, address and personal pictures. Anonymous has targeted someone, so let's at least hope it's the right cop!
 

Xelebes

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A rather long essay on militarism in US culture. If you wanted to take a whack at summarising white supremacism, gun culture, hair-trigger policing, war on drugs, and a multitude of other issues in one essay, here's a start. Written by a former soldier who went on to use his GI Bill to go to school.

http://www.hamptoninstitution.org/coming-home-to-roost.html#.U-qc52K9KSM
 

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I'm not normally one to defend the cops. And I'm an ex-cop.

But keep in mind that when your body thinks you're in a fight-to-the-death, it doesn't just shut off like a switch. If, for instance, there really was an altercation at the cruiser door for the cop's gun, or he reasonably believe one was happening, it's hard for him to shut off the adrenaline, the oh-my-god-he's-trying-to-kill-me-i-have-to-shoot-him-right-now-or-I'm-going-to-die rush that is forcing him to draw his weapon.

If the officer believed the other man was trying to get his duty weapon away from his, that's a lethal force situation, and all bets are off.

Basically just a reminder that it's easy for us to second-guess things from the safety of our keyboards.

It is also a reminder in these life-and-death/lethal force, blah, blah, blah situations, if the cop is White and the dead person is Black, by default the benefit of the doubt goes to the cop.

What did Mike Brown do? Why was he beefing with a cop? Was he trying to take the gun away from the officer? Did Brown give the cop no choice but to kill him?

I've seen this narrative play out so many times before. Why did Trayvon Martin give George Zimmerman attitude and attack him? Why was Jonathan Ferrell running at the cops before Randall Kerrick pumped 10 bullets in him? Was he high? (He wasn't). After Theodore Wafer shot Renisha McBride in the face with a shotgun, police wondered why she had a $100 dollar bill in her purse? Was she a prostitute?

When it's White cops vs. Black suspect, there's always a convenient excuse, a tidy explanation, and an ass-covering rationalization available.

It's not easy to second guess things from the safety of our keyboards. It's hard. But if it's hard to say anything is for certain, it's this: If it's premature to blame the unnamed cop for Michael Brown's death, it's equally premature to suggest, "He must have started it."


Does anyone else think that sometimes the internal investigations following these incidents are deliberately dragged out in the hopes that tempers will cool before the facts are presented? It's like we're trained to sit back saying "Well, we can't know what really happened there yet. Let's not rush to judgment. I mean, yeah he was an unarmed teen in shorts and flip flops and every witness said he had his hands in the air, but the officer may have felt, I dunno, like he was a threat in some way we just don't understand yet, and the investigation will probably show how the shooting was justified, can't we all calm down and wait and see?"

And then, by the time the investigation fails to show justification and the killer cop is slapped on the wrist, it will all be old news. We'll be too busy awaiting the results of the next case of police brutality to get angry about it.

Short answer?

Absolutely yes.
 
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slhuang

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I don't really have anything to add, but on Twitter I'm following @AntonioFrench (a St. Louis alderman tweeting pictures and video and news from the ground there) and the hashtag #Ferguson. It's horrifying and heartbreaking.

The latest news on Twitter (literally breaking as I was posting) is that someone else has just been shot. No details yet.

And another unarmed black man was just shot and killed by police in Los Angeles (where I live). This is madness. Not to mention, we're where the Rodney King riots happened, and we're still a tinder box when it comes to race relations. With people on edge from Ferguson....please, please, please don't let this set off LA.
 
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ShaunHorton

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Wow. They've seriously instituted a No Fly Zone over Ferguson? Do they think the citizens have rockets or something?

And I'm honestly very surprised #Ferguson isn't trending, yet something like #BadNatureShows is...

Shit...
 
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Vince524

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It is also a reminder in these life-and-death/lethal force, blah, blah, blah situations, if the cop is White and the dead person is Black, by default the benefit of the doubt goes to the cop.

Many do, many do the opposite. Judgement should be held until we know more facts.





Wow. They've seriously instituted a No Fly Zone over Ferguson? Do they think the citizens have rockets or something?

And I'm honestly very surprised #Ferguson isn't trending, yet something like #BadNatureShows is...

Shit...
I know I read somewhere that shots were fired at helicopters.

But on twitter, I've seen #Ferguson trending since this happened.
 

Devil Ledbetter

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Originally Posted by Devil Ledbetter
Does anyone else think that sometimes the internal investigations following these incidents are deliberately dragged out in the hopes that tempers will cool before the facts are presented? It's like we're trained to sit back saying "Well, we can't know what really happened there yet. Let's not rush to judgment. I mean, yeah he was an unarmed teen in shorts and flip flops and every witness said he had his hands in the air, but the officer may have felt, I dunno, like he was a threat in some way we just don't understand yet, and the investigation will probably show how the shooting was justified, can't we all calm down and wait and see?"

And then, by the time the investigation fails to show justification and the killer cop is slapped on the wrist, it will all be old news. We'll be too busy awaiting the results of the next case of police brutality to get angry about it.
Short answer?

Absolutely yes.

And as if to demonstrate:

Many do, many do the opposite. Judgement should be held until we know more facts.

And another unarmed black man was just shot and killed by police in Los Angeles (where I live). This is madness. Not to mention, we're where the Rodney King riots happened, and we're still a tinder box when it comes to race relations. With people on edge from Ferguson....please, please, please don't let this set off LA.

And so it goes.
 

robeiae

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The latest news on Twitter (literally breaking as I was posting) is that someone else has just been shot. No details yet.

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/...cle_7fb366f0-2f29-5bdd-b18b-34c9d8c688e7.html

At about 1 a.m., a St. Louis County Police officer shot and critically wounded a man who police said pointed a handgun at the officer near the intersection of West Florissant and Chambers Road.

[snip]

Police said they received a call reporting about four to five men in the area armed with shotguns and wearing ski masks. They also got reports of shots fired in the area. Police officers arrived and saw "multiple subjects running," said police spokesman Officer Brian Schellman.

An officer approached one of the men and he pulled a handgun on the officer who then fired, Schellman said.
 

Xelebes

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raburrell

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I'd be quoting most of my twitter feed if I could, but what's happening in Ferguson tonight is beyond appalling.

Barack Obama in 2011 said:
So I want to be very clear in calling upon the Egyptian authorities to refrain from any violence against peaceful protestors. The people of Egypt have rights that are universal. That includes the right to peaceful assembly and association, the right to free speech, and the ability to determine their own destiny. These are human rights. And the United States will stand up for them everywhere.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/01/28/remarks-president-situation-egypt
2014 Obama, where the hell are you?
 

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slhuang

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Seriously, everyone, get on Twitter if you aren't already. I just, I can't. I have no words of my own to add.

Journalists are being arrested. Alderman Antonio French was just arrested. Every tweet I see from military or veterans is that this horrifies them, that they never, ever would have managed a civilian situation this way overseas.

Links:

#Ferguson

Here’s a Twitter list of journalists tweeting from Ferguson

This livestream is no longer live (as of this writing) but you can see prior footage of police attacking a group of unarmed protesters with hands raised — police demand that they turn off cameras but they keep filming.

Washington Post reporter's first-hand account of his arrest

How is the entire U.S. not talking about this?
 
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