Yep.. Many parts of inner city St. Louis and Kansas City. Funny thing is, when we go out there on vacation, me and wifey don't go to those places either..
How many blacks were on the Trayvon Martin jury? Zero. Must not have been any blacks in the jury pool maybe? Change of venue motions are a real asset to any defense attorney trying to get his client off. I'm trying to remember where those cops that gunned down Armadu Diallo were tried. I don't think it was the Bronx but I don't remember exactly where the trial happened. Let me make a prediction here and now: If a trial does take place, the cop in this instance will walk out a free man. No way he'll be found criminally liable. Even if they try to charge manslaughter instead of murder, he'll beat that too.
Same in another respect. I've been to the shittiest parts of MO, Bama, Georgia and Louisiana - the white trash districts. They are only safe for the shitbag ethnic locals that live there, there is no racial safety. It's less of a race thing than a self-compartmentalized cultural thing.
There is still missing information in this scenario (obviously), but most reports are conflicting but point to this not being a defensive shooting/killing. After this event, you see how out of touch some of the police department is with the local community. You militarize up? You roll a tank through the town? You point guns at media, civilians, peaceful protestors? You dress up camo and basically make it look like the army rolled through? Chuck tear gas and start annoying crowds hours before curfew? Officers threatening to mace media crews? Arresting/detaining media members? Pointing guns at people with cameras? It's not a coincidence the only peaceful day with police was when the highway patrol came through in normal police uniforms and weren't treating the community as hostile people. The looters are a problem, but people seem to use the few looters to then somehow represent the community of Ferguson. That's just as silly to me as people taking one bad cop and then saying all police are bad. For me, this whole thing just enforces two things that I don't know if are realistic or have real negative consequences I can't think of: 1) Cameras on cops to record them and the situation. Cameras that would have a punishment for being turned off. We have the technology to do it. I was watching live streams of the protests hundreds of miles away, we can have a camera on a police officer than can be viewed if anything occurs. 2) The police is not the military. A lot of these towns shouldn't have the ability roll through looking like a military. The police should be un militarized? I'm not sure if there a term for it. That's where I'm at. The autopsy created more questions for me since no accounts of the events really lined up directly with the autopsy, so will be interesting to see where this goes. EDIT: Also I haven't seen the facts to confirm, but if they are true, it would be real discoursing. The first one is that the majority of the local police is white. The second that is the majority of Ferguson is not white. The third is that minorities disproportionately make up the stops, charges, arrests of the department compared to makeup of the area. I haven't been able to fact check these yet, so take them from a grain of salt. But if true, well, unfortunately it wouldn't surprise me.
So what exactly is the point of a protest if there is no confrontation with authority? If they had not taken to the streets,there would not be a heavy police presence. had they not destroyed their own town,the Nat Guard would not be there. So if there was no law Enf there,what would the protestors be doing? What would be their point,just hold up signs so they could all look at each other?
It's funny how often it turns out, that people who go looking for trouble end up finding it. I feel sad for the boys parents ... But I can't stand another minute of this "good kid" bullshit. He made a conscious decision to committ robbery and assault, and it lead to his death. Nobody knows exactly how things went down, but what it boils down to is this ---- HIS stupid choices ultimately cost him his life. A simple fact that is somehow lost on this outraged community. I absolutely believe he assaulted the cop while he was being arrested. No doubt in my mind. Since he just assualted someone else 5 minutes earlier on video, its not exactly a huge leap of faith. Here's a crazy idea ---- don't act like a criminal and you won't have violent altercations with the police. And if you're getting arrested, handle it like a man. You 'll be out in a few hours and soon enough, you'll have your day in court ... Unless you decide to assault the cop who's arresting you.
I think there should be a POLICE presence. I do not think they should roll out looking like the military with military type weapons and utilities and start arresting media members, throwing tear gas around to the whole crowd, telling reporters on live TV they are going to mace them, and calling the who crowd "fucking animals" and things I repeated above. You need police there to protect the majority of the protestors. You need the police there to stop the looters and rioters. But the police are part of the community, it is not police vs. community. The police should be with the community, the police should be allowing the community to protest, and the police should be there to protect the community from the violent protestors. That's my opinion of what the police should be there for. Ferguson looks like countries we invade right now. The basic rights of media being limited are what we say shouldn't happen in other countries. It's terrible situation and regardless of what happened originally, part of the blame has to go on the police for escalating the situation to whole new levels Again, I think it's unfair to lump the whole town together and act like they are all looting and rioting. It's a minority that is doing that according to media on the scene and eyewitness reports.
this constant mentioning of unarmed is nothing but a plea for emotion. you can be unarmed and still be behaving in a manner that is both threatening and an immediate threat that warrants the use of deadly force. anyone attempting to claim otherwise lacks critical thinking skills or is simply dishonest. if the cops story is true, and the thug asshole first attacked him and tried to take his gun, then charged at him (weighing nearly 100 lbs more than the cop and clearly having a significant size and strength advantage), those situations clearly give rise to the justifiable use of force for the cop to defend himself.
who cares about the reports, all that matters are the facts. the facts don't seem to point to it not being a defensive shooting at all. what are the facts? thug asshole robs a store (criminal and ant-social behavior). thug asshole walks down the middle of the street (technically criminal but clearly anti-social behavior and an attitude that he can do whatever he wants). then there are the reports - this clearly criminal and anti-social thug from his own behavior according to the facts above suddenly becomes a gentle giant just minding his own business and the cop attacks him simply for walking in the middle of the street. does that pass the logic test to you? or the cop asks them to get out of the street. they pass, and the cop gets a report about the robbery at the store and realizes they match the description. when he approaches them again they attack him (criminal and anti-social behavior which would be consistent with his own criminal and anti-social attitudes according to the indisputable facts above), the gun goes off, the two criminals flee but Brown turns back around, yells back at the cop and then charges him, which would be consistent with the autopsy results and in direct contradiction to all of the "eye witnesses" that claimed he was shot in the back and surrendering. just think about which assumptions are consistent with the known facts. white people will always keep the black community down, even when they think they are helping the black community by not being critical of them and supporting them regardless of how irrational and illogical their positions are. we refuse to be critical of the black community's actions out of our desperation to not be seen as racists, but all we are doing in encouraging and enabling the hysteria and irrational mentality that perpetuates the victim mentality that doesn't take responsibility for their own actions. if white people weren't so stupid I'd say this was done on purpose to keep the black community down but it just seems to be the coincidental repercussion. even when white people think they are helping they are just continuing to hurt the black community. you wouldn't support your child if they were being irrational because you want them to grow and think logically, yet the white community does the complete opposites with the arguments of the black community. the more you support this behavior the more you keep the black community irrational and right in their current lot in life. white people want to keep dem boys in their place, right, because we like them stupid and angry.
There is one of the major problems right there. Many times in lower income communities the police are looked at as the enemy, it does not matter if it is low income white, black, hispanic community. They end up having to recruit from out of the neighborhood so there is a disconnect from the onset. It sets up an us against them situation so anytime something like this happens it automatically becomes something that can easily blow up. A situation such as in Ferguson is not given the time to progress to find out what actually happened, it just becomes a time bomb ready to blow. Combine that with the small faction that just use it as a cover to loot and cause mayhem and it becomes an out of control situation. Then the focus shifts from the protesters wanting to have a real investigation done to get at the truth to looters and over zealous police reaction. Based upon some previous similar situations and what seems like shoddy investigations and lop sided juries which resulted in acquittals for what appeared to be guilty individuals it is easy to understand the mindset of some of the protesters. Unfortunately the looters and over reaction by the police have already shifted the focus. It does not matter what information comes out now because the community already has the officer convicted and the police are already going into a CYA mode. Unfortunately this has already progressed beyond a point where there can be an acceptable outcome to appease both sides. There has been too much redirection in the media on both sides of the issue. If it is shown that Brown was not in the wrong and the officer is arrested there will be many who will say evidence was omitted and it was done just to appease the protestors. If it comes out that Brown was attacking and the officer is not charged the protestors will claim there is a cover up. No situation helps the sides come closer together and in a month we will have another similar situation in another town. Until the community can come together if there is another situation like this, control the small minority that want to cause a distraction, the police let the protestors protest and not be heavy handed, have a transparent investigation which includes the representatives of the aggrieved party. Until that time we will continue to have situations which tear apart communities and cause further distrust of authorities.
It can cause paranoia in certain individuals http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jul/16/cannabis-paranoia-psychoactive-thc-mood
It strikes me that it's unlikely we would even be having a conversation about whether the cops actions were justified or not and there wouldn't even be a federal investigation if it wasn't for the protests and riots. I feel the system of checks and balances is becoming more and more flawed as the police militarize more and more.
Christine Byers ✔ @ChristineDByers Follow Police sources tell me more than a dozen witnesses have corroborated cop's version of events in shooting #Ferguson 10:30 PM - 18 Aug 2014
A video shot after the shooting picked up a background conversation which seems to back up that Brown was going toward the officer. Not sure how true this deciphering of the audio is but I am sure they have experts that can take it apart to get what was really said. The original transcription was done by the Conservative Treehouse Blog. http://www.ijreview.com/2014/08/168...tail-background-video-mins-ferguson-shooting/
Barney Fife didn't face the unknowns that police departments around the country face today, including fully automatic weapons that are manufactured for legal sale but then find their way into the underworld economy. I totally agree with you that militarized police departments are a bad idea but a lot of law enforcement officers have been shot by fully automatic weapons over the last decade. If you're a police chief and the opportunity to buy weapons and armaments more commonly associated with the battlefield comes up what do you do? The huge problem though is that with a militarized police force comes a militarized mindset in times of crisis and the authorities are in grave danger of violating common constitutional protections as they apparently did while arresting reporters in Ferguson who were reporting not protesting. The only thing that prevents real abuses of power by the authorities is a free press that is allowed to function as such.
