The cop was excessive,no doubt. BUT,take a look at how the reaction playing out. You have to take into consideration what it must be like to be an officer in a community that destroys their own town then wonders why the cops are there. As always,the truth is probably right in the middle. The kid DID just rob a store,and most likely did give the cop a reason to be defensive. But,not THAT defensive. regardless,my sympathy went right out the window when A. they started acting like fucking animals B. called for violence on the cops family. If the kid had been arrested,the community would have wanted a fair trial if asked to prove his innocence. That's the way the system works. hey acted before they knew the facts,the whole country did and have already assumed the kid was just shot while handing out church flyers. Bullshit.
I really don't have any problem with civil disobedience in this kind of situation, but the kids of CD being displayed in Ferguson aren't in support of the victim, they are in support of selfish assholes that weren't far removed from the same type of crime the victim committed to put himself in that situation to begin with. I know and few if any people here know about this story, but a while ago, an honours student from the University of the Incarnate Word in SA got a little too hammered in an off campus bar, was followed by a campus cop to within a couple of blocks from his off campus apartment, that cop pulled him over and administered a breathalyzer and determined him over the limit. All acceptable aside from a campus cop following someone way outside his local assignments and not calling in to get a backup from a city patrol unit. That chop out the guy on the hood of his car, began to cuff him and a struggle ensued. The kid had decided to resist. The cop told the kid 52 times to stop resisting, and then shot him 5 times and killed him. The student had been described as being mainly docile by people who knew him, the cop was on what I remember to be his fifth police assignment out of six years, and the victim had a gunshot wound in his back even though responding officers found the victim laying on his back. Also, the cop car dashcam had somehow malfunctioned, so the only evidence of the altercation/struggle was a microphone on the fat campus cop, who was almost twice the size of the student. ---- Police shit like this gets brushed under the rug all the time - and I'm sure black and brown people who are innocent of it get screwed about 100 times more than the white on white crime I just described above. My main problem is that neither one of these issues is going to get anything in the form of justice from either authorities or citizens. In one case, it will be ignored, in another case, it will be dealt with by the force of military presence until people get on with their tiny insignificant lives. The only effective civil disobedience is acted against the powers oppressing them. The rest is just crime.
And here's the issue that galls me the most. Any goodwill the protesters had got flushed by hooligans using a young man's death as a reason to plunder and cause chaos. I think the Family should come out once again and state unequivocally that this behavior of looting and plundering completely disrespects the issue and the memory of their son. Too bad they hired the losing lawyer in the Trayvon Martin case. I think this case, if it comes to that, will have an all white jury and this officer will somehow not be convicted. It will come down to exactly WHERE this case comes to trial. The good people of Ferguson? All I can say is that it's time for the Black people of Ferguson Mo to stand up and take their town back from the miscreants that run rampant after curfew. There's a name for them and we all know what it is. If they want to take a look at what happens after rioting, they might wanna take a look at Detroit or more recently, Gaza. In the meantime, exercise the right to protest, but repulse the need to destroy your own city. If they don't, any bets Ferguson Mo will never recover from it...?
I don't know the politics of the Trayvon lawyers, and you may be right about what you mean, but your first two sentences are as true as I've ever seen. anything. I'm not sure if your Gaza comment even makes sense, but you are damn right that the people of Ferguson, the black people, should take their town back. Protest isn't a bad thing at all, and a lot of times if it's right, affects public opinion. Unless you are in the experimental city of Omaha Nebraska, where local magistrates have deemed it terrorism. Wonder how many satellite offices the FiBI has there?
Soxxx, shut the fuck up. This whole thing will never go away, it'll just be another kid 6 months from now. A "race war" is coming, but the war won't be black vs white. It'll be class warfare. Doing this will only cause more violence in my opinion. Supposedly they tried protesting a few days ago only for a beer bottle to get broken and all hell being broken loose. I'm not a huge politic guy, but I can see when things are getting worse by the year. These situations happen all around the US everyday.
I've seen my share of Rioting thru the years and nothing good ever comes of it. In this day and age of media manipulation, the only thing the rioting is doing is poisoning any potential jury pool which we both know, will be white. Public opinion slowly is turning against and the perception is changing from demonstrators to looters and there's very little sympathy for looters. They're making the case for the cop with every molotov thrown.
I'm not a forensics guy by any means, but seeing all of those shots hit the upper left side of the body wouldn't indicate to me that he was standing prone and motionless. Not that forensic reports can't be falsified...
The story still is missing several key components. Some are saying he went after the officer head on, but today Dr. Baden mentioned the kid didn't struggle at all when the situation transpired. So did Brown go after the cop or not is the question? There's just too much going on there right now. Unfortunately, when the cops starting throwing Tear Gas on the streets towards the demonstrators, all hell broke loose. That appears to be where we are now. Surely the police brutality and obsessive hiding of details will be swept to the rug as the looters continue to fight.
