# Ferguson, MO **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 12, 2014, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferguson-mo/695354 "2014-08-12T04:51:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 99
**Author:** ![drachillix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/48db29/32.png) [@drachillix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drachillix)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2014, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferguson-mo/695354/1961 "2014-08-22T00:16:07Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Don’t be ridiculous - of course somebody would. > > You don’t need a cite. > > Regards, > Shodan As the sentiment previously expressed, do I think he deserved to die, no, but am I going to lose any sleep over the unfairness that he lost his life in the process…nope. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2014, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferguson-mo/695354/1962 "2014-08-22T00:30:19Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > …But why does your lens get to focus on the absolute worse interpretation possible when you’re discussing my guy, and switch back to a more forgiving, nuanced version for your guy? **Parker**! Watch out! Its a trap! ---
**Author:** ![kidchameleon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/898d66/32.png) [@kidchameleon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidchameleon)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2014, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferguson-mo/695354/1963 "2014-08-22T01:51:11Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Brown was “6’4”, 292 lbs." Big guy. How big is the car window? Bigger than my Grand Am’s window. I drop 3 inches and 100 lbs to him but I can get through with plenty of room, Dukes of Hazard style. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2014, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferguson-mo/695354/1964 "2014-08-22T02:08:39Z")
Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC is currently announcing that no incident report was filed by Officer Wilson following his shooting of Brown. To be clear, there is a report, but it apparently has nothing but a bit of header filled in, and is dated August 18th, nowhere near the date of the shooting. To borrow a phrase, what the actual fuck? Would any of those who are arguing that there’s nothing to see here like to try to justify this (in)action? ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2014, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferguson-mo/695354/1965 "2014-08-22T02:11:13Z")
> [@El\_Kabong](#): > > Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC is currently announcing that no incident report was filed by Officer Wilson following his shooting of Brown. > > To borrow a phrase, what the actual fuck? > > Would any of those who are arguing that there’s nothing to see here like to try to justify this (in)action? > **[Michael Brown Shooting: Why Ferguson Police Never Filed 'Incident Report'](https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/michael-brown-shooting/michael-brown-shooting-why-ferguson-police-never-filed-incident-report-n186431)** > > Prosecutor: Case was turned over to St. Louis County police almost immediately; no records will be released until grand jury completes investigation. Police in Ferguson, Missouri, did not file an “incident report” on the fatal shooting of 19-year-old Michael Brown because they turned the case over to St. Louis County police almost immediately, the county prosecutor’s office tells NBC News. **The St. Louis County police department presumably did file an incident report** , but any such documents will not be made public until a grand jury investigating the officer-involved shooting concludes its investigation, according to officials from the office who briefed NBC News on the case. That seems to be the explanation. ---
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2014, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferguson-mo/695354/1966 "2014-08-22T02:16:56Z")
Have to agree there doesn’t appear to be anything odd in the lack of an incident report. I am willing to bet there is a detailed statement/report _somewhere_ from Wilson on the incident that is part of the evidence being evaluated by the grand jury _et al_. In addition to whatever incident report was generated by the St. Louis Co. PD. ---
**Author:** ![sich\_hinaufwinden](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@sich\_hinaufwinden](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sich_hinaufwinden)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2014, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferguson-mo/695354/1967 "2014-08-22T02:22:00Z")
> [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](#): > > [http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/08/20/missouri-cop-was-badly-beaten-before-shooting-michael-brown-says-source/](http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/08/20/missouri-cop-was-badly-beaten-before-shooting-michael-brown-says-source/) > > Forgive me if this was already posted, it’s a long thread. Now there are claims that Wilson was almost unconscious. He sure shoots straight for someone barely conscious and with a fractured eye socket. Now CNN is reporting that Wilson had a swollen face, but did not have a broken eye socket. And CNN never gets anything wrong. Or they never get anything right. I get confused. ETA link: [http://therightscoop.com/cnn-reports-officer-wilson-did-not-have-a-broken-eye-socket-after-altercation-with-michael-brown/](http://therightscoop.com/cnn-reports-officer-wilson-did-not-have-a-broken-eye-socket-after-altercation-with-michael-brown/) ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2014, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferguson-mo/695354/1968 "2014-08-22T02:25:26Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Politifact is a non-partisan source. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2014, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferguson-mo/695354/1969 "2014-08-22T02:31:31Z")
I’ve dealt with police (Harris County, TX) in my role as Safety Manager for my employer, and, just for example, a detailed report was filled out for theft of a hundred feet of wire from our operating location, an incident that was highly unlikely to ever be resolved. It seems preposterous to me that no report would be made by the Ferguson PD for a shooting resulting in a death. I do hope that NBC (which apparently does not communicate with its sister MSNBC) is correct and that St Louis County indeed has some sort of report. Still sounds rather odd. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2014, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferguson-mo/695354/1970 "2014-08-22T04:13:08Z")
> [@El\_Kabong](#): > > I’ve dealt with police (Harris County, TX) in my role as Safety Manager for my employer, and, just for example, a detailed report was filled out for theft of a hundred feet of wire from our operating location, an incident that was highly unlikely to ever be resolved. It seems preposterous to me that no report would be made by the Ferguson PD for a shooting resulting in a death. > > I do hope that NBC (which apparently does not communicate with its sister MSNBC) is correct and that St Louis County indeed has some sort of report. Still sounds rather odd. Apparently, the UCR guidelines require that there be only one incident report. Thus Ferguson PD has only filed an “investigative report” that was basically empty, and the “incident report” is filed by St. Louis County PD. If you’d like the number of the report it is [2014-43984](http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--EHDoPKMe--/q7ds6cihluplq6b0exkn.png/). ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2014, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferguson-mo/695354/1971 "2014-08-22T04:23:35Z")
Just to introduce some food for thought: [http://www.moga.mo.gov/statutes/chapters/chap563.htm](http://www.moga.mo.gov/statutes/chapters/chap563.htm) 1. A law enforcement officer in effecting an arrest or in preventing an escape from custody is justified in using deadly force only (2) When he reasonably believes that such use of deadly force is immediately necessary to effect the arrest and also reasonably believes that the person to be arrested (a) Has committed or attempted to commit a felony; or (b) Is attempting to escape by use of a deadly weapon; or (c) May otherwise endanger life or inflict serious physical injury unless arrested without delay. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2014, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferguson-mo/695354/1972 "2014-08-22T05:06:00Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > But why does your lens get to focus on the absolute worse interpretation possible when you’re discussing my guy, and switch back to a more forgiving, nuanced version for your guy? A general comment about this little side-thread of the debate… the main thing I think it illustrates is how meaningless it is to make statements about large and ill-defined groups of people. “The right” are saying X. What does that even mean? Is it true if ONE person on the right says something? One prominent person? One prominent person, but one other prominent person disagrees? Etc. It’s not really DISHONEST or DECEPTIVE. Certainly the person who made the original post (which I can now not find) can be presumed to have been posting in good faith. But all it did was lead to a (understandable) distracting hijack. And that was followed up with the old “well, I don’t see evidence that lots of other people are disagreeing, so I’ll assume they’re not”. Again, pretty meaningless. “Why don’t all the other muslims denounce terrorism?”. Well, (a) they do but you’re not listening, and (b) why should they have to? Anyhow, on the topic of Ferguson/Brown/Wilson/etc., I think there are a lot of issues being conflated here: (1) What actually happened between Brown and Wilson? My answer: I have no idea, and no one posting in this thread has much of an idea. People are getting invested in positions, and there seems to be an urge to come up with one of two distinct narratives… the Brown-was-attacking narrative or the Brown-was-innocent narrative. When of course it’s quite possible that the truth lies somewhere in between. Maybe Brown intended to surrender but Wilson, having just been punched in the eye, misinterpreted it. I dunno. I see little point in arguing about it, given the paucity of information we have. (And of course it’s also possible that one of the more extreme positions is closer to the truth.) (2) How did the police in Ferguson handle it? My answer, and pretty much everyone’s answer: terribly. WHATEVER the truth was, they did just about everything imaginable wrong. (3) What does this say about the world we live in in general? My answer: Lots of things, but whatever they are, they don’t really depend on the truth of (1). ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2014, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferguson-mo/695354/1973 "2014-08-22T05:19:42Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > A later quote in that cite mentions GOP State Senator Ryan Silvey’s disagreement with the sentiment of Matt Wills. > > Can’t we at least say the right wing is split on the issue? ## I think we’re golden: “The right wing is split on the issue of whether voter registration programs should occur for blacks in Ferguson, MO. Some favor it, but the head of the GOP in Missouri publicly opposes it. Nobody has called for his resignation, because the GOP is split on the issue.” The Ferguson police are essentially the white hoods of a tinpot dictatorship. They regularly shake down black residents for dubious crimes like jaywalking, for the purposes of ramping up criminal justice fees after warrants are issued for the subjects’ arrest. For jaywalking. Libertarian [Alex Tabarrok](http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2014/08/ferguson-cops-hand-out-three-warrants-household-every-year): [INDENT] You don’t get **$321 in fines and fees and 3 warrants _per household_** from an about-average crime rate. You get numbers like this from bullshit arrests for jaywalking and constant “low level harassment involving traffic stops, court appearances, high fines, and the threat of jail for failure to pay.” ``` If you have money, for example, you can easily get a speeding ticket converted to a non-moving violation. But if you don’t have money it’s often the start of a downward spiral that is hard to pull out of....If you are arrested and jailed you will probably lose your job and perhaps also your apartment—all because of a speeding ticket. [/INDENT] The 3 warrants per household bit is the tell: you don't get that from ticketing outsiders. As for most municipalities making up most of their revenue from fines and court fees, ***cite?!?!?!?*** ``` ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2014, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferguson-mo/695354/1974 "2014-08-22T06:42:44Z")
[http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/08/13/1321206/-Gentle-Giant-Michael-Brown](http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/08/13/1321206/-Gentle-Giant-Michael-Brown) Mike was a big guy who his family called their “Gentle Giant.” He was built to be a high school football player – direct from central casting – but Mike was too timid for the sport. According to friends and family, he had never been in a fight in his life. And, of course, it logically follows that Mike Brown had never had a criminal record or a single run-in with the police. He lived with his parents and threatened and intimidated no one. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2014, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferguson-mo/695354/1975 "2014-08-22T06:58:10Z")
> [@xenophon41](#): > > Have to agree there doesn’t appear to be anything odd in the lack of an incident report. I am willing to bet there is a detailed statement/report _somewhere_ from Wilson on the incident that is part of the evidence being evaluated by the grand jury _et al_. In addition to whatever incident report was generated by the St. Louis Co. PD. It depends. In the movies, following a shooting cops answer a ton of questions from stern looking superiors. In real life, most cops say “I’m not saying anything till my delegate gets here” or something similar. Cops know that when Judge Robert Jackson said that any lawyer worth his salt would tell his clients to never, under any circumstances talk to the police. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2014, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferguson-mo/695354/1976 "2014-08-22T10:50:43Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > The Executive Director is not the leader of the state party – it’s a staff position. The party is led by a Chairman. As usual, you just indulge in your petty games to deny reality. If the quote came from a typical Republican voter – some ignorant drunk redneck – your protests might be valid. (Though parties _are_ their voters, and whatever _your_ qualities might be, your _party_ is, by and large, the party of ignorant racists.) But the quote wasn’t from a “typical Republican voter” – it was from the Executive Director. So now you’re uninterested unless it’s a quote from the Chairman. News for you buddy, party Chairman tend to be connected buffoons, with intelligence lower, on average, than Executive Directors. But it wouldn’t stop there. Quote from a State Chairman? Nah, you’d reject that and need a quote from a Governor or national official. And on and on and on. I don’t think you won court cases with your charming intellect – I think you just _bored_ judges and juries into submission. So if we want to demonstrate that Republicans are despicable, we can’t quote Executive Directors, or Chairmen, etc., but have to get words straight from the mouth of your magnificent party’s top-ranking paradigm. Who is that, by the way? Karl Rove? Glenn Beck? Ann Coulter? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2014, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferguson-mo/695354/1977 "2014-08-22T11:18:24Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > As usual, you just indulge in your petty games to deny reality. > > If the quote came from a typical Republican voter – some ignorant drunk redneck – your protests might be valid. (Though parties _are_ their voters, and whatever _your_ qualities might be, your _party_ is, by and large, the party of ignorant racists.) > > But the quote wasn’t from a “typical Republican voter” – it was from the Executive Director. > > So now you’re uninterested unless it’s a quote from the Chairman. News for you buddy, party Chairman tend to be connected buffoons, with intelligence lower, on average, than Executive Directors. > > But it wouldn’t stop there. Quote from a State Chairman? Nah, you’d reject that and need a quote from a Governor or national official. And on and on and on. I don’t think you won court cases with your charming intellect – I think you just _bored_ judges and juries into submission. > > So if we want to demonstrate that Republicans are despicable, we can’t quote Executive Directors, or Chairmen, etc., but have to get words straight from the mouth of your magnificent party’s top-ranking paradigm. Who is that, by the way? Karl Rove? Glenn Beck? Ann Coulter? No single person can be said to speak for the entire right wing. Who, by the way, can be said to speak for the entire left wing? Any state Democratic Party Executive Director? If you want to show a despicable point of view held by some Republicans, sure, quote the state staff somewhere. But no one person can say something in one interview and define the official platform of an entire party. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2014, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferguson-mo/695354/1978 "2014-08-22T11:25:38Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > I think we’re golden: “The right wing is split on the issue of whether voter registration programs should occur for blacks in Ferguson, MO. Some favor it, but the head of the GOP in Missouri publicly opposes it. Nobody has called for his resignation, because the GOP is split on the issue.” Clever. See, this is a good example of making true statements add up to a mildly deceptive result. Not one sentence in the above is unambiguously false. The claim that the right wing denounced black voter registration is unambiguously false. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2014, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferguson-mo/695354/1979 "2014-08-22T12:14:23Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > The claim that the right wing denounced black voter registration is unambiguously false. You make a valid rhetorical point. Your sixth-grade debating coach, Ms. Twaddle would be proud. Not only is the claim false, it’s superficially false, almost tautologically false. For “the right wing” to do anything, in your formulation, every racist imbecile in the country would have to stop what they’re doing and bellow out the same phrase. When I wrote “the right wing” instead “of such and such a right-winger, with such and such a job title, DOB Dec. 19, 1953” I was being lazy. Go ahead and flunk me, Ms. Twaddle. Everyone knows the difference between “the right wing” and “some particular racist assholes who happen to be high-ranked GOP officials” and everyone with a brain knew what I was implying in my lazy way. You’re the only one that needs to focus on it, whether to deflect attention from GOP despicable behavior, or to re-win the late Ms. Twaddle’s approval. Similarly, earlier in the thread I chastised Dopers who focussed on the looting rather than legitimate grievances of the non-looting protestors. I was lazy in my post, assumed (incorrectly it turned out) that Dopers were intelligent enough to understand my meaning Without.Every.Little.Dot.Being.Connected; instead some of the anti-Black(\*) Dopers in the thread pretended that I was calling looters victims. (\* No, they’re not “racists.” They just hate Blacks.) What fun! ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2014, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferguson-mo/695354/1980 "2014-08-22T12:27:09Z")
> [@xenophon41](#): > > Well, you’ve illustrated the problem here at least. What you’ve done here is declared exactly what I highlighted; that you tend to perceive _understanding_ motives as _justifying_ actions. You’ve modified that by saying justification happens “to some degree” but you haven’t articulated how you know this about posters who have explicitly said they’re not justifying the actions being discussed, and you haven’t suggested any bias in those posts which try to delegitimize the feelings being “understood” by the other side. I’ve not accused any specific poster of being motivated by this desire. Generally what I’ve written will hold true as to the broader picture. I noted in my prior post that there would be exceptions. > [@](#): > > Suspicious, yes. But if you’re trying to figure out effective ways of dealing with the nationalistic, authoritarian and bigoted impulses which drive those evils (because all of those impulses still exist) you might see those suspicious people as barriers to a productive discussion when they accuse you of being a closet Nazi or a fascist sympathizer. > > There’s a huge difference between identifying the natural roots of behaviors and advocating the worst exhibitions of those behaviors. Pride in one’s tribe is natural and “understandable”; it metastasizes in some cases into aggressive nationalism and from there to pogroms and wars of expulsion, conquest or genocide. Respect for and need for the presence of authority is natural and “understandable” but sometimes in some people it becomes authoritarianism and acceptance of totalitarian leadership. > > Fear and distrust of an armed police force in your neighborhood that is seen as an oppressive agency -by your neighbors, your friends, your pastor, your coworkers and yourself, all of whom have supporting anecdotes- is natural and “understandable” even if that perception is [arguably] exaggerated. And if I argue that point while you’re trying to delegitimize those feelings and while you’re concentrating on dealing with the undesirable results of those feelings (riots and looting) it is not to justify those resulting actions, no matter how uncomfortable I’m making you. It’s to suggest that the way to deal with the problems is at their bases not their visible symptoms. > > And even if I’ve failed to offer even one suggestion as to how to directly address the fear and distrust engendered by decades of disparate treatment, my “understanding” of where these people are coming from should not be despised by hard headed realists, if they’re arguing in good faith. I see this as just ignoring the point. Yes, all those things you write about understanding are true. I acknowledged this in the first paragraph of my prior post. What I objected to is not the notion that you need to understand people. What I object to is the focus on understanding being used as a way to sort of legitimize actions. These are not logically inconsistent. An action can have two consequences, and repeatedly saying it has one positive consequence does not preclude it from having another negative one. And the negative aspect of focusing on understanding is, to reiterate, that “_the unspoken premise of saying something is “understandable” is that it’s understandable from the standpoint of normal human feelings and morality (as applied to the situation that the person being discussed finds themselves in). Which is a way of conveying that it’s not as much of a departure from conventional standards of morality than one might assume at first glance_”. > [@](#): > > It’s correlated to the presence of empathy in an individual, and goes across ideological lines. That’s why I suggested it’s not a philosophical difference, but a deficit in some people. It’s correlated to more than one thing. As I said, you’ll notice if you pay attention that people calling things understandable tend to be sympathetic at some level. > [@](#): > > We’ve seen a lot of it in this thread from some who can’t imagine why a cop would keep shooting until the person [he’s identified as an attacker] stops moving. We’ve seen it from those who just can’t believe an officer wouldn’t stop and consider each separate shot he or she fires in such a situation. We’ve seen it from people who just can’t see any systemic racial bias in police practices in Ferguson MO. This is somewhat off topic, but I don’t think either of these have much if anything to do with the empathy issue we’ve been discussing. > [@xenophon41](#): > > My response was entirely appropriate to your post, which specifically focused on the lack of loss to the community from the death of anyone who would punch a cop. The key point to which I responded was your assertion that such a death is “no loss.” > > And the focus of my post wasn’t on which vaguely defined acts of resistance to police authority might be justified, it was on the loss to society of its members, even those who might have done bad or stupid things. It was one of those tortured hypotheticals I spoke of which seek to make you use arcane mental skills like “empathy” to test your pronouncements. It wasn’t an innocent little question, as you suggest here. It was an implication that my position was inconsistent with how I might apply this standard in other circumstances. But since as you now acknowledge those other circumstances were significantly different, it was not a legitimate tactic. > [@MaxTheVool](#): > > (2) How did the police in Ferguson handle it? > My answer, and pretty much everyone’s answer: terribly. WHATEVER the truth was, they did just about everything imaginable wrong. I dissent. Obviously there have been individual boneheaded moves, as there would always be in any effort involving a lot of people. And I’m also not specifically endorsing their efforts (I am not an expert on these matters) for which reason I’ve not been debating this matter. But from my amateur perspective, I’ve not seen anything which would suggest to me that their overall efforts were inappropriate. Hindsight is always 20-20. And there’s no way to know how things would have developed had they handled it differently. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferguson-mo/695354.md?page=98) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferguson-mo/695354.md?page=100)