BTW, if any of you missed it, steronz did an excellent job of presenting witness statements from the grand jury in this thread
There’s so much excluded middle here I’m almost at a loss. The version “he was just standing there, and maybe mouthing off” is so tenuous and unsupported by the evidence as to be unbelievable. Also, what **Bouncer **said.
“Then his options are try to take the gun or at least stop him from using it, or seeing if he can outrun a 9mm slug.”
Or yelling really loudly, with his hands as high as they will go “I quit! Don’t Shoot! I’m cooperating!” and following the cop’s directives.
Or yelling really loudly, with his hands as high as they will go “I quit! Don’t Shoot! I’m cooperating!” and following the cop’s directives.
Which was, BTW, STILL an option after he got shot the first time.
I don’t think I read a previous reference from you earlier, so it may be me who is confused as to your meaning. I thought you were talking about 'false/“repressed” memories. The notorious unreliability of memory when talking about eyewitnesses, or even characteristic mistakes we all make in failing to accurately retrieve memories is a separate phenomenon. The terms ‘repressed’ or ‘false’ when examining the accuracy (or lack thereof) of Wilson’s recall of Brown calling him a pussy may not be the best choice of vocabulary. If Wilson is incorrect about this statement, it seems much more likely an explanation that he is flat out prevaricating to try to cover his ass, rather than experiencing a failure of recall and confabulating an event that didn’t occur. I’d opine that this event would actually be much more like a ‘flashbulb memory’ (eg Where were you when kenndy was shot/Challenger exploded/etc) and those tend to be pretty vivid, especially since he was giving his version of events almost immediately after the event, so the memory trace didn’t have much time to degrade. All of this is IMHO, I would not present myself as an expert.
There’s a difference between false memory and repressed (and either actually or supposedly later recovered/recalled) memory phenomena. See prior reply. I presume many people make the mistake of deeming the two interchangeable. Yes, unreliability of memory is a whole separate category.
“If Wilson is incorrect about this statement, it seems much more likely an explanation that he is flat out prevaricating to try to cover his ass, rather than experiencing a failure of recall and confabulating an event that didn’t occur.”
He could be unconsciously or consciously changing a comment to embellish. (There is a thing where some men manage to believe that someone calling you a bad name … esp. one implying you’re unmanly … is justification for almost anything. Sometimes silly people will actually mention this stuff as though it’ll help.)
I don’t know of ANY statement Wilson gave “immediately after the event”. I believe St. Louis County PD interviewed him hours (8?) later. His PD to my knowledge never asked him for a statement or did any interview, but may be wrong.
Fair enough, I don’t think we are substantially disagreeing. I’m not sure how quickly Wilson gave his version of events, I was under the impression that he would have been encouraged to write up a report as soon as practical.
Unfortunately, the 1st paragraph of your linked article, written by Nick Wing and Jason Cherkis of HuffPo, contains serious errors about when Brown’s body was covered and why the police were unable to secure the crime scene. I’m sure their guessing improved as they wrote the rest of the article.
Soon after Officer Darren Wilson shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old, law enforcement’s handling of the case was already being criticized as callous and sloppy. Residents of Ferguson, Missouri, looked on in horror as police officials failed to cover and later to remove Brown’s body from the street for hours.
Brown’s body was covered within 15 minutes and it was the death threats issued by the lynch mob that prevented the coronor from reaching the body.
If that happened, what do you believe the legal liability is for Wilson?
Taking all the witness testimony from witnesses whose testimony was not contradicted by physical evidence, what could the grand jury conclude?
I don’t think that sentence means what you think it does.
As explained by who? Where? That makes no sense.
Between Wilson’s and Dorian Johnson’s versions, there are a lot more false notes in Wilson’s. Johnson’s version is simply more believable.
How much of Johnson’s version is contradicted by physical evidence?
By a forensic specialist in the Grand Jury testimony, I believe.
Grand Jury Volume 3 | DocumentCloud - page 42. Read it yourself.
Believable to you, maybe. What is a “false note”? Is that something that contradicts the physical evidence or just something subjective that you don’t consider “believable”?
That’s the million dollar question. I’m going to write up my conclusions when I finish going through the trial transcripts, so I’m not going to bother you with my opinion. But honestly, that’s my big question. This is a grand jury, the standard of whatever is probably cause, right? So let’s say there are 9 solid witnesses whose testimony is consistent with the physical evidence, including Wilson, and 2/3 of them say that Brown was not charging Wilson and was not behaving in a threatening manner. What should the grand jury do?
OR…
…it can mean that the other person is not in full possession of the relevant facts, or chooses to ignore them.
Michael Brown should not have been shot to death, but that doesn’t mean he was a harmless “teenager”, like some cute kid with a skateboard. He was nineteen, yes, and therefore a teenager by definition. But he was also a very large and powerful man, who shortly before the shooting had intimidated the store clerk over a $50 box of cigarillos.
The fact that Brown might not have been that much larger, actually, than Wilson doesn’t mean much. Wilson was sitting behind the wheel of the SUV, which might have worked to his benefit by offering some physical protection, but to his detriment in that it hampered any physical response he might have considered. Darren Wilson is evidently likewise a physically imposing man, a bit taller, in fact than Michael Brown but considerably lighter of build.
Physical strength in human beings, as in the ability to lift, pull, shove, or strike, is only vaguely proportionate to size, at best. Even a man who works out to the point of being ripped may be weaker than another of comparable size who happens to have better genetics. It’s not at all inconceivable that Darren Wilson’s likening of himself to a five-year-old trying to attack Hulk Hogan was well-founded.
Man, all sorts of stuff flying around online, like claims of backdating (back timing) in police reports, video clips that supposedly show a KKK leader letting slip on MSNBC that they’d been consulting with the Fergueson police off the record… It all goes back to my last post: there are a lot of folks out there who don’t trust what the police is telling the public, and honestly, they don’t have a lot of reason to.
You forget a couple of things. The internet will also provide proof of alien abductions, alien visitation, etc. of you search for it. It’s about as reliable as an old Studebaker.
Secondly, the Feds are also investigating the matter. Even if there was such a conspiracy, do you think the Feds are in on it too?
As noted in the GD Evidence thread, the DNA testing clearly indicates Wilson’s blood in and around the patrol vehicle. If that isn’t a result of being assaulted by Brown, what? Cut himself shaving? Faked evidence/conspiracy?
Wilson’s DNA, not his blood, if I am reading it correctly. Wilson’s blood shows up on his thigh only.
You are probably right, important distinction, I stand corrected, even though it doesn’t invalidate my larger point, I don’t think. Thanks.
As for those citing dorian Johnson’s version of events, any thought of ‘consider the source’? I mean this guy was a co-perpetrator of the crime in the store, and walking along with Brown down the middle of the street, and approached the cop car with Brown, closely enough for Brown to hand him the cigars, if I understand it correctly. It reconstructs to me that he almost literally ‘had Brown’s back’ during this thing. And we expect his version to have integrity how, exactly? Does any of this, and/or Johnson’s criminal record, impeach him as a source at all? Should it?