The owner was intimidated enough that he didn’t report this to the police. A customer did. If the customer didn’t, yes, he would have gotten away with it.
The audio recordings show the amounts of shots fired in the bursts, and Brown would have to have been hit by at least one bullet from each group. All the shots hit him in front. There’s no time for him to have been shot at from behind.
If you want to believe a certain selection of eyewitness reports when the recorded audio and forensic evidence disagrees with them, that’s up to you, but I can’t imagine why you would want to.
I’ll stick with what I wrote, including the paragraph you quoted. Your second paragraph has nothing to do with anything, and its inclusion hurts your credibility.
You didn’t cite anything to support your contention that intimidation was the motive. Also plausible, absent that, is that the owner just didn’t give a rat’s about a handful of cheapass cigars.
Now would be a good time for that, but then would have been better.
[Moderating]
Calling other posters “motherfuckers” is a violation of the Pits language rules. Please avoid doing this in the future.
No warning issued.
[/Moderating]
Ah, but that’s not what I said, now is it, buckaroo?
I did not make any inference as to motive, you did. Nor did I suggest that intimidation couldn’t be the motive. You are rebutting a point not made.
That might be one of the Top 50 Stupidest Posts I’ve encountered on SDMB. Presumably you’ve seen the video. Presumably you’ve read the sputtering “It wasn’t us!” denial of responsibility from the Ferguson Market. Presumably you’ve seen the “Snitches get stitches” graffiti on the side of the Ferguson QuickTrip store. (Possibly a false flag operation, but that’s CT territory.)
If there was no intimidation involved in this theft, I’d say it’s equally correct to say that in the days of Mob protection rackets there was no intimidation involved – business owners just figured paying a few big bills each month wasn’t worth being concerned about.
Certainly possible, what’s your post count?
Didn’t say that, either. Merely pointed out that the presumption that the owner did not call the police because he was intimidated is just that: a presumption.
That’s it. All I said.
For those who support Officer Wilson and wonder, here is a roundup of arguments used by the other side, with links.
(Haven’t looked them over yet, so not necessarily mine; my purpose is just as described: to show reasons why the other side thinks as it does to those who support Wilson. This post as over 100K likes so I feel it’s representative.)
I’m quite certain it’d be very interesting if it weren’t bright pink and grey text on a bright white and pink background. Do you have a version that’s readable by human beings whose eyes function in the visible light spectrum?
(And some links to what news they’ve been reading.)
Again, not comprehensive, and I haven’t perused the links (and some do seem more like opinion pieces), but again it’s highly approved of on a generally liberal/progressive platform, so I thought it appropriate to help at least understand where folks are coming from.)
Oops, my apologies; I first saw it on a mobile device, which does not use Web themes.
Apologies for the high ranking. I twitched the wrong way. There could have been other reasons. (I’m not completely convinced it wasn’t the store owner that called, and the cops tried to help him by claiming it was another customer – which would still show intimidation, but not the exact kind Terr specified.)
Ontheotherhand! I tried to find a dollar amount for the convenience store theft, and it wasn’t easy. Wikipedia had about $48, but their link was to a video and I didn’t watch it. Other places had figures around $43. Lots of Google hits excerpted lefty sites saying (approximately), “killed for a $5 box of cigars!”
The actual police report doesn’t give a number I can find. I’ve read that both young men had at least one box, so I’m thinking a cost of at least $10 and possibly as high as $48.
My point: If someone walks out with $10 worth of merchandise and strong arms you as he leaves and has you scurrying back inside after you follow him outdoors there’s intimidation involved if you don’t call the cops. It may be long-term, “that’s just the price of doing business in a rough neighborhood” intimidation, but intimidation none-the-less. And if it’s $48 worth of stuff, even more so.
Never happened.
Similar to previous posts, what URLs Brown supporters might point to in reaction to some of the arguments already made here.. Again not vetted, but it also seems popular.
I only got a couple sentences in, and they lost me. Speculating that Wilson got married to stop his wife from testifying and pointing out that there exist other times in other circumstances where police didn’t kill a person ruined ant credibility it had.
Of course I shouldn’t have wasted my time on it in the first place.
I like the concept of “ant credibility”
Listen, I’m not sure it was a sound plan to expand the colony to the cracks of that driveway, but the Queen made a promise.
You’re not just saying that because she’s black?