Ferguson, MO

[Baal_Houtham]

@Hamlet

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.

The list is a depressing example of the philosophy that “10 Half-Truths Absolutely Equal 5 Solid Facts!” FWIW the site is the creation of a (self described) 19 y.o.

After the list of links, she concludes:* If after all this, they’re still arguing in defense of Darren Wilson or the jury, just give up because there’s no way you can change the mind of such a complete fucking bigot.
*
It’s sad.

[elucidator]

The point of the exercise appears to me to be just that, to throw any and all such theories into a single spot, without vetting or judgement. Harmless enough, unless you need to bolster a notion that there is nothing wrong with any of this, racism doesn’t enter into it, simple common sense will tell you that a 300 lb black man can dash fifty yards and then turn about and overwhelm a man armed with a 9mm pistol with his bare hands. This parallels the known truth that black men are much more susceptible to demonic possession. Everybody knows that.

I’ve glanced over the “comments” sections of many outlets involved in this, and it has me wondering once again if I can resign from being white. But of course you can’t, just like you cannot decide not to be black any more. Terrifying and vicious hatred seethes across the page, you glance at the calender, ponder a moment, and yes, yes, it’s fifty years you’ve been watching this unfold.

Reminds me of a book title from long ago, what was it now? Ah! Cry, the Beloved Country. Yes, that was it.

[Grumman]

You’re such a fucking moron, Elucidator. If you had half a leg to stand on, you wouldn’t need to keep making up idiotic shit to try to bolster your case.

[elucidator]

If I were really that stupid, it wouldn’t piss you off so much.

[Shodan]

@Leaper

Here is a random reblog.

I gotta quit reading these kinds of things - I come away convinced that Brown supporters are either liars or idiots or both.

It starts with the idea that Brown wasn’t that much bigger than Wilson - only eighty pounds or so - and goes on to a statement I cannot tell is ironic, or just imbecilic -

I literally have received worse injuries falling down the stairs than what Darren had.

I wonder if any of those “worse injuries” involved brain damage.

Then goes on to claim that Wilson has a history of harassment because a drug dealer complained after Wilson arrested him, tells some lies about how Wilson arrested someone for ignoring city ordinance by having three rusted-out cars in his yard, and then out into the fever swamps of paranoid ravings about the KKK and how the riots were actually peaceful protests and probably some other stupid armadillo shit that I couldn’t be bothered with.

Regards,
Shodan

[Baal_Houtham]

@elucidator

The point of the exercise appears to me to be just that, to throw any and all such theories into a single spot, without vetting or judgement. Harmless enough, unless you need to bolster a notion that there is nothing wrong with any of this, racism doesn’t enter into it, simple common sense will tell you that a 300 lb black man can dash fifty yards and then turn about and overwhelm a man armed with a 9mm pistol with his bare hands. This parallels the known truth that black men are much more susceptible to demonic possession. Everybody knows that.

The site made judgements. See my post above.

Filling a long list with discredited notions helps no one and potentially causes businesses to get burned down, and innocent people to get murdered.

Mr. Dator, if you had a decent case you wouldn’t have to whip out the obfuscating snark time and time again.You could use illuminating snark. The “Demonic Possession” shit is just shit. Brown outweighed Wilson by 75 lbs. He had assaulted two people in the past hour. Evidence points to Wilson retreating as Brown advanced on him.

And you’re implying that Wilson didn’t have to worry about Brown advancing on him because Wilson had a gun? That makes very little sense to me. Are you saying that instead of firing the gun Wilson could have tried to hit Brown with it?

[elucidator]

No. But I will suggest that we arm cops for a reason, to “protect and serve”. And that obligation to protect falls within the limitations of judgement we grant generally, of innocence until proven otherwise. I do not deny it is a burden, a burden we should not haphazardly impose. It calls for a measure of discipline and restraint that we recognize is uncommon, not for the ordinary citizen.

Officer Wilson did not show that level of restraint and care. He did not fire, consider the effect, and fire again as needed, he blazed away in a residential neighborhood with a 9mm pistol, firing ten shots in a matter of a few seconds. Four of which went astray, luckily, to no affect.

We have only the officer’s subjective view that Mr. Brown was a rage filled demonic madman. Might it not as likely have been fear and panic? That he intended to dis and talk back, but was surprised and horrified to see a weapon drawn? That he reached for the weapon, perhaps even struck Officer Wilson as a result of fear and panic?

We licensed and empowered one of those two men to carry lethal force on the presumption of wisdom and restraint. And we use words like “reasonable” without any clear definition of what it means. Truth be known, we probably can’t, its just the best we can do.

I don’t require a man to take risks, to strap on a lethal weapon and make such decisions with such possible consequences. We don’t draft cops, they volunteer. And yes, yes I do expect an exceptional degree of self-control and discipline, I do expect them to be willing to take risks in order to prevent needless death. I am too often disappointed, and far too often, race appears to be a factor.

I am not offering a definitive and certain set of facts, that is way over my grade. But the wretched prevalence of these incidents leaves me no place to hide, no way to believe that it is all just some explicable set of coincidences, nothing to see here, move along, move along.

I’ve seen their ways too often for my liking.

[John_Stamos_Left_Ear]

I think it’s interesting that detractors have to stick to the mundane internet complaints while ignoring the very legitimate reasons why people feel this was a sham.

This black civil rights activist points out that “That McCulloch failed to obtain an indictment of Wilson means only one thing: He did not want to obtain an indictment.”

Oh sorry, did I say black civil rights advocate? I meant white 27-year Boston cop.

McCulloch’s decision to allow the target of a grand jury investigation to actually testify before that grand jury is practically unheard of—in my 36 years as a practitioner and an academic working, studying, and teaching in the criminal-justice system, I have never heard of this rather novel legal maneuver being put into what many would consider a rather imprudent and questionable practice. Targets of grand jury investigations, like Wilson, are typically not even aware that they are under grand jury investigation, let alone invited to testify. Targets of grand jury investigations have no legal “right” to testify in these proceedings, so it is fair to question why the prosecutor in this rather notorious case thought that this was a good idea.

Says The New Yorker:

McCulloch gave Wilson’s case special treatment. He turned it over to the grand jury, a rarity itself, and then used the investigation as a document dump, an approach that is virtually without precedent in the law of Missouri or anywhere else. Buried underneath every scrap of evidence McCulloch could find, the grand jury threw up its hands and said that a crime could not be proved. This is the opposite of the customary ham-sandwich approach, in which the jurors are explicitly steered to the prosecutor’s preferred conclusion. Some might suggest that all cases should be treated the way McCulloch handled Wilson before the grand jury, with a full-fledged mini-trial of all the incriminating and exculpatory evidence presented at this preliminary stage. Of course, the cost of such an approach, in both time and money, would be prohibitive, and there is no guarantee that the ultimate resolutions of most cases would be any more just. In any event, reserving this kind of special treatment for white police officers charged with killing black suspects cannot be an appropriate resolution.

Would Wilson have faced charges if he had been treated like every other suspect in McCulloch’s jurisdiction? We’ll never know—and that’s the real shame of this prosecutor’s approach.

Salon quotes attorney and NBC analyst Lisa Bloom’s incredulity at the way the Grand Jury was handled:

“The biggest thing that jumps out is prosecutors who aren’t prosecuting,” Bloom said, “prosecutors who let the target of the investigation come in, in a very friendly, relaxed way, and simply tell the story. There is absolutely zero cross-examination. Cross-examination is the hallmark of our system, it’s the crucible of truth. And I don’t say that to use flowery language. That’s how we get at the truth.”

Before she read the transcripts, Bloom noted, “I suspected that he wasn’t cross-examined, instead he was just allowed to talk in a narrative and tell a story and in fact, that’s exactly what happened,” which is a lawyer’s way of saying what the woman in Starbucks told Zach Roth—the prosecutors were treating Wilson like he was their witness, helping them make their case against the accused—Michael Brown. They were not treating him like a suspect or defendant, or even a witness for the other side. They were treating him like one of their own—which, of course, is exactly what he was. And that’s the basic problem, in a nutshell.

While McCulloch had gone out of his way to paint all the witnesses against Wilson as unreliable, offering confused and contradictory testimony, Bloom zeroed in on the most obvious contradiction provided by Wilson himself. “Darren Wilson, as you can see in these pictures, doesn’t have any obvious injuries, maybe, if you look really closely, a tiny bit of pinkness on his face,” Bloom said. “That is completely inconsistent with his story that Mike Brown, with full force, he says, punched him twice, solidly in the face—big, strong Mike Brown. Inconsistent with his injuries, he’s not cross-examined about that, or about anything else.”

That was hardly the only example Bloom cited on air that day. “There are so many parts of that transcript that jumped out at me as a trial lawyer that I would want to cross examine him about if I were the prosecutor,” Bloom said. “For example he said he didn’t like the community. He said it was not a well-liked community. It was a community that he said is filled with gangs and violence and drug activity, not well-liked.”

The article goes on to mention how Rachel Maddow compares Wilson’s testimony to the now-discredited and racist “super predator” theory of the '90s:

[QUOTE]
Maddow reminded us, against which Darren Wilson’s fantasy images of Michael Brown were constructed. Elements of that fantasy in Wilson’s own testimony included:[ul][li]Wilson saying that Brown had “the most intensive aggressive face, the only way I can describe it, it looks like a demon, that’s how angry he looked.”[]Wilson emphasizing Brown’s huge size (both men are about 6 feet 4 inches, though Brown was heavier—but not nearly as heavy as the police cruiser Wilson was driving at the time), and saying that “when I grabbed him [from inside the police car] the only way I can describe it is I felt like a five-year-old holding onto Hulk Hogan.”[]Wilson’s claim that he had to pull his weapon, because Brown could have killed him with a single blow: “I felt that another one of those punches in my face could knock me out or worse. I mean it was, he’s obviously bigger than I was and stronger and the, I’ve already taken two to the face and I didn’t think I would, the third one could be fatal if he hit me right.”[*]Wilson’s crucial description of the unarmed Michael Brown allegedly charging him, leaving Wilson no option but to kill him: “It looked like he was almost bulking up to run through the shots, like it was making him mad that I’m shooting at him.”[/ul][/li][/QUOTE]
So maybe the biggest problem that we have isn’t about the nonsense a couple posters latched onto.

Maybe the problem is that the Grand Jury was done in a highly atypical way by a prosecutor who obviously didn’t want to prosecute.

[Smapti]

@Shodan

It starts with the idea that Brown wasn’t that much bigger than Wilson - only eighty pounds or so

Well, Brock Lesnar is only eighty pounds heavier than Rampage Jackson. So they should be evenly matched in the Octagon, right?

[Smapti]

@elucidator

Officer Wilson did not show that level of restraint and care. He did not fire, consider the effect, and fire again as needed, he blazed away in a residential neighborhood with a 9mm pistol, firing ten shots in a matter of a few seconds.

Have you ever shot a man? I’m going to guess no, because if you tried to do it the way you’re suggesting above, you wouldn’t be alive to tell us about it.

[Smapti]

@John_Stamos_Left_Ear

Maybe the problem is that the Grand Jury was done in a highly atypical way by a prosecutor who obviously didn’t want to prosecute.

So I’ll ask the question that was left unanswered the last two times I asked it; you are upset that the grand jury didn’t simply function as a rubber stamp that gives the government whatever it asks for?

[Terr]

@John_Stamos_Left_Ear

Maybe the problem is that the Grand Jury was done in a highly atypical way by a prosecutor who obviously didn’t want to prosecute.

It is very common for a prosecutor not to want to prosecute a case he knows 100% he will lose.

[Steophan]

People are upset that the totality of the evidence doesn’t show guilt, and that they won’t be getting a show trial to enhance their daily two minute hate at the system that makes all their lives better. Pathetic, really.

[John_Stamos_Left_Ear]

@Smapti

So I’ll ask the question that was left unanswered the last two times I asked it; you are upset that the grand jury didn’t simply function as a rubber stamp that gives the government whatever it asks for?

Maybe your question was ignored because the question is dumb. It shows that you don’t know the role of a Grand Jury. Here, let Noam Scheiber from The New Republic explain it to you:

McCulloch had two legitimate options following Wilson’s killing of Brown, neither of which he chose. The first would have been simply to decline to indict Wilson for the reasons McCulloch’s defenders posit—that the law would have made it very difficult to secure a conviction. The second legitimate option would have been to obtain an indictment against Wilson from the grand jury, which McCulloch almost certainly could have done had he sought one. But McCulloch chose a third option—using the grand jury process to establish Wilson’s innocence—which is deeply unfair.

Why? Because grand juries simply aren’t equipped to adjudicate guilt or innocence.

In effect, McCulloch staged a pre-trial trial in order to vindicate his personal view of Wilson’s innocence. But grand juries simply aren’t the proper forum for holding a trial. The most obvious reason is that they’re not adversarial settings. The prosecutor gets to present his or her view, but there’s no one to present the opposing view—a rather key feature of the criminal justice system. This isn’t a problem when the prosecutor believes the defendant is guilty, since the result is an actual trial. But when the prosecutor stage-manages a grand jury into affirming his view of the defendant’s innocence, that’s it. That’s the only trial we get.

It doesn’t matter if a Grand Jury is a “rubber stamp” because even the biggest railroad will end up at a trial. A Grand Jury doesn’t decide guilt or innocence, it decides if there’s enough reason to go to trial.

Well, that’s the case for most all Grand Juries. Not this one. This Grand Jury - with rules rigged for the prosecutor (by design, not some horrible miscarriage of justice as you hilariously imply) - essentially ruled not guilty and if you don’t believe it, McCulloch sure does based on his press conference. Which is bullshit.

You want to do away with Grand Juries, feel free. Just send cases to trial. In some jurisdictions, prosecutors can do that, even with felonies. In some, even a return of “no bill” isn’t necessarily the end:

If the grand jury decides to indict, it returns what is called a “true bill.” If not, the grand jury returns a “no bill”. But even if the grand jury returns a no bill, the case isn’t always closed. Prosecutors can return to the same grand jury with more evidence, present the same evidence to a second grand jury, or (in jurisdictions that give prosecutors a choice) bypass the grand jury altogether and file a criminal complaint. (Nolo)

So if the worst case of a Grand Jury is that a case goes to trial, no, I don’t care that most Grand Juries do what this one doesn’t. Because I know what Grand Juries are for, unlike you.

(Incidentally, this Grand Jury went against the guidelines proscribed by noted liberal Supreme Court justice Scalia.)

[John_Stamos_Left_Ear]

@Terr

It is very common for a prosecutor not to want to prosecute a case he knows 100% he will lose.

Then why did he send it to the Grand Jury?

Or, just read what The New Republic said in the link I already provided.

[John_Stamos_Left_Ear]

@Steophan

People are upset that the totality of the evidence doesn’t show guilt, and that they won’t be getting a show trial to enhance their daily two minute hate at the system that makes all their lives better. Pathetic, really.

Whay you don’t seem to get (and it’s rather pathetic) is that this was the show trial. Even Terr implies as much with his or her question that I just replied to.

[Smapti]

@John_Stamos_Left_Ear

Then why did he send it to the Grand Jury?

To appease the mob that was crying for Wilson’s blood.

[John_Stamos_Left_Ear]

@Smapti

To appease the mob that was crying for Wilson’s blood.

The evidence shows that this Grand Jury was a sham. So evidently he sucks at that as well.

[rls321321]

This is from a Democrat. There have been many instances in the past all over the U.S. where the police have acted in appropriately in racial situations. I have seen no audio or video that shows
the police did anything wrong in this situation. You have to look at each situation individually.
If there had been video/audio to show police misconduct I certainly would be for indictment. If you act irrationally around police and don’t follow orders this is what happens.

[Steophan]

@John_Stamos_Left_Ear

The evidence shows that this Grand Jury was a sham. So evidently he sucks at that as well.

The grand jury was shown the totality of the evidence and, based on the excellent summary of that evidence provided elsewhere on these boards, made the only possible decision they could make, that there was no probable cause that Wilson committed a crime, and no chance of a conviction.

It was the literal opposite of a sham, it was a far more thorough investigation than was warranted. It’s just a shame the prosecutor wasn’t willing to just throw the case out immediately.

It’s now certain (as opposed to just likely) that anyone arguing against Wilson is not doing so in good faith, as it’s been shown incontrovertibly that he did nothing wrong. It’s a nice idea to think that allowing a thorough investigation would appease such people, but as morons like you have shown, you are willing to twist or ignore any and all facts to support your warped worldview.