I can’t answer to the first statement, because I don’t know what exact things Brown did. I don’t believe the accounts of any of the witnesses are what actually happened.
I absolutely do believe that if Michael Brown were white, Wilson would still not be facing indictment today. Cops kill people of all races all the time without ever having to answer for it criminally. It’s a hard sell to get an indictment on a cop who killed a strong-arm robber that also physically assaulted the police minutes after the robbery.
However, I do believe that the justice system in general works harder to protect whites, and arrest/prosecute blacks. I just don’t think this particular case is a good example to hang that argument on.
Agree completely. I had this conversation with my son recently. There are important questions of racial inequality in our justice system to be wrestled with, countless examples of injustice. This widespread rage and frustration is not, IMO, some kind of self delusion. But when a case like this becomes the focal point, I believe there are millions of Americans who then dismiss the whole issue. “See? It’s all bullshit, trumped-up nonsense from a bunch of race baiters.”
Why is it so black and white (no pun intended) for so many people? Why must there be such bright lines, always? Why can’t racial inequality in our justice system be a fact AND in this case the officer behaved legally? Why is that a contradiction?
The facts in this case paint Mr Brown in a bad light. I can’t say that Officer Wilson necessarily acted in the best manner.
However, there is a clearly an issue with Police shootings and militarized Police culture. Unfortunately, the injustice of that issue is being drowned out by the thugs in Ferguson. You want to change my mind about an issue, burning buildings in your own home town and bringing more injustice to your neighbors is not going to get it.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think a criminal trial is intended to be a “search for the facts”. A trial is held after all the facts have been gathered by law enforcement. Note that “the courts” themselves don’t collect this evidence. Never have.
The Jury relies on evidence gathered either by law enforcement, or by the defense. The Jury relies on the testimony of “experts” to explain what some of the technical evidence might mean (these experts are also at the invitation of either the prosecutor or the defense).
A court or criminal trial does not “discover” evidence that no one else has known about.
Pool said, “Many times the police could subdue a subject but basically execute them”. Would you care to provide some cites for this claim? Did you know that the law of the land, Graham v Connor, dealt with a police use of force against a diabetic having insulin/sugar issues? The court found that the officers acted reasonably under the circumstances as they believed them to be. The cops didn’t know, nor could they have known without someone telling them, that they were dealing with a medical issue.
Like you said, each case has to be examined individually, based on what the officer reasonably believed to be the circumstances at that time. The vast majority of the time the cop is cleared because the vast majority of the time they are right.
http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tpAZObNZfI
I’m sure I can find many more examples if you want. I agree with you the vast majority of cops are good people who do their job well, the problem is when bad apples clearly do the wrong thing and then are not held accountable. It isn’t a lot but it is enough to be worrisome especially considering all the public trust that is put in police officers to do the right thing. In the case of Michael Brown though, I agree 100% that Officer Wilson was justified in his actions.
It’s difficult to have that nuanced conversation when an officer who behaved legally sparks riots, looting, and arson. The protesters chose a very poor example as their cause celebre and as a result a lot of reasonable Americans are simply fed up with people bitching about a cop who acted reasonably.
When the black community rallies around a theft who assaulted a police officer they look stupid and insolent. Rally around an actual victim of police oppression and maybe the “conversation” everyone keeps talking about can actually take place.
This is what’s SO frustrating about this situation. There really does seem to be a problem with police profiling of minorities, and distrust between cops and the communities they are to protect, and even probably the militarization of the police in the US. But Michael Brown is just about the worst possible poster boy for any of these issues, and it’s making people who would otherwise be interested in resolving such problems not want to be associated with the crazy people who are protesting something that seems to obviously be justified. These protests, even the peaceful ones, are making things way worse.
I’m generally the family liberal who is willing to argue for progressive policies, and I’m not going to touch this with a 10 foot pole. I’m just so glad I’m not spending Thanksgiving with my racist dad this year, I’m sure he’d love to “discuss” how stupid this whole thing is, and I couldn’t even fucking disagree with him! It’s got to be bad if it makes me agree with my father.
Like I said in the Pit thread, there are a lot of folks out there who would argue against the assault charge, because they simply do not believe any evidence released by the police or prosecutors. As far as theyre concerned, everything gathered or presented by them is tainted and quite possibly made up from whole cloth, for the very reasons mentioned above.
And honestly, I’m not sure I can argue against that.
It is weird as hell to find myself in an opposing opinion to many posters I generally would consider my liberal 'fellow travellers", and agreeing with more conservative posters I generally I disagree with. To me, of course, it feels as if, for some reason, my ‘fellows’ have suddenly taken leave of their capacity for rational analysis. This is also happening to me with regards to another beloved website, Wonkette. It makes me fear, in my weaker moments, that I have been too cavallier at times in dismissing the Board conservatives arguments.
Or is it just me?
I frequently have the same reaction, and I’m glad I’m still capable of thinking on my own. I’ve been called a “conservative” and a “liberal” with equal bile, and it makes me happy. Also keeps me on my toes.
There can be challenges picking a better poster boy though. Police killing anyone is relatively rare. In the search for the poster boy to support this cause you have to scrub off the whites killed, the blacks killed by black officers, and the ones that right from the start you know were armed (the majority of police homicides). That leaves an even smaller pool to draw from. Then you need someone that you can build some broad emotional attachment to across the population.
On first blush Brown look like he was ideal candidate to make the case. He was about to go to school to get himself out of poverty. He was unarmed and just walking home with a friend. There were multiple eyewitnesses with the early reports making it look like he ran and then tried to surrender. Just a good kid, trying to better himself, caught in a bad situation and unjustly killed. People jumped on it. **First reports are rarely accurate though. **
I’m almost a foot shorter than MB, white and over 60.
I truly believe that if I got into a fight with a police officer like he did and did exactly the things the evidence shows he did I am sure the outcome would be:
I would be DRT (dead right there)
The officer white or black would have been cleared in a week tops.
There would be no riots or protests. No looting or burning.
No outside agitators would show up
Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Eric Holder, and pres Obama would not say a word. Hell they would not even know my name.
The people that did know me would comment “That was a dumb ass thing Rick did.”
Don’t try to beat up a cop you will stay healthy longer.
If a young, strong male commits a robbery and then wrestles with a cop over his gun in a car until shots are fired in that car …well there’s going to be so much adrenalin squirting that the assailant’s only reliable hope to survive is to lay down on the ground and yell “I surrender.” Fleeing or further aggression are hideously bad ideas, and race doesn’t figure large in the equation.
