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StevieWolfe

Mo. Teenager Shot by Police, Riots Ensue

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Technician said:

The biggest question for me was the police unloading several rounds into a corpse.

What are some of the witness accounts? Sadly I think today's cops are just taught to kill and not shoot to incapacitate.


I actually agree with that. I do feel like 6 rounds was excessive. A non-lethal shot or two in the leg could have been enough to bring down Michael Brown. Even gun owners in most states in the US are not supposed to shoot someone in the head in self defense.

And keep in mind, the officer also had no history of using deadly force nor having police brutality complaints against him.

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doomguy93 said:

a source close to the department's top brass told FoxNews.com.

ie. a completely anonymous source. This is basically rumours and hearsay. But you really trust this because Fox News, that well-known source of unbiased information, said so?

Suppose we even ignore the fact that the story you quote come from a right wing source, and this information really does come from "a source close to the [police] department's top brass". Why should this be believed? The police have a bias in this story and a vested interest in discrediting the victim and telling a story in which they were the good guys who did nothing wrong. And while police chiefs could be criticised if they outright lied to the public in an official capacity, pseudo-anonymous smears like these are an effective way of doing so without the risk of suffering any repercussions.

And these claims that the police officer suffered some kind of fracture or other serious injury have already been disputed/debunked. What a surprise.

doomguy93 said:

I actually agree with that. I do feel like 6 rounds was excessive. A non-lethal shot or two in the leg could have been enough to bring down Michael Brown. Even gun owners in most states in the US are not supposed to shoot someone in the head in self defense.

It's hard to see how any shots are justified against an unarmed man. Multiple witnesses attest to the fact that this was essentially a street execution.



And keep in mind, the officer also had no history of using deadly force nor having police brutality complaints against him.

Fucking seriously? Darren Wilson’s first job was on a troubled police force disbanded by authorities. Maybe he doesn't have any personal history of brutality complaints, but he used to be part of a police force that had so many problems with racial tension that the authorities decided that they had no other option left but to fire the entire force.

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fraggle said:

ie. a completely anonymous source. This is basically rumours and hearsay. But you really trust this because Fox News, that well-known source of unbiased news, said so?


It's hard to see how any shots are justified against an unarmed man. Multiple witnesses attest to the fact that this was essentially a street execution.


Fucking seriously? Darren Wilson’s first job was on a troubled police force disbanded by authorities. Maybe he doesn't have any personal history of brutality complaints, but he used to be part of a police force that had so many problems with racial tension that the authorities decided that they had no other option left but to fire the entire force.


1) There were multiple witnesses how came up with different stories of what they saw. Some say that Michael Brown was the aggressor while others say it was the officer. But for one thing, most reports say that Michael Brown turned around after being told to "freeze" and proceeded to move up closer to the officer. Some claim he ran up, others claim walked up. Either way, don't move up to an officer when being told to freeze.

2) "It's hard to see how any shots are justified against an unarmed man." Lets see.... So you think it would be easy as a smaller person to bring down a 6'4 292 lbs guy using hand to hand combat. Yeah good luck with that. Even pepper spray doesn't always do the job.

3) It doesn't matter what police force he was previously on regardless if it had racial tensions. He as an individual had no prior history of police brutality complaints against him.

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doomguy93 said:

2)Lets see.... So you think it would be easy as a smaller person to bring down a 6'4 292 lbs guy using hand to hand combat.

This is not a 90's action movie, the officer wouldn't have to engage them in hand to hand combat! If the dude is big or even small the backup gets called in, the stun gun gets brought out or even a dog gets brought into play (not to mention the officer is supposedly trained for this and probably has a nightstick and pepper spray, that shit hurts and when it is used in a combo it would work against anybody who has any nerves active in the body).

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Actually, in some states, cops don't carry tasers. But yeah if I was a cop, I would use a taser instead.

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doomguy93 said:

1) There were multiple witnesses how came up with different stories of what they saw. Some say that Michael Brown was the aggressor while others say it was the officer. But for one thing, most reports say that Michael Brown turned around after being told to "freeze" and proceeded to move up closer to the officer. Some claim he ran up, others claim walked up. Either way, don't move up to an officer when being told to freeze.

Watch the video; none of the witnesses say this, and they're pretty consistent in their stories. Show me a witness who has said this (that he was told to "freeze"). The witnesses say that he was running away while being shot at; that he stopped, turned and put his hands up before being shot dead.

2) "It's hard to see how any shots are justified against an unarmed man." Lets see.... So you think it would be easy as a smaller person to bring down a 6'4 292 lbs guy using hand to hand combat. Yeah good luck with that. Even pepper spray doesn't always do the job.

Funny, it works fine in Britain, where police aren't even armed with guns.

Kind of a moot point though because the witness reports are pretty consistent that he didn't "charge" him or anything.

3) It doesn't matter what police force he was previously on regardless if it had racial tensions. He as an individual had no prior history of police brutality complaints against him.

Actually, it does matter, because these kinds of problems (racist profiling, etc.) are cultural issues within the police forces that they affect. Police officers learn how to behave and what's acceptable from observing the other officers that they work with. That was Darren Wilson's first job: where he learned to be a policeman. No doubt cultural problems like these are why the authorities saw fit to fire the entire force; as a last resort it's the only way to root these problems out. Problem is, that doesn't work so well if the officers who were fired just move to other forces and don't unlearn all the bad shit they've been taught.

Maybe it's not the kind of cut and dried evidence that could be presented in a courtroom, but to say that there's no history there is completely wrong.

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Thing is, being 6'4 doesn't magically make you immune to bullets. I just... I have a hard time accepting any story that the officer pulled a gun on him, and his reaction was to charge the officer. What sense would that make? Surely he couldn't have thought the officer was bluffing. I just seriously doubt he thought that, with weapon drawn, he could charge the officer and attack him before the officer was able to get a shot off. I can easily imagine the officer getting nervous and squeezing off a few shots unprovoked, but unless Michael Brown had a death wish, regardless of what happened before the moment he was shot, why would he choose to charge an officer with gun drawn?

I realize this doesn't prove anything. People behave irrationally all the time. I just think it's food for thought. Shooting someone because you got jumpy just seems like a more likely scenario than deciding to charge an armed officer with weapon drawn, since in that scenario, there's no possible way of coming out of it without being shot.

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I'm so sick of people bending over backwards to excuse the shit cops do. Better pray you never meet one who wants to wreck your shit. I for one have no love for them whatsoever, after they put my 5 year old cousin in the cold hard ground playing around shooting at snakes in a tree like it was a game, and then trying to pin it on his grandfather.

Cops are in the business for busting heads and going on SWAT raids to get off on power trips. They are the ex jocks and bullies from your high school given guns and now military gear, made into a standing army.

Stop sticking up for them, they don't need your help or your pity and they won't appreciate it; if they get orders or just feel like taking you down, they'll do it just the same despite all your groveling.

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I was gonna post something else but geekmarine and Quasar said it all better than I could have. Cops used to deliberately pick on me and my friends quite regularly when we were the "young teens wearing black(tm)".

"Minding your own business at the park 5 minutes from your house at 11 pm? Here's a huge document to fill out, here's nerve-wracking lights in your eyes to make sure you aren't high, now we're calling your parents just to piss them off, now we're talking down to you and getting off because we're told we're superior to you. We love fucking with you kids."

Hell, I thought that was bad when I was young - Now it's all about shooting unarmed men, that "fucking with kids" thing is so last year!

What will those zaney coppers get up to next time? Stay tuned, America!

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geo said:

There's a famous ghetto mall security guard that wears them. He gained national fame for tasing a mother in front of her kids. Tasing is better than murdering.

She clearly deserved it. This probably doesn't provide a representative sample (it's on around when I get back from work, so I end up watching it when I have nothing better to do), but damn why do black people tend to be so loud and obnoxious in such situations.

(BTW the whale in pink pants at 3:48, wow)

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So the witnesses are inconsistent? Why would a cop just start shooting him six times? Yep he's frozen and giving up, time to shoot him 6 times, because he suddenly goes into a murderous rage.

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Like I said, geo, what's more likely? That the unarmed kid saw the cop pull a gun on him and decided to charge the cop, or that the cop got jumpy and decided to unload on the kid after he had given up? Notice I'm not even saying, "Oh, the cop was just being racist and decided to blow the kid away for being black." Just that the cop may have been jumpy, which can be understandable. And honestly, it happens often enough. It's not like this is a one-time incident, like no cop has ever unloaded a pistol on an unarmed person who wasn't being threatening.

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geo said:

So the witnesses are inconsistent?

Nope. What's inconsistent are the witness reports and the police report. I'll let you decide why that might be.

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Quasar said:

...after they put my 5 year old cousin in the cold hard ground playing around shooting at snakes in a tree like it was a game, and then trying to pin it on his grandfather.

Dude, holy shit...

What happened to those assholes? I hope they got utterly destroyed for it.

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Thanks for setting me straight, you're right either or could have happened, why would a guy charge a cop? Why would a cop shoot a guy? Gotta prove the cop is guilty I guess. Isn't the FBI and the county working on this?

This 'kid' is an 18 year old man. He was a teen, not a kid and the law dictates that 18 year olds are adults even if still a teenager.

I still get called kid by people that I'm older than.

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I have a tendency to call anyone below 25 a kid. Nothing personal, it's I tend to not see people younger than that as often having the life experiences necessary to make decisions like a mature adult would. Especially in the 18-21 range, people in that age bracket are plenty young enough to still be making really stupid life choices that an older, more experienced person would not. Calling him a kid has nothing to do with his size - it's about how you would expect an 18-year-old to behave, and I dare anyone to tell me that they expect an 18-year-old to act the same as, say, a 35-year-old would.

Even then, there's no evidence to indicate the kid (man, whatever you want to call him) was actively charging the cop when he was shot, the only possible scenario in which unloading his pistol on the kid could even remotely be deemed acceptable.

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geekmarine said:

I have a tendency to call anyone below 25 a kid. Nothing personal, it's I tend to not see people younger than that as often having the life experiences necessary to make decisions like a mature adult would. Especially in the 18-21 range, people in that age bracket are plenty young enough to still be making really stupid life choices that an older, more experienced person would not. Calling him a kid has nothing to do with his size - it's about how you would expect an 18-year-old to behave, and I dare anyone to tell me that they expect an 18-year-old to act the same as, say, a 35-year-old would.

Don't try to justify your agism.

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I'm sorry to hear about your cousin Quasar.


In some parts of California, police officers wear body cameras that record their encounters with suspects. It has shown to reduce instances of police brutality, police complaints, and basically makes officers think twice about using excessive force.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/04/california-police-body-cameras-cuts-violence-complaints-rialto

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^This seems like a damn good idea, actually. It's all on tape that way... I would hope that would reduce this kind of stuff.

Bucket said:

The real tragedy is that the typo in the thread title STILL hasn't been fixed.


Rofl, "Riots Ensure!" I never even noticed that!

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The root of this problem is the "War on Drugs" which provided the necessary justification to create military-outfitted SWAT teams in all 50 states. Just on that basis, why should states which experience absolutely no level of cartel activity or organized crime, places like Kansas, Wyoming, or Montana have a military-grade security presence in civilian areas whatsoever?

It is a complete waste of money to outfit police units with combat gear. Police do not go into combat. They keep the peace and ensure stability. What they are able to access now are combat-grade rifles, vehicles, and explosives. In my opinion, that is honestly unacceptable.

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TheCupboard said:

The root of this problem is the "War on Drugs" which provided the necessary justification to create military-outfitted SWAT teams in all 50 states. Just on that basis, why should states which experience absolutely no level of cartel activity or organized crime, places like Kansas, Wyoming, or Montana have a military-grade security presence in civilian areas whatsoever?

It is a complete waste of money to outfit police units with combat gear. Police do not go into combat. They keep the peace and ensure stability. What they are able to access now are combat-grade rifles, vehicles, and explosives.


Well said sir, well said.

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Waste of money is the least of it. My concern is that the more you equip the police like a military force, the more the police begin to see themselves as a military force - feeling more justified in resorting to using violence for situations in which violence is not required. I'd actually very much like to know if there's any information on that issue - about the idea that the more power you give a person, the more they feel that using that power is a part of their job description. My first thought, though not directly related to this, is that of the Stanford prison experiment - students were separated into either guards or prisoners, and they quickly adapted to the labels given to them, with the prisoners quickly becoming submissive (aside from a few outliers who rebelled), and the guards quickly letting the power go to their heads. Basically came down to the fact that people embraced the power dynamic, even when it didn't benefit them (as in the case of the prisoners), but especially in the case of those in charge, the guards. From the instructions, "Keep the prisoners in line, and you can make them do anything you want as long as you don't physically harm them," they came up with all kinds of creative ways of making the prisoners suffer.

Like I said, it's not a perfect analog for anything we've observed here, but it's food for thought.

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I am quite familiar with the experiment you cited, geekmarine. In fact I wholly agree with what you are saying. It is hard sometimes to appeal to your opponents unless you come down to the dollar signs & nuts and bolts.

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Supposedly a video surfaced of the shooting. I have yet to see it. I'm not sure the news media has it or else they would have showed it. Maybe its a hoax.

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*cough* bump. No one has any comments to the autopsy saying the bullet angles indicate he went for the gun?

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