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Ferguson: Police Kill 18yo Black Male; Fire Gas/Rubber Bullets Into Protesting Crowds

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After so many year's of the "reaching for my gun" excuse, most black men are smart enough to not actually do it. I hope nobody here really believes that shit. After everything that has happened, you can't trust anything the Ferguson police department says without corroboration from an outside party.

Even if Brown reached for the gun, the shooting would still be unjustified if the statements from the witnesses are accurate.
 
Y'all, this got posted at the bottom of the last page, so I'm sure a lot of people missed it, but I think it provides an important history lesson on the type of shit this police force tries to pull.

From the Daily Beast:

Police in Ferguson, Missouri, once charged a man with destruction of property for bleeding on their uniforms while four of them allegedly beat him.

“On and/or about the 20th day of Sept. 20, 2009 at or near 222 S. Florissant within the corporate limits of Ferguson, Missouri, the above named defendant did then and there unlawfully commit the offense of ‘property damage’ to wit did transfer blood to the uniform,” reads the charge sheet.

The address is the headquarters of the Ferguson Police Department, where a 52-year-old welder named Henry Davis was taken in the predawn hours on that date. He had been arrested for an outstanding warrant that proved to actually be for another man of the same surname, but a different middle name and Social Security number.

The rest of story is here:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/15/the-day-ferguson-cops-were-caught-in-a-bloody-lie.html
 
Unless Missouri courts have interpreted robbery differently than most jurisdictions, that's not robbery in the video with two possible exceptions: (1) the clerk was holding the cigarillos and Brown grabbed them from him or (2) Brown threatened the clerk with the immediate use of a dangerous instrument (possible, I suppose, because we don't have sound).

It was actually kind of funny, because I saw the video, read the report, and thought to myself "you can get Brown for assault, maybe criminal battery if MO has that which I would have to look up on the Revised Statutes, and larceny sure... But there is nothing here really rising to the level of any degree of robbery." I could actually ask some friends who do practice in criminal law this question later too, but at this point, I think the robbery angle is one giant play of misdirection by Ferguson PD.
 
I hope Ferguson diversifies their police force to better reflect the demographics of the city. That's what the did in cincy.
Not just the police force, but the city council and school board as well. I'd love to see a map of Ferguson's districts, because it has to be gerrymandered to hell and back to end up with only 1 black councilman and no black school board members, given the demos of Ferguson.
 
What in the world are you talking about? Every city has a police force on standby that doesn't mean the protests are being restrained. Last night they seemed to be allowed to organize wherever they wanted.

How are you pretending to be confused? The police did not need to show the amount of force that they've been doing since the vigil. From day 1 theres been an intimidating police presence. The people holding candles didn't need dogs barking at them to begin with. Leave the dogs in the staging area too.

Just have them wait at a near by staging area -- for when the rioting goes down. Much like the senator said (forget her name) But the militarized heavy presence and training guns on people protesting only makes the situation worse.

I didn't say anything about restraining a protest. I said keep the visibility of your forces away from the protest, and use them when needed. It only incites angry reactions from people protesting police violence. Then you have them taunting protesters, shooting tear gas at journalists, assaulting journalists, and arresting journalists. This all doesn't provide any atmosphere for protesting. Its just an amped up police force waiting to suppress/disperse as soon as a bottle is thrown.
 
I believe that is a prime example of the infamous "dehumanizing stare"

It is, and you see her stride? Divine Threatening Step that's a high level jutsu. Most people only acquire the base Threatening Step technique. She's an expert Negrojutsu user and most likely is pretty decent in taijutsu as well. The cop in the front could feel her immense killing intent/chakra and turned his head to see where such power was coming from. He probably expected a 6'4" 300lb man, but is surprised to see it's a smaller female. Looking at her hair, she's a member of the Savage clan of the Hidden Ferguson village.
 
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Bruh. ‏@TheePharoah Aug 9
@SLIKK_DARKO yeah man. 7 times i think

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DIGITAL ERA ‏@SLIKK_DARKO Aug 9

@TheePharoah from behind ?
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Bruh. ‏@TheePharoah Aug 9
@SLIKK_DARKO the first two was, the next 5 werent, he turned around

That's crazy.

Surreal reading the timeline.
 
Is that an FX1?

Great camera. It's the only kind I was comfortable using when I did video services.

Mine's an HDR FX-1000, but most of Sony's MiniDV camcorders like that look real real similar. They all function the same. We use em for sports!

Back on topic:
That Twitter thing is terrifying. Any possibility of it being a troll/hack/etc? It's got timestamps and everything...And he's -far- too detailed. If it's true, that makes three witnesses who, it seems, are completely unrelated to one another.
 
Has any press asked directly what they are waiting for to release the autopsy report? It seems like it would answer a lot of questions.
 
Is it normal for them not to release a body autopsy report during an investigation?

Has any press asked directly what they are waiting for to release the autopsy report? It seems like it would answer a lot of questions.

They are waiting for the toxicology screen to come back.
 
The best/worst thing about this robbery surfacing is that it apparently wasn't even a secret. "Bruh" tweeted about it from day one. This incompetent ass PD can't even run a good smear campaign.
 
How are you pretending to be confused? The police did not need to show the amount of force that they've been doing since the vigil. From day 1 theres been an intimidating police presence. The people holding candles didn't need dogs barking at them to begin with. Leave the dogs in the staging area too.

Just have them wait at a near by staging area -- for when the rioting goes down. Much like the senator said (forget her name) But the militarized heavy presence and training guns on people protesting only makes the situation worse.

I didn't say anything about restraining a protest. I said keep the visibility of your forces away from the protest, and use them when needed. It only incites angry reactions from people protesting police violence. Then you have them taunting protesters, shooting tear gas at journalists, assaulting journalists, and arresting journalists. This all doesn't provide any atmosphere for protesting. Its just an amped up police force waiting to suppress/disperse as soon as a bottle is thrown.

I'm discussing the current state of the police with Captain Johnson running things. There is, from what I can tell, no reason for the protests to turn violent given the situation on the ground.
 
Mine's an HDR FX-1000, but most of Sony's MiniDV camcorders like that look real real similar. They all function the same. We use em for sports!

Yeah, I used it for baseball at UVA.

I was garbage on camera, though. I almost always stuck to TD and replay.
 
The video needed to be released. You complained about them even releasing it.

Sorry, I guess I should have been more clear. They released the video without informing people that the officer who shot Brown wasn't even aware of the robbery. I have no objection to the release of the video, only to the obvious smear campaign the police are attempting.
 
It was actually kind of funny, because I saw the video, read the report, and thought to myself "you can get Brown for assault, maybe criminal battery if MO has that which I would have to look up on the Revised Statutes, and larceny sure... But there is nothing here really rising to the level of any degree of robbery." I could actually ask some friends who do practice in criminal law this question later too, but at this point, I think the robbery angle is one giant play of misdirection by Ferguson PD.
Not a MO attorney, but from reading the statutes, it seems as if MO has subsumed what most jurisdictions would call "battery" into their criminal assault statutes. For example: http://www.moga.mo.gov/statutes/c500-599/5650000070.htm

However, it does maintain a distinction in other areas:
Definitions.
455.010. As used in this chapter, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise, the following terms shall mean:

(a) "Assault", purposely or knowingly placing or attempting to place another in fear of physical harm;

(b) "Battery", purposely or knowingly causing physical harm to another with or without a deadly weapon;
 
I'm pretty sure there wouldn't have been much of a backlash if Higgins had originally given us more than one lazy sentence - if he'd objected to the framing of Brown as a child because it shouldn't matter whether or not the victim was a child, if he'd wanted to acknowledge that Brown was "capable of robbery" because it shouldn't matter that Brown was "capable of robbery", etc.

But come on. Clearly that's not what Higgins was aiming at. He doesn't even hint at this in any of his subsequent posts, when that'd be a really obvious way to explain where he was coming from if that was in fact where he was coming from. To the extent that you have a point in general, here you've got to admit that people's instincts were right on.

I guess I feel like if you're sufficiently knowledgeable about a topic that you have an opinion worth sharing, it's on you to be careful not to express your opinion in a way which makes your position indistinguishable from what are uncontroversially pretty common and gross positions. Like, if you don't have a good enough model of what other people are thinking that you can't understand why your ambiguous one-liner is going to be taken the wrong way, you don't really have any business thinking that you understand what's going on. What's in the best interest of civil discussion is to not participate in discussion only by dropping ambiguous (or worse) one-liners, and I sort of doubt that we'd be missing much of value if people didn't do that for fear of being misinterpreted.

All I said was that he wasn't a child. There's nothing more to it than that
 
That robbery video is so sad for so many reasons, because in the end, even if it was completely unrelated to the shooting, the American public will see Brown as a criminal, and someone who deserved to be stopped. His innocence is lost in their eyes. And that is so sad because it was completely unrelated to the shooting.
The the police managed to accomplished what they likely set out to do. Steer clear of some comments about it on social media, this mentality is out in full force as of late.
 
Reminds me of the part in the new Veronica Mars movie where Keith Mars witnesses some police brutality and immediately pulls out his phone and starts recording it. If cops won't police themselves, then let the internet judge those cops' actions.
 
Yeah, I used it for baseball at UVA.

I was garbage on camera, though. I almost always stuck to TD and replay.

Never filmed baseball! Mostly wrestling, MMA, boxing, soccer, football, etc. Would love to handle some semi-pro stuff, that's always fun.

That robbery video is so sad for so many reasons, because in the end, even if it was completely unrelated to the shooting, the American public will see Brown as a criminal, and someone who deserved to be stopped. His innocence is lost in their eyes. And that is so sad because it was completely unrelated to the shooting.

I'm not sure that is going to happen. The press basically parried that shit away quickly and went right back to the chief: 'Why the fuck you wasting our time?' 'Where's the stuff we actually asked for?' 'Are you really just a cosplayer pretending to be a police chief?' etc

At the end of the day, Brown's family have no hope for actual justice. That's the saddest part.

I don't think the police officer is going anywhere but jail now.
 
That robbery video is so sad for so many reasons, because in the end, even if it was completely unrelated to the shooting, the American public will see Brown as a criminal, and someone who deserved to be stopped. His innocence is lost in their eyes. And that is so sad because it was completely unrelated to the shooting.

The altercation in the convenience store might have delayed Brown(if it's him) by like 10 seconds. Maybe he would have gotten off the street in those saved 10 seconds and the cop never would have encountered him. Every second counts. Otherwise...the store altercation is really of no importance to Mike Brown's death other than the time tussling with the employee(?).

Cop needs to be jailed and anyone at the popo, attorney's office trying to make it so he's a free man.
 
Mine's an HDR FX-1000, but most of Sony's MiniDV camcorders like that look real real similar. They all function the same. We use em for sports!

Back on topic:
That Twitter thing is terrifying. Any possibility of it being a troll/hack/etc? It's got timestamps and everything...And he's -far- too detailed. If it's true, that makes three witnesses who, it seems, are completely unrelated to one another.

Scroll (a lot) down his twitter page. Highly unlikely to be fake.
 
The point is that the trend is there. We already know how they reacted to the protests, we already know that an unarmed black teen was killed. Trust me, I enjoy skepticism and the like as well. It's simply not necessary here, as it contributes nothing.

I mean, I'm definitely not trying to argue that the cop did nothing wrong. Like I said earlier, at the very least he fucked up horribly. I'm just not ready to call him a monster yet. For all I know he killed Brown because he was genuinely afraid, couldn't see clearly because of his head injury, and is now near-suicidal with guilt. Or maybe he did pull up to the kids, yelled racial epithets at them, hit himself on the head getting out of his car, and knowingly gunned the kid down in cold blood. I don't know which it is, and nor does anyone else.

And yeah, if you hate someone, I think you should always be skeptical of whether that hatred is justified. Pretty much without exception. I can absolutely forgive and understand people not being able to hold themselves to that standard 100% of the time, but we should still accept that it's valuable for some people to be able to remain emotionally detached enough to hold off on judgement.
 
Depends, here's the relevant language:

If the box of cigars he grabbed as described in this line was in the hands of the clerk, then, yes, that would meet the statutory definition of a robbery (felony).

If they were on the counter, then theft/larceny (misdemeanor).

Wouldn't use of force against the person at the door satisfy the statute? Honest question as I am ignorant of Missouri law.
 
Not a MO attorney, but from reading the statutes, it seems as if MO has subsumed what most jurisdictions would call "battery" into their criminal assault statutes. For example: http://www.moga.mo.gov/statutes/c500-599/5650000070.htm

However, it does maintain a distinction in other areas:

You're right; section 5 is more or less the definition of civil battery and is most definitely what he did when he grabbed and pushed the store clerk.

I currently don't practice in MO (and with my new position soon, I won't practice in this area of the law at least). I do have a friend that does criminal defense here in STL, and with these recent developments, I may run a lot of this stuff by her at one point.
 
How long did it take this to get actual coverage? And in the span of an afternoon Mike Brown is nothing but a common criminal. I'm more and more enraged as the days go by.
 
Camera's on cops. Every cop, every time they patrol.

It is 2014, shits like 30$.

That twitter is soul crushing.
Wasn't that the gist of the Polygon article that everyone was pissed off about? I'm guessing they were just not happy with linking this to video games, but I agree every cop should be monitored these days.
 
Wouldn't use of force against the person at the door satisfy the statute? Honest question as I am ignorant of Missouri law.
1. It's entirely possible that MO courts have so interpreted the statute to include use of force after the taking of the property to elevate larceny to robbery, but that is not traditionally how most jurisdictions interpret the force requirement in robbery statutes. I'm not a MO attorney and haven't looked at case law, so this is based upon my familiarity with Alabama law, which is similar to Missouri's.

2. Here's my discussion on this from earlier:
The force requirement in robbery doesn't mean that you have to push or assault the victim. It only means you have to exert enough force to overcome the actual resistance being exerted by the victim over the property in order to take it from their possession. A clear example is purse snatching: if the purse snatcher takes the purse off a woman's shoulder, it's robbery. If, however, the woman places or drops the purse on the ground and the purse snatcher grabs it, it's larceny because he didn't have to overcome the physical resistance of the victim. Does that make sense?

From looking at the video, I see larceny and assault, but not robbery. Both larceny and this level of assault are misdemeanors.
 
Wasn't that the gist of the Polygon article that everyone was pissed off about? I'm guessing they were just not happy with linking this to video games, but I agree every cop should be monitored these days.

It was a nice suggestion, but they ended up just advertising one in particular to the point of obvious shilling.
 

Too many corroborating eyewitness reports, the bungling of the initial investigation forcing the FBI to step in, what is likely to be extreme political pressure to have this situation ended as quickly as possible, etc. The media also seems to not give two fucks about any anecdotal information about Brown. They want the shooting report, they want the shooter, and they want to know what on earth caused that militarized reaction. The police have lost control of the narrative.
 
Too many corroborating eyewitness reports, the bungling of the initial investigation forcing the FBI to step in, what is likely to be extreme political pressure to have this situation ended as quickly as possible, etc. The media also seems to not give two fucks about any anecdotal information about Brown. They want the shooting report, they want the shooter, and they want to know what on earth caused that militarized reaction. The police have lost control of the narrative.

FBI is only investigating if there was a civil rights violation. The St. Louis PD I believe is still investigating the shooting. And they are Ferguson peeps are buddy buddy. Nothing is going to happen.

By next weekend, this will all have quieted down and next big story will be here.;
 
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