Slashdot Mirror
Officer Not Charged In Michael Brown Shooting
An anonymous reader writes: A grand jury in Missouri has decided there is no probable cause to charge police officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown. "A grand jury of nine whites and three blacks had been meeting weekly since Aug. 20 to consider evidence. At least nine votes would have been required to indict Wilson. The Justice Department is conducting an investigation into possible civil rights violations that could result in federal charges." Government officials and Brown's family are urging calm in Ferguson after the contentious protests that followed Brown's death.
It's ok to be a murdering thug if you wear a badge, right?
Disgusting.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
The "protesters" in Ferguson right now are burning cars, breaking into stores, in general being asshats.
They're not interested in any kind of justice. They're only interested in revenge.
Love sees no species.
It's OK to try and harm someone just because they are wearing a badge and talking to you?
Equally disgusting...
Because that's what the physical evidence, and now a grand jury who had ALL the facts, said.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
A hero was not falsely convicted of murding a violent criminal.
I don't even know why comments are enabled on this one
We the public don't yet know all the facts. Nonetheless, it was an immensely difficult case to build for the prosecutor as the only person alive who knew what happened was the one who pulled the trigger. Obviously the cop isn't going to say anything against his own case, and in the fog of the moment he might not remember the course of events accurately anyways. We can armchair quarterback this all we want but in the end it was extremely unlikely for any other result to come out; and that would have been the case regardless of the races of each person involved.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Sorry folks, whites win again!
Why is this on Slashdot?
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Timcast livestream from Ferguson
in 1775 a war was started over issues like this.
Does this really belong on Slashdot?
Personally, I don't think it's necessary - let's stick to new for nerds or at least the pretense of a technological angle.
The problem is that the cop put up a fight, if he had just let Michael Brown steal his gun and do lord-knows-what with it, then everything would have been OK.
Now, the locals and imported friends are destroying their community and their neighbor's businesses the case didn't turn out the way they expected.
After three months the DOJ couldn't build a credible Civil a Rights case against the officer.
After three months the prosecutor couldn't convince a *majority* of the grand jury that the officer did anything wrong.
After three minutes the protesters, knowing nothing more than the races of the two people in this case decided what happened, who should be punished, and what that punishment should be... And then proceeded to call anyone with a different opinion "racist".
White majority of politicians in this town? Maybe the locals in this town should have been more involved in their government. If you can't bring yourself to run for office, at least register to vote.
White majority police force? Maybe parents should raise their children to view the police department as a career choice, not the 'occupying force'.
The grand jury found no reason to even send this to trial. Cut and dry case of justifiable self defense. END of story.
No, the grand jury found on probable cause. So it was not more likely than not that he was guilty, based on what they heard.
That does *not* mean it was a cut and dry case of justifiable self-defense, or that the officer was innocent.
That seems 'legit', given the other events in Ferguson. FTW.
I'm not going to rant about how guilty Darren Wilson was. To tell the truth, I don't know if he was guilty. But I just don't understand how there wasn't enough evidence to at least take this to trial. There were multiple witnesses saying that Mike Brown had his hands up and was not attacking Darren Wilson when he was shot. This alone to me is enough to at least take it to trial and see all the evidence to try and figure out exactly what happened.
Unfortunately, all of the emphasis has been on everything except what it should have been. It doesn't matter what Mike Brown was doing before the confrontation, or if he smoked pot. It doesn't even matter what happened with the struggle at the car (whether Mike Brown dove through the window trying for the gun or Darren Wilson grabbed him and pull him in the window). The only thing that matter is what was going on when Darren Wilson shot Mike Brown. If Mike Brown was standing (or kneeling as some reports say) with his hands up and not attacking anyone, then Darren Wilson murdered Mike Brown. If Mike Brown was charging to attack Darren Wilson when he was shot, then is was a good shooting. Unfortunately, with this grand jury decision, we will never get an answer to that. I just don't understand how with the witnesses that have come forward, they couldn't find enough evidence that maybe there was wrong doing to want all the evidence to come out so we can have answers.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
Time to send in "BigDog" and its kin from Boston Dynamics!
Also, Why The F*ck would they wait until NIGHT TIME to announce the verdict!?
This whole incident has been extremely interesting to me.
On this site and others, I've seen otherwise intelligent people go absolutely stupid regarding this incident.
It was clear from the very beginning that Brown was nowhere near as innocent as so many people claimed he was. The footage of him in the shop, acting in a very aggressive and harmful manner just minutes before the shooting, told us all we needed to know. The information made available today further goes to show that Brown very likely attacked the police officer.
Any reasonably intelligent person should be able to see this situation for what it is. Yet despite all of the evidence to the contrary, there are still very smart people who have deluded themselves into believing that Brown somehow wasn't responsible at all for what happened.
It's totally absurd, yet also totally intriguing.
Case Closed.
In GOD we trust, all others we monitor.
to a petite jury, and there are 9 whites, it's possible to vote racially and not send it to trial. There should have been more blacks on the grand Jury to ward against that...
Not that it would matter to the hooligans.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
bad things happen to you, any fully evolved human should be able to figure this out.
What are you being distracted from by paying attention to Ferguson? Anyone with an opinion one way or another on this has had their emotions played like a fiddle.
Nerds
I suspect the KKK is involved in this some how. This looks like a Classic 1950s/1960s Rigged Jury situation. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the KKK was not somehow involved. It reads like something you'd hear about 50 years ago.
How is this tech news in any way?
Tonight, selected 'hoods will burn to pave the way for the next generation of White hipsters. 30 years from now, some sweet digs will be available for gentrifiers... except for Missouri itself because even if it were fixed up, who would want to live there?
Commander Taco, can we get a -1 RACIST mod on Slash Dot?
Expand that beyond just 'cop''... "if you punch any armed person in the face... bad things happen to you"... just ask Trayvon Martin... oh right... he made the same mistake.
Assault is assault... and assault when the person on the receiving end fears for their life and has the means to respond will escalate.
Best way to avoid getting shot is to not provoke those who can lawfully respond to such assaults.
An armed society is a polite society.
(Note: The decision(*) was handed down 2 hours ago and already there's rioting.)
I recently posted about a fire inspector reacting to a problem in the most dickish way possible.
The responses were surprising and enlightening. On the topic of his actions, each and every one of the respondents felt that the inspector reacted appropriately, that he in fact had to react in the most extreme manner possible, and that it was the right thing to do(**).
If you agree with this position, then it's OK for police to shoot an unarmed black man in Ferguson Missouri, or a black man purchasing a gun off the shelf at WalMart, or a 12-year old boy in Ohio playing with a toy gun.
The police have a dangerous job - they put their lives on the line every single day (just ask one), and they simply can't take the chance that a black man might be dangerous.
No. That's completely wrong, and it comes from police and other government agencies "doubling down" on their mistakes. Something bad happens, someone in authority shouts "it was the correct thing to do!", and it's echoed all over the press and on the net by people who repeat what they hear without thinking it through.
When the department says that the most dickish possible way is the right response they are alienating the people. It might avoid getting the cop thrown off the force, but in the future the department may actually *need* the support or cooperation of the people in order to do their job. This is short-term smart and long-term stupid.
We have schools teaching teenagers how to react to cops, and the take-away message is that cops only hurt people - they are a danger to be avoided
The "broken window" theory of crime can also be applied to the police. If we let them get away with these sorts of abuses, everyone in a position of authority will know that it's OK to act in the most dickish way possible.
I understand how rules exist to prevent the "worst possible scenario" from happening, but do we *always* have to act as if the worst possible scenario is happening right here, right now? Should cops always shoot a suspect who has a gun in hand? Would a more nuanced approach better?
I'm glad there's rioting. This crap needs to stop.
(*) For non-merikan readers, a grand jury does not assign guilt or innocence, it only determines whether a trial should happen. Basically, it tries to determine if there is enough evidence to go to trial. Also, it's heavily rigged *against* the defendant.
(**) There are at least 3 alternative actions the fire marshal could have taken that would have solved his problem without alienating all the con goers, the business, and the hotel. I don't expect anyone in his local area would help if his office needed public support for something, such as "please help us by sending us your video tape of incident".
So, this might be news, but it's not "news for nerds". Why is it posted on this website? I vote to remove it.
Enough said.
Now why they changed I dunno, but that can change things. Also there was supposedly physical evidence that contradicted witness statements.
However if you are interested, it sounds like the unusual step of opening up the grand jury records will be taken in this case. So, keep up with it and read the transcript when it is available, and then see what you conclude.
Most stores that are burning down don't have sprinklers that work? Really?
Walgreens? Dominos? Little Caesar's? NOT ONE SINGLE SPRINKLER IS WORKING?
I smell Jewish Fire Sale on top of BS.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I don't think you understand.
Niggers are the disease and Ebola is the cure.
That does seem correct to me. I'm not an expert on the case, but that does seem correct, especially since Michael Brown had just robbed a convenience store.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... - That is a real, legitimate video from the same day he was shot.
Not implying he deserves to die or be shot but can we stop praising this like some innocent kid (300+lbs) on the street was randomly shot?
Everyone's arguing the wrong problem.
The protesters say "He should have been indicted!"
The cops say "What he did was legal!"
They're both right. In this country, a cop chasing and shooting an unarmed person who is suspected of a felony is legally allowed to shoot them dead in cold blood if they feel the suspect is a danger to the public. What Wilson did wasn't illegal, it was just immoral.
The problem is: That should not be legal. Wilson could have waited for backup but he didn't and went charging in like a cowboy. He got into a fist fight and ended it with a gun. Any civilian that did the same would go strait to prison. There is no excuse for us to allow police to behave more recklessly than any other citizen.
So an intoxicated 18 yr old robs a convenience store then attacks a cop while being asked to get on a sidewalk instead of the middle of the street.... yeah what a great young man. good riddance. All the dummies who riot and burn and attack people and property using this incident as an excuse should be shot.
even the greatest black american dad is a serial rapist. you don't know shit about any of these strangers. OJ was very likely innocent, at least the cops failed miserably at investigating, and got caught trying to plant evidence. People jumped around all crazy saying he was guilty, but the evidence in court showed otherwise. OJ was a wife beater for sure, but nobody ever showed murderer. The evidence here showed that Michael Brown fucked up, and it cost him and his family.
You'll be able to study all the evidence soon since they are going to publicly release everything.
I thought that Slashdot was a tech blog/news site.
Rumors are flying that it was actually a black cop who killed black 12 year old Tamir Rice for playing with a fake gun at a playground. :(
This would be the perfect case of police being too trigger happy but since it wasn't a white cop it will be dropped from news cycles in a few days
It's almost like they have no reason to be mad at all. I mean, officer kills a black kid, news at 11. All thugs deserve what they get, am i rite?
OH WAIT. You mean this isn't 4-chan? People should actually be outraged about this?
Maybe this will be a lesson to the rest of you thugs out there. Pull your pants up and get a job, until then expect more of this. You wanted rights, you got them. Now work and earn a living to keep those rights. Stop selling drugs, promoting sex and violence to the youth. Stop making it about race. Your own people sold you to Americans, your 'ancestors' were owned by both blacks and whites. Your 'ancestors' were sold by their own brothers and cousins in Africa. If you want to be treated equally you should contribute as much as the white man has over the past 200 years.
If you listened to the evidence he was shot while in or on the vehicle....
So the not attacking anyone...well that was a complete fabrication by someone...wanting it to be true
All eyewitness testimony is unreliable. If it was Brown who killed Willson, no prosecutor in the country would have a problem with an eyewitness with shifting details.
Especially batshit irrelevant, as the cop had no idea there was a reported robbery. Prosecutors can 'indict a ham sandwich' with a grand jury. If they didn't indict, it's because the prosecutor didn't want them to. First in the Ohio Wal-Mart murder, and now in Missouri.
If this had been 2 private citizens in an altercation that started out as a fist fight and ended up with a gun being used, the shooter would at least have had to go to trial, When a cop does it, it's OK.
It's too bad, because by and large cops are just high school bullies with a mandate. What was this guy worried about? He had a gun, probably some other non-lethal weapon, and all cops wear bulletproof vests so there's at least a very low probability of dying if you do get shot. He also could have called for backup before trying to take this guy out. It just sounds like adrenaline got the best of him, and he should have to go to prison for it just like a normal citizen would.
The grand jury mechanism is the way prosecutors demonstrate that there's at least enough evidence that they MIGHT be able to win a prosecution. It's a very famous phrase that a prosecutor and a grand jury can "indict a ham sandwich" (in other words: the hurdle is VERY LOW). In the grand jury, the defendant (in this case the cop) does NOT get to have a lawyer present even though he is still under oath and subject to perjury charges, AND evidence against him is allowed in even if it is evidence that would be thrown out for various reasons in a regular trial. A grand jury indicted "old white guy" Scooter Libby because he had a different recollection of a phone call from that of the other guy on the phone when there was no recordning of that call.... so we're talking "REALLY low hurdle" here. The fact that this grand jury did not issue an indictment, even faced with the threats that riots might ensue in the city says a lot about how poor the evidence of wrongdoing by the cop was.
The simple fact is that NONE of us here has seen all the evidence the grad jury spent months studying. What we DO know is that APPARENTLY (going by the press conference, which will be confirmed in the days ahead by documents) there was plenty of testimony by witnesses (nearly all of them black) to the grand jury that the deceased man did not passively have his hands while saying "don't shoot" ("hands up, don't shoot" appears to have been a drummed up as a rallying cry rather than being an accurate representation of the incident) and apparently the autopsies all agreed that the deceased man was in fact never shot in the back. It seems that a petty criminal, upon being stopped by a cop made the stupid decision to fight and then his accomplice in the robbery started passing the story around that his (now) dead friend was was just a peaceful innocent guy gunned-down by a mean racist cop.... and then race hustlers used the national media to whip this up into a civil rights issue. This is a personal tradgedy for the family of the deceased man, and his family, and for the cop, and his family, and for all the small business owners in that town whose businesses have been burned and looted. The only people gaining from this are the looters (the vast majority of whom did not know the deceased and were not in any way harmed) and guys like Al Sharpton who makes many sensationalizing this stuff on MSNBC and then makes mote money on donations to his organizations. No average ordinary decent innocent middle or lower class white or black man or woman will benefit from any chaos.
The fact that this is being used as a tool to incite ingorant fucks into idiotic behavior... THAT is what you should care about.
Bummer that if you're ignorant enough to fall for the incitement... nothing anyone can say will sway you until you GET A FUCKING EDUCATION IN REALITY.
Yep, there's what happens in life and then there's what you hear about it. The sooner you find out that the two aren't the same, the better off you and everyone around you will be.
Wake the fuck up people.
That should provoke some discussion!
After getting up, working all day- they then find the energy to stay up all night protesting, oh wait, they didn't work at all....... never mind. Life is hard in the ghetto.
Everything above is my opinion....YMMV
Will debian exclude you if you make disparaging remarks about looters?
The already do if you make disparaging remarks about women:
http://slashdot.org/submission...
Because otherwise, I don't think the answer of a 67% white grand jury is acceptable to a town that is 67% black and patrolled by a police force that's about 94% white and which hires people who are from other police departments which were shut down because they were too racist.
If at least one black voted not to indict then it gives the process some legitimacy.
If all three voted not to indict then the answer will probably be accepted eventually.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Obviously, none of us have access to all of the information available to the grand jury. I am also quite sure that they were aware of the gravity of the decision they made. It is a reasonable assumption that they made their decision very carefully.
But - here's the big news - even if the grand jury screwed up, we see the existence of a barbaric sub-culture that thinks the right response rioting and looting. The barbarians are inside the gates.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
I have a dream that one day cigar thieving cop punchers can get shot, not for the color of their skin, but for the content of their character.
Another punkass cop shoots an unarmed citizen (a black sagginass criminal thugsta doughboy nonetheless) to kill.
Totally unnecessary.
Then the cops cover up all the cop side of evidence as usual.
So fluckin typical. Aint nothin changed since Rodney King.
When you gonna wakeup America. Yall bitches should be out in the streets.
I totally understand, because I'm drinking beer watching the riots on my flat screen TV
I guess race relations can wait for another decade. There can be no rest for anyone as long as a mother must fear for her child's life every time he leaves the house, because his skin is the "wrong" color.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
http://i.imgur.com/g70Z19z.png
http://i.imgur.com/ukQx6kW.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/LQ9I7VJ.png
http://i.imgur.com/kcaXYaQ.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/frFDEyb.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/AbjDana.png
http://i.imgur.com/IkmbC2c.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/mwGue7I.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/hQILUTZ.jpg
News media are nothing more than trolls pushing peoples buttons to whore attention and viewership. They race bait constantly and bark like rabid dogs whenever someone calls them on rampant hyperbole and worthless mental masturbation invoked to kill time in the absence of any actual news or evidence.
First thing out the gate today after announcement was Mr Tooooobin getting all hot and defensive about Bob calling out misleading bullshit coming from the media.
The equation seems to be keep the masses divided by stoking tribalism while systemic issues and gross injustices ... stop and frisk, racial profiling, quotas/revenue generation, plea deals, minimum sentences, prosecutor incentives divorced from truth seeking, war on drugs, existence of unenforceable laws and general systemic failure to counter human tendency to abuse power that comes with badge and gun go largely ignored and unaddressed.
The media always hides behind the notion they are just reporting or that tribalism is a valid topic. This is bullshit. They get to choose what they go all MH370 on and what they remain silent about. Their decisions very much affects reality and are very much determined by their pursuit of attention... they are professional trolls.
Of the word "grand" used with the word Jury. this GRAND jury = 12 peeps selected from the little larger group by lawyers.....
Now correct if I'm wrong, but U.S system works like this ? Or is it just the movies ?
Not to go all tinfoil hat on everyone, but why would you release this at night unless you wanted riots? This was the town that tried to ban protests after sundown and they didn't think that maybe, just MAYBE they should wait until daylight to help keep everyone calm and orderly?
"We need those attitudes and policies changed by lawmakers, the problem isn't that Police are acting badly, its that they are allowed to act badly."
And that the Justice system is designed/manipulated to protect THEM when they do behave "badly", as you put it.
Here is another bit of information you should all digest, a quote from NPR: ( http://www.npr.org/2014/08/25/ )
"To understand some of the distrust of police that has fueled protests in Ferguson, Mo., consider this: In 2013, the municipal court in Ferguson--a city of 21,135 people--issued 32,975 arrest warrants for nonviolent offenses, mostly driving violations."
Now, if most of those people with warrants for driving offenses are black (Ferguson is 67.4% black, according to the 2010 census), and these warrants preclude them from serving on a Grand Jury (they do), then how is it possible to get a fairly balanced jury of one's peers? In short, the Ferguson Police Department handing out tickets to mostly black residents precludes black residents from ever serving on a Grand Jury, or any jury for that matter, in effect stacking the deck against them, racially speaking. A black person in Ferguson is fucked before they ever even reach a courtroom, and white folks have got it easy as the deck is ALWAYS stacked in their favor.
A similar situation exists where I live because there are NINE overlapping legal jurisdictions in terms of law enforcement--fully 5% of the population here is law enforcement (I live near a border, and as a result fall under the jurisdiction of local law-enforcement, County law-enforcement, State law-enforcement and numerous federal agencies including ICE, Border Patrol, FBI, DEA and DHS.). You cannot put together a jury here that isn't 5% (or more) law-enforcement, in effect stacking the deck against anyone being tried in a criminal court, as other jurors tend to believe them even when, during jury selection, those same officers said they would always believe a cop over anyone else, regardless of content. And yes, I actually heard several cops state that during jury selection when I was called up for jury duty. As a result of hearing this before I was questioned, I stated at that time I thought the cards stacked against any defendant...and was dismissed from jury duty.
The cards were stacked against Justice in Ferguson, and in favor of Darren Wilson. This shit needs to change.
For what it's worth, I'm white (or Caucasian...whatever makes you feel better about yourself).
Well, not to go all Godwin, but ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties#Third_Reich
Requiem for the street of West Florissant in Ferguson Missouri.
RIP. Bravely stood and tried to serve the community around.
Now gone.
http://youtu.be/MKWeF5dEI0g
Please help, I cannot find it. I downloaded the grand jury testimony from NYT but it is 4799 pages and 3 month old.
This case needed to go to trial because it is law enforcement pro-active training since GW Bush's days on a national scale that is needed to be scrutinized for society at larges' sake.
This officer was all ready to shoot a shoplifter from his very training.
which is why America now burns.
You sowed the seeds of death, now reap the whirlwind.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
They changed it. Now it's Pants up, don't loot!
Black Friday starts tonight. Insurance companies to take the hit.
No. The hit is taken by the store owners and their landlords. Insurance policies generally exclude damage during riots, along with other civil insurrections and wars.
The net result of rioting that involves looting and/or store trashing is stores that move out or go out of business. Lots of little family businesses are bankrupted, while the big box store chains look at all the red ink and don't reopen. (That's why the Koreans were on the roofs of their stores with guns during the Rodney King post-verdict activities in Los Angeles.)
Think there's a shortage of decent-paying (or paying at all) jobs in Ferguson? Just wait... (This is what happened to Oakland, California, which is mopping up the last holdouts tonight "in sympathy with Ferguson".)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Don't mobs make you nervous?
Historically we had the witchcraft trials, the Inquisition, the Crusades, Hitler and so many others. Ordinary people hysterically afraid of some imagined evil and lead by a charismatic or powerful person to do unspeakable things.
In our own lives we've seen mobs in high school cliques, at football games, in the middle east, and in response to events like this shooting where media and instigators fuel the flames of insanity.
Kinda makes me wish that people would learn to think for themselves and not just follow the loudest angry voice they hear.
...omphaloskepsis often...
Why are Americans so obsessed with race and skin colour? It seems that in every incedent, the skin colour of everyone involved is mentioned and is seen as somehow part of the issue at hand. Why is this?
Unless the gun had a CPU, how on earth does this have anything to do with science or technology or RPGs or any other nerd type news?
These witnesses were friends of the deceased, gave conflicting statements and then recanted when confronted with the testimony of other bystanders and the physical evidence.
"There were multiple witnesses saying that Mike Brown had his hands up and was not attacking Darren Wilson when he was shot."
and nine must vote in favor of an indictment for there to be one.
Jurors have to decide whether there is probable cause to believe Wilson committed a crime. The standard is lower than a jury trial in criminal court, where jurors must determine whether there is proof beyond a reasonable doubt that a crime was committed.
This type of kneejerk reaction is why we can't have nice things.
Here's a test.. if the cop were black would you even know this happened? NOPE! If one Brown's, black, thug buddies had shot him dead (as would have likely happened if this hadn't) would you know this happened? NOPE! This is about a white cop defending himself against a black thug that tried to grab his gun for being asked to move to the side of the street rather than strutting down the middle of it blocking traffic. An arrogant, out of control 18 year old with a big problem with authority. Brown was an idiot punk and got what comes to those that are stupid and arrogant and attack an armed person.... Justice.
As far as I know, the American police used to use a lot more blunt force -- flashlights, billy clubs, night sticks, beavertail saps, sap gloves -- to subdue people.
Over the past few decades, and especially since Rodney King's beating, blunt force seems to be off the menu. It has been somewhat replaced by the Taser, but their cost and the increasing awareness of the risk of death seems to have blunted (sorry) its use.
I wonder if the elimination of blunt force from the police toolkit has somehow led to a situation where "if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail" kind of a situation, where the police have come to see many situations that may have in the past been responded to with blunt force instead getting treated as a situation to shoot.
Physical confrontations without the use of an alternate weapon often boil down to wrestling matches which can quickly become a pulled gun or a struggle for an officer's gun, and many times a physical struggle is justified as a reason to shoot.
None of this to say that people weren't beaten for unjust reasons, but they also weren't killed, either.
When cops carried blunt force weapons they also knew how to use them in a way to inflict pain in a way that gained submission but also in a way that avoided major injury, since major injury didn't necessarily work in their favor. They seemed to have a spectrum of force available instead of a binary choice of shooting or not shooting.
This story belongs somewhere else....
Happy Thanksghettoiving
No. What led to this was a failing economy that started with a dot.com bust in 2000, recovery on hold from 911, and exasperated downhill from then on to today. Now we have an entire generation of children and young adults that are left both uneducated and unemployed. Now add the 5+ million illegal immigrants that will be competing for the same jobs that these people can only do (and Hispanics have a far better work ethic) and it will only get worse. And I haven't even gone into depth about inflation and the widening wealth gap (disparity) that threatens to turn America into a "have" and have/not society with a thin marginal middle class. It's the perfect storm that's destroying America.
Life is not for the lazy.
I understand that the Ferguson case is a important topic but Slash dot is a tech site. This news report has no place on this site. Let the other news media cover it.
Instead of ranting about whether a cop was being fair or not consider what the cop is trained to do. If a situation gets to the point where a shot is fired cops do not stop shooting until the suspect is on the ground and unable to move. So we have a situation in which the offender was shot at close range and then started backing off. The cop did exactly what he is trained and required to do. He kept shooting until the offender was on the ground and still. So all the nonsense about federal charges or civil rights charges will not be a matter of the officer's actions but will be an issue of whether he was following the materials and teachings he was required to follow. And yes, even throwing one punch at a cop does justify deadly force.
Commie bastards — anybody with a Che Guevara T-shirt or a red flag — deserves to be hung from a lamp post until their feet stop kicking.
Followers of the single most murderous school of thought known to humanity — even Hitler's peculiar branch of Fascism being but a distant second — have their minds infected and their demonstrations and protests help spread and perpetuate the infection.
They should be quarantined and culled — to let the healing begin. Please, don't hate.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Nothing to add to what you said just this : "or if he smoked pot" actually it is known that there was no detectable trace of intoxicant in his blood : there was a toxicology report , I read it, and it all reads as negative (creatinine was high also, means the sample was relevant e.g. : not botched).
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Really?
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
What the fuck does this have to do with technology? This is regular news we can get from literally any other source.
You're quite correct, the use of flashlights impact weapons had become more and more frowned upon, likely due to an combination of abusive officers and pain compliance techniques making people (the ones watching I mean, but certainly the ones on the receiving end too) feel bad. Unfortunately in moving away from that option, an officer that has to choose between throwing his back out wrestling with someone and reaching for that gun is going to be doing a lot more killing. Plus the thing that just makes this all the worse are the current generation of police that want to play soldier with their counter-terrorism toys.
A landmark national issue and the quality of comments on Slashdot are the shittiest they've ever been.
The comments around here aren't worth taking the time to read them anymore.
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
Slashdot users are predominantly African American. There are a lot of insightful comments that address the grievances of African Americans and why they might have experienced displeasure with the US justice system. We learn the extent some might wish to express displeasure though various means, correct or not, with the ruling. Slashdot taught me to understand the dissent, though I may or may not agree with it. Finally, Slashdot offers hope to attain a means of peaceful conflict resolution.
"SO we bide our time, waiting for a purer kick to bloom and the future is still bleak, uncertain and beautiful" -GSYBE
To give people a chance to be *home* instead of stuck in school, at work, or in traffic when the unrest started. I'm happy to say that there was less burning and looting than I expected based on the *original* round of rioting, but there was still *far* too much of it.
For all those "already made up your mind about the cop" people, haven't you also already made up your mind? That's a pretty weak argument.
Have you heard the audio of the shooting? 7 seconds, including a 2 second pause in the middle.
And why were these arrest warrants issued? Hint: they very likely did not pay their traffic tickets. When as you point out, 67.4% of residents are black, then it is likely that a majority of these warrants would go to blacks (2:1 just on demographics). If you are claiming disproportionately more, you need some sort of statistic to demonstrate that. If it is because non-blacks pay their tickets more promptly, consider me unmoved by that disproportional statistic.
Was the audio not a factor? I've never heard that it was invalidated.
7 seconds of shooting including a 2 second pause in the middle. Do the math.
And should be confronted by society. Contrary to popular belief, the Police is still a civilian force. No special rules or exemptions should apply,
Nothing in this thread seems technology related, but I noticed a few things last night.
One of the things I enjoyed was the number of citizen journalists there streaming from their phones. It allowed a wide variety of perspectives and it was quite interesting to see the raw uncensored footage from people there. Some were down the streets, some were with looters, some were watching fires, and some were getting their ass kicked.
My favourite was when BassemMasri's ustream was streaming and his phone got jacked during the broadcast
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
around 2:30 you can see his phone grabbed and run off with still streaming.
The exchange at the end is great:
Woman: What's that?
Woman: What you running for?
Woman: What you got?
Woman: Let me check it out
Man: Huh
Woman: Are you (running?)
Man: iPhone 6
Woman: Huh?
Man: iPhone 6
Woman: Where'd you get it from
Man: Some nigga
I'm a satanic clam.
Yeah, I get it. Some people are upset with the decision.
But how does that justify looting and destroying other people's property?
How does one make the mental link between the decision of the jury and destroying other people's cars, stores, and public spaces?
Something in that culture has to really change.
mr brown punched a cop in the face in his cop car and tried to get his gun. the gun went off twice in the struggle.
mr brown runs down the street but mr brown hears cop say stop. mr brown stops but prbably decides fuck it and charges back to the cop 21 feet.
the cop shoots him.
where in this world do you think you cann attack a police officer and get away with it.
go loot some more
What does this have to do with science and technology?
This just proves it. Except it's the asshats like rev whats-his-face keeping it alive, spurring racial arguments by accusing white people every time they have a confrontation with a minority. What bull$hit. Way to go Ferguson, you just ruined your own town. I hope every business that was damaged by you dumb-asses does not rebuild, leaving you with nothing. I hope the damages are taken out of your welfare checks, I hope they prosecute every one of you that f'd up your own town. Racism was slowly being irradiated but you just set progress back 100 years.
We can all agree on one thing - there should be cameras in EVERY police car so we can see the truth for ourselves!
I think the flashlight-as-impact-weapon was just a brief stopover on the trip away from using more traditional blunt force weapons. Take away a baton and suddenly a 6 D-cell mag light is the new baton, unfortunately with characteristics more of a lead-filled blackjack than a high-impact plastic PR-24 "tonfa".
I kind of think that the increasing tactical fetishism of police is almost kind of a symptom as much as it is a cause of police violence. To a certain extent the increasing vilification of the police and the removal of intermediate force from their toolkit has increased their siege mentality, leading to a subverted kind of frustration that plays out in them getting soldiered up.
Don't get me wrong, I think there's a lot wrong with policing, but the wholesale denial going on in "the community" doesn't help either -- treating every police interaction as a wholesale denial of civil rights and refusing to acknowledge minority-on-minority criminality or treating it as some kind of excusable byproduct of discrimination only makes the situation worse.
Move to Seattle. Here we're up in arms over the use of blunt force. We'd rather the police carry boxing glove and padded bats around with them and just let the criminal leave. In Seattle, calling the police to report that your car was broken into is more of a crime than the actual breaking and stealing.
This isn't about race; it is about the militarization of police power.
Yesterday a policeman, officer Darren Wilson, was no-billed for shooting an unarmed man, Michael Brown. The incident began when the policeman objected to the unarmed man walking in the middle of the street. Today we learn that, if you jaywalk, it is OK for the police to kill you.
Consider Military Police(MP). MPs police soldiers and sailors; they go to great lengths to avoid injuring them and especially they don't kill them. If an MP kills a soldier, he will almost certainly be brought to trial; there will be hell to pay. And so it should be for civilian police and civilians.
The Ferguson grand jury verdict once again affirms that, should a person not immediately follow an officer's directive or should the officer fear being scratched by someone, the officer has the right to kill that person. That is completely upside-down.
Firstly, decades of statistics show that being a police officer is far safer than most other jobs. How do I know that? I worked for a major U.S. city's police department for years. Not as a cop but as a software developer. I worked with their department of statistics and I spent time with their researchers and analysts.
Nonetheless, being a police officer involves getting up in peoples' faces sometimes. Barroom scenes come to mind; there is a segment of the male population who think a good fight on Saturday night is a fun time.
There was a day when police/sheriffs accepted that they might occasionally get hurt as part of their job. But police getting killed on the job has always been a statistical rarity. Most policemen who remain in a department retire early and then die of heart attacks and cancer, just as non-police do. When police unions moan and weep about how dangerous their job is, they're almost always politicking for a raise. Fact is, their lives are safer than yours or mine. Most officers, in their careers, never draw their sidearm at all for a criminal incident.
There was a day when civilian police accepted the occasional tussle as part of the job. But more and more frequently police have adopted a "zero-tolerance" stance - if a perpetrator threatens them in any manner whatsoever then the police feel justified in using maximal/deadly force. This is militarization - the citizen is the enemy and to be given no quarter; a policeman's life is priceless - a civilian's life is worthless. This is wrong, wrong, wrong.
Police/sheriff/authorities should be held to a higher level of behavior than ordinary citizens, not a lower one. Certainly Darren Wilson was in for a rumble when Michael Brown turned on him. Certainly he faced injury. After all, Brown was a bigger man and, as every child knows, the big guy usually wins.
But was officer Wilson's back against the wall? Between the time he directed Brown to get out of the road until (and even after) he drew his gun he had hundreds of non-lethal options, including leaving the scene. This incident dramatically and fatally demonstrates how incompetent and poorly prepared Darren Wilson was to be a police officer. He should never again be allowed a position of policing responsibility.
At the beginning I said "This isn't just about race...", so what does race bring to it? It makes it easier to stereotype the people involved.
It would have been just as much a crime were Michael Brown a white man. I, because of officer Wilson's and others' bad behavior, fear being killed by out-of-control police.
Just because you end all of your posts now with "don't hate" doesn't mean we don't know who the hell you are. It might fool the noobs but us long-timers know you're one of the biggest haters on here. You'd ecstatically scream "Please, don't hate" every time you pulled the trigger on your AR15 because you'd jizz your pants since you "legally" got to kill a nigger. You make me sick and I see what you do here. All of your words are just feigned bullshit and it reeks.
Physical confrontations without the use of an alternate weapon often boil down to wrestling matches which can quickly become a pulled gun or a struggle for an officer's gun
It doesn't even take a physical struggle. The cops are so edgy/trigger happy it's nuts. I am a white university professor, live in a predominantly white community, and these "guardians of the peace" have their hand on the gun half the time they talk to me, and unholstered a gun a few times during routine traffic stops. Not to mention very aggressive conversational tone.
The last time a cop got shot in my town was over a decade ago. So whatever their reason for acting like aggressive goons, it's not the concern for their safety.
Sometimes people don't take you seriously and won't change their ways until you start breaking some shit. What does everyone say about bullies? Eventually if you stand up to them and whip their ass for once, they'll leave you the hell alone and go on to easier pickings. Don't act like this is all bullshit either, those crying about this are the first ones to stand up and want to exercise their second amendment rights. They'll get out all of those precious 4 boxes and open em up. Well obviously the Jury box didn't satisfy their desires and they've just opened up the Ammo box instead since, ya know, the cops opened that one years ago. Why is it ok when the white rednecks open theirs but it's Armageddon when the "niggers" do it? I live in the South. This is what I get to hear all day. The poor folks are finally standing up to the bullies and all the white folks are locking the doors and hiding their daughters. It's pathetic.
The witnesses lied. The witnesses are responsible for most of what is going on.
Enough with this left/right villain worship bullshit.
The axis we need to be using is the authoritarian/non-authoritarian divide, the one from scientific literature, which does a much better job in dividing the heroes from the villains on each side, and separates crappy places to live from good ones.
Whenever you have a manipulative leadership without conscience that knows how to pander to an easily outraged following that will be loyal almost without limit, bad things happen.
We need to do what we can to stop these assholes from taking control of anything they can lay their hands on, whether it's the police force, social justice, government office, and especially our workplaces.
The officer said he aimed at Michael's head and shot him for the last time. It's interesting because all arguments I've seen were that police cannot aim to maim as it's impossible. If one can hit a head one should be able to hit another body part- no?
Preach on brotha! I hate it when I have too many perspectives to choose from!
They need to burn the expensive parts of town. And IEDs - that'd put a new spin on he same old shit. Little IRA magic for these militarized pigs. They want a war? Ok then.
you should read a little about how grand juries work.
Just read the first few pages. Trust me, it's worth a few minutes of your time.
today everyone on the internet got their law degrees.
RE: The last time a cop got shot in my town was over a decade ago.
AND: So whatever their reason for acting like aggressive goons, it's not the concern for their safety.
Like many University professors, and most people, you have reversed cause and effect.
No, this is not a tiger-rock scenario. An aggressive posture, backed up by legal and physical force, is in fact an effective deterrent to having your side killed.
Compare: Vietnam vs. Iraq
There are plenty of places people can argue over this and call each other racists or whatever. This is a tech site. People of different political views get along just fine in IT. You can tell true techies when you have a feminist/communist and you have a tea party nazi screaming at people and practically drooling because they agree on a technology solution. You guys can go hate on each other all over the place. Lets just hate each other over technical stuff!.
Neither do I.
Isn't it sad how in these situations the parents always seem to say "He was a good boy."
How would this have been different with good parenting? you know, like tell him to pull his damn pants up, tuck his shirt in, and get a damn job and do the right thing?
saying he was a good boy doesn't make it so. stealing cigars and assaulting a someone in a convenience store does show him to be scum. I get that they lost their son but then didn't they really lose him when they decided not to teach him to be a respectable citizen?
Transcripts and additional evidence: http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2014/11/us/ferguson-grand-jury-docs/index.html
I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it by not dying. - Woody Allen
Our cops need to quit being pussies. The best (from a technical standpoint) cops I've ever met were the Japanese Police. The time frame is 1997 so things may be different now. They did not carry sidearms. I do believe they had a rifles and such in the trunk, but all they carried on their persons was a night stick. That is all they needed. While American cops sit around the station getting fat on donuts, JPs are getting blackbelts. They are real ninjas. They do not need a gun to deal with you. The guy (cause that's all I ever saw, don't know if they have women JPs) would tell you ONE time to do something and if you weren't steppin, you unexpectedly found your ass on the ground, and if you twitched the wrong way, you got an ass beating with the stick. The overall point is, you took that ass beating, but you were alive unlike here you end up shot even while handcuffed (not claiming this happened in this case!). The over riding theme was, as a soldier (Army, Torii Station), I'd give the MPs/SPs bullshit all the time, but you DID NOT fuck with the JPs. They make Marines look like cry babies.
Now that you put it that way, I would add that it makes sense why US police seem to opt for lethal force. When you have a gun, you can be reckless. In the same way that George Zimmerman felt able to stalk a kid who was much bigger than him. He had a gun, so he could take more risks with himself. Except that when cops (or Zimmerman) take risks with themselves, they are also taking risks with the lives of the people they are confronting. And that is the really unacceptable bit.
In the UK (and many other countries), the police do not have guns, therefore they have to take rather more care in dealing with potentially dangerous situations. People dying in police confrontations is incredibly rare in the UK, in part because the police do not believe they are outmatching their targets. Therefore, they will avoid escalating any situation until they know they can absolutely control it.
Whenever a policeman (or woman) resorts to firing his gun, especially against an unarmed person, then they have lost control, and many times, it is their fault that they have lost that control.
The grand jury is just as likely to be corrupt, and/or incompetent, and/or prejudiced, as the rest of the people involved with, and directed by, the systemically flawed justice system we have today. In addition, even assuming 100% competence on their part, the data that reached them can be (and often is) washed to provide a particular desired outcome.
The only takeaway I get from all this noise is that we'd be somewhat better off if police officers wore tamper-resistant AV recording gear when on duty (and in any jurisdiction that assigns them 24/7 authority, on duty or not, they should be wearing those cameras 24/7 as well. Personally, I think 24/7 authority is also a Very Bad Idea.)
There is no question that some individual police officers, and some groups of police, are corrupt. Given the seriousness of the authority and responsibility assigned to them, and their ability to ruin lives and families in a heartbeat, letting them run loose without any independent oversight seems like a very serious mistake to me, particularly now that monitoring their activities is well within the bounds of technical feasibility.
A bad cop is a horrible thing. It's also long past time for the blue wall of silence to creep its slimy ass into the black hole of history to join with some of humanity's other bottom-feeder behaviors.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
As far as I know, the American police used to use a lot more blunt force -- flashlights, billy clubs, night sticks, beavertail saps, sap gloves -- to subdue people.
Not sure when and where this was. When I was a kid it was perfectly acceptable for a cop to shoot you dead if you were running away and suspected of a felony. Of course once you are dead everybody only has the cop's word that you were suspected of a felony. So as a white kid, I had "the talk" about never ever running from a cop. (Non-white kids of course had to balance the danger of running with the danger of not running).
Yeah! Justice prevails! Instead of idiot, moron, criminal democrat, mob rule!
It's about a 6'4" 250lb trying to overrun a physically smaller cop. Look at Wilson, no muscle, weak shape. He didn't stood a chance against brown without a gun. Here, the gun is merely an equalizer of force.
The hit is taken by the store owners and their landlords. [Insurance usually has escape clauses for riots.]
Just heard on the news that more than half of the stores destroyed last night in Fergusun were minority owned, too. (I think it was actually "black owned" but I'm not sure.)
IMHO the main point of the burning is so that, once the stores have been looted, the evidence of who did it is largely destroyed. Video survelience tapes, fingerprints, serial number records, ...
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Yes, just like the time cars were burned and businesses ransacked during a riot.... over a football game being lost. Or pumpkins at a fall festival. Or a child-rapist abetting coach being fired.
Frankly, white people have rioted over multiple pointless causes in the past two years.
Think about that for a minute.
Then compare to the anger they are feeling over a LEO NOT going to trial as he should for shooting an unarmed teenager.
So yeah. Let's see, beloved coach that abetted child rapes vs a constant trend of outright murders of black people... which seems more justified to riot about?
I... don't.... care..... !
This is not PBS/news.com.au/the sun/The today show/60 minutes/whatever traditional news source you care to mention.
I want TECH news... NERD news... not general stuff that may be world-news-making but completely IRRELEVANT to this audience.
Dice... fuck off with you continual slashvertisements and poor editorial standards.
I've finally had enough. My UID can go stale because you will not see me again...
Direct action against a failed justice system would mean attacking the courts themselves, not some random shop owner.
There was a day when civilian police accepted the occasional tussle as part of the job.
and they dished out lots of beatings to the pieces of crap that deserved it. Can't have that in today's politically correct world. Leaving the scene...yeah..cops should leave the scene when confronted by criminals. What damn planet are you from? Yesterday's looting would be common place if that was the norm.
It is also why the UK has one of the highest violent crime rates in the western world because the criminals know that they can get away with lots of shit until a SWAT team is called in. They DO have guns and are just as trigger happy if not more so than US cops. IIRC, they shot some guy with a backpack in the tube because they thought he was a terrorist or something.
It's OK to try and harm someone just because they are wearing a badge and talking to you?
Equally disgusting...
Because that's what the physical evidence, and now a grand jury who had ALL the facts, said.
What words were yelled out of the officer's mouth, at the boy. I can imagine that they certainly were not polite and provoking to a teenager. Perhaps the words nigger and thief, fxxker, bxxtard, mother-xxxxxx were yelled at him. This exchange between the boy who was outside of the police car, and the policeman who had the car for protection was not part of the evidence. But the population knows, and that is the reason for that rioting. Second point. The policeman did not follow the rules. You have to wait for your backup. I watched his telling of his story. Body language tells me a lot. He was guilty in face and body expression, and did not show being upset at the loss of life. "I was doing my job". Really
What a bunch of fucking hypocrites!
When the "terrorist" attacked the World Trade Center, did President Bush called for claim and peaceful demonstrations?
No fucking way! Americans wanted blood! Someone had to pay for this... anyone, Iraq will do. What? Who cares that they had nothing to do with the attacks.
Please give me a moment in history when Americans died and our response was a peaceful protest or our leaders called for a peaceful protest...PLEASE.
The only time Americans or America calls for peaceful demonstrations is when they are the wrong wrongdoers... Especially when dealing with the Black problem.
We understand that another one of you Blacks is dead from a white who will not be held responsible and you all are upset... we get that. Why don't ya'll sit peacefully, holding hands and singing We Shall Overcome until ya'll feel better.
Fuck that. Let them be Americans! Maybe when you get tired of them behaving like Americans you'll respect them as one.
When the grand jury verdict came in, I distinctly recall seeing and hearing the Brown father hollar :
BURN IT DOWN, BURN IT ALL DOWN ! ! !
Oddly though, the Medical Examiner, who normally takes photos of the deceased, did not take photos of Brown. His/her reason? The battery was flat on his/her camera.
Sometimes these things happen, but it strikes me as a little strange that he/she didn't have a spare battery, spare camera, or even a camera phone... and presumably didn't ask if anyone else at the scene had one either. Thus leaving a _slight_ evidence gap... which someone far more suspicious than myself might suggest is the kind of gap you need if you want to [ahem] massage the facts after the event.
First off, the camera phone almost certainly would not be acceptable for the ME's use here--do you really want to imagine the results of any leaks of autopsy photos? This is also why borrowed cameras of any type are a no-go.
Secondly, the lack of a spare battery? On the whole, outside of big cities ME's offices are so poorly funded it ought to be notorious. Because of the security and privacy issues, it's got to be an office camera. Because of this, odds are depressingly good that many Medical Examiners' officers have only got one camera, which was probably either donated by somebody or bought cheap, and unless it either uses a standard sized battery or came one then there are no spare batteries.
The gap isn't desirable in the least, but neither is the risk of leaks. Funding MEs better, and taking steps to ensure this can't easily be a problem, is the ideal course here.
Someone did manage to find a working camera to get photos of Darren Wilson's injuries though. Wilson has said that he had been hit twice by Brown and was of the opinion that a third punch "could be fatal if he hit me right". IMHO his injuries don't look... well, they're practically invisible, let's be honest! That's not to say he wasn't in a compromised position and felt in fear of his life, but I'm not completely convinced he was in any danger of being punched to death.
Punching somebody to death is actually disturbingly easy to do by accident, and one of the reasons trained fighters can be wary of untrained people in the ring--part of the training is actually to ensure you know how to use appropriate force. Blunt force, it turns out, is a blunt force solution with all that implies.
Injuries caused by blunt force, meanwhile, tend to take a while to 'blossom'--and I've known people who showed absolutely no sign externally for over a day, even when it was a rather significant injury. This is why it's actually not that weird for somebody to have what looks like it ought to have been a painful bruise to get, without a clue how they got it--and why you should never take the lack of external bruising or swelling as proof against if somebody thinks they may have a broken bone. (My aunt ended up walking on a broken leg for a day precisely because my grandmother made that mistake.)
(That's why the Koreans were on the roofs of their stores with guns during the Rodney King post-verdict activities in Los Angeles.)
This happened again (not sure about Koreans specifically), but in case you didn't see, the stores that didn't get looted were being protected by groups of store owners and friends armed with AR-15's. Pic: http://www.libertynews.com/201...
Far too many cops used to use their blunt force instruments in ways that would permanently harm - usually blows to the head.
Cops, especially in America, have always been excessive in use of force. Some police depts in other countries have toned it down a LOT but many haven't and it seems that the American ones are at the back of the pack among the G20 nations.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body