Michael Brown Shooting and Aftermath

[AthenaAwakened]

Some things bear repeating.

I think both Johnson and the unnamed officer are "telling fascinating stories," as my father used to say.

They aren't lies, because there are facts in each and sometimes those facts actually agree, but each man is trying to capture a narrative, not just a recitation of events but a moral high ground. And each man is trying so hard, that the stories take on outlandish characteristics that mesmerize and tantalize and glamorize but don't realize the actual events.

but here's the thing

The officer is the trained professional. He is the one we the citizenry trust with deadly force. He has a greater burden for his behavior, far greater than the average citizen, far greater than Brown or Johnson.

Michael Brown, I am sure was no angel
The officer was no saint

But one had power the other lacked, and the one with the power is on leave and the one without is dead, shot multiple times.

Agendas aside, justice demands that young man's death be answered for.

Some will not agree. Some will never think of Michael Brown as a young man, but will dehumanize him because, well, that's what they do. But that's not Michael Brown's fault. That is something broken in them.

Some will make Michael Brown into a martyr and the officer into Satan. While I think the officer should be held responsible for the life he took, I don't think him Satan, just wrong. in many ways he has lost much too, but he is still alive to know what he lost.

we live in a country with a history that will color all we see. Until we, all of us, own that history, many more Michael Browns will die. Many more officers will be cursed.

Is that what you want?

 

[Trausti]

"Gentle giant."

Is this your description or are you trying to put words in the mouths of police skeptics?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/08/13/1321206/-Gentle-Giant-Michael-Brown#

 

[Nice Squirrel]

Is this your description or are you trying to put words in the mouths of police skeptics?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/08/13/1321206/-Gentle-Giant-Michael-Brown#

Okay, you get a pass.

-----
So according to police it looks like Brown was involved in the attempted Swisher Sweets heist. (Master criminal foiled, they would have sold them for at least $5.00 --possibly $7.50 on the street.) His accomplice has not been arrested (pending more evidence I assume).

However, in their report, the police forget to mention much about the shooting. Hmmm. Almost as if they are trying to shift the conversation from their boo-boo to master criminal Brown, the baddest man in the whole damn town, badder than ol' King Kong and meaner than a junkyard dog.

Shooting? What shooting?

 

[Trausti]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/08/13/1321206/-Gentle-Giant-Michael-Brown#

Okay, you get a pass.

-----
So according to police it looks like Brown was involved in the attempted Swisher Sweets heist. (Master criminal foiled, they would have sold them for at least $5.00 --possibly $7.50 on the street.) His accomplice has not been arrested (pending more evidence I assume).

However, in their report, the police forget to mention much about the shooting. Hmmm. Almost as if they are trying to shift the conversation from their boo-boo to master criminal Brown, the baddest man in the whole damn town, badder than ol' King Kong and meaner than a junkyard dog.

Shooting? What shooting?

Eh, I imagine a report of the shooting is not complete, e.g., autopsy, ballistics. But this new bit of info (likely released at the same time as the officer's name to temper the rush-to-judgment crowd) shows that the police officer did not just randomly find Brown and his friend to harass them. The little guy being pushed by Brown (kinda feel sorry for the little guy) presumably had enough contact with Brown to give a good suspect description. That description was given to the officer who had been responding to a different call. Dorian Johnson, the person with Brown at the store who claims to have witnessed the shooting, curiously omitted these antecedent facts.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Okay, you get a pass.

-----
So according to police it looks like Brown was involved in the attempted Swisher Sweets heist. (Master criminal foiled, they would have sold them for at least $5.00 --possibly $7.50 on the street.) His accomplice has not been arrested (pending more evidence I assume).

However, in their report, the police forget to mention much about the shooting. Hmmm. Almost as if they are trying to shift the conversation from their boo-boo to master criminal Brown, the baddest man in the whole damn town, badder than ol' King Kong and meaner than a junkyard dog.

Shooting? What shooting?

Eh, I imagine a report of the shooting is not complete, e.g., autopsy, ballistics. But this new bit of info (likely released at the same time as the officer's name to temper the rush-to-judgment crowd) shows that the police officer did not just randomly find Brown and his friend to harass them. The little guy being pushed by Brown (kinda feel sorry for the little guy) presumably had enough contact with Brown to give a good suspect description. That description was given to the officer who had been responding to a different call. Dorian Johnson, the person with Brown at the store who claims to have witnessed the shooting, curiously omitted these antecedent facts.

and?

 

[Trausti]

Eh, I imagine a report of the shooting is not complete, e.g., autopsy, ballistics. But this new bit of info (likely released at the same time as the officer's name to temper the rush-to-judgment crowd) shows that the police officer did not just randomly find Brown and his friend to harass them. The little guy being pushed by Brown (kinda feel sorry for the little guy) presumably had enough contact with Brown to give a good suspect description. That description was given to the officer who had been responding to a different call. Dorian Johnson, the person with Brown at the store who claims to have witnessed the shooting, curiously omitted these antecedent facts.

and?

And what? Simply pointing out a credibility issue.

 

[doubtingt]

This is a case of the tail wagging the dog. The rate of searches is disproportionate and the rate of stops is disproportionate.

In Ferguson, whites without warrants against them are 25% MORE LIKELY to be searched than blacks without warrants against them. So, the searches disproportionately target whites. As for number of stops, the vast majority of "extra" stops (those that exceed what is predicted by % of the population) are shown as due to "license", meaning that the cops run the plate and it is either not registered, registered to a different car, or has warrants against it due to unpaid violations. IOW, things that cops have the least discretion in whether they pull the car over, and things involving objective evidence of criminal wrong doing. And again, the cops are required to arrest for outstanding warrants, the majority of arrests list "warrants" as the sole reason, and the majority of searches list "incident to arrest" as the reason for the search, meaning that the search was part of the standard procedure that occurs when a person is arrested. If the greater stops were due largely due to race, then the cops would find greater subjective excuses to search black once stopped (meaning things other than objective existence of warrants that require and arrests). Yet the data show just the opposite, that the cops find more non-warrant excuses for searching whites.

Certainly that's not data, but a brief search for rates of drug use across the country would show that consumption is relatively proportionate for various races, whereas the rates of stops, searches, arrests, and incarcerations are decidedly disproportionate.

Drug use rates have zero relevance to the data at hand, since suspected drug use is not the reason for hardly any of the vehicle stops or searches in question. The disproportionate numbers come largely from stops due to improper license plates or warrants, and the majority of searches are just part of the person being arrested for an outstanding warrant.
If you want to change the discussion to searches of pedestrians in "stop and frisk" laws in NYC, then that is a whole different ball of wax. But even there, drug use rates are not highly relevant, because drug dealing is a more common target of enforcement and drug dealing is very far from proportionate among whites and blacks. Yet, there could very well be evidence of racial profiling in the stop and frisk data in NYC. I'm am only pointing out that the vehicle stop and search and arrest data offered by Toni and AA as "evidence" of racial profiling by Ferguson cops does not support that conclusion and is in fact inconsistent with that conclusion, because unless you have previously committed a crime for which you have an outstanding warrant, you are less likely to be searched when pulled over for any other reason.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Why do all these black people have all these warrants?

 

[Cobalt]

Why do all these black people have all these warrants?

Is that merely a rhetorical question?

 

[EricK]

Why do all these black people have all these warrants?

Is that merely a rhetorical question?

I think it's a multiple choice question:
a. racism
b. anything but racism

 

[rousseau]

Has anybody mentioned the problem of trusting people who are attracted to a career where they carry a gun, with guns, yet?

After everything I've seen in the media re: police violence over the past few years, I'm even a bit weary of police officers as a white, middle class male. I expect when they have a duty to follow some standard procedures, they'll do it the right way, but I also expect a lot of them are mindless enough to follow the command line protocol right down to unwarranted arrests and other violent behaviors.

Simply put, I don't think empathetic, peace loving people are often attracted to the police-force, and those are the exact types of people we need in a police force: those who can mitigate conflict, not cause more of it.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Is that merely a rhetorical question?

I think it's a multiple choice question:
a. racism
b. anything but racism

how do you define racism, Erick?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

"a mere witness?" witnesses tend to be important in courts of law.

He's got a point--witnesses normally don't lawyer up.



BTW, more has come out on this case. This wasn't a random stop, they had just strong-arm robbed a place. I still see no reason for shooting him while he was running away, though.

 

[Derec]

Why do all these black people have all these warrants?

Many bench warrants are for failure to appear for your court date.

By the way, I just heard a Michael Brown supporter (a guest on Al Sharpton's radio program - I was in the car and wanted to hear what the old racist fool was saying) say that despite the robbery he was still a "good kid" because, among other reasons, he graduated high school. Talk about setting the bar so low it's barely a threshold!

- - - Updated - - -

I still see no reason for shooting him while he was running away, though.

Agreed, if that's what happened.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

"a mere witness?" witnesses tend to be important in courts of law.

witnesses don't normally see things that become high profile and then get interviewed on national news.

He's got a point--witnesses normally don't lawyer up.



BTW, more has come out on this case.

I know Loren.

This wasn't a random stop, they had just strong-arm robbed a place. I still see no reason for shooting him while he was running away, though.

 

[Deepak]

In Ferguson, whites without warrants against them are 25% MORE LIKELY to be searched than blacks without warrants against them. So, the searches disproportionately target whites. As for number of stops, the vast majority of "extra" stops (those that exceed what is predicted by % of the population) are shown as due to "license", meaning that the cops run the plate and it is either not registered, registered to a different car, or has warrants against it due to unpaid violations. IOW, things that cops have the least discretion in whether they pull the car over, and things involving objective evidence of criminal wrong doing. And again, the cops are required to arrest for outstanding warrants, the majority of arrests list "warrants" as the sole reason, and the majority of searches list "incident to arrest" as the reason for the search, meaning that the search was part of the standard procedure that occurs when a person is arrested. If the greater stops were due largely due to race, then the cops would find greater subjective excuses to search black once stopped (meaning things other than objective existence of warrants that require and arrests). Yet the data show just the opposite, that the cops find more non-warrant excuses for searching whites.

Certainly that's not data, but a brief search for rates of drug use across the country would show that consumption is relatively proportionate for various races, whereas the rates of stops, searches, arrests, and incarcerations are decidedly disproportionate.

Drug use rates have zero relevance to the data at hand, since suspected drug use is not the reason for hardly any of the vehicle stops or searches in question. The disproportionate numbers come largely from stops due to improper license plates or warrants, and the majority of searches are just part of the person being arrested for an outstanding warrant.
If you want to change the discussion to searches of pedestrians in "stop and frisk" laws in NYC, then that is a whole different ball of wax. But even there, drug use rates are not highly relevant, because drug dealing is a more common target of enforcement and drug dealing is very far from proportionate among whites and blacks. Yet, there could very well be evidence of racial profiling in the stop and frisk data in NYC. I'm am only pointing out that the vehicle stop and search and arrest data offered by Toni and AA as "evidence" of racial profiling by Ferguson cops does not support that conclusion and is in fact inconsistent with that conclusion, because unless you have previously committed a crime for which you have an outstanding warrant, you are less likely to be searched when pulled over for any other reason.

I'm not sure if these numbers cleanly disaggregate - but I've done some back of the napkin calculations and discounting the 'license' stops the disparity index is still .44 and 1.36 respectively. Calculating searches per stop, while discounting arrests for warrants, I still figure about 6% and 9% respectively. Nor am I sure that your interpretation of the necessity is valid. That is to say, the police still have wide discretion whether to even run someone's plates. We have no assurances that the proportionality of the findings in a stop actually map to the broader populace. Nor do we have assurance that these figures account for false positives. In my own stop I'd surmise that I'd be listed under the 'license' category, even though in actuality there was no issue with my registration status.

But my point was a broader one than just the limited data on Ferguson traffic stops. Usage rates certainly are a valid metric when considering the broader subject of proportional rates of incarceration, and I'm fairly certain that users are arrested much more frequently than dealers (and do consider that the police are more likely to overcharge someone as a dealer than a user when arrested if at all possible). The calculus of warrants is inseparable from this reality.

 

[Deepak]

Has anybody mentioned the problem of trusting people who are attracted to a career where they carry a gun, with guns, yet?

After everything I've seen in the media re: police violence over the past few years, I'm even a bit weary of police officers as a white, middle class male. I expect when they have a duty to follow some standard procedures, they'll do it the right way, but I also expect a lot of them are mindless enough to follow the command line protocol right down to unwarranted arrests and other violent behaviors.

Simply put, I don't think empathetic, peace loving people are often attracted to the police-force, and those are the exact types of people we need in a police force: those who can mitigate conflict, not cause more of it.

I think we're all a little weary of them, but do be wary too

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Many bench warrants are for failure to appear for your court date.

and?

By the way, I just heard a Michael Brown supporter (a guest on Al Sharpton's radio program - I was in the car and wanted to hear what the old racist fool was saying) say that despite the robbery he was still a "good kid" because, among other reasons, he graduated high school. Talk about setting the bar so low it's barely a threshold!

and?

- - - Updated - - -

I still see no reason for shooting him while he was running away, though.

Agreed, if that's what happened.

are you hoping that it wasn't, Derec?

 

[prideandfall]

BTW, more has come out on this case. This wasn't a random stop, they had just strong-arm robbed a place. I still see no reason for shooting him while he was running away, though.

BTW, unsurprisingly you are completely wrong in just about every possible way.

1. after a week of silence the cops claim there is surveillance footage of a robbery of a box of cigars with someone who vaguely maybe looks like Brown, but there is no positive ID that it was even Brown at all.
2. the cop didn't know about this robbery in the first place and wasn't stopping Brown in connection with the robbery.
3. the robbery had nothing to do with the stop, was not in any remote way connected to it or any of the things that happened after, it's a completely unrelated snippet of victim tarnishing.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/15/us/missouri-teen-shooting/index.html

Ferguson, Missouri (CNN) -- The Ferguson police officer who shot Michael Brown didn't stop him because he was suspected in a recent robbery, but because he was "walking down the middle of the street blocking traffic," the city's police chief said Friday.

Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson told reporters the alleged "robbery does not relate to the initial contact between the officer and Michael Brown."

So why did Ferguson police decide to release surveillance video of the alleged convenience store Friday -- the same day that they named, six days after the shooting, the white police officer who fatally shot the African-American teenager -- if the two incidents are not related?

Jackson said he released the videotape "because the press asked for it," noting some in the media had filed Freedom of Information requests for the footage and that he couldn't withhold indefinitely. The chief added "we needed to release that at the same time we needed to release the name of the officer involved in the shooting," though he didn't elaborate more on why.

The flurry of information added more intrigue to a case that has spurred protests in Ferguson among those angry at the shooting of the 18-year-old Brown, and what they decry as a heavy-handed response by police afterward.

Earlier Friday, authorities had released documents identifying Brown as the "primary suspect" in the robbery of a convenience store that happened moments before he was killed.

The haul: a $48.99 box of cigars, according to the documents.

The documents claim Brown roughly handled a clerk trying to stop him before walking out of the store with the box of Swisher Sweets. Police also released surveillance video showing a man pushing aside a smaller one who seemingly tried to stop the larger man, who then departed the store.

relating to the guy who was with Brown at the time:

The documents released Friday name him as the second suspect in the convenience store robbery, but Jackson said Friday that he will not face any charges.

"We have determined that he committed no crime," Jackson said.

so... Brown and this other guy robbed a cigar store and then were immediately stopped by a cop for a totally unrelated reason, and the only living Primary Suspect is cleared of suspicion.
yeah, that totally legit and not at all like a panic-induced smear campaign.

 

[Jayjay]

BTW, unsurprisingly you are completely wrong in just about every possible way.

1. after a week of silence the cops claim there is surveillance footage of a robbery of a box of cigars with someone who vaguely maybe looks like Brown, but there is no positive ID that it was even Brown at all.
2. the cop didn't know about this robbery in the first place and wasn't stopping Brown in connection with the robbery.
3. the robbery had nothing to do with the stop, was not in any remote way connected to it or any of the things that happened after, it's a completely unrelated snippet of victim tarnishing.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/15/us/missouri-teen-shooting/index.html

Ferguson, Missouri (CNN) -- The Ferguson police officer who shot Michael Brown didn't stop him because he was suspected in a recent robbery, but because he was "walking down the middle of the street blocking traffic," the city's police chief said Friday.

Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson told reporters the alleged "robbery does not relate to the initial contact between the officer and Michael Brown."

So why did Ferguson police decide to release surveillance video of the alleged convenience store Friday -- the same day that they named, six days after the shooting, the white police officer who fatally shot the African-American teenager -- if the two incidents are not related?

Jackson said he released the videotape "because the press asked for it," noting some in the media had filed Freedom of Information requests for the footage and that he couldn't withhold indefinitely. The chief added "we needed to release that at the same time we needed to release the name of the officer involved in the shooting," though he didn't elaborate more on why.

The flurry of information added more intrigue to a case that has spurred protests in Ferguson among those angry at the shooting of the 18-year-old Brown, and what they decry as a heavy-handed response by police afterward.

Earlier Friday, authorities had released documents identifying Brown as the "primary suspect" in the robbery of a convenience store that happened moments before he was killed.

The haul: a $48.99 box of cigars, according to the documents.

The documents claim Brown roughly handled a clerk trying to stop him before walking out of the store with the box of Swisher Sweets. Police also released surveillance video showing a man pushing aside a smaller one who seemingly tried to stop the larger man, who then departed the store.

relating to the guy who was with Brown at the time:

The documents released Friday name him as the second suspect in the convenience store robbery, but Jackson said Friday that he will not face any charges.

"We have determined that he committed no crime," Jackson said.

so... Brown and this other guy robbed a cigar store and then were immediately stopped by a cop for a totally unrelated reason, and the only living Primary Suspect is cleared of suspicion.
yeah, that totally legit and not at all like a panic-induced smear campaign.

In the footage released about the incident, Brown hands a box of cigars to Dorian Johnson, but Johnson puts them back on the counter. So techniaclly, while he was at the store with Brown, his only crime would be to not actively intervene (which could be said about any of the other customers as well). He didn't steal anything or touch anyone so he's not charged.

As for lacking "positive ID", that's bullshit. The police report on the robbery specificly identifies brown. And even so, if we are to think it's not Brown who robbed the store, how is it that identical twins of Brown and his buddy Johnson just happened to rob a store nearby on the same day?