Ferguson, Missouri

Ed Ropple wrote:
SixteenBlue wrote:

If you're going to make this stuff up, why add extra "facts" that are disproven by every other account? Why not just tweak the one detail you want to fabricate?

Are you familiar with the Big Lie?

I am now. This doesn't seem big enough to be that though. But yeah, I see your point.

This is the Fox News thing, keep on saying it because your follows don't look at any other new source (cause they are liberal) then complain that the other news sources are not reporting the "real" (Fox News) story. I keep on seeing these news reports referencing some x-ray - which is obviously false because it is illegal to release medical records - the hospital wouldn't do it to the media - and not to the police without a warrant.

This all just takes away from the point that he was still unarmed, had his hands in the air, and was informing the officer that he was unarmed.

Valmorian wrote:

I wonder what will happen if it turns out that the cop involved didn't suffer any significant injuries at all?

They'll make sure he did, one way or another.

SixteenBlue wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:
SixteenBlue wrote:

I think that's asking a lot for someone to be that calm and collected to realize when they can stop shooting, when they're shooting because they believe their life is in danger.

Aren't we supposed to be training our police officers to do just that? Remain calm and in control in stressful and potentially life-threatening situations so that they can respond more effectively than a random citizen might?

Sure, but even that has reasonable limits I think. I imagine if a random citizen had to shoot someone for their own safety they'd be rattled for a long time. Expecting a cop to shave an extra couple seconds off time spent shooting in that situation still seems a lot to ask.

Plus I think all of this is why shoot to incapacitate doesn't make sense. Once they shoot, they're shooting to kill.

But a random citizen is going to face actual consequences for shooting someone, let alone killing them. They're going to be arrested. There's going to be a trial.

There are no consequences for police. The "they feared their life was in danger" excuse let's them walk away from all but the most egregious uses of force. That alone means that we should be expecting a hell of a lot more out of police in exchange for their power to straight out kill someone.

That Fox report is just depressing. Reporting hearsay as fact and then spinning it into a full-blown story of just a poor helpless cop trying to defend himself... I think I'm going to be sick.

I heard that Brown beat Wilson to death, and then Jesus came down from heaven, brought Wilson back to life, and shot Brown with Wilson's gun.

Of course, being a Muslim looking person that took a cops gun away from him and used it to kill someone, Jesus is now in Guantanamo Bay.

Yea not really buying this shoot to kill argument.

The more this is accepted by the public as reasonable the more its ok to shoot off an excessive amount of rounds vs downing your target.

Without getting into theory crafting sure I can understand if the person was armed with a gun. Even if you down them and they are near or still have their gun the officer could be in danger.

Instead we have a guy who was fleeing and a guy wielding a knife. I think the combined shots fired were 20? In both situations both people could be in hospital in intensive care. They are dead.

God forbid an actual dangerous situation erupts between the protesters and cops as they are liable to mow down half the crowd with weapons they probably shouldn't even have.

Flintheart Glomgold wrote:

This all just takes away from the point that he was still unarmed, had his hands in the air, and was informing the officer that he was unarmed.

That's just liberal propaganda. We all know he was a hulking 7-foot thug with twenty handguns stuffed in his baggy-panted waistband and shooting black lightning from his tesla coil dreadlocks.

Edit: serious response: it's a genuine tragedy that there's no recording of the incident to prove whether the multiple witnesses at the time are telling the truth, or whether the police are telling the truth.

jowner wrote:

The more this is accepted by the public as reasonable the more its ok to shoot off an excessive amount of rounds vs downing your target.

I don't agree at all. My first response was (and it's still my view) that they should've used non-lethal force before going to the gun. The question isn't "how many bullets should they have fired?" it's "should they have fired at all?". Once the decision is made, I don't care about the number of bullets, I care they decided to shoot at all.

Farscry wrote:

That's just liberal propaganda. We all know he was a hulking 7-foot thug with twenty handguns stuffed in his baggy-panted waistband and shooting black lightning from his tesla coil dreadlocks.

They should have said tesla coil dreadlocks from the beginning - everyone understands that a pistol was just a desperation move then.

SixteenBlue wrote:
jowner wrote:

The more this is accepted by the public as reasonable the more its ok to shoot off an excessive amount of rounds vs downing your target.

I don't agree at all. My first response was (and it's still my view) that they should've used non-lethal force before going to the gun. The question isn't "how many bullets should they have fired?" it's "should they have fired at all?". Once the decision is made, I don't care about the number of bullets, I care they decided to shoot at all.

So someone else has already made the claim handguns are not exactly the most accurate weapons but you don't mind how many shots are fired?

I just dont buy the its a charged/stressful/adrenaline driven situation and mistakes will happen.

This is their exact job and training. If your going to unholster your weapon in a public place and shoot off 7 rounds you need to be 100% accountable to justify every single one.

You don't get a 5-6-7 shot because your adrenaline was running high. If thats so its gross incompetence in the training and the expectations of how police should act.

I'm not at all saying "mistakes will happen." I'm saying shooting was a mistake. A horrible mistake that shouldn't happen. Once that mistake was made, shooting as many times as they did is not a mistake. It's very likely policy, as Yonder (IIRC) has already explained in detail.

You don't buy these arguments because they're not the ones being made.

FSeven wrote:
SallyNasty wrote:

I have always really liked Al Sharpton. A divisive figure to be sure, but I consider him a voice for progress.

Same here. White folks love to hang their hat on the Tawana Brawley case and turn a blind eye to the national attention he has brought on some very controversial cases which otherwise would have gone ignored, most recently of which was Trayvon Martin.

Probably some black people also consider it reprehensible to press a young girl into ruining people's lives with fabricated rape charges.

Yonder wrote:

I heard that Brown beat Wilson to death, and then Jesus came down from heaven, brought Wilson back to life, and shot Brown with Wilson's gun.

Of course, being a Muslim looking person that took a cops gun away from him and used it to kill someone, Jesus is now in Guantanamo Bay.

I love this.

SixteenBlue wrote:

I'm not at all saying "mistakes will happen." I'm saying shooting was a mistake. A horrible mistake that shouldn't happen. Once that mistake was made, shooting as many times as they did is not a mistake. It's very likely policy, as Yonder (IIRC) has already explained in detail.

You don't buy these arguments because they're not the ones being made.

Sorry let me clarify my argument.

The fact that this is the policy and that 7 shots in one incident and 13 in another is part of the larger problem that makes these police think like they are in a warzone.

Im for police protecting themselves. I'm against when its apparently clouding their judgement as to whats reasonable force to use. Even if were going to pretend that this police force is not blatantly racist they obviously have a use of force problem that could still end very tragically every night there are protests.

jowner wrote:

Im for police protecting themselves. I'm against when its apparently clouding their judgement as to whats reasonable force to use. Even if were going to pretend that this police force is not blatantly racist they obviously have a use of force problem that could still end very tragically every night there are protests.

I 100% agree with this.

NormanTheIntern wrote:
FSeven wrote:
SallyNasty wrote:

I have always really liked Al Sharpton. A divisive figure to be sure, but I consider him a voice for progress.

Same here. White folks love to hang their hat on the Tawana Brawley case and turn a blind eye to the national attention he has brought on some very controversial cases which otherwise would have gone ignored, most recently of which was Trayvon Martin.

Probably some black people also consider it reprehensible to press a young girl into ruining people's lives with fabricated rape charges.

And?

Maybe some black people understand how something like that spun out of control in the racial climate of New York at the time.. It is white folks that want to define Sharpton by that one incident, ignoring everything else. He came to Ferguson and provided a positive message about peace and power through the vote. The statistic that has been making the rounds about the low voter turnout in Ferguson is what he brought up in a speech at one of the churches in Ferguson.

Most police departments have rules on when to apply force - I'm guessing in Ferguson they didn't (they didn't even have a means to record officer complaints). My understanding from my limited law enforcement friends is that if a man is unarmed you are trained not to use a gun - instead use pepper spray or a Tazer. One of the first thing that I learned in firearms training (I no longer own firearms but I grew up with them and have owned several) is that you never point your weapon at someone unless you are prepared to use it and you are not prepared to use it unless you understand the consequences. This kind of training seems lacking on this police force.

Chairman_Mao wrote:
Valmorian wrote:

I wonder what will happen if it turns out that the cop involved didn't suffer any significant injuries at all?

They'll make sure he did, one way or another.

This post completely encapsulates why the police refusing to release details of the incident was a terrible decision. Whatever information comes out now will be assumed to be a lie.

Flintheart Glomgold wrote:

One of the first thing that I learned in firearms training (I no longer own firearms but I grew up with them and have owned several) is that you never point your weapon at someone unless you are prepared to use it and you are not prepared to use it unless you understand the consequences. This kind of training seems lacking on this police force.

Yeah... the number of videos of police officers striding around pointing semi-automatic rifles at people's chests is pretty illuminating at how reckless, foolish, and violent some of these people are.

It's not just cops. Anyone properly taught gun-safety was taught this. I was taught that if you're aiming at ANYTHING, it needs to end up in the freezer. We had a house-rule enforcing this. If you shot it, you ate it. Which is why my brother had to eat a raven and a squirrel, and nearly had to eat a neighbor's cat he winged accidentally shooting a spruce hen (the cat lived).

My elder son learned a similar rule in the Army (not eating your targets, but not aiming at it unless you're prepared for it to be dead).

These over-amped jerks need a sitdown and a wise-up.

Aren't we supposed to be training our police officers to do just that? Remain calm and in control in stressful and potentially life-threatening situations so that they can respond more effectively than a random citizen might?

Well, that's the ideal, but that kind of thing is really hard to live up to in the moment.

Like it or not, we still have to hire humans to do policing, and they're not always going to get it right, even when they're trying hard to do the right thing. What may seem obvious in hindsight often doesn't when you're making decisions within a half-second or so... that becomes almost pure reflex, and reflexes sometimes misfire.

Lots and lots of training can help a great deal, but training is very expensive.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

Police training is supposed to be shooting to incapacitate. It just so happens that the best method for this is to shoot center mass. However when the target goes down, they are supposed to stop shooting. Cops are not allowed, for instance, to saunter over to a downed suspect and deliver a coup de grâce with a bullet to the head, even if they had been "shooting to kill" seconds earlier.

What about the snappy one-liner? That's supposed to be the last thing a perp hears.

Yonder wrote:

I heard that Brown beat Wilson to death, and then Jesus came down from heaven, brought Wilson back to life, and shot Brown with Wilson's gun.

Of course, being a Muslim looking person that took a cops gun away from him and used it to kill someone, Jesus is now in Guantanamo Bay.

My best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl who saw Wilson pass out at 31 Flavors last night. I guess it's pretty serious.

Swollen face, X-rays done, no broken eye socket.

Be forewarned, video contains Nancy Grace.

Flintheart Glomgold wrote:

I worries me that a police officer can shoot anyone and just say, "he tried to grab my gun." I find it hard to believe that anyone would reach for an officer's weapon unless it was pointed at them. If the gun is buttoned down it would very difficult to get out of the holster.

I saw a quote on Metafilter that I feel is apt: "he tried to grab my gun" is the "my dog ate my homework" of law enforcement officers.

I deliberately avoided the news and livestreams last night, since I felt like I needed the space. I was getting a little uncomfortable about the voyeuristic nature of the thing--but, then, I can step away from it and they can't. And I still think it's important to watch some of what's happening on the ground, given that's one of the few counterviews to the official police statements.

Fortunately, it looks like the residents and protesters has a quiet night too, so I feel a little better about it.

The Reddit live feed is probably the best collated collection of incoming information, with links to other stuff.

Edit: If I have time, I may put together some links to the positive stuff that has been happening in Ferguson, despite all this.

So apparently there's a gofundme campaign for Darren Wilson:

IMAGE(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BvkkNP8CMAAnh63.jpg:large)

Um.

Hypatian wrote:

So apparently there's a gofundme campaign for Darren Wilson:

IMAGE(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BvkkNP8CMAAnh63.jpg:large)

Um.

*infinite face palms*

I hate that I struggle to make ends meet and these racist pieces of sh*t have money to burn.