While we’re speculating, what do you think the decision of the Ferguson grand jury will be and why do you think they’re dragging their feet about arriving at it?
I think that the law probably dictates no indictment but the jury is worried about that and they’re trying to come up with some strategy for following the law while avoiding mob action.
I know that if I were a Ferguson police officer I’d be looking at the grand jury’s actions very closely.
Too late. The mob action began with the Ferguson PD. These guys were not good cops operating with some sort of idea about the community. They were idiots, who seemed to treat everyone like they had no right to be alive.
As far as the grand jury goes, the law seems to be way on the side of the discretion of the police officer, plus there were no charges submitted to the grand jury, just evidence. At the same time, you have a lot of witnesses who do not back up Wilson’s story at the critical moment–whether Brown charged him or whether Brown stopped, and surrendered. Wilson’s story is pretty far-fetched; yet lots of white people seem to be totally convinced that it isn’t because Brown and he fought, thus allowing a free headshot for every surrender, or something.
Who knows? Cops took down a guy in Walmart carrying a BB gun and they didn’t charged. In the end, nobody, white or black, who has a choice would elect to live around Darren Wilson. White people with a brain will do anything to move to a city and surround themselves with poor African-Americans rather than have to watch Darren Wilson waddle around with a gun and open his mouth.
No idea on the outcome, since we don’t have access to the evidence. But I thought a decision would be announced Friday of last week or Wednesday of this week to disrupt potential riots. Also, from the morning talk shows it appears that the complaint is that the grand jury is doing its job, whereas in other cases the grand jury is a controlled vehicle for the prosecution. Some liberals are not liberal.
PD,
That a police officer accused of a crime gets a better deal than the average citizen sounds like pretty fair criticism of the system to me.
The average citizen does not have a justification defense for the use of deadly force.
The average citizen surely deserves a grand jury that does its job, rather than one force-fed by the prosecution. That Wilson may be getting different treatment because he’s a cop is a pretty stunning indictment of the system.
Modulo, there appears to be plenty of forensic evidence that Brown reached into Wilson’s car, slugged him and tried to take the officer’s weapons. You seem to have no problem with that.
Also, we know that Brown was gettin’ his thug on shortly before he was killed. You don’t seem to have a problem with that, either.
OTOH, unless I’ve missed something I haven’t heard of Wilson having any other marks on his record. Strange that you’d feel safer with Brown than with Wilson.
The whole thing could have been avoided if Brown hadn’t decided to assault two people and attempt to snatch a policeman’s gun in a short span of time.
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TB, I’m pretty sure you’re a former LEO. What usually happens when someone attacks a LEO and goes for their gun?
I’m not sure what forensic evidence you’re talking about. Brown had a wound on his hand: that can show many things.
Regardless, you basically think that odds are an 18-year old black male without a criminal record is going to try to murder a cop for no reason. I don’t. I’m not trying to sell you on the idea that blacks are your equals. I’m not sure why you’re trying to push your racist nonsense on me.
We still don’t know if Brown has a criminal record, last I heard. We know he was roughing up someone in a store shortly before he was killed, and it’s been leaked (by the feds) that he had marijuana in his system, perhaps enough to impare his judgement.
Also, there was blood from Brown, and i believe fingerprints, in Wilson’s vehicle, as well as evidence of at least one round fired in the car.
You seem to believe that a man who had just assaulted someone wouldn’t conceive of assaulting anyone else. But what evidence do you have that Wilson was on some cop kill spree? Has something come out about his record that I’ve missed?
The racism postulates from you is typical. Never met a progressive who didn’t hate all non-leftist white people, ascribing to us all manner of questionable personality traits. Rarely meet one who doesn’t lead with that in every single argument.
“That Wilson may be getting different treatment because he’s a cop is a pretty stunning indictment of the system.”
I disagree with this assumption. Wilson is being investigated for a unique offense that depends upon his state of mind under the circumstances of the killing. The evidence of most crimes can be given to a Grand Jury in less than an hour. That’s because the cases are either built around proof of possession or physical observation of the assault or theft, state of mind is not relevant to either.
As Dan Abrams said on one of the Sunday morning shows yesterday, prosecutors often hand-off difficult cases to the grand jury to decide.
I don’t know if it’s too late to make a prediction, but I wonder if the signals are towards a lesser, compromise verdict, and then the question will be whether the prosecutor is willing to pursue lesser charges where the cost of the case might exceed the likelihood of success or any jail time, and whether a lesser charge makes any legal sense. There’s good reason to think the facts point to either second degree murder or nothing. There may need to be laws that are more directed to law enforcement.
@PD Shaw
The preferential treatment is color based, but the color is blue. It is difficult to get that through the racially tinged mindset. When you are going 95 mph in a 55 mph zone and are pulled over by a Florida State Trooper, asking “would it make a difference if I were a law enforcement officer” is the difference between a trip to jail and a “keep it under 70”.
(At one time boys and girls, the speed limit was 55 mph. Today, it would be equivalent to getting pulled over going 120 mph.)
There is a white cop in Colorado who just got charged with murdering his wife several years ago, and his fellow officers at the time helped cover it up. Years ago, carrying drop weapons and/or drugs was common.
TB, I had a buddy get pulled over on Alligator Alley doing about 140. I don’t think he went to jail, but did lose his license for many, many years.
@Icepick
The simple answer is to never let anybody get your weapon. If they try to take it, using deadly force should be justified. There is always the reasonable man test, but there is also the heat of battle defense.
The more complicated answer will take some backstory.
I was with the New Orleans Sheriff’s Office thirty years ago, and it was a different world. It was not like Cops, and Orleans Parish Prison (OPP) was not like Lockup. For me, it was not a calling or a lifetime dream. I was out of work, and a buddy talked me into applying. I was good at it, but it got boring. So, I joined the Marine Corps.
We were not Girl Scouts, and if you got out of line, we knocked you back into line. A man was expected to act like a man, and he was treated like a man. You never disrespect a man, but a bitch was treated like a bitch. You had to assess each situation in relation to the bigger picture. Small actions could have larger consequences, and these could be good or bad.
Today, law enforcement officers have been turned into Girl Scouts, and now, you have Girl Scouts with guns. They do not know how to interact with the community, and they are not allowed to interact with the community. I have not commented on this case because it does not make much sense.
Why is somebody making a stop from the vehicle? If it is that important, stop the vehicle, and get out. If it appears dangerous, do not get out and wait for backup. If somebody outside the vehicle is trying to take your weapon, drive off. That is just to start.
Thirty years ago, I would have not had a tricked out SUV. We would have had some used piece of sh*t with a great paint job. My solution would have been to ask him, “would you please do me a favor, and get out the street? I almost ran you over, and I don’t want to have to tell your mother that you are dead. She is going to be crying, and I do not like to see women cry. So, please get out of the street.”
If I did have to bring your ass in, I could also visit you, and depending upon how much of an asshole you were, I had rats to keep an eye on things. I could bring a world of misery down upon you, but the truth is that Michael Brown was not worth the trouble.
At the time, he would have been arrested, but assuming he had a public defender, he would have plead down the charge. He would have gotten a few years, but he would have served half at most. By the time the trial was over, he would never get transferred to the state DOC because of overcrowding. If his family had a little political pull, it would have been dropped to jaywalking.
The only reason to bring him in would be to harass him, but you need to know if he has been causing trouble. Does he have an arrest record? Has he been harassing people? If he is just an asshole, you do not want to send him to Parish Prison, and you do not need to kill him.
I’m curious to see how Wilson’s conduct is reviewed as a police procedural matter. I’ve got a problem with the number of shots he fired down the street, most of which missed. (In fact, all of the shots fired as Brown ran away missed.) Did he clearly see what was down range? Did he know who or what he was likely to hit if he missed? That SEEMS reckless to me as presented. And we’ve had three incidents in Orlando/Orange County in recent years where the police have gone all gun happy, putting others at risk.
In one, back in 2008, police converged on an apartment complex about two miles from where I now live. (I lived in another part of town completely at the time, but since this is my mother’s house and I grew up here, I know the area and tend to follow the news.) They were looking for a car thief. The found him, he panicked, jumped into a car and tried to speed out onto Silver Star Road. Allegedly he tried to run down an officer, and they opened fire. They popped off 137 rounds, and managed to kill him. They also shot Hell out of the complex, including shooting into a room that held an infant. Somehow the Florida Department of Law Enforcement found that the shooting was completely justified, which still seems like utter bullshit to me.
About a year ago (I don’t remember the details as clearly as I didn’t care about this case as much), police tracked some perp, I believe another car thief, to a parking garage near down town. When the perp fled in a car, a couple of officers had to jump out of the way. A third officer then proceeded to fire at the fleeing vehicle, which was well past him at that point, with an AR-15 (or similar weapon). He fired several shots out of the third or fourth story of a parking garage and didn’t even hit the vehicle. But those rounds did get down range. Thankfully no one was hit, but the officer has since been brought up on charges. I can’t remember if the charges are criminal or if they’re departmental in nature, but regardless he was found to have put the community at risk for shooting off his gun.
And a few months ago a man got thrown out of a club downtown and returned shortly thereafter with a pistol. Two police officers got involved and eventually started shooting at the man with the gun. Unfortunately one of the officers shot and killed a young woman at the club. I’m sure the officer who shot her feels terrible (he’s young, as I recall), but that’s still just horrible action by the police.
So I’m really interested in any review by the relevant authorities of Wilson’s actions as an LEO. I just can’t get over all the shots fired down a public street.
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Incidentally, as the DA’s statement made clear, shortly before the shooting Wilson had been assisting in a medical emergency with a 2 year-old. Seems awfully peculiar that he would go from that on to hunting someone down just for the fuck of it. I’ll not that Modulo didn’t mention that part either.