The Death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri

also: anonymous fingered the wrong guy

FOX News reporting, of course, that Brown did the robbery.

How could the Ferguson PD even know?

They left his body in the street for hours without collecting any evidence

FOX News: We mislead. You decide.

Voting might not mean much for local politics when city council positions and the like aren't full-time jobs, meaning you have to have a career that allows you the time to also serve on the city council. Voting is kind of moot when you get to pick between different people who do not have your interests in mind.

it doesn't matter if he stole a box of cigars or not

what matters is white cop murdered an unarmed black man

Except the (often unconscious) racist formula goes:

(black man = dangerous) + (theft = criminal) == dangerous criminal

And, of course, dangerous criminals may be shot on sight by the cops, who protect and serve us by shooting dangerous criminals on our behalf.

Has this been linked yet? http://grantland.com/features/ferguson-missouri-protest-michael-brown-murder-police/

The chant went strong for 30 seconds, until protesters grew weary of saying the same thing over and over again. And then, moments after the chant had died down, I heard glass break and the sound of a loosed gas canister.

“THIS IS NO LONGER A PEACEFUL PROTEST WHEN YOU TRY TO INJURE PEOPLE,” said the voice from the tank.

A man sitting near me was the first person I saw start to run. Then, suddenly, we were all running. I remember looking over my shoulder as my legs churned beneath me. The police were shooting flares and I didn’t want to get hit in the back. But I didn’t stop running, because I didn’t want the smoke to catch up. There was also the sound of weapons firing. And this siren. This terrible, terrible siren.

At some point, I fell. And, for a moment, I could feel the smoke in my lungs. The mix of the weapons firing and the smoke and the sirens froze me for a second, and then I got up to hide behind a tree. There were screams — “LET’S GO!” Some yelled at the cops: “Come lock me the fuck up!” “On the side of y’all car it says ‘to protect and serve’ and y’all ain’t protecting shit!” “There’s fucking kids out here and you throwing smoke bombs!”

Eventually, they’d pushed the majority of the crowd back to the nearest intersection. But most people weren’t leaving. And then the voice from the tank spoke again:

“RETURN TO YOUR VEHICLES AND RETURN TO YOUR HOMES, YOU MAY NO LONGER BE IN THE AREA. IT IS NO LONGER A PEACEFUL PROTEST. YOU ARE NOT PEACEFULLY ASSEMBLED. YOU MUST LEAVE OR BE SUBJECT TO ARREST.”

The more that voice from the tank spoke, the more agitated those that hung around became. And the less interested many were in following its orders.

“Y’all made this unpeaceful. That’s your fault. We was peaceful until y’all did that shit. Smoke bombs and people got their kids out here? Really?”

Reaching into my pocket for my phone, I realized that when I fell, I’d landed on it. It was done.

I wanted to leave, but I needed to send some type of message indicating that I was OK. I was at least an hour away from being anyplace where I could text or tweet.

As I searched for someone with a phone, everyone around me was ready to fight.

“Oh, y’all want us to shoot back. We’ll shoot back, just wait.”

“Tonight’s the last peaceful night. Know that.”

Shit, I immediately thought. Someone is going to die tonight.

Eventually, I met Michael Calhoun. He works at KMOX, the CBS radio affiliate out of St. Louis. He still had some juice in his phone and let me send a few tweets. Then we returned to the main street to see what was up. It seemed calmer than when we’d headed to the car. Smoke was in the air, but it wasn’t new smoke.

And then what felt like a bomb went off.

I don’t know what it was, but it sounded like a bomb. I don’t know what I was talking about when the explosion happened, but I ran. I caught Michael’s eye as he ran back to his car, letting him know he didn’t have to wait up.

I kept running. I didn’t know where I was running, but I was running. Now there were explosions and sirens and smoke and gunshots and a helicopter shining its light through the neighborhood. We scattered like roaches, and I couldn’t help but wonder if the cops thought of us that way.

And I kept running.

I can’t believe I didn’t call my mom.

After weaving through the streets, realizing that I’d gone in some sort of circle, I ran into a camera crew. One of the men let me attempt to charge my phone in his car. I laid down on the grass briefly, but then propped myself up because I couldn’t get the smoke out of my throat. A man walking down the street stopped and we stood there, coughing and spitting for 10 seconds.

And then what sounded like another bomb went off.

As we ran across the street, away from the sound of the explosion, a helicopter shone its light on us. We instinctively ducked, as if a prison watch guard had caught us trying to break out. And I grabbed my stuff. We told each other to be safe, and I started running toward the main street. I figured if I could just get up this one block, I’d find my way to the car blockade, and then I’d be safe.

Then I froze. I could see the soldiers marching up West Florissant. They looked like monsters.

At that moment, I didn’t feel like a journalist. There was nothing about this event that I felt the need to chronicle. There was no time to find out what the bombs actually were and what was actually coming out of the guns and what type of gas was coming out of the canisters. In this moment, there was nothing I felt the need to broadcast to the world. I didn’t even have the desire to communicate my safety or lack thereof.

I was just a black man in Ferguson.

I could imagine this shit happening at almost any moment in almost any town and city in America, that's how fucked up it is.

Oh it looks like Brown and probably is – didn't Dorian Johnson admit Brown took the cigarillos (I thought I heard it a few days ago? The officer who confronted Brown wasn't aware of the shoplifting accusation, I don't think. The video is timed to conflate two discrete incidents. What does Brown's stealing the cigars have to do with the confrontation or murder?

the problem is that it gives some people an imaginary "excuse" for the shooting, I would guess? I hope I phrased that right.

iow shakey otm

if some kid shoplifting from a convenience store is an excuse for shooting them, then there are a loooot of people I know who would have never made it to adulthood

i'm pretty glad i wasn't caught putting sales sticker on expensive CDs at tower records back in the day

And there are people deathly afraid of Sharia law.

wouldn't the barcode still have triggered the real price?

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/08/itemizing-atrocity/

For blacks, the “war on terror” hasn’t “come ‘home.’” It’s always been here. How then might we consider the emphasis on the militarization of policing as the problem as another example of “the precariousness of empathy”?

if some kid shoplifting from a convenience store is an excuse for shooting them, then there are a loooot of people I know who would have never made it to adulthood

this made the rounds this morning

TNR rounds up

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119109/ferguson-police-michael-brown-incident-raises-more-questions

it wasn't really "shoplifting," he asked for the cigars, said he wasn't going to pay for them and then roughed up the clerk who tried to stop him from leaving.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHxXGvXQrno

Obviously that doesn't give a cop the right to shoot him in the street. But the guy with him in the store is the guy who gave the main eyewitness account of the shooting, makes it seem slightly less credible. Also makes it more likely that there was a struggle with police. OTOH it's not clear whether the officer even knew he was a suspect in a robbery. Still reserving judgment. Still think the larger takeaways remain true -- police are overmilitarized, their relationship to the communities they police is a big part of the problem, and excessive force is too easily justified.

well the front page of cnn says

"Ferguson's police chief says officer Darren Wilson shot the unarmed teen after first approaching him for "walking down the middle of the street blocking traffic." FULL STORY "

Casual racists really only need to be presented with the barest pretext of "thuggery" to smooth the cognitive dissonance stirred up by vague feelings that a person of color deserved to be murdered. Shoplifting on its own isn't so terribly damning, but shoplifting while black is indicative of a whole spectrum of antisocial behavior which would have only escalated had the police not taken care of the situation.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/08/15/us/surplus-military-equipment-map.html?smid=pl-share&_r=0

Mapping the Spread of the Military’s Surplus Gear

State and local police departments obtain some of their military-style equipment through a free Defense Department program created in the early 1990s. While the portion of their gear coming from the program is relatively small (most of it is paid for through department budgets and federal grants), detailed data from the Pentagon illustrates how ubiquitous such equipment has become. Highlighted counties have received guns, grenade launchers, vehicles, night vision or body armor through the program since 2006.

xp Right, just saying a guy who had just robbed someone a few minutes earlier would be more likely to struggle with police than any guy walking down the street. Still seems suspicious that they haven't released more of the details of the shooting itself.

i think the problem really isn't any "struggle" but the fact that cops in general time and again seem to believe the only way they can deal with a "struggle" is by shooting somebody.

agree, also other witness accounts still make it sound like he was running when shot

BTW, that wasn't directed at you, Hurting. Just a general observation born of impotent rage.

like it's amazing to me that all i'd need to deal with a guy who's kinda maybe possibly (but maybe not) being a slight dick is to put on a badge, call him out on it, wait for him to get aggro back, and shoot him, then continue about with my life like nbd.

Well, you might be suspended without pay for a little while. Or be given desk duty. But otherwise, yeah.

without pay? my union will have something to say about that.

administrative leave = pay

cops coming up w this info 5 DAYS LATER is highly suspect; info itself is completely immaterial to the murder imo

like omg guy just got aggro and boosted some cigars BETTER SHOOT HIM

from that new republic article

What happened to the box of Swisher Sweets?

lol

administrative leave is one euphemism for the ages, sounds like dude off doing his taxes

from what I've gathered the police officer who shot michael brown had no idea that he had just shoplifted

wau: the overweight grouch on the FOX News panel on the 5 p.m. who passes for a moderate voice denounced the network for playing in a loop the video of Brown's alleged shoplifting. Why not footage of the peaceful marches? Whereupon the video shifts abruptly to...the peaceful marches.

Lovelace the police chief confirmed in a recent report that the officer did not, indeed, know he had just shoplifted. he had not responded to that report (that was a diff officer)

ok that makes the release of the video REALLY fucking suspect

yeah it's character assassination, nothing more. I mean nobody can defend the actions depicted in the video but the appropriate action is an arrest, not a shooting.

I agree w/ Hurting before that the testimony of the friend who was with him might not be trustworthy, but that was always known. Other independent witnesses who didn't (to my knowledge) have a vested interest in Brown also reported a similar story (although they did confirm a struggle in the car).

it speaks a lot to our gun-fetishism that someone holding a heavy weapon of weaponry can reach to any flinch or lurch as 'reaching for their gun', or any hand motion towards a waist as 'reaching for a potential weapon' and shoot someone dead and have millions come to their defense as responding to a 'credible threat'. You're the dude with the weapon.

Just a cursory glance at that NYT weapons map reveals an insane number of armaments.

I hovered over Yolo county CA, home of UC Davis, to find it has a helicopter, and an armored vehicle, and 446 assault rifles to keep the peace among its 204,000 residents across 1000 +/- square miles. I'm not sure if the weapon hoards are shared between agencies or if its all county property. But for a county that has 2.9 violent crimes per 1000 people, it seems grossly excessive.

I was also disturbed to learn that my own county of Alameda (7.9 violent crimes per 1000 citizens) is in possession of a grenade launcher. How it might be utilized in a policing situation is beyond me.

http://www.kaceykaderly.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/sublime-rome.jpg

Also they're apparently super into overnight surveillance in Ventura County, home to 3275 pieces of night vision equipment.

for the record, the "struggle in the car" that both eyewitnesses have described:

A new witness to the killing of Michael Brown emerged Thursday, corroborating major details offered by the earlier witness, Dorian Johnson. Both described the initial interaction between the 18-year-old and the officer as a tug-of-war in which the officer grabbed the teenager as Brown tried to free himself from the officer’s grip through a car window.

Contradicting an earlier statement by St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar, Mitchell said she did not see Brown or anyone else assault the officer. Brown’s body stayed out of the police vehicle the entire time, Mitchell said. She also contradicted Belmar’s statement that there was a struggle over the officer’s weapon.

i think the problem really isn't any "struggle" but the fact that cops in general time and again seem to believe the only way they can deal with a "struggle" is by shooting somebody.

"cops in general" yes, but also people with guns in general. Black men are dangerous weapons and therefore it is justifiable to use deadly force when faced with even the hint of physical force from one. Obv it's even more egregious when a "professional" officer of the law is seemingly unable to use other options when faced with such a "threat".

someone in contact with Darren Wilson's family calls in to a wingnut radio show to give "his side of the story"

Wilson's totally plausible story is that of a cop with the politeness of an angel being assaulted by a maniac so aggro that not only did he initially attack the cop, and grab for his gun, but said maniac then ran 35 feet away only to turn around, taunt the cop pointing a gun at him when told to freeze, and then suddenly "bum rush" him 28 Days Later zombie style probably because he was "on something"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzBdY6WXeRE

shit sorry that garbage embedded

don't listen to wingnut shows

don't read the comments

don't post them here