Balta1701

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Nov 25, 2014 -> 11:14 AM) I mean I think people do. The guy in his press conference last night made a comment that you take the potential-defendant's statement but know that it's self-serving. I'm sure the grand jury members were told that as well (or using common sense could understand that). Then it makes zero sense to present that officer's testimony to a grand jury, which is why it shouldn't have happened. In the setting of a court room, that officer could have had his testimony attacked under cross examination by an aggressive prosecutor and crazy things like him turning into the hulk wouldn't have been dignified as they were. As that other quote said, it was a trial without a prosecutor. The defendant gave his testimony and there was no one to cross examine it.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Nov 25, 2014 -> 11:00 AM) And it's entirely possible that all that started with one witness (the friend) and the rumor basically just spread through the crowd. You've already got people who told the media they witnessed the whole thing, and then apparently changed their statements and admitted they didn't actually see it. Without knowing the person on the tape and whether that's direct knowledge, it's pretty meaningless. The person yelling that was not anywhere near a crowd. Also its worth pointing out that what you just said about unreliable witnesses is entirely true. Which is why we should apply that same standard to the officer's testimony.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Nov 25, 2014 -> 10:57 AM) In Illinois (and maybe Missouri, I don't know) for big cases the yusually don't even both with a grand jury. They'll usually do a prelim hearing and get the charges ok'd that way. And I still say, the reason he did it this way was the pressure from both sides, and he wanted it out of his hands. Which is why a local prosecutor should not have been the one making that decision. Edit: A version of the Grand Jury proceeding I just read that feels accurate described it as a trial without a prosecutor.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Nov 25, 2014 -> 10:54 AM) The White Sox have until 2019, in your own words, to do anything with the Sale/Quintana tandem. You do realize that next year is 2015, right? The Sox trading a guy like Quintana with 4 years of control would require a package like the one people on here are talking about accepting for Chris Sale. The bare minimum I'd consider taking from Boston is Bogaerts, Betts, Swihart, and De La Rosa, and I'd have to think about that one for a very long time. And, given what the Red Sox can give up to get guys like Cueto, Latos, Hamels, Shields, McCarthy, Hammel, Lester, or Scherzer, why would they give up what would be required for Jose Quintana? You never make anyone unavailable, but given what it would take to acquire those players, the Sox will essentially not trade Quintana or Sale. Just to add, for Quintana we actually have an option on him for 2020

QUOTE (Harry Chappas @ Nov 25, 2014 -> 10:48 AM) The media really made this story to be much larger than it is. Whether Wilson was guilty or not there is reasonable evidence that the shooting is justified. He did not pull over and gun down some innocent kid. Brown was shot in the hand and then turned and ran and then he did not stop and put his hands up like he was asked. After the first altercation in which the kid was shot in the hand and then he ran and the second in which he was shot at he still did not stop and surrender like he was asked. The media made this into yet another opportunity to fill air time. Until some sort of reasonable reporting is done these things will continue to happen as folks love to be on television. Do you want to see the true definition of animals, head to any Walmart Thursday afternoon/evening/night when people will head out to make certain they get as much cheap s*** as they can which will last all of about one year until it needs to be replaces again at next year's Black Friday. Think about Duke Lacrosse and the media. So, it's worth pointing out again that in realtime, right after the shooting, there is video of witnesses (not witness testimony later which I don't like relying on for either side, realtime video) of people running towards the officer yelling "He had his f***ing hands up". That was people's first reaction after seeing it happen.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Nov 25, 2014 -> 10:49 AM) Except that there is clear evidence that Brown moved 21 feet directly towards Wilson. Brown moving 21 feet towards Wilson, then kneeling down, and then Wilson firing is an entirely absurd chain of events. Wow, you dragged out a comment from August 18. Impressive.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Nov 25, 2014 -> 10:45 AM) The DOJ is still involved. The DOJ almost certainly should not bring civil rights violations charges against that police officer.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Nov 25, 2014 -> 10:39 AM) Oh bulls***. This became a national story, with the FBI and Dept of Justice all over him. You cannot compare this to any normal proceeding. Which is why a prosecutor with personal connections to the department and a willingness to go on national TV for 20 minutes spelling out why he personally thought the police officer was innocent should not have been the one making the decisions and offering the prosecution in this case. I can genuinely say that there was no one in this case arguing on behalf of the deceased. Given the national pressure and the personal connections you make a solid case for a special prosecutor independent of the department to make sure it is done correctly.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 25, 2014 -> 10:35 AM) This was handled completely differently from the regular GJ process. It was a sham, and it was done intentionally to give cover for not charging Wilson. If the prosecutors simply thought that there wasn't enough evidence, then they should have had the courage to make the determination themselves explicitly and present their reasoning. Instead, they go this route so that they can place the burden on a GJ that they've rigged to get the outcome they wanted anyway but provide themselves a shield. If they make their own case instead of going with the GJ shield in the first place, there's less rage and less transparent corruption that's driving the rage and reaction in the first place. This should have been conducted by a special prosecutor appointed by the state who is independent of and unconnected to that department as well. The "prosecutor who works with that police department deciding not to bring charges" is pretty much no different from how it went down anyway.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Nov 25, 2014 -> 10:26 AM) None of that would have stopped this and you know it. The prosecutor went overboard because of pressure on both sides. He laid everything out and was transparent about it from the get go. The leaks are still bulls***, since really other than Wilson's testimony, nothing was leaked. We learned for the first time last night that many of the witnesses changed their story and/or admitted they didn't actually witness the entire thing. That wasn't part of the narrative either. Surely mistakes were made as there are in every investigation and ever hearing, but nothing egregious. Nothing that would have changed the outcome here. You're just looking for a scapegoat. A grand jury presentation is pretty much the exact opposite of transparent. A transparently conducted case is one where a prosecutor takes enough evidence to the grand jury to obtain an indictment and then conducts a public trial in an adversarial process, with the prosecutor arguing the case and the defendant calling witnesses to support that case. This is not a transparent or overboard case at all. This was not conducted in an adversarial sense. The person who talked for 20 minutes about how the evidence in his opinion wasn't consistent and the officer was believable was the person whose job it was to do the prosecution and who also happens to, by all accounts, be close to that police department anyway. This was set up to return no indictment. There's no reason whatsoever to present exculpatory evidence to a grand jury unless you want them to not return an indictment. Their job is to determine whether there is probable cause to bring a case to trial, not to try the case.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Nov 25, 2014 -> 10:24 AM) I personally hate the jury trial system and wish it would go away. But I also don't think this case really shows any reason to keep or get rid of it. One thing that upsets me here, as I read about it, is the way the prosecutor handled the GJ. The fact that it was done so dramatically differently (basically turning it into a trial), and then delivering a bizarre, nearly impossible to understand final instruction set to the jury that made it sounds like they needed to find absolute proof to indict... that is a major failure here. I don't pretend to know what happened on that street, but I am pretty darn sure of these things: 1. There is some awful silliness in this thread on both sides 2. The prosecutor's office who handled the GJ was incompetent 3. NONE of us actually know what happened on that street I totally disagree with this. I think he got exactly the result he wanted, which was not having to make a public case against a local police officer, and he handled the case in a way to make that happen. No incompetence at all, did it exactly the way he wanted to get that result.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Nov 25, 2014 -> 10:22 AM) No, it's me thinking you guys are so full of your white guilt/police hate/gun hate that you can't believe a guy when he describes the fear he saw that day. Like it's not even remotely believable. As if you've been in a similar situation before. You specifically responded to me saying that this should have been heard in a jury trial presented as an actual case with the point "oh you can't have understood that fear". No one on a jury is going to have understood that either. No one on the grand jury would have either. Why should we trust their opinions based on what you just said?

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Nov 25, 2014 -> 10:14 AM) I love how you guys can even pretend to know what it's like to have your life in danger to the point that you have to shoot someone. I love how this is an argument against a jury trial system existing at all.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 25, 2014 -> 09:04 AM) He was also asked a bunch of questions about the sick baby he helped just before the shooting by the prosecutor. I don't think cross-examination would have been all that hard for him. This was not an adversarial prosecution. This was a prosecutor using the grand jury as an excuse to avoid bringing charges in a case where there was enough evidence to bring charges but he didn't want to. That's why there should have been a special prosecutor appointed - it's hard in general for local prosecution to bring a case against a local police department.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 25, 2014 -> 07:06 AM) "he only gets stronger with every bullet!!!" are you f***ing kidding me In a fair system, this would not go over well with cross examination, but that's why it shouldn't have been tried by a grand jury.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Nov 25, 2014 -> 07:57 AM) I don't really care what anyone says or thinks, I shop at Walmart from time to time because it saves me money, and not shopping there won't make a lick of difference. Well, other than you knowing you paid more for something. Retail is, by nature, a low to no profit margin industry, and places like everyone's beloved Amazon have made it even worse. But I know, Walmart bad, Amazon good. Amazon's methods of treating their employees are just about as bad. You've just made a great case for federal laws to improve the treatment of those workers. Glad you support them.

So, at least 1, possibly 2 police cars on fire, lots of tear gas already deployed, several stores broken into and a couple being looted, some people pushing back against the looters but not enough, with an army moving in on top of that. Pretty much exactly the same setup we saw when this first broke out.

Don't want the autoplay/embed, here's a vine of the gas shelling.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Nov 24, 2014 -> 10:21 PM) It said in an article that the grand jury has been seated since May. Are they sequestered like a regular jury? Having this going since May is crazy. No. They met like once a week and unlike most grand juries where a prosecutor presents enough evidence to get an indictment after which point a trial would start the prosecutor decided to present all of the evidence, including testimony of the defendant. All of which is not particularly common and makes a decent case that the prosecutor was trying to make sure an indictment did not happen.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 24, 2014 -> 10:19 PM) Batteries? That was the official statement released by the STL county pd on twitter is that there were D batteries being thrown. There have also been statements saying rocks & a few other things but not official.

It's not showing up on my TV but apparently many around the country now have a side by side image of Obama talking on one side and on the other side D batteries being thrown at officers donning gas masks. Edit: and apparently the first tear gas canisters were fired while he was speaking.

QUOTE (zenryan @ Nov 24, 2014 -> 10:00 PM) well that appears not to be true but dont let the facts get in the way of a good narrative Less than a minute after the shooting people were on film running towards the officer yelling "He had his ****ing hands up". That's a helluva lot more believable to me than eyewitness statements and the evaluation of a prosecutor who brought the case to a grand jury and then spent like 20 minutes telling why the press was irresponsible and it was really their fault.