StrangeSox

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Aug 15, 2014 -> 02:18 PM) I see. I still find it very difficult to believe. Not impossible, just a little unbelievable that a cop would straight up murder someone like that. It doesn't really add up, but I guess it could. I'll just say again that finding well documented cases of unjustified police shootings is trivial. If you want to expand that to police abuse and disproportionate use of force, even if provoked, there are literally thousands.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Aug 15, 2014 -> 02:19 PM) Mainly because there was a female cop. I find it hard to believe she'd be in on it and ok with it. But again, it's possible. I just bet there's more to the story. the counter-point to that would be the most famous Abu Ghraid abuse photos being with a female guard.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 15, 2014 -> 02:16 PM) But that is what cops do according to this thread. They unquestionably do. Finding documented cases of unprovoked police brutality is incredibly easy. Sometimes, or at least they shoot for really terrible and completely unjustifiable reasons. Again, pretty easy to find plenty of documented cases. this is a dumb conclusion that nobody has suggested, but I guess that's the best you can offer.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Aug 15, 2014 -> 02:14 PM) That's terrible if true. But I have a difficult time believing cops would just randomly start beating someone. Why? There's literally dozens if not hundreds of incidents of this that you can easily google up. They might even be shouting "stop resisting!" while beating the person who is very clearly not resisting. I mean, just look at the way they treated protesters and media over the last week, including assaulting a member of the media for refusing an unenforceable demand to show ID. Look at the multiple unprovoked pepper-spray incidents at OWS protests, specifically the one at UC Davis and the one in NYC where the cop came up and sprayed a girl who was standing behind a barricade in the face. Jobs that give people a lot of authority can attract authoritarian assholes and bullies. #notallcops, but enough.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Aug 15, 2014 -> 02:09 PM) And we're 100% sure these witnesses are credible? We have no reason to doubt multiple independent witnesses at this point. So far, there's nothing that has directly contradicted what they are saying. Even the official police statements thus far have skirted around what exactly happened after the struggle in or through the car window. In other words, all known evidence to this point supports their story, nothing contradicts it and there's no reason to believe these people would lie or that they could have some how corroborated the same story. According to witnesses, he was shot as he was running away. He then turned around and put his hands in the air before being shot several more times.

Speaking of getting the wrong person and still blindly charging ahead anyway, here's a lovely story of the Ferguson police charging a man with destruction of property for bleeding on their uniforms while they beat him. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014...bloody-lie.html But hey, it's the community's fault for having a poor view of the police.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Aug 15, 2014 -> 01:45 PM) which is it? he was shot in the back running or shot in the chest while his hands were in the air surrendering? If you have been paying the least bit of attention to this story or just read the quotes from the witnesses posted a page back, you'd know the answer to your question is "both."

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Aug 15, 2014 -> 01:17 PM) The middle part is still awaiting forensic verification. If I were forced to take a side right now, I would say that I believe the kid really was shot in the back, but if forensics come back that he wasn't, then pretty much all of the eyewitness accounts are worthless. I don't know that there's any question that Brown was shot 20-30 feet from the police car. If there had been a single, fatal shot and it happened when the two were allegedly struggling for a gun, that would be different. But this was multiple shots when Brown was away from the vehicle and couldn't pose a threat justifying deadly force to the officer or public safety.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 15, 2014 -> 01:15 PM) Which is exactly what we are being asked to do for part of the story. Ironic isn't it? I have no idea what that's in reference to.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Aug 15, 2014 -> 01:09 PM) Turns out he was robbing stores, attacked a police office, tried to grab his gun, [turned and ran, was shot in the back, turned and put his hands in the air] and ended up getting shot [several more times]. There's this pretty important middle part you left out for some weird/dumb reason. I honestly don't know where you're at right now, your normal trolling posting or something more serious, but the argument you're presenting there is a pretty common one in similar cases. It's awful because it doesn't matter one bit what was going on before Brown turned around and ran away. You can't shoot a fleeing suspect in the back, and you sure as s*** can't shoot a surrendering suspect in the front multiple times.

the way to stop police brutality is for communities who are routinely brutalized by the police to pretend that nothing's wrong

Yes, sure, he was "brainwashed" and it's all the community's fault that the cop shot an unarmed teenager in the back and then several times in the front as he stood with his hands in the air.

QUOTE (Brian @ Aug 15, 2014 -> 11:38 AM) That wasn't him in the robbery photos. eh it looks like it was to me: the outfit is a match to Brown laying dead in the street: http://allhiphop.files.wordpress.com/2014/...on-shooting.jpg edit: the weird sandals that come up to his mid-calf is what confirms it to me.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Aug 15, 2014 -> 11:35 AM) I'm not going to try and say that it's anything like race-based mistreatment, but where I live there are numerous stories of people getting horribly mistreated by cops, and most of the victims are white. I have a friend who got the s*** beat out of him to the point of having to to to the ER by two off-duty cops for no other reason than he was stumbling drunk in a bar and spilled one of their beers. They got off scot-free. I've heard many other second-hand stories of local police crossing far over the line. If I didn't have a cousin who is a Sgt. with the state police and a former roommate who is a federal prosecutor, I'd be short selling my house and getting the f*** out of here. Cops here can't be trusted and it has very little, if anything, to do with race. Police brutality and abuse isn't limited to racial minorities, they're just statistically more likely to be subject to it. Hell, my wife and I got pulled over for "driving while too poor for this neighborhood" once.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Aug 15, 2014 -> 11:33 AM) Can you link to said witnesses? I could find two. One testimony which I'm sure will be thrown out as unreliable because he was part of the robbery. Another is a woman who came forward 4 days later. Honestly I'm not trusting any of the witnesses. I'd wait for the autopsy. I heard about it on the radio originally, but I did find this: http://fox4kc.com/2014/08/14/witnesses-to-...s-last-minutes/ That was two independent (from Brown) witnesses driving in the area whose retelling matches what another witness saw out her window.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Aug 15, 2014 -> 11:12 AM) Right now we have the cops saying that he strong armed the convenient store(which looks to be true), assaulted a cop and tried to steal his gun. And we have Brown's friends saying that he surrendered right away. My point is that we still don't have all the details but a lot of people seem to just want to join the "f*** the police" side of things. We have at least three if not four independent witnesses corroborating the story that Brown was shot in the back as he attempted to flee, and then was shot several more times after turning around with his hands up. Whether or not he stole some cigars before that isn't relevant. Whether or not he struggled with the officer before that isn't relevant. None of that excuses shooting a fleeing suspect in the back and then shooting him more when he turns with has hands up. And then we have them leaving him laying on the ground for four hours and the ensuing military-style crackdown of the city. Even if Michael Brown had been armed and presenting a legitimate threat to the police, their post-shooting actions would remain completely inexcusable and fully justify taking the "f*** the police" side of things.

Now that the state police have taken over for the Call of Duty LARPing cops, the atmosphere is completely changed.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 12, 2014 -> 04:14 PM) This impressive bit of photography is making the rounds. so it turns out that situation was even worse than it looks in that first photo. Six heavily armed police officers in tactical gear advancing on a lone, unarmed protester. Three of them have their guns trained directly on him. The tag on the mailbox really completes the scene. These officers should be stripped of their badges and barred from "serving" the public ever again. If their actions weren't illegal, they should be.

Ferguson police tear gassing the al jazeera news crew, then disassembling their equipment

Video of state security forces tear gassing al jazeera journalists http://www.vox.com/2014/8/13/6001193/al-ja...ces-in-ferguson

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Aug 13, 2014 -> 10:54 PM) Yes. But I still don't understand how in outrage you ruin other innocent peoples lives. Burning down businesses in protest is ignorant. Yeah, it is, but nothing still comes anywhere close to justifying the actions of the police in Ferguson, going back to Saturday. It got buried a bit back, but why didn't the dumbass Bundy militia members who pointed loaded weapons at police, who refused to back down in defense of a criminal and a thief, draw anything like the police response that largely peaceful protests have drawn? edit: the actual psychology of riots is pretty complex; why do people burn cars and riot and loot when their sports teams lose (or even when they win sometimes)? How and why do people take out their frustration on random targets when things reach a boiling point?

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Aug 13, 2014 -> 10:45 PM) Depends how extreme a response burning down innocent peoples buildings are. Hard working business owners. Remember that this didn't start with some random, unprovoked riot but with the likely murder of Mike Brown, with leaving his body to rot in the sun for hours, with a stonewall from the police on what happened and who did it. In response to what is ultimately just property damage, they've turned the town into a police state.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 13, 2014 -> 10:37 PM) Did Tea Party protests ever draw this kind of reaction? Just curious. Not trying to be facetious...wasn't in the US for most of the last decade. No. For various reasons, leftist protests (occupy, wto etc., not Ferguson) often start at higher tension levels, with both sides prepped for confrontation from the get-go. Many of the tea party protests are more like rallies or demonstrations than civil disobedience-style protests.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Aug 13, 2014 -> 10:27 PM) Well the protesters are very violent with the police, no doubt. But dumb of the police to pass off the media. The presence of a few non-peaceful protesters throwing some rocks or bottles does not justify the response and the demands of the police here. They are indiscriminately tear gasing people, including the media and residential neighborhoods. They are arresting members of the media for taking pictures of the police. They have been attempting to push media out of the city all together. Their first announcement before the latest round of tear gassing was a demand that everyone turn off their video cameras. And this is all in response to a community reaching the breaking point after the police gun down an unarmed 18 year old kid, shooting him in the back and letting him rot on the pavement for hours and then refusing to explain themselves.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 13, 2014 -> 10:26 PM) When's the last time something like this happened outside of the inner city in America? 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago? To me, it's reminiscent of the situation after Katrina in New Orleans...although on a much smaller scale. Or the reaction to the Rodney King beating in LA...and counter-reaction, Reginald Denny, the truck driver pulled from his truck and beaten is the name that still stands out. the Occupy protests around the country were almost universally met with heavy police resistance (remember the UC Davis pepper spray cop?) Any time there's a WTO or G8/G7 summit, there's a lot of protesters and a similar police response. What's different here, imo, is that it's a single, geographic community that is protesting, not people coming in from all over like with the Occupy/WTO/G8 protests.