No indictment: Open thread to discuss Ferguson

i just wanted to say thank you for giving links to the legal fund. it’s easy to feel helpless about the whole thing. i still do in most ways, but i want to do something.

also, todd kincannon is just straight up evil. and that’s what a lot of people seem to be like, at heart. they’re actually genuinely happy when people die. i can’t understand it.

I don’t condone rioting or the attack on businesses, but that’s really the only thing that seems to have put the spotlight back on this horrible situation. How much you want to bet that none of the major news outlets would have said more than two sentences about the lack of indictment if there had been no rioting to cover too?

I AM SCREAMING.

This is so very wrong on so very many levels. (sorry – I’m too upset to add anything meaningful, but I appreciate the more articulate amongst the commentariat)

Edmonton peeps… http://allthecanadianpolitics.tumblr.com/post/103532910989/edmonton-protest-for-justice-for-mike-brown-and

@ Shaun DarthBatman Day – Yay, Edmonton!!!!!!

Elektra Kenway | November 25, 2014 at 5:44 am

The full grand jury report: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2014/nov/25/darren-wilson-not-indicted-ferguson

There’s a link to some of the key evidence at the link above that was… disturbing. You’ve got differing eyewitness accounts; that’s cause for actual trial right there. But even worse…

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1370612-11-24-14-letter.html

That’s a letter from the forensics office complaining that they had not been given adequate access to the crime scene evidence to make a ruling.

That alone should’ve been a red-flag calling for an immediate indictment so that facts could be brought out in a full trial.

http://us7.campaign-archive1.com/?u=b493e6c4d31beda32fdaf8e2d&id=73514e334b

Unfortunate, but not unsurprising. The circumstances of this case were going go to make getting an indictment hard in the best of cases. There just wasn’t first-hand, hard documentation of the actual shooting, and even the autopsy wasn’t enough on its own because either side of the story (Brown lowering his head to surrender, or Brown lowering his head in a charge at the end) can potentially be twisted out of the results. Overall, I think this whole thing is a tragedy. It’s obvious there was some sort of struggle at first, so Brown is no innocent angel in all of this, but it’s equally obvious that the cop flipped the hell out and started spraying his weapon in the middle of a public street. My money is on the killshot being an accident on the officer’s part, and that by trying to surrender, Brown inadvertently lowered himself into its path. I may be giving the officer too much credit, but neither do I think he was some sort of rabid racist looking to murder a black guy. The truth tends to be somewhere in-between both extremes.

Honestly, even if there had been first-hand video of the shooting, an indictment would still be unlikely. We *have* had video of cops overreacting to a perceived threat and outright executing people in a spray of bullets, and have it not lead to any charges. The legal system in the US protects its own, and short of appalling, indisputable, outrageous video evidence, you aren’t going to get an indictment on any cop in the current system. It’s a cultural issue within the police force at large, but also an entrenched issue within the legal system. Prosecutors don’t *want* to charge cops. A lot of them have friends and family who are cops.

The best thing we can do in the US is make portable video recording a *required* part of every police officer’s uniform, and have the actual collection and maintaining of them be done by a third party. They’re public servants, they should not expect any right to privacy while performing their duties in public. That sort of ubiquitous video surveillance of police would make this sort of stuff more difficult, and make indictments for abuses more likely. Honestly, maybe take a page out of the military and look into installing cameras in the guns themselves. Most military aircraft (in the past, not sure about nowadays) has a gun-camera that only activates when the weapon is fired to record its use.

Either way, I really wish the people of Ferguson would get a handle on things. They’ve bungled this whole mess only slightly less than the police. And I get it, a lot of it is out-of-towners, anarchists and other idiots trying to stir the pot because they have nothing better to do, but still. Looting, burning and rioting is never justified and it only hurts your own cause.

And, don’t stumble on the way out, dearie. 🙂

“During the grand jury proceedings, Wilson also elaborates on the “intense aggressive” face Brown made at him, telling the Assistant District Attorney, “The only way I can describe it, it looks like a demon, that’s how angry he looked.” ”

*it* looks like a demon. *it*. He calls a person *it* and no one fucking questions that? No dehumanisation here, move along.

http://gawker.com/the-shooting-in-darren-wilsons-words-michael-brown-loo-1663023343

@ freemage – I doubt that she does see the difference, but it was very nice of you to try to explain it!

“Here’s what I know: people hear what they want to hear. They see what they want to see.”

Yes, you certainly fucking do. Well done for recognising your flaws. Now go away and ponder them until you can approach discussion like an adult, dear.

@ Shaun DarthBatman Day – Thanks for the link! I wonder about the non-reported, too.

I’m also thinking about the attitudes of the police and general public, although I have no stats to back that up. I’ve met way more white supremacists in SK than I did in either AB or BC, but that’s just anecdotal. Also, racist ‘jokes’ seem more acceptable here than other places I’ve lived, and I get weird responses when I call people on that sh*t.