Michael Brown Shooting: A Bitterly Divided Nation

[Lord Lannister]

When serial murderers, rapists, spree shooters, Sadam fucking Hussein, are taken in alive, I can't begin to imagine a scenario that could justifiy the FATAL shooting of an unarmed teenager.

Your imagination would seem to be limited. It's a simple concept. Don't attack the cops.

[Jslay427]

Whatever the degree, it was an assault. The fact that the assault was on someone extremely smaller (I claimed the clerk was 1/3 Brown's size and Brown backers began arguing that the clerk was only 1/2 his size!!!) makes it that much worse.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

Your imagination would seem to be limited. It's a simple concept. Don't attack the cops.

I'd say the reverse is also a fairly simple concept. Don't gun down unarmed citizens in the street.

[Roose Seal]

Your imagination would seem to be limited. It's a simple concept. Don't attack the cops.

So attacking cops is punishable by death wihout trial but killing innocent civilians isn't?

[OnionAhaiReborn]

Whatever the degree, it was an assault. The fact that the assault was on someone extremely smaller (I claimed the clerk was 1/3 Brown's size and Brown backers began arguing that the clerk was only 1/2 his size!!!) makes it that much worse.

I really don't care if you want to call it assault. I think that's a somewhat frivolous use of the word in terms of its common meaning, but I'm not going to argue over it.

But if you're going to try to hold it as evidence that Brown attacked Wilson just as Wilson says he did, I'm going to say that it is hugely and very importantly different in degree, in both legality and common sense. Shoving someone is not good evidence that the shover would also assault and lethally threaten a police officer. It's barely relevant, if at all.

[Jslay427]

I really don't care if you want to call it assault. I think that's a somewhat frivolous use of the word in terms of its common meaning, but I'm not going to argue over it.

But if you're going to try to hold it as evidence that Brown attacked Wilson just as Wilson says he did, I'm going to say that it is hugely and very importantly different in degree, in both legality and common sense. Shoving someone is not good evidence that the shover would also assault and lethally threaten a police officer. It's barely relevant, if at all.

Oh I agree, it in no way makes what Wilson says as fact. I am not going to dismiss what happened 10 minutes prior to the shooting though.

[The Fallen]

You seem to think characterizing him as a teenager makes him less of a threat. Young males are more violent than the rest of the population. This is not a harmless person.

I don't understand why people want to go to the mat for Brown after seeing that picture. He was a violent bully and a thief. Worse things happen to far better people than him.

And calling him unarmed, when he was incredibly large and powerful, and fighting with a police officer to try and take his gun (i.e. arm himself), is disingenuous.

Yes, he was big and black and scary. I take it you're a fan of Ben Stein. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtBQUAyLWUI

What's disingenuous is your leaving out the fact that Darren Wilson, at 6'4" and 210 lbs, is an incredibly large man. And in much better peak physical shape than a fact 280 lbs Michael Brown.

Not to mention that it isn't fact that Brown was trying to take Wilson's gun to arm himself. The gun residue on Brown's hand could have easily come from his trying to keep from getting shot.

It's also funny how Wilson's account has Brown fleeing (scared) after the first two shots, but after more gunshots turns around (not scared) to charge him.

Can you understand that people are tired of cops killing indiscriminately?

[TrueMetis]

Really? I think we've got a pretty good scenario - an unarmed teenager is charging towards someone that they previously attacked and tried to steal the service weapon of, and the unarmed teenager has about sixty or seventy pounds on the other person. If the unarmed teenager overpowers him and takes his service weapon, the person being attacked can reasonably fear that they will be killed. That's a pretty good reason to shoot an unarmed teenager in my book - provided it's a true story.

Saddam Hussein, on the other hand, for all his horrible acts, didn't resist arrest. He was found, unarmed, hiding at the bottom of a hole. He allegedly announced his identity when found and didn't put up any fight.

Bullshit, he was to far away to be a threat. He would have been to far away even if he had a fucking knife. 21 foot rule.

No, it isn't. It's a perfectly accurate description. And it's a bit difficult to criticise that as disingenuous when at the same time stating that Brown was trying to take Wilson's gun as if it were a fact - when it is an allegation made by Wilson, unsupported by any other evidence.

And irrelevant even if true since at the time he was killed he was nowhere near the officers gun.

[Jslay427]

Bullshit, he was to far away to be a threat. He would have been to far away even if he had a fucking knife. 21 foot rule.

And irrelevant even if true since at the time he was killed he was nowhere near the officers gun.

The last part is what bothers me. If everything happened as Wilson claims and Brown kept advancing, I still don't know if at that point I'd be ok with the use of deadly force.

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

Not really. It seems to be an effect of how ideology effects the way one looks at the world (or vv, it is probably complicated).

Progressives seem to start with a fact and probability based approach which focusses on the victims, ie rape allegations are likely to be true, police are likely to get away with violence. This is mixes with an ought to approach, which is a bit more ideological, such as a responsibility of police to de-escalate and protect everyone in society (including those who transgress).

Conservatives seem to start with the existing power structure, assume (as some level of wishful thinking) it is good, and start from there.

It is not a divining rod, it is looking at the way society works, at who are more likely to be victims, at the way we would like society to work and start from there.

If you actually believe the majority of people - whether liberal or conservative - have the knowledge or skillet to evaluate things on a "fact and probability based approach" (whatever the heck that's supposed to mean) then you are delusional. Most people don't understand enough about statistics and don't have any understanding of the factual basis of the studies they cite to make the claims they support to be able to talk about any issue with even the remotest hint of intelligence.

Take, for example, your claim that "rape allegations are likely to be true" which, to be clear, as a provable claim, is absolute nonsense. What this is is the converse of the claim that only a tiny percentage of rape claims are "false." This is a statistic that is often touted by people who have no idea what the hell the studies they're supposedly relying on are talking about. Here is a very general overview of the various studies making this claim. What these studies are actually categorizing, are cases where, for the most part, rape claims are provably false to some standard. For some of the studies, that standard is where the authorities are so confident of the falsity of a claim that they bring charges against the person making the claim for perjury or filing false police reports. In some cases, the standard is nothing more than the judgment of the investigator that the claim is, to some degree or another, provably false.

In fact, the vast, vast majority of rape claims cannot and are not definitively proven one way or the other.

Take, for example, the flip side. According to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, based on a review of Justice Department statistics, only one in four reported alleged rapes even leads to an arrest, and of those, only about one in four of those leads to a felony conviction and incarceration. So if we're going to use the same logic and apply it to provable rape claims, we could just as easily conclude that since only six percent or so of rape claims taken to the police result in a felony conviction and incarceration, the vast, vast majority of rape claims must be false.

This, of course, is equally nonsense. And if this is the kind of "probability based approach" you advocate - god help us all.

[theprincethatwasntpromised]

So attacking cops is punishable by death wihout trial but killing innocent civilians isn't?

No innocent civilians were killed. When you assault an officer and try pulling his gun, you lose your innocence and become the perpetrator of a serious crime. Stop with the innocent kid garbage. This guy was legally an adult. A violent, lawbreaking adult.

[TrueMetis]

No innocent civilians were killed. When you assault an officer and try pulling his gun, you lose your innocence and become the perpetrator of a serious crime. Stop with the innocent kid garbage. This guy was legally an adult. A violent, lawbreaking adult.

Why is this still relevant when he's thirty plus feet away? Even if he did try to get the gun (something that has not been proven) he did not get the gun and had no way to get the gun and couldn't possibly be a threat with a gun.

A violent, lawbreaking adult.

Of course, Brown: No charge, no trial, no conviction. Yet he's a criminal. Wilson: "No indictment means no crime was committed."

[theprincethatwasntpromised]

It's relevant because it's the reason Wilson had to shoot Brown.

You still can't admit that Brown was clearly involved in criminal activity!? No wonder you can't grasp what took place.

[The Fallen]

And once again, I'll point out that it's not a fact that Brown assaulted Wilson. Nor that he was trying to take his gun away.

The more I think about Wilson's version, the more ludicrous it becomes.

For instance, Brown was so strong that Wilson feared one more blow, yet Brown wasn't strong enough to take his gun.

And Brown ran from Wilson to avoid getting shot, yet, when he's 150 ft away from the SUV, he decides that he's no longer afraid of getting shot and he's actually going to charge Wilson, bullets be damned. C'mon son.

[TrueMetis]

It's relevant because it's the reason Wilson had to shoot Brown.

So in your world a person who's went after a cops gun, but is now out of the range that a person with a knife would be considered a deadly threat, can still be shot even though he's currently nowhere near a gun and cannot be a threat based on his ability to shoot a cop. How exactly does it make sense that someone who is claimed to have went after a gun 150 feet ago is still a threat based on his not getting a gun?

You still can't admit that Brown was clearly involved in criminal activity!? No wonder you can't grasp what took place.

No because it's not clear at all. It doesn't make any goddamn sense that Brown would just attack a cop.

[Stubby]

tptwp,

At the time of his death, do you still believe Brown was a threat to anyone, including Wilson?

[Altherion]

So in your world a person who's went after a cops gun, but is now out of the range that a person with a knife would be considered a deadly threat, can still be shot even though he's currently nowhere near a gun and cannot be a threat based on his ability to shoot a cop. How exactly does it make sense that someone who is claimed to have went after a gun 150 feet ago is still a threat based on his not getting a gun?

He can be shot even if he is running away, although this was not the justification used by Wilson. Take a look at Tennessee v. Garner. Once somebody attacks a police officer (or worse, tries to take away their weapon), the police officer has probable cause to believe that they pose a threat to others and is therefore authorized to use deadly force.

[theprincethatwasntpromised]

And once again, I'll point out that it's not a fact that Brown assaulted Wilson. Nor that he was trying to take his gun away.

The more I think about Wilson's version, the more ludicrous it becomes.

For instance, Brown was so strong that Wilson feared one more blow, yet Brown wasn't strong enough to take his gun.

And Brown ran from Wilson to avoid getting shot, yet, when he's 150 ft away from the SUV, he decides that he's no longer afraid of getting shot and he's actually going to charge Wilson, bullets be damned. C'mon son.

You guys talk about facts as you ignore the most obvious facts of the case:

- Brown didn't rob the store, despite the video.

- Brown didn't assault the store clerk, despite the video

Now, neither of these crimes that he will never be charged with had anything to do with him being shot and killed. But the fact that most of you can accept that these things happened, IMO, shows that you can't begin to objectively determine what happened between Brown and Wilson. I've said it before, you are stuck on this gentle giant lie. The unarmed kid defense has been rejected by the rational and a grand jury. Brown was not a kid, and he damn sure wasn't gentle.

He robbed a store, then jacked the clerk up. Fact.

He was jaywalking, was asked to get out of the road, then got salty with the officer. Fact.

He attacked the cop, and remain combative. Fact.

The media placed all its eggs in the wrong basket. The Garner case would have been a better bet.

[DreamSongs]

I like that the Brown's are trying to do something positive with all of this.

https://www.change.org/p/u-s-house-of-representatives-pass-the-michael-brown-jr-law-to-begin-equipping-police-with-body-cameras?utm_source=action_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=196226&alert_id=GxkWyTDjfL_bR2Gkv8n5tD1cmsG04erm6FX9C1ZrE%2BMfV0FxyflpO0%3D

[theprincethatwasntpromised]

So in your world a person who's went after a cops gun, but is now out of the range that a person with a knife would be considered a deadly threat, can still be shot even though he's currently nowhere near a gun and cannot be a threat based on his ability to shoot a cop. How exactly does it make sense that someone who is claimed to have went after a gun 150 feet ago is still a threat based on his not getting a gun?

No because it's not clear at all. It doesn't make any goddamn sense that Brown would just attack a cop.

Well that's where the whole advancing thing comes into play, isn't it. If the advancement is allowed, as some of you believe it should have been, he would have been in range. That's why he was killed. Brown had multiple opportunities to surrender. He chose to be combative.