There seems to have been a leak to the effect that the grand jury will refuse to return an indictment against the officer who shot Michael Brown. There is also a rumor that the decision will be handed down very soon and that there will be massive protests in Ferguson and neighboring towns.
These are just rumors I’m sharing. I have no definitive source to quote. All I know is that today I was warned not to go near St. Louis in the coming days by three different people.
Clarissa's Blog 
All of those have been rumors for over a month except for the timing of the grand jury announcing that they’re not going to charge the police officer. And I’m not surprised that three different people told you to stay away from St. Louis — protests have been going on since August. I’ve never believed that Michael Brown will get any justice, every single law enforcement and state government response has been farcically insulting.
Two storifys I’ve seen:
The police lied about the distance at which Michael Brown was shot.
Governor Nixon is friends with the special prosecutor who loves cops and the Ferguson police chief
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I think it’s kind of obvious that they’re slow leaking this hoping that by the time it’s actually announced that protestors will be too worn out with ongoing protests to break too much stuff…. or other people (though they still have enough energy to put an outside supporter into the hospital so the longer they drag it out probably the better).
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I also think the leaks serve this purpose.
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I really think the slow leaking is to discredit Michael Brown and by extension the protesters. The leaks have the effect of infuriating the protesters and taking the emphasis off of a pattern of behavior by a police department and putting them on one dead person. The leaks have the effect of tainting any particular jury pool within the area, because as time goes on, an increasing number of people will either think Michael Brown deserved what he got or that there are so many many holes and so much reasonable doubt that they could not possibly convict. The leaks also thoroughly foul any kind of case a prosecutor could make. If you read the second storify in my first comment, the prosecutor for the area has
very little interest in prosecuting cops The slow leaking is not to reduce violence. Either the protest will lose air like a souffle, or a riot will happen. If a riot happens, the police and the National Guard can use maximum force and most people will support it.
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In other news, a supposedly serious article from a presumed feminist suggests that women lose their status as adults and moral agents.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/11/06/we-should-stop-putting-women-in-jail-for-anything/?sc=1
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There is one more measure the author forgot to mention: give them candy and pat them on the head.
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And ponies for everyone!
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Some Yankee was cast out of Australia recently.
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Do you people not understand that all of the physical evidence indicate that the officer was telling the truth…or is that in any way important to you?
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What physical evidence? What truth? Who was he telling it to?
Often, people leave links or quotes to explain what they are trying to say. You can’t expect everyone to read your mind.
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Possibly they were referring to stories like this:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/new-evidence-supports-officers-account-of-shooting-in-ferguson/2014/10/22/cf38c7b4-5964-11e4-bd61-346aee66ba29_story.html
waffling from the pathologist here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/pathologist-says-brown-autopsy-quotes-in-post-dispatch-were-taken-out-of-context/2014/10/28/30829296-5dea-11e4-9f3a-7e28799e0549_story.html
and more here (which I didn’t read)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/pathologist-says-brown-autopsy-quotes-in-post-dispatch-were-taken-out-of-context/2014/10/28/30829296-5dea-11e4-9f3a-7e28799e0549_story.html
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The intro to the article tells us what we need to know.
As I said, the very idea that an armed person in a cat had to shoot unarmed person without a car in “self – defense” is absolutely ridiculous to me. If this hysteric of am officer was so scared of an unarmed pedestrian, he should have driven away and hid like the little cry baby he is.
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LOL, let’s see if this old fart knows how to do this ;-D Here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/new-evidence-supports-officers-account-of-shooting-in-ferguson/2014/10/22/cf38c7b4-5964-11e4-bd61-346aee66ba29_story.html
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Decoder/Decoder-Voices/2014/1024/Ferguson-shooting-Evidence-appears-to-support-officer-s-version-of-events
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Bg: have you read your own link? From the beginning?
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Clarissa
I have read or seen many newspaper and television comments on the story as it developed…and yes, that included those that I linked, and those of cliff. The original narrative always did appear extremely unlikely to me.
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Your links state at the very beginning that the story has been disproved.
But let’s assume that it hasn’t been. Let’s see what your scenario of the events is. The officer is sitting peacefully in his car. Michael Brown is passing by unarmed. He decides – for no explicable reason – to attack the officer and take away his gun. He approaches, reaches into the car, and starts rummaging around the officer’s body, trying to remove the gun from its holster. He manages to do that but then the officer wrestles back the gun and starts shooting. You have to agree that this scenario is beyond bizarre.
However, let’s accept that this is exactly what happened. What should the verdict be in this case? I believe that even with this bizarre scenario, the officer is obviously guilty not only of extreme dereliction of duty but also of criminal negligence homicide. This is the definition of criminal negligence homicide.
Of course, you might have some different scenario of events in mind. Try to describe it then. Because otherwise I have no idea what we are arguing about.
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“Your links state at the very beginning that the story has been disproved.”
No, they link to a person who’s uncomfortable (rightly so!) with ideas like ‘proved’ and who is more comfortable with ‘is consistent with’ or ‘is inconsistent with’. She would say the same thing if you asked if the sun rose in the east this morning: She didn’t see it but the position in the sky and the observable movement of the sun is not inconsistent with such a hypothesis…. She’s not paid to make conclusions and she didn’t, the conclusions are for the grand jury to make.
The police officer’s story is roughly that he told a group of guys to stop walking in the middle of the street (which is asshole misdemeanor behavior if not a felony) and they didn’t comply. Then he realized that they might fit the suspects of a convenience store robbery (which Brown was almost certainly involved in). Things quickly went south. My own best guess is that Brown (jittery about being arrested for the robbery and probably impaired by blunts) thought he could intimidate Wilson (scuffle in the car) and thought better of it and then maybe charged him. There are neighborhood witnesses (who haven’t been in the media) who back up at least some of Wilsons’s claims.
As for what Wilson should do, the fact remains in the real world that if you attack a policeman you’d better kill him because if you don’t he’s gonna try to kill you. That’s ugly and maybe wrong but it’s the way police work.
I don’t know if Wilson should or will be indicted, but nothing (even a first degree murder indictment) is likely to satisfy the protestors by now so there’s going to be trouble regardless of what the facts on the ground were.
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“The police officer’s story is roughly that he told a group of guys to stop walking in the middle of the street (which is asshole misdemeanor behavior if not a felony) and they didn’t comply. Then he realized that they might fit the suspects of a convenience store robbery (which Brown was almost certainly involved in). Things quickly went south. My own best guess is that Brown (jittery about being arrested for the robbery and probably impaired by blunts) thought he could intimidate Wilson (scuffle in the car) and thought better of it and then maybe charged him.”
– So the so-called officer escalated a situation that doesn’t even rise to the level of a minor infraction to the point of leaving a person dead on the sidewalk. That’s how he protects law and order. Obviously, he cannot be allowed outside if such a situation leads him to killing people. So it logically follows that he should be isolated from society.
“As for what Wilson should do, the fact remains in the real world that if you attack a policeman you’d better kill him because if you don’t he’s gonna try to kill you. That’s ugly and maybe wrong but it’s the way police work.”
– We, the taxpayers, pay them. And they will work the way we tell them to. If they are incapable of carrying out their basic job duties, they should be punished. I believe in individual responsibility. Wilson agreed to work in law enforcement of his own free will, right? He accepted payment for these services. Now it turns out that he is grievously incapable of performing the services we’ve been paying him for. He should return the money he has defrauded the state out of and go to jail for murder.
“I don’t know if Wilson should or will be indicted, but nothing (even a first degree murder indictment) is likely to satisfy the protestors by now so there’s going to be trouble regardless of what the facts on the ground were.”
– The protesters are ensuring that unhinged hysterics who take taxpayers’ money and don’t give anything in return but dead bodies get well-deserved punishment. I think that is beautiful. Not even in the USSR was it OK for a law enforcement officer to start shooting at unarmed people because he got wah-wah scared of a big boo-boo. He would be laughed out of the courthouse everywhere else in the world with his cry-baby stories of being hugely scared of an unarmed kid. I can’t believe what society has degenerated into if anybody is willing even to listen to his pathetic whimpering. Let’s all get together and give him a big pink lollipop to console him for the profound trauma of dealing with pedestrians. Poor innocent baby, he’s been so traumatized by being asked to work.
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\\ However, let’s accept that this is exactly what happened. What should the verdict be in this case? I believe that even with this bizarre scenario, the officer is obviously guilty not only of extreme dereliction of duty but also of criminal negligence homicide.
Why? If the attacker is near you?
Is the following case criminal negligence homicide too?
Video surveillance recordings obtained by Ynet documented an incident on Saturday night in which police officers shot a 22-year-old man named Khair al-Din Rouf Hamdan, from the town of Kafr Kanna in the lower Galilee, after he attempted, according to the police, to stab one of the officers.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4589386,00.html
As a result,
“The Supreme Follow-Up Committee for the Arab Citizens of Israel announced Saturday night a general strike tomorrow, in the wake of the killing of an Arab man, Kheir al-Din Hamdan, in his village of Kfar Kana.”
” the footage, allegedly taken from a closed circuit security camera, shows the man making a stabbing motion with an object against the vehicle’s windows while policemen were inside. Once they stepped out, he took a few steps back before being shot. Samri said the whole matter was under investigation and that police would not comment further until they had specific findings.”
http://jewishbusinessnews.com/2014/11/08/israeli-arabs-to-strike-sunday-over-police-killing-of-kfar-kana-rioter/
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“Why? If the attacker is near you?”
– Let’s leave me out of this because there is no way in the world such a situation would have happened to me. And mind you, I have not been trained and am not being paid to maintain law and order. Darren Wilson obviously was. I’d also bring him up on charges of defrauding the state out of the money that was paid to him for carrying out the duties he is obviously too incompetent to carry out. He was receiving salary for services he is incapable of delivering. That’s fraud. And I promise to you that, as a civil servant, I could not possibly expect the state to tolerate such gross incompetence on my part.
“” the footage, allegedly taken from a closed circuit security camera, shows the man making a stabbing motion with an object against the vehicle’s windows while policemen were inside. Once they stepped out, he took a few steps back before being shot. Samri said the whole matter was under investigation and that police would not comment further until they had specific findings.”
– Charcot seems to have been right about the extreme number of male hysterics.
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Aside from everything else, I’m also upset because my husband happens to pay very significant amounts in taxes to the state of Missouri. And this is what he gets for his money? The money goes to pay somebody who, in the worst case, is a murderous racist, and in the best case, a bumbling loser hysteric and a total incompetent? He sits in a car and allows an unarmed passerby to lay hands on his service weapon? Seriously? And he can’t diffuse the situation through any other way but leaving a corpse on the sidewalk? And I’m supposed to care about his “self-defense”?? Our tax money wasn’t paid to him so that he would defend himself on our dime. We are paying him to defend law and order and protect citizens. And he can’t do that. I want my money back.
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I was going to chime in but honestly I can’t add anything to your wonderful comment Clarissa. I agree 1000%.
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Regarding Israeli case:
Kafr Kanna riots: Dozens throwing rocks, Molotov cocktails at police
Rioters protest against police shooting of Khair Hamdan; thousands gather on main road, wave pictures of Arab youth, urge to suspend officers involved in shooting. ‘My son was killed in cold blood because he is an Arab,’ Hamdan’s father says.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4589420,00.html
If you check the Israeli sites, 100% support the police. What did he (and his family) expect to happen after attacking police with a knife? Look:
“Dozens of rioters hurled rocks and Molotov cocktails at police officers and set tires on fire at the Beit Rimon Junction in the Lower Galilee on Saturday, in protest of the police shooting of 22-year-old Khair al-Din Rouf Hamdan, who was shot dead after he threatened officers with a knife.”
They hurl rocks and Molotov cocktails, set fires and expect to go home without any problem.
// Rauf Hamdan, the father of the deceased, said to the crowd: “My son was killed in cold blood because he is an Arab. This disaster is not related only to Kafr Kanna, but touches the entire Arab sector.”
Of course, it’s related to the entire Arab sector. His son, like many others, joined the intifada against Israel. Unlike many others, he payed for it with his life. Others kill Jews and are arrested, not killed. Or do the following (happens every year as a clock) and usually are never caught:
“Suspected arson: Two forest fires put out near Wadi Ara. Seven fire crews and four planes took control of the fire, firemen report seeing civilians near the sites of the fires.”
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“What did he (and his family) expect to happen after attacking police with a knife?”
– Call me old-fashioned, but I expect police officers to save lives, not to take them.
Also, can we limit this thread to discussing Michael Brown? The issue is enormous enough as it is, without us piling stuff on top of it. I want there to be space for people to offer scenarios where the killing of Michael Brown is not a crime. I’m genuinely and profoundly curious as to what such a scenario might be but, so far, nobody has enlightened me. There is a whole bunch of people who are actually donating money to Darren Wilson. They must believe that he hasn’t been paid enough by us, the taxpayers, for such a brilliant effort at maintaining law and order and protecting lives. I want to hear from them and see what their thinking is.
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Tell me Clarissa, have you actually ever been in a fight. I mean a real one, where somebody hits you with fists?
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Yes, I have. Please remember where I come from before you ask useless questions.
And what a boring attempt to derail the discussion. I’m not a police officer. And if I were so pathetically inept in my job duties as this Wilson freak is, I would not be whining and whimpering. I would gladly accept the consequences.
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When you incorrectly stated, “Your links state at the very beginning that the story has been disproved, ” our discussion was finished.
Please take the advice of your friends, because the grand jury conclusion is not likely to please you or the mob. Have a pleasant evening.
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The discussion is finished because you have absolutely nothing whatsoever to respond to the questions I posed. Have the courage to recognize that.
“Please take the advice of your friends, because the grand jury conclusion is not likely to please you or the mob.”
– Yes, the wimpification of grown men in our society has gone too far. And that is very tragic.
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The grand jury system in the US is basically bogus. It serves as a rubber stamp for prosecutors with a 98% indictment rate. To quote one famous jurist, a prosecutor could “indict a ham sandwich” if desired. Over half the US states no longer use them.
Why a rubber stamp? There is no verification, no cross-examination, and no presentation of evidence favorable to the accused. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_juries_in_the_United_States
If there is no indictment, it’s because the prosecutor didn’t push to get one.
I had heard that the grand jury result would be out this weekend. I’m guessing we’ll hear it late tonight or late tomorrow night, to minimize the opportunity for public reaction.
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Thank you, Vic. Your perspective is very valuable, for obvious reasons.
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Heck, from the conversations with my colleague the medical examiner, I’d avoid the North Side and a fair number of the entertainment options downtown (except for ball games, which are heavily policed). But that has bupkis to do with Ferguson, more to do with the ongoing drug dealer feuds.
I am waiting until winter to go to the Columbia Bottoms state conservation area on the North Side. It is a nice 2 mile out and back hike along the Missouri river bank to the confluence with the Mississippi.
The protests need to continue, and need to address the structural issues of the current practice of funding those tiny township governments by ticketing anything that moves. There needs to be very large unified police and fire districts, to reduce the costs and thus the “need” to nickel-and-dime the local population to raise money for the payroll. Incidentally, with fewer police and better administration, one would expect better training of police and more likelihood of avoiding the worst of the tin dictator types drawn to small town policing.
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