If you live in the United States, you should be disgusted with your country

[Nikose Tyris]

Originally Posted by shiney

Oh here's something fun.

Addictinginfo.org is hardly a thoroughly reputable source, but they do get some breaking news right. If this is true it would be ground for a mistrial on part of the grand jury (or whatever the legal equivalent is, Snake could you enlighten?)

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2014/11...aising-wilson/

The whole overlapping thing with McCullough is a part of it, yes.
Backstoppers is the organization name, Prosecutor is the President of it, and despite saying "We have nothing to do with Ferguson, we are staying out of it" they also sold T-Shirts saying "We support Darren Wilson" so ????? Sketch as fuck.

---------- Post added at 11:17 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:14 AM ----------

Double posting because you can't stop me:

http://stlfoodbank.org/

A reminder that St Louis is a food desert, movement is restricted, and a lot of people aren't getting working hours in right now- and businesses are being destroyed. Food bank donations are a purely good move regardless of what side of the issue you stand on.

[Solid Snake]

I'm going to waste the next few hours reading all this grand jury testimony and I'll forewarn you all in advance that I'll be back probably around noon seething like a lunatic.

[batgirl]

Originally Posted by Solid Snake

...I don't get it.

When someone who disagreed with you responded to your well-articulated points from a perspective of emotional agitation your retort was:



...Which implies that you're upset that you couldn't participate in meaningful debate.

So now the meaningful debate over the actual facts of the case is happening, and instead of engaging with us and explaining your perspective, you're going to turn tail and run?


It's like you're interested in the theoretical possibility of well-reasoned, well-intentioned debate so long as that possibility remains theoretical and so long as you can win points by casting yourself as unfairly maligned by an opposing side that refuses the decency of debating you on the facts. But the minute that debate actually happens and we want to engage you on the substance, suddenly that was never your intention at all?

...Honestly that really aggravates me for some inexplicable reason, like, you either seriously wanted to have a real discussion or you just wanted an excuse to berate Kim.

No, I never wanted to berate Kim. She expressed her disappointment that someone had an opinion about defending Mr. Brown's murder and I apologized for it. My comment was sarcastic at its' worst, but I never wanted to berate anyone.

I want to have a serious discussion, but my intention was to post my thoughts, post the grand jury transcripts and then not come back to this thread until later due to personal obligations and time constraints. This is an internet thread after all, and not my number one priority. It's kind of dicey weather over here in NY and I have my job to do today, plus I'm cooking for 30 ppl in my ambulance corps so those who are working tomorrow can have thanksgiving dinner, plus my family is coming tomorrow from out of state, so I'm a bit busy at the moment.

My reasoning for posting that I'm in the minority and I don't want to argue is that some of us here (not naming specific names) get very emotional about things. Some people in the thread have posted intelligent and well thought out comments and responses and some have just posted what can be equated to "fuck the police, they all suck!" I personally don't feel like getting berated (to use your word Snake) by those whose mentality is the blanket statement that "all police are horrible people."

Also, I'm not trying to "win points." This isn't a game, and there aren't any winners or losers. I appreciate everyone's well thought out and articulated opinion, but no one will be winning the "Game of Thrones" at the end of this thread.

I am very interested in having a debate with anyone who cares to. I will formulate a longer post with my analysis of what went on when I get a moment. I also want to read a little more of the transcripts because honestly, I haven't read a ton. It's pretty long and it only came out yesterday.

[Overcast]

You know I guess I need to figure out where I am morally, because when I'm looking at this I'm not even putting the largest problem on this kid dying.

I don't know Brown, just about everything folks say one way or another are so far away I just cannot possibly get a genuine opinion. Did he deserve to get shot? Prolly not, definitely didn't deserve to die. He is dead though, and he wasn't exactly in a position to use deadly force at the same level I'm expected to be threatened before I can. So at this point I expect him to have to defend himself in court because that was just not a good scenario.

And if he had been forced to stand on his own two feet in this respect maybe it turning out this way would have been alright, but there was support from his presinct to try to dirty the public image of Brown.

Now Wilson goes along with it, but fuck if I know entirely why, but it causes a change from a problem of lethal force to the idea of what the whole department considers acceptable. Is that fair for him? Probably not, but its true. By involving themselves they changed this from an issue of if Wilson was in the right for firing his weapon, to the cultural idea that the precinct wasn't going to let it be an issue at all. That's wrong, and now I hope there is something more to look into there.

If ultimately the evidence presented would have been enough to let Wilson walk either way then I wonder a bit if this could have been avoided. Moreover I wonder if we would want it to be, and not force the public eye their way.

Brain is just all over the place, and I still feel underinformed.

[Solid Snake]

...Okay, I got about halfway through the first witness and I already can't take it.

I've identified the rather seismic problem, though. Usually, 99.9% of the time, in indictments against most criminal defendants, the prosecutor goes to the grand jury and calls up witnesses who are part of the team...investigators, officers, medical staff, everyone called to the scene.

And usually they're the prosecutor's allies. They're working together to establish the probable guilt of the defendant. And they're co-workers and probably friends outside the office, or at least workplace acquaintances. The same faces playing the same roles in these testimonies.
But here, the prosecutor should be treating these people as adversarial witnesses. The goal has to be to pick apart the investigation and to pick apart all efforts undertaken by the St. Louis police, to question every established protocol, to badger the witnesses as to why for example it took the medical examiner's office investigator a full hour to arrive at the scene of the crime, and to NOT ACCEPT the default generic answer of procedures and protocols. Press. Press. Get under their skin. Press some more.

...Why does the St. Louis police department and investigators tied directly to the police department have sole access to the body for a full hour before the Medical Examiner's Office Investigator can see the body?
...Why doesn't the Medical Examiner's Office Investigator engage in standard protocol...take his/her own photographs (and NOT rely solely on police photography)...take measurements to determine the probable distance the victim was from the assailant when the bullets were fired?
...How could you possibly have made mundane mistakes in your report? (See pg. 48.) Were you really taking this investigation seriously if you can't even properly record or remember the body's position on the ground, or street names where this all happened?

The prosecutor doesn't ask these adversarial questions because he's not used to the role of treating his buddies as adversarial witnesses. They're buddies. They're teammates. They're trustworthy. So all these opportunities to question the authorities most likely to cover up things or obscure truths to help a fellow Cop aren't taken. The prosecutor doesn't seem to be comfortable playing the necessary role.

...No wonder the prosecutor won't even bother to grill the Officer on cross-examination later. This isn't the role the prosecutor's used to playing here. Up is down, left is right, the sky is green and these prosecutors can't handle things in Opposite-Land.

EDIT: When a Cop's the suspect, you really need an independent DA outside the jurisdiction to swoop in and play this role.

EDIT 2: It's not just a matter of the prosecutors possibly wanting to protect a police officer in their jurisdiction. Every witness here is someone who the prosecutors likely have some kind of amiable relationship with, and that relationship's going to be threatened in future cases if the prosecutor acts like a nasty jackass around these guys and gals in this case. Problem is, to do the job right in this case, these prosecutors have to play the villain. The prosecutor has to operate under the assumption that the police and investigators are lying, withholding information, deliberately or accidentally making mistakes and doing a half-assed job, leaving out vital details, incompetent in their abilities, sloppy with the details, or even purposefully protecting one of their own. But if they play the villain here it may affect future testimonies and ruin a functioning system.

[Amake]

What I gather from this thread is that while some people have to assume the worst about all cops to maximize their chances of survival, some people have to assume the best about all cops to maximize their chances of survival. And based on either assumption, the Internet will present two entirely different worlds in which Mike Brown died in different ways, for different reasons. Evidence of how the Internet is turning into a sad, lonely, politically segregated place.

I think it will help us all to think for a while about why we think we know the things we know; whose interests the facts we imagine that we have are designed to serve and what they might have left out.

But yes, like the American Bar Association, I still think Darren Wilson should stand trial.

[Solid Snake]

I skipped ahead to the Darren Wilson testimony.
...I'm going to punch a wall.

[Nique]

Batgirl - I think, ideally, society would be able to objectively discuss the case of Mike Brown in the relative vacuum of a post-racial, post-class environment.

We ain't there.

The discussion of Mike Brown's guilt is a derailment of the larger issues at play, and ignores the fact of his death at the hands of an officer as adding to the larger problem of police conduct, accountability, and race/ class issues in America.

Whether or not the officer acted properly, there's the issue of the mis-handling of the investigation into Brown's death afterward, showing a lack of accountability on the part of the police.

Then we get into a bunch of issues: the question of whether or not the police should even have the right to sanction someone, the lack of empathy or even recognition of the social issues that cause people to turn to crime, and the 'thin-blue-line' which protects officers who actively abuse their power and other who operate with bigoted and often outright racist attitudes.

[Solid Snake]

ASSISTANT DISTRICT ATTORNEY: "Of course everybody knows why we're here, so let's just get to it."

WILSON: "Okay."

DA: "Let's talk about your day on August the 9th. What shift did you work?"

WILSON: "Day shift."

DA: "And what shift would that be, what hours?"

WILSON: "6:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m."

DA: "Twelve hour shift?"

WILSON: "Correct."

DA: "Had you worked the day before?"

WILSON: "Yes, I had."

DA: "Same shift?"

WILSON: "Yes."

DA: "You weren't working like midnights the night before?"

WILSON: "No, m'am."

DA: "When you started your shift, did anything happen that you consider very eventful? I mean, earlier that day, prior to 10:00 let's say, 10:00 am."

WILSON: "No, m'am."

DA: "Had you answered any calls prior to 10:00 am?"

WILSON: "I don't recall, I don't believe so, but I don't recall, nothing stands out in my memory."

DA: "It was a pretty quiet day initially?"

WILSON: "Yes, m'am."

DA: "Now, at some point you had a sick call, a sick baby, I think?"

WILSON: "Yes, m'am."

DA: "And that would have been 11-ish or so?"

WILSON: "I think it was around 11:30ish, somewhere in that vicinity."

DA: "That was near the Canfield Green Apartments?"

WILSON: "Yes, m'am, it was actually past them in the adjoining apartment complex."

DA: "And what do they call those apartments?"

WILSON: "I believe that apartment is called Northwinds."

DA: "Northwinds. Okay. And it is like east of the Canfield Green, behind those apartments?"

WILSON: "Correct."

DA: "When you went on that call, did you have assistance?"

WILSON: "No, I did not."

DA: "All right."

WILSON: "Not police assistance."

DA: "No police assistance?"

WILSON: "No."

DA: "You handled that call by yourself?"

WILSON: "Yes, m'am."

DA: "And did you have any confrontation with anybody or was everything, was it a pretty as a matter of fact call?"

WILSON: "It was a pretty laid-back call. It was for a sick infant, I believe, only a couple months old."

DA: "Okay."

WILSON: "I believe she had a fever, I'm not 100 percent sure."

DA: "Let me ask this question, can everybody hear him? Speak up. I usually stand in the back of the room so we can have a conversation. As you can tell, my voice really carries, so try to, you know, speak up so everybody can hear you."

WILSON: "Okay."

DA: "So the baby was an infant?"

WILSON: "Correct."

DA: "Was the baby not breathing, what was the call, do you recall?"

WILSON: "I believe it was for a fever."

DA: "Fever you said, I'm sorry...Ambulance arrived?"

WILSON: "Yes, ambulance arrived at the same time I arrived."

DA: "Okay. Baby went to the hospital with its mother?"

WILSON: "The mother and baby were transported."



"GUYS, I FIGURED OUT AN INGENIOUS WAY TO INTRODUCE INADMISSIBLE AND IRRELEVANT CHARACTER EVIDENCE TO MAKE OFFICE WILSON SEEM LIKE QUITE THE SWELL BABY-SAVIN' GUY"
"BUT AREN'T WE THE PROSECUTORS AND ISN'T HE THE DEFENDANT?"
"PFT NAW, HE'S A COP, HE'S OUR BRO!"

[Ryong]

My opinion regarding the matter:

- Darren Wilson should stand trial. I'm not sure how much of a big deal this is in the USA, but, c'mon. heck, there was a case here not long ago where in a cop shot and killed a person. A peddler was selling pirate DVDs and such, a cop restrained the peddler after said peddler attempted to run, civilians flooded in yelling about how the peddler was innocent and the cop was being out of line, cop used mace while asking for space because the civilians wouldn't back down, another peddler gets right next to the cop and starts trying to argue with him, cop pulls out gun and waves it around to try and get people to disperse and then the guy tries to grab the gun from his hand at which point the cop shoots, accidentally hitting the restrained peddler on the head.

- You need a third party to investigate what happened, not just some different people from what is otherwise the same party.