Ferguson

[Mori Chu]

Do we even want to talk about it?

[Superbone]

http://www.phx-suns.net/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=316

First time I've ever seen the OP make a new topic on a topic he already started.

[Dan H]

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government ... -Reopening

We can always keep it positive, I guess?


If you look at the shop owner here:



It's this guy here:



I've heard there's a GoFundMe for him as well on my Twitter but a quick search didn't turn it up.

[Mori Chu]

'Bone: I know we have a Ferguson topic, but I meant, do we want to talk about the current status of it, like the fact that the officer wasn't indicted, etc. And whether or not that was a good/bad thing.

[Nodack]

I haven't spent much time on this. I am against police brutality and think if an officer does murder somebody in cold blood that he should be punished like everybody else. I read up on this and there is a lot of conflicting information out there. The cop says one thing and the friends of the deceased say another. I decided to let the courts decide and they ruled not guilty. Like always most of the public made up there minds on the first day before they got any facts. Burning down your own neighborhood to protest seems stupid to me.

To me this is just a sad story where everybody gets hurt. The media milks the story for all it's worth and that puts a spotlight on the whole thing which adds to the chaos. I chose to ignore it for the most part and not choose any side because to me there is no side to choose.

[Superbone]

I am against police brutality...

What?!

[Nodack]

Smart ass.

[Indy]

They needed 75% to bring charges and despite Ferguson being 70% black, the grand jury was only 30% black. It's an awful situation there.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Superbone]

Smart ass.

Yes, I know.

[SDC]

Why Charles Barkley supports the Ferguson grand jury decision

http://news.yahoo.com/why-charles-barkl ... 36319.html

[Phoenix219]

Sir Charles is the man. Never afraid to speak his mind.

[Mori Chu]

Barkley is the man? The Ferguson ruling is a real sham. Have you read the stats on indictments by Grand Juries? They have literally only not indicted in like 11 cases out of the last 193,000. The more that comes out about it, the more it looks like the prosecuting attorney was grossly incompetent and had a huge conflict of interest that caused him to conduct his work in the case in completely the wrong way. I'm not saying that I think Darren Wilson should go to prison for life or whatever; I'm just saying that there was absolutely enough evidence for it to go to a trial. And while I don't condone looting, those people are absolutely right to be pissed off about it.

[Dan H]

Barkley is the man? The Ferguson ruling is a real sham. Have you read the stats on indictments by Grand Juries? They have literally only not indicted in like 11 cases out of the last 193,000. The more that comes out about it, the more it looks like the prosecuting attorney was grossly incompetent and had a huge conflict of interest that caused him to conduct his work in the case in completely the wrong way. I'm not saying that I think Darren Wilson should go to prison for life or whatever; I'm just saying that there was absolutely enough evidence for it to go to a trial. And while I don't condone looting, those people are absolutely right to be pissed off about it.

Democrat DA. Democrat Governor. Democrat Mayor. Just wanted to get that out there before someone blames the right.

[Indy]

Why would someone blame them, Dan?

And I couldn't agree more with that Mori. You can't tell me there isn't enough evidence to charge him. He is still innocent until proven guilty in court.

And I think I mentioned this somewhere, but you need 9 of the 12 people to agree to indict. And despite Ferguson being 70% black, 75% of the people on the grand jury were not black.

[Superbone]

Why would someone blame them, Dan?

And I couldn't agree more with that Mori. You can't tell me there isn't enough evidence to charge him. He is still innocent until proven guilty in court.

And I think I mentioned this somewhere, but you need 9 of the 12 people to agree to indict. And despite Ferguson being 70% black, 75% of the people on the grand jury were not black.

What happened to a jury of your peers?

[Indy]

That only works for middle-class white people. Same thing with "and justice for all."

[Mori Chu]

Democrat DA. Democrat Governor. Democrat Mayor. Just wanted to get that out there before someone blames the right.

I don't think of it as being a "left" vs "right" thing at all, though it does seem that more Republicans seem to support the ruling and more Democrats seem to dislike it.

[Phoenix219]

Barkley is the man? The Ferguson ruling is a real sham. Have you read the stats on indictments by Grand Juries? They have literally only not indicted in like 11 cases out of the last 193,000. The more that comes out about it, the more it looks like the prosecuting attorney was grossly incompetent and had a huge conflict of interest that caused him to conduct his work in the case in completely the wrong way. I'm not saying that I think Darren Wilson should go to prison for life or whatever; I'm just saying that there was absolutely enough evidence for it to go to a trial. And while I don't condone looting, those people are absolutely right to be pissed off about it.

Yeah, I've read everything - All the witnesses (7 black) that back the cops story (and the ones that changed their story after the autopsies - THREE of them done by different sources - all proved their stories wrong). I've heard the video of the guy verbally backing the cops story. I know that none of the bullet holes entered from the back and that his arms weren't up. I know that forensics shows signs of the struggle when Wilson was attacked in his car and Brown was shot in the hand at close range. I know that blood trails show that Brown ran off, then doubled back to rush Wilson, as backed by witnesses and Wilson's testimony. I know that the officer has the right to defend himself and not let himself get shot by a criminal who assaulted him, tried to get his gun, and was bum-rushing him after just assaulting a store clerk and defian. The media narrative for this story began from the lies of Brown's criminal accomplice! Its truly mind boggling that so many people are ready to ignore all facts, forensics and witnesses and a court that spent months going over every detail, to justify more racial division and the looting and killing going on in the area. St Louis, pack of thugs at 1:30am beat a bosnian immigrant to death with hammers while yelling anti-white rhetoric, but there was no reason to think race was a motive, and the witnesses were ignored. Wheres the media on this one? This was a criminal / scumbag vs civilized society issue, not a black and white one. Attacking a cop is usually only going to end one way....

[Nodack]

It would be nice to have a place to get just facts so we could all make our minds up using facts instead of opinion based news that we have today. I have to base my opinions based on the available info out there that varies greatly. I know there are good cops and bad cops out there. Was this cop a good cop or a bad cop?

I haven't read anything indicating that the cop had any kind of a history of violence against blacks or anything indicating anything other than him being a good cop.

If my info is correct the slain suspect was caught on video roughing up a store clerk and commiting petty theft right before the incident leading to the police looking for him. The two people claiming his hands were up were his friends who were with him at the time of the store incident too? We are supposed to take their word ove the other 7 black witnesses? From the evidence I have seen the cops version of the story is much more believable. A Grand Jury didn't indict him. They weren't 77% black and to some that makes it a good ole boy club, but I don't know about that. I don't know how the jury selection process went down, so I can't say. Maybe most of the blacks had already heard of the incident and had made up their minds about guilt already making them illegible. Who knows?

Lots of people all worked up over this. The media has milked it for all its worth. Dan with the political tie in. FOX has been milking it too, but their twist is blaming the Liberal media for stroking the flames while they post 8 links to other Brown stories stroking the flames.

The Rams and their players giving the Brown hands up salute was in poor taste. When we make it fashionable to hate the police we aren't doing anybody any service. I would be really pissed off if I was a cop too. There has been a lot of disrespect going on in this country. It's really sad. We have gotten really good at fanning the flames of hate. Political party's not in charge make disrespecting their government the patriotic thing to do. Media works the angle of stirring up the masses too for their own benefit.

[Mori Chu]

I'm not upset about the race of the grand jury members. Yes, the grand jury wasn't as high percentage black as the general population, but I don't believe that the grand jury members were out to get Mike Brown or out to protect the officer Darren Wilson. I think they looked at the evidence presented to them and made a decision based on that.

I'm more bothered by the prosecuting attorney. I've been reading several sources saying that he did an absolutely horrendous, and in many ways questionable, job. From what I'm seeing, it is extremely easy to get an indictment in one of these grand jury proceedings. A lot of people defending Wilson need to understand, indicting him is NOT the same as finding him guilty. It's just saying that there is enough evidence or doubt that we should at least have a trial. He is still absolutely innocent until proven guilty, and the point of the trial is to examine all available evidence to decide his innocence or guilt. The only way you don't get an indictment is when the case is frivolous, when there's basically nothing there, no leg for the prosecution to stand on. If you can introduce any doubt, any inconsistency, at all, you get your indictment. Indictment != guilty verdict. As I said elsewhere, in literally only 13 out of 193,000 most recent grand jury cases was an indictment NOT given.

So the question becomes, is this case one of those 13, one that has so little validity that it should not even go to trial? There were many witnesses and their testimonies were inconsistent. I'm *NOT* saying that I believe some witnesses more than others; I'm *NOT* saying that I think Darren Wilson is guilty. I'm just saying that even one or two witnesses saying he did inappropriate things is usually enough to at least get an indictment. Also, if you look at the autopsy/forensic evidence they gathered from Brown's body, it's unusual. A bunch of bullets in him, some in the top of his head, etc., it casts some doubt as to why he was shot that many times at those angles. If you read Wilson''s own testimony and recount of the events, it is in some ways inconsistent with the other evidence they gathered at the scene (how many feet the body was from the car, blood trails, etc.) Again: I AM NOT SAYING WILSON IS GUILTY OR SHOULD GO TO PRISON. I am not defending Mike Brown as a great dude. I am saying, I think there was enough stuff to look at here, that there should have been a trial. That trial likely would have found Officer Wilson not guilty. But the trial itself should have probably occurred.

I find it really interesting when people start bringing up things like how Brown robbed a liquor store, how he's a thug, etc. And that he seems to have reached into Officer Wilson's car, tussled with him, maybe even reached for his gun. Yeah, he just might be a horrible dude. I'm not defending the guy. He sounds like a bad seed. But that is basically immaterial in terms of answering the question of whether he deserves to be shot many times and killed. If he's being physically aggressive toward an officer, that makes it likely that an officer was justified in subduing him or using deadly force against him. But if there's some doubt or uncertainty or inconsistency, you decide whether the force was justified IN A TRIAL. A trial isn't unfair or rude to Officer Wilson; he'll be well represented, he has a lot of evidence and facts on his side, he's innocent until proven guilty, and so on.

So why didn't we go to trial? My understanding is that the prosecuting attorney made two major kinds of errors:

1. Called Officer Wilson to testify in the hearing.
2. Didn't ask a lot of important questions when cross-examining Officer Wilson.

For 1., you might say, wait, why WOULDN'T you call Officer Wilson to testify? Here's the thing. If you're the prosecuting attorney, your ONE AND ONLY job here is to get the grand jury to agree to give you an indictment. For that reason, you usually should present the bare minimum evidence necessary to cast doubt and make the grand jury feel that a trial is needed to get to the bottom of things. You almost NEVER bring the whole case in and have every relevant person testify and present a complete account of the case. Because that isn't helpful or needed to get an indictment. You just call in some witnesses who say "I think he did this and that," you show a little bit of inconsistency between Wilson's recorded account of the incident vs. other physical evidence, and you're done. The grand jury says, "Hmm, that's odd; yep, better have a trial to ask the officer and others what's up here," boom, indictment. That's what you do. This is apparently Prosecuting Attorney 101. Several attorneys online have come out and vocally questioned what the prosecutor here was doing. He willingly called Officer Wilson to the stand and had him give a complete recount of the case and what happened that day. This very often moves the grand jury to feel sympathetic toward the accused, gives him a chance to present 100% of his side, etc. It almost always ACTIVELY HURTS the chances of getting an indictment. So as a prosecutor, you never do that! Not to the grand jury, not when seeking an indictment. These other attorneys online are saying, there's no way this prosecutor didn't know this. So he may have been calling the officer to the stand as a way of actively subverting his own chances of succeeding in the case.

Why would he do this? Well, prosecuting attorneys are not completely impartial. He probably works closely with the police and has some desire to help them out. It may have been a huge conflict of interest. This is very bad, if true.

As for 2., that's the other thing. They shouldn't have had Officer Wilson on the stand in the first place, but once they did, they didn't ask him a bunch of things that any competent cross-examining prosecutor would ask. Like for example, in his testimony Officer Wilson said repeatedly that he saw Brown "reaching for his belt area" etc. This implies that Wilson thought Brown had a gun. But any good cross-examiner doesn't leave anything to implication. You ask Wilson, "Are you saying that you thought Brown had a gun?" You make him say "yes" or "no" unambiguously. If he says "yes", then you put it in the record that Wilson thought Brown had a gun, and now part of the case can hinge on, was it reasonable for him to think that, was it reasonable as a competent officer for him to act on that assumption, etc. If he says "no", you strike the "belt area" comment from the record as being irrelevant and you instruct the jury NOT to consider it. And so on. Several sites have gone through the job the prosecutor did and it's full of glaring mistakes like this, things that any first-year law student would know not to do. I find it highly questionable.

===

In summary:

* An indictment is NOT a guilty verdict; it just means, let's look at this, gather all the evidence, figure out what really happened and what's right to do about it.

* Almost EVERY case EVER does get an indictment.

* It is very odd that this one didn't, since there seems to be at least enough question or doubt or need to investigate further.

* There are several examples of the prosecuting attorney acting in an incompetent manner that seems to have actively hurt his case.

* Add it all up, it looks fishy to me.