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"I'm mad about something! I'll just go loot and burn down this business that donated thousands of dollars to my kids school, that'll show them that I'm serious."

Woke up to a video of people looting a Dollar Tree.....a Dollar Tree of all places. People gleefully carrying out armloads of potato chip bags.

Protests I understand, heck, if there's going to be violence, burning police cars I can at least see a correlation but random looting of businesses that support the community? People really are ignorant animals in large groups.

Then they'll complain that there's no jobs.

Well of course there isn't if you keep burning businesses down and stealing their gak...

 skyth wrote:
I do wonder, though, if the sides had been flipped and Mike Brown was accused of shooting the cop, would Mike Brown have been asked to testify in front of the Grand Jury and would the DA present all evidence and not just evidence that looks worse for Mike?

If Brown had shot the cop it likely would not have needed to go to a grand jury for an indictment, and Brown would have just been charged. When a civilian shoots a cop generally there are no 'self defense' or 'in the line of duty' type factors bringing to question whether or not a crime had been committed. When a cop shoots and kills someone, those factors often do exist, so a grand jury may be desirable to determine if a crime was committed and if the cop should be charged. A self defense type shooting (think Zimmerman/Martin) can also have circumstances that make sending it to a grand jury an attractive option for the prosecutor.

 agnosto wrote:
"I'm mad about something! I'll just go loot and burn down this business that donated thousands of dollars to my kids school, that'll show them that I'm serious."

Woke up to a video of people looting a Dollar Tree.....a Dollar Tree of all places. People gleefully carrying out armloads of potato chip bags.

Protests I understand, heck, if there's going to be violence, burning police cars I can at least see a correlation but random looting of businesses that support the community? People really are ignorant animals in large groups.

McDonalds looted, Dollar store looted for potato chips. Seems like there are a lot of protesters from Colorado...

 SlaveToDorkness wrote:
The media shows us slanted information and we get riled up and nothing said afterwards will change our minds.

In this thread I literally can't count the number of times I've read untruths that go in the other direction as well, such as that he stole some cigars (he paid for them), that the police stopped him for stealing the cigars (the cop that stopped him didn't know about the altercation at the store, and the police hadn't viewed the footage until after the shooting), and my favorite, that the officer had suffered an orbital blowout fracture (he didn't).

 CptJake wrote:
When a civilian shoots a cop generally there are no 'self defense' or 'in the line of duty' type factors bringing to question whether or not a crime had been committed.

To expand on this a bit for non-Americans, there have been a few instances - though really rare - where grand juries have failed to indict people who have shot police officers in self defense, usually in states with castle doctrine laws. In those cases it's often while serving a "no knock" warrant at the wrong house, yet another reason no-knock warrants should not be used even a tiny fraction of the times they are used. I don't know if no-knock warrants exist commonly overseas or not.

 Frazzled wrote:

 agnosto wrote:
"I'm mad about something! I'll just go loot and burn down this business that donated thousands of dollars to my kids school, that'll show them that I'm serious."

Woke up to a video of people looting a Dollar Tree.....a Dollar Tree of all places. People gleefully carrying out armloads of potato chip bags.

Protests I understand, heck, if there's going to be violence, burning police cars I can at least see a correlation but random looting of businesses that support the community? People really are ignorant animals in large groups.

McDonalds looted, Dollar store looted for potato chips. Seems like there are a lot of protesters from Colorado...

lol. exalted.

Dude, I've totally got the munchies.
Let's drive down to Ferguson and grab some snacks!

 d-usa wrote:
It seems like deciding to announce this thing at 8pm (which ended up even later of course) was just another example of piss-poor planing and decision making by the people in charge around there.

I'm not specifically calling you out on this d... but, this is getting a ton of play in the media.

As a resident here, my response? feth off.

The officials handled this as best as they could. We did NOT know "officially" that it would be announced yesterday till about 3pm. They wanted to give the locals enough time to get the feth out of dodge.

I had no issues with the timing.

I think there would likely have been riots no matter when they announced, although they may have been able to mitigate them somewhat by altering when they were released. Who knows, really.

I hope tensions ratchet down before the National Guard has to become more involved. That's a really dangerous situation for everyone involved. I know there were quite a few FBI agents sent there, not sure what else for external support.

 ImAGeek wrote:
I think people need to understand why people are protesting. A young black man was shot 6 times and killed for allegedly robbing a shop. Eyewitnesses have said he had his hands up and was surrendering, and there's also evidence that he didn't rob the shop at all. The White man who shot him hasn't even been put on trial.

No, he was shot for assaulting a cop, which (despite eyewitness testimony) every shred of hard forensic evidence supports that he did, and thats why Wilson is not being indicted. Eyewitness testimony has, for the most part, painted Wilson to be some sort of Aryan ubermensch capable of lifting a black teen larger and heavier than himself off his feet single handedly by the neck before slamming him to the ground and unloading 50 rounds at point blank range from his 10 round magazine into his back. Further, those eyewitnesses have, for the most part, changed their story multiple times and been inconsistant at best. Actual science (confirmed by 3 seperate and independent forensic reports commissioned by the state, the federal government, and the victims parents) would indicate that the rounds were discharged inside the car and at least one of the rounds that hit Brown was basically at point blank, in other words, its unlikely that Brown was surrendering, at least not at the time that he had the first couple bullets put in him. More importantly, this means that the eyewitness testimony is largely useless as it cannot be used to corroborate any reasonable exppanation for the chain of events that occurred, and simply put there is not enough evidence with which to hold a trial one way or the other.

The riots started out as peaceful protests too, btw. Before police and SWAT came en force with their assault rifles and tear gas. Where was that when Mike Browns memorial was set on fire and pissed on.

No they didnt. They started out as 4.5 minutes of silence requested by the victims family. As soon as time expired the protestors began throwing things at police at which point they tried dispersing the crowd. You can believe what you want, but in this case there is dnouh video evidence to support that the protestors were violent from the word go. In fact they were prepared to be violent from the get go unless their "demands" for "Justice for Mike Brown" were met.

Okay. It appears I was wrong on some points, so I do apologise, I did speak in haste. And not being from America, and not having working TV at the moment, all my info was from the Internet so that probably was less impartial than I realised.

That'll teach me to post when angry about social issues I don't know much about! Who knew...

If you really want to be mad at anyone, you should be mad at the media for giving voice to rumors and gossip. The end result of all the media coverage wss to spread misinformation which poisoned the waters, sapped credibility from witness testimony, and muddied the waters and obscured whatever truth could have been found outside of the hard evidence. Part of the evidence presented to the grand jury was witness testimony presented in court as well as interviews of those same witnesses by the media. Turns out the two rarely matched up or remained consistant (which we already know because the story changed day to day from media source to media source even when the same eyewitness was being interviewed) which means it wasnt really admissable in court as evidence.

 Ouze wrote:

 SlaveToDorkness wrote:
The media shows us slanted information and we get riled up and nothing said afterwards will change our minds.

In this thread I literally can't count the number of times I've read untruths that go in the other direction as well, such as that he stole some cigars (he paid for them), that the police stopped him for stealing the cigars (the cop that stopped him didn't know about the altercation at the store, and the police hadn't viewed the footage until after the shooting), and my favorite, that the officer had suffered an orbital blowout fracture (he didn't).

Actually, the cop did hear about the theft, because it was called in, on the radio before he made the stop, at least according to his testimony to the grand jury:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/248132491/Darren-Wilson-testimony

FBI is handling the DOJ side.

 ImAGeek wrote:
I think people need to understand why people are protesting. A young black man was shot 6 times and killed for allegedly robbing a shop. Eyewitnesses have said he had his hands up and was surrendering, and there's also evidence that he didn't rob the shop at all. The White man who shot him hasn't even been put on trial. Yet there was a guy who went into a cinema and shot and killed 12 people, who was arrested peacefully. Guess what, he was white.

A 12 year old black boy has been shot and killed for playing with a freaking BB gun. I'm pretty sure he was in an open carry state.

If you aren't angry, you haven't been paying attention.

The riots started out as peaceful protests too, btw. Before police and SWAT came en force with their assault rifles and tear gas. Where was that when Mike Browns memorial was set on fire and pissed on.

I am disgusted.

You should probably educate yourself next time before posting. This is pretty much entirely wrong.

 Ouze wrote:
I think there would likely have been riots no matter when they announced, although they may have been able to mitigate them somewhat by altering when they were released. Who knows, really.

I hope tensions ratchet down before the National Guard has to become more involved. That's a really dangerous situation for everyone involved. I know there were quite a few FBI agents sent there, not sure what else for external support.

IMO, it seems to be about the "right time" to release that announcement. I was watching CNN's coverage last night (feth off... it was the closest channel to Monday Night Football ) and the CNN folks were talking about how the announcement at 8 allowed all the school busses to be done with, and the hospital had completely gone through all of their shift changes and so those key personnel were able to get home and get to work "safely" vs. if the announcement had been made at 7 or even earlier.

 CptJake wrote:

 skyth wrote:
I do wonder, though, if the sides had been flipped and Mike Brown was accused of shooting the cop, would Mike Brown have been asked to testify in front of the Grand Jury and would the DA present all evidence and not just evidence that looks worse for Mike?

If Brown had shot the cop it likely would not have needed to go to a grand jury for an indictment, and Brown would have just been charged. When a civilian shoots a cop generally there are no 'self defense' or 'in the line of duty' type factors bringing to question whether or not a crime had been committed. When a cop shoots and kills someone, those factors often do exist, so a grand jury may be desirable to determine if a crime was committed and if the cop should be charged. A self defense type shooting (think Zimmerman/Martin) can also have circumstances that make sending it to a grand jury an attractive option for the prosecutor.

It's also far less likely that we'd have heard about it.

Unless you can name me one of the 70 or so police officers that have been killed by criminals in the line of duty.

 cincydooley wrote:

 CptJake wrote:

 skyth wrote:
I do wonder, though, if the sides had been flipped and Mike Brown was accused of shooting the cop, would Mike Brown have been asked to testify in front of the Grand Jury and would the DA present all evidence and not just evidence that looks worse for Mike?

If Brown had shot the cop it likely would not have needed to go to a grand jury for an indictment, and Brown would have just been charged. When a civilian shoots a cop generally there are no 'self defense' or 'in the line of duty' type factors bringing to question whether or not a crime had been committed. When a cop shoots and kills someone, those factors often do exist, so a grand jury may be desirable to determine if a crime was committed and if the cop should be charged. A self defense type shooting (think Zimmerman/Martin) can also have circumstances that make sending it to a grand jury an attractive option for the prosecutor.

It's also far less likely that we'd have heard about it.

Unless you can name me one of the 70 or so police officers that have been killed by criminals in the line of duty, and are not a cop yourself.

Fixed that for you.

Good distinction to make. The only one I can name is Justin Weinbrenner, and that's because a buddy (who is also a cop) knew him and raised some money for his family when he was killed.

FYI: I'm reading the Grand Jury's report it self.... holy gak it's a monster!

 Ouze wrote:

 SlaveToDorkness wrote:
The media shows us slanted information and we get riled up and nothing said afterwards will change our minds.

In this thread I literally can't count the number of times I've read untruths that go in the other direction as well, such as that he stole some cigars (he paid for them), that the police stopped him for stealing the cigars (the cop that stopped him didn't know about the altercation at the store

I'm not sure what exactly happened at the store, although it's been documented that a 911 call was made by another patron of the store reporting a robbery. The last I read, Mike Brown lacked the amount of money needed to buy all of the cigarillos and took them anyways.

Officer Wilson did know about the robbery and after initially asking them to get off the street, noticed Mike Brown had a hand full of cigarillos---which led to him stopping and attempting to question them.

 cincydooley wrote:

 ImAGeek wrote:
I think people need to understand why people are protesting. A young black man was shot 6 times and killed for allegedly robbing a shop. Eyewitnesses have said he had his hands up and was surrendering, and there's also evidence that he didn't rob the shop at all. The White man who shot him hasn't even been put on trial. Yet there was a guy who went into a cinema and shot and killed 12 people, who was arrested peacefully. Guess what, he was white.

A 12 year old black boy has been shot and killed for playing with a freaking BB gun. I'm pretty sure he was in an open carry state.

If you aren't angry, you haven't been paying attention.

The riots started out as peaceful protests too, btw. Before police and SWAT came en force with their assault rifles and tear gas. Where was that when Mike Browns memorial was set on fire and pissed on.

I am disgusted.

You should probably educate yourself next time before posting. This is pretty much entirely wrong.

If you read two posts down, you'll notice that I said that myself...

I'd read a bunch of obviously slanted media, saw it was being talked about here, and posted whilst angry about something I didn't know as much as I thought I did about. I've acknowledged that and apologised for posting in haste. Really don't see what telling me something I've myself acknowledged achieves.

I was wrong. It happenes.

 whembly wrote:
FYI: I'm reading the Grand Jury's report it self.... holy gak it's a monster!

I read a good potion of the Darren Wilson testimony. I can't tell if the evidence matches the story, or the story was made to match the evidence. Like how he was allowed to drive himself alone back to the station after the shooting. That's when he discovered his radio was switched to the wrong channel. If I was a prosecutor and was wanting to get an indictment, I think I could have made a big issue out of that.

A special prosecutor should have been assigned. The deck is so stacked in the favor of a police officer in a grand jury that the public was never going to get a satisfactory resolution. A trial may have just found Wilson innocent, but I think it would have had much more legitimacy to the community than the grand jury.

 ImAGeek wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:

 ImAGeek wrote:
I think people need to understand why people are protesting. A young black man was shot 6 times and killed for allegedly robbing a shop. Eyewitnesses have said he had his hands up and was surrendering, and there's also evidence that he didn't rob the shop at all. The White man who shot him hasn't even been put on trial. Yet there was a guy who went into a cinema and shot and killed 12 people, who was arrested peacefully. Guess what, he was white.

A 12 year old black boy has been shot and killed for playing with a freaking BB gun. I'm pretty sure he was in an open carry state.

If you aren't angry, you haven't been paying attention.

The riots started out as peaceful protests too, btw. Before police and SWAT came en force with their assault rifles and tear gas. Where was that when Mike Browns memorial was set on fire and pissed on.

I am disgusted.

You should probably educate yourself next time before posting. This is pretty much entirely wrong.

If you read two posts down, you'll notice that I said that myself...

I'd read a bunch of obviously slanted media, saw it was being talked about here, and posted whilst angry about something I didn't know as much as I thought I did about. I've acknowledged that and apologised for posting in haste. Really don't see what telling me something I've myself acknowledged achieves.

I was wrong. It happenes.

Perhaps fewer reactionary, baseless statements? That's the ultimate goal, yeah?

You can apologize all you want. That's great. Doesn't change the fact that you perpetuated all the mistruth to begin with. So, in effect, you did exactly what the media wanted you to. Congrats!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 CaulynDarr wrote:
but I think it would have had much more legitimacy to the community than the grand jury.

Personally, I disagree.

Wouldn't have changed the community outcome at all. Just delayed it.

 cincydooley wrote:

 CaulynDarr wrote:
but I think it would have had much more legitimacy to the community than the grand jury.

Personally, I disagree.

Wouldn't have changed the community outcome at all. Just delayed it.

It would look a lot better than "Pro-cop DA fails to indict cop and is a little pissed that people still think this is a big deal."

 CaulynDarr wrote:
A trial may have just found Wilson innocent, but I think it would have had much more legitimacy to the community than the grand jury.

The reaction shows that a lot of people were not interested in justice or a fair trial. They wanted vengeance. You could have had the most perfect trial with bulletproof evidence and if the result was "not guilty" they would have still rioted.

They probably would of rioted ether way

Those mc fries and potato chips aint going to steal them selves.
(still baffled as to why.)

I don't think applying some kind of scheme or logic to a riot is wise. It is a matter of group psychology.

You got a ton of angry people (rightly or wrongly is irrelevant) as well as a few people who are dedicated to be what you might call agitators or instigators of violence and criminal activity. Once you get them riled up, there's just an outpouring of energy into the businesses and town itself. If one person sees a brick thrown, groupthink takes over and they throw as well. If they see someone who just wanted a snack rob a dollar store for chips, well why not grab some for themselves, right?

 CaulynDarr wrote:


It would look a lot better than "Pro-cop DA fails to indict cop and is a little pissed that people still think this is a big deal."

Well, I'm glad we're concerned about appearances and not facts or justice.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 curran12 wrote:
I don't think applying some kind of scheme or logic to a riot is wise. It is a matter of group psychology.

You got a ton of angry people (rightly or wrongly is irrelevant) as well as a few people who are dedicated to be what you might call agitators or instigators of violence and criminal activity. Once you get them riled up, there's just an outpouring of energy into the businesses and town itself. If one person sees a brick thrown, groupthink takes over and they throw as well. If they see someone who just wanted a snack rob a dollar store for chips, well why not grab some for themselves, right?

Well that certainly explains it away!

 Desubot wrote:
They probably would of rioted ether way

Those mc fries and potato chips aint going to steal them selves.
(still baffled as to why.)

So why even bother with a Grand Jury really? They're just going to riot no matter what. Lets just roll in the tanks.

That's the whole cynicism behind the whole Grand Jury process in the first place. It was never going to return an indictment against a cop. They almost never do, as opposed to returning indictments 99% of the time in every other case. Just delay the thing until winter and hope it's too cold to riot or the news cycle forgets it ever happened.

So what from the supplied evidence and testimony justified an indictment?

 cincydooley wrote:

 CaulynDarr wrote:


It would look a lot better than "Pro-cop DA fails to indict cop and is a little pissed that people still think this is a big deal."

Well, I'm glad we're concerned about appearances and not facts or justice.

Appearance of justice matters just as much as actual justice in some cases, Mostly because out justice system in the country is imperfect and doesn't always deliver. I'm not saying send someone directly to jail, but a trial would not be unwarranted or unreasonable. And it would have maybe made some difference in the eyes of the public.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 cincydooley wrote:
So what from the supplied evidence and testimony justified an indictment?

I haven't read the entire document, but things like Willson being allowed to drive himself alone back to the station puts gaps in the story that should have been explored in a trial. Then there was all the conflicting eye witness testimony to consider. And since it took several days alone just to reach a verdict, would seem to say that there was enough question of the facts to warrant a trial.

Grand Juries aren't about figuring out if someone is guilty only if he could be. And if the prosecutes really wanted to, I think they could have made it look so. By what I've read so far they choose not to do that and instead treated him with kid gloves.

 CaulynDarr wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:

 CaulynDarr wrote:


It would look a lot better than "Pro-cop DA fails to indict cop and is a little pissed that people still think this is a big deal."

Well, I'm glad we're concerned about appearances and not facts or justice.

Appearance of justice matters just as much as actual justice in some cases, Mostly because out justice system in the country is imperfect and doesn't always deliver. I'm not saying send someone directly to jail, but a trial would not be unwarranted or unreasonable. And it would have maybe made some difference in the eyes of the public.

First... hell no.

Secondly... no.

The Prosecuting office has a duty to believe that they have enough evidence, beyond reasonable doubt to even send the case to the court.

You don't "have a court case" just to "maintain an appearnce".