#Ferguson,Mo

happy jack wrote:

Did not know that this has already been determined to have been a murder.



Shaun King @ShaunKing
Follow
How could @GovJayNixon attend the funeral of a teenager while his close political ally raises half a mil for the man who murdered him?
10:53 AM - 2 Sep 2014

Did not know that this already has been determined as, "did society a favor."

http://abc7chicago.com/news/elgin-police-officer-placed-on-leave-for-alleged-facebook-comment/293921/

Department of Justice to launch civil rights probe into Ferguson police force

Quote :

Washington Post:

Quote :

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. this week will launch a broad civil rights investigation into the Ferguson, Mo., Police Department, according to two federal law enforcement officials.

The investigation, which could be announced as early as Thursday afternoon, will be conducted by the Justice Department’s civil rights division and follow a process similar to that used to investigate complaints of profiling and the use of excessive force in other police departments across the country, the officials said.

That's good news, but this makes it even better:

Quote :

The federal officials said the probe will look not only at Ferguson but also at other police departments in St. Louis County.

Why is it important to go beyond Ferguson? Simple: Because the problems in Ferguson are not unique to Ferguson. Darren Wilson needs to be held accountable for killing Mike Brown, but when it comes to the broader issues at stake, there is clearly a regional issue in St. Louis County.

This long post from Radley Balko explains in wrenching detail what those problems are. In short—and I say that knowing that no summary can do justice to what Balko wrote—the criminal justice system in suburban St. Louis County has been twisted into a corrupt bureaucracy that uses its police and jails to harass and incarcerate poor, mostly black, citizens in order to extract revenue from them in the form of fines. If anyone should be going to jail, it's the people that are running that system, not the people that are victims of it. Balko's report is replete with examples on how twisted it is—it's a must-read if you want to understand why it's so essential that this investigation take place and why it needs to have teeth.

Further proof right wing conservatives are the most....well, you know the rest.

Right Wing Radio Host Larry Elder Posts Fake Photo of “Injured Darren Wilson”
Read more at http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/43806_Right_Wing_Radio_Host_Larry_Elder_Posts_Fake_Photo_of_Injured_Darren_Wilson#T3FAKZlgFi0GD8q6.99

From another forum:

What Happens When a Drunk, Armed, Open-Carrying White Person Disobeys Police
http://www.salon.com/2014/09/05/gun_nuts_special_privileges_how_police_treated_a_dangerous_open_carry_zealot/

Quote :

Here’s what happened. It was a Sunday afternoon about 4 p.m. when Kalamazoo 9-1-1 got several calls from citizens concerned about an intoxicated man with a gun walking around a coin laundry and “stumbling around a little bit and kind of bumping into some stuff” on the street. The police arrived shortly and confronted the man by saying, “Hey, partner, how you doing? Can you set that down real quick and talk to me?” (The officer didn’t have his gun drawn.) The armed man refused to set it down. The officer told him that he was jaywalking and was being detained. At that point the officer radioed that the armed man would not drop the weapon. He tells the man again that he just wants to talk to him and says, “You’re walking around here scaring people, man.”

A second police car arrives at the scene. The man refuses to identify himself and demands to know if he’s free to go and the officer says no, that he is resisting and obstructing, a misdemeanor, for jaywalking and failing to identify himself. The man says, “Why don’t you fucking shoot me?” The officer gently replies, “I don’t want to shoot you; I’m not here to do that.”

This back and forth continues, with the man refusing to give up his gun and the cops patiently trying to talk him down from his position. The whole time he’s rambling about revolution and accusing the cops of being “gang members.” It becomes clear that he has conceived this drunken episode as an “open carry” demonstration. He’s proving to the community how important it is that “good guys” be allowed to carry guns on the street to protect themselves.

Soon 12 police are on the scene, including a supervisor and SWAT negotiator. The street is shut down in both directions. Police recordings describe the man as agitated and hostile and although he is holding his gun at “parade rest” he’s switching it back and forth and fumbling in his pockets for chewing tobacco. After much discussion, he finally agrees to give up the weapon.

Do the police then instantly swarm him and wrestle him to the ground? Do they handcuff him, throw him in the back of the police car and arrest him for the trouble he’s caused? Did he get roughed up or put in a chokehold for resisting arrest and being uncooperative?

None of that happened to this man. The police took his gun and then said he could have it back immediately if he agreed to take a breathalyzer test on the spot. (You can be arrested for carrying a firearm while intoxicated in Michigan if you blow a .08 or above, the same legal limit for DUI.) The man refused. They carried on for a while longer with the man objecting to having his gun taken away even as the police explain that he is free to walk home and retrieve it at the police station the next day. They spar over whether he’s mentally unstable and if it’s a good idea for him to “demonstrate” this way, particularly being hostile to the police. He finally apologizes and leaves the scene without his gun. No charges were filed. Nobody was hurt. He got his gun back.

So. Summary of the Situation:

• White Guy.
  
• Drunk.
  
• Holding a gun (it wasn't in the holster.)
  
• Refused multiple verbal orders to drop it from multiple police officers.
  
• Belligerent: At one point told the cop to "fucking shoot me."
  
• SWAT Team Called.
  

What Happened:

• Wasn't arrested.
  
• Wasn't cited for public intoxication.
  
• Wasn't beaten into submission.
  
• Wasn't sprayed with a gallon of mace.
  
• Wasn't shot (to death, or otherwise.)
  
• Wasn't tasered.
  
• Didn't have police guns pointed at him.
  
• Although I've only watched the video once, it looks like no cops even swore or raised their voices in anger at him.
  

Can you, in a million years, imagine this situation unfolding the same way if, instead of being a mid-60's white guy it was a belligerent black-male--of any age? Do you have even a sliver of a shadow of a doubt in your mind that black man wouldn't have needed a lawyer to defend him, but a funeral director to clean up the multiple bullet wounds he'd have suffered before he died? This is such an enormous contrast with the shooting death of the deranged black man with the knife a few days after Mike Brown, who was dead within seconds of the police arriving. No negotiating, no calm "nobody wants to shoot you" language, just immediate confrontation, escalation, and then the shooting.

If anything, this guy was MORE dangerous than the guy with the knife because he had a gun--he doesn't need to be within arm's reach to hurt you with his gun, but someone with a knife would need to be. Yet the guy with the knife is dead, even though he was too far away from the cops to actually hurt them with the weapon he had, and this guy with a more dangerous weapon, belligerent, drunk and spouting outright gibberish wasn't even arrested.

Any white person who doesn't get this needs to wake up and get a clue: You live in a bubble of protection from police violence provided solely by your white skin and the status it confers upon you. It isn't absolute, it isn't total, but it exists.

And it looks like Brown was killed 100 feet from the vehicle, not 35 like the police have been saying, in line with what witnesses have been saying, explaining why the officer was such a bad shot as well.

http://stlouis.cbslocal.com/2014/10/20/former-police-chief-speaks-on-latest-michael-brown-information-released/

UPDATED: Former Police Chief Speaks on Latest Michael Brown Shooting Information

October 20, 2014 3:26 PM

FERGUSON, Mo. (KMOX) – Information about the Michael Brown fatal police shooting is beginning to leak out, and former St. Louis County Police Chief Tim Fitch says it’s no accident the feds are allowing the information.
Fitch discussed a New York Times article indicating, according to federal investigators, there was a struggle that led up to the fatal police shooting of Brown, with KMOX’s Mark Reardon on Monday.
Fitch calls the information from the investigation coming out as phase two – to “coordinate leaks to the media, and to start getting some of the facts out there to kind of let people down slowly,” he says. “When I say this is phase two – phase one was really Eric Holder’s announcement how they were going to basically do a complete review and take over the Ferguson Police Department.”
Fitch says he thinks the feds recognize that it’s “probably very unlikely” that there’s going to be charges against Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson.
“There was a struggle over the weapon. Law enforcement, we know that about half the officers killed every year with firearms are killed with their own,” he says. “So the fact that he didn’t have his own doesn’t mean there wasn’t a weapon there available that could be used in deadly force use.”
Fitch is a strong proponent of believing physical evidence over eye-witness evidence.
“Physical evidence has no reason to lie. It doesn’t see things differently,” he says, and it is that kind of evidence he thinks could make or break the case.
“If there was a struggle inside that car over a firearm, it sounds to me like Officer Wilson would have been justified in taking the action he did if he pulled the trigger and actually shot Michael Brown in the vehicle area,” Fitch says.
He notes that the other key piece to the investigation is what happened after Wilson and Brown were out of the police vehicle.
“If Michael Brown was truly turned around and basically charging the officer, he already went for round one fighting over his handgun. Are you going to go for round two and take the chance of losing it this time?” Fitch asks. “I think that would be a more logical explanation as to why Officer Wilson would have discharged his firearm at Michael Brown.”
He says police officers are given lawful authority to use force, and according to the law, they are under no obligation to retreat when someone resists arrest. Fitch adds that with that authority comes some gray areas.
Fitch believes the New York Times story is just a preview of what’s to come over the next few weeks.

Expert: My Michael Brown Autopsy Analysis Was Taken 'Out Of Context'

Quote :

Judy Melinek, one of the forensic experts who was quoted by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Tuesday about the Michael Brown autopsy report, is taking issue with how the newspaper portrayed her comments.

The key piece of Melinek's analysis, according to the Post-Dispatch's original report, was that the report of Brown's autopsy "supports the fact that this guy is reaching for the gun, if he has gunpowder particulate material in the wound. If he has his hand near the gun when it goes off, he’s going for the officer’s gun.”

That would be consistent with Ferguson, Mo., police officer Darren Wilson's version of events, as reported by the New York Times and others. Melinek was also paraphrased by the newspaper saying that the autopsy was inconsistent with witness accounts of Brown having his hands up in surrender when he was shot by Wilson.

But Melinek told MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell on Wednesday that her comments had been taken "out of context" and that she believed the findings could be explained by other scenarios as well.

"What happens sometimes is when you get interviewed and you have a long conversation with a journalist, they're going to take things out of context," she said. "I made it very clear that we only have partial information here. We don't have the scene information. We don't have the police investigation. We don't have all the witness statements. And you can't interpret autopsy findings in a vacuum."

She and O'Donnell then walked through a variety of alternative situations in which the gunshot residue found on Brown's hand -- the key finding that suggested Brown had been reaching for Wilson's gun -- could have gotten there.

"I'm not saying that Brown going for the gun is the only explanation. I'm saying the officer said he was going for the gun and the right thumb wound supports that," Melinek. "I have limited information. It could also be consistent with other scenarios. That's the important thing. That's why the witnesses need to speak to the grand jury and the grand jury needs to hear all the unbiased testimony and compare those statements to the physical evidence."

Another pro-murder cop "leak" goes down in flames.

The Official Michael Brown Autopsy Report Doesn't Say What the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Says It Does

Quote :

Yesterday as our little group was preparing to stand in solidarity with Ferguson for the national October 22 Day Against Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation, the media was buzzing about the story headlined above. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch article about the controversial leaked autopsy report quotes California forensics expert Dr. Judy Melinek extensively, but it turns out that she didn't say what the story says she did. If you think the official autopsy report exonerates Darren Wilson, blame it on a couple of reporters who blithely misquoted a forensics expert to -- apparently -- support the headline they wanted to write.

For the TL;DR crowd, here's a synopsis of the problems with the article written by Christine Byers and Blythe Bernhard for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

The Post-Dispatch says that the autopsy report supports Wilson's version of events. In fact, it supports the earlier eyewitness testimony at least as much as it does Wilson's.

The Post-Dispatch (and later, the Washington Post, which essentially reported on the the St. Louis reporting) claims that a forensic expert said the autopsy shows that Michael Brown was "going for his (Wilson's) gun." Except that's not what the expert said - at least not in anything she provided on the record. She told Lawrence O'Donnell that it was just as likely that Brown was trying to defend himself from being shot.

The Post-Dispatch quotes the expert saying that Michael Brown's was not in surrender posture when he was shot. She actually wrote that she can't say with reasonable certainty that his hands were up when he was shot in the right forearm.

The article claims the expert said the autopsy didn't support witnesses who said Michael Brown was shot while running away or with his hands up. She apparently said nothing of the sort.

The expert quoted has since told Lawrence O'Donnell that she was only asked if the autopsy report was consistent with Darren Wilson's version of events. She was not asked if it fit other scenarios, though there are eyewitness accounts that differ from Wilson's account.

Now, here's a deeper dive with links and quotes - but before we take a look at what Dr. Melinek told the Post-Dispatch - or to be more specific, what the Post-Dispatch chose to print - let's take a look at who Judy Melinek is and how she happens to come into this.

Judy Melinek is a California forensics expert who is frequently called upon as a consultant to interpret autopsy results. She has spent time as a medical examiner, and has written a book about her experiences. When I first read the article in the St. Louis paper, I was flabbergasted at the quotes attributed to her - and you'll see in the excerpts below that the reports presented them as actual quotes, not as paraphrases. I'm not a forensics expert but even I know the fact that someone's hand is near a gun when it goes off does not necessarily mean that they were "going for the gun."

All I could think was that either the expert was incredibly biased, or that there were details in the autopsy that didn't make it into the newspaper. Silly me - I entirely missed a third possibility - that the reporters made up quotes out of their own heads - but that appears to be exactly what happened.

As to how she got dragged into this whole thing, here's the explanation in Dr. Melinek's own words:

Quote :

A reporter from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch called me earlier this week, saying she had Michael Brown's official autopsy report as prepared by the St. Louis County Medical Examiner, and asking me if I would examine and analyze it from the perspective of a forensic pathologist with no official involvement in the Ferguson, Missouri shooting death.

I bring this up because earlier this afternoon, MSNBC's Joy Reid referred to Dr. Melinek as the doctor who performed the autopsy. Now, Reid is usually pretty on-point with the facts in her reporting, but this was a big oops. And if she's making it, you can be sure that others are definitely making the same mistake.

It's not the first time that Dr. Melinek has opined on an autopsy performed on Michael Brown, either. Back in August after the family released the results of the second autopsy, performed by Dr. Michael Baden, Dr. Melinek wrote this about the tweaked autopsy sketch that went viral:

Quote :

Even if Dr. Baden, a board-certified forensic pathologist, looked at photos of the injuries taken prior to the embalming, the orientation and quality of the photos taken by the technician would influence his interpretation of the findings. Autopsy means "see for yourself"—and there is no substitute for seeing the undisturbed body for yourself if you are going to be offering opinions with legal ramifications.

It was difficult to reconcile the person who wrote that with the person who was quoted in Byers' and Bernhard's article. It's important to remember that Dr. Melinek was not offering an opinion with legal ramifications. Rather, she was offering an opinion to a reporter, whose reporting would help shape public opinion in a highly contentious court case. The reporters quoted her thus:

Quote :

Dr. Judy Melinek, a forensic pathologist in San Francisco, said the autopsy “supports the fact that this guy is reaching for the gun, if he has gunpowder particulate material in the wound.” She added, “If he has his hand near the gun when it goes off, he’s going for the officer’s gun.”

I read that yesterday morning and thought, "Wait, what? That's a pretty big leap."

And indeed it is. If he has his hand near the gun when it goes off, it means ... his hand was near the gun when it went off. We don't know why or how his hand got there. It's just as likely that he was trying to block the gun because he was afraid that Darren Wilson was about to kill him.

And, in fact, Melinek appeared on Lawrence O'Donnell's "The Last Word" last night to essentially call bullshit on what the Post-Dispatch said she said, and followed it up with the previously-linked post on her blog. According to the doctor, this is what she told the reporter from the newspaper (emphasis mine):

Quote :

The graze wound on the right thumb is oriented upwards, indicating that the tip of the thumb is toward the weapon. The hand wound has gunpowder particles on microscopic examination, which suggests that it is a close-range wound. That means that Mr. Brown's hand would have been close to the barrel of the gun. Given the investigative report which says that the officer's weapon discharged during a struggle in the officer's car, this wound to the right thumb likely occurred at that time.

We all know that "close to the barrel of the gun" is the exact same thing as "going for the gun." Or not.

But the reporters' fuckery doesn't end there. The article goes on:

Quote :

Melinek also said the autopsy did not support witnesses who have claimed Brown was shot while running away from Wilson, or with his hands up.

A sixth shot that hit the forearm traveled from the back of the arm to the inner arm, which means Brown’s palms could not have been facing Wilson, as some witnesses have said, Melinek said. That trajectory shows Brown probably was not taking a standard surrender position with arms above the shoulders and palms out when he was hit, she said.

The part I cut with the ... was a description of the wounds to Michael Brown's head, chest and torso. No one disagrees that those shots were fired when Michael Brown was facing Darren Wilson. It's that last paragraph that's a problem. Here's what Dr. Melinek actually had to say about that forearm wound:

Quote :

You can't say within reasonable certainty that his hands were up based on the autopsy findings alone. The back to front and upward trajectory of the right forearm wound could occur in multiple orientations and a trajectory reconstruction would need to be done using the witness statements, casings, height of the weapon and other evidence from the scene, which have yet to be released.

Again, there's a big difference between "did not support witnesses" who said his hands were up and "can't say within reasonable certainty" that his hands were up -- when that shot hit him. That particular wound goes from back to front, which actually supports earlier eyewitness testimony that Wilson shot at Michael Brown while he was running away, and appeared to hit him. And again, Melinek corrected the Post-Dispatch's reporting when she spoke with O'Donnell last night (emphasis mine):

Quote :

All but one of the gunshots, Melinek said, seem to have struck Brown in the front of his body, which is consistent with witnesses who said Brown had been facing Wilson when he was shot. Depending on any witnesses physical proximity to the shooting, Brown could have been turning to Wilson in surrender, stumbling toward him after being shot or charging him.

The shot to the back of Brown’s upper arm, Melinek said, suggested he could have been shot from behind.

As of this writing, the story is still up and uncorrected at St. Louis Today. It's headed by the screen cap posted above, from WPIX News in New York. This is despite the fact that Dr. Melinek has disputed their story, saying it was full of "inaccurate and misleading quotes," and gone on television to correct the record. Frankly, I don't expect them to make the corrections. not do I expect the Washington Post or the various other newspapers, websites and blogs to do the right thing. You're going to hear that the autopsy proves Michael Brown was going for Darren Wilson's gun and that he didn't have his hands up. But at least you'll know where the misinformation came from and where you can find the correction.

10:34 PM PT: Thanks to skywriter for catching me in making the same mistake I accused other reporters of making - not checking my facts. In fact, the New York Times doesn't appear to have jumped on the bandwagon with this story, and I'm editing to reflect that.Yesterday as our little group was preparing to stand in solidarity with Ferguson for the national October 22 Day Against Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation, the media was buzzing about the story headlined above. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch article about the controversial leaked autopsy report quotes California forensics expert Dr. Judy Melinek extensively, but it turns out that she didn't say what the story says she did. If you think the official autopsy report exonerates Darren Wilson, blame it on a couple of reporters who blithely misquoted a forensics expert to -- apparently -- support the headline they wanted to write.

For the TL;DR crowd, here's a synopsis of the problems with the article written by Christine Byers and Blythe Bernhard for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

The Post-Dispatch says that the autopsy report supports Wilson's version of events. In fact, it supports the earlier eyewitness testimony at least as much as it does Wilson's.

The Post-Dispatch (and later, the Washington Post, which essentially reported on the the St. Louis reporting) claims that a forensic expert said the autopsy shows that Michael Brown was "going for his (Wilson's) gun." Except that's not what the expert said - at least not in anything she provided on the record. She told Lawrence O'Donnell that it was just as likely that Brown was trying to defend himself from being shot.

The Post-Dispatch quotes the expert saying that Michael Brown's was not in surrender posture when he was shot. She actually wrote that she can't say with reasonable certainty that his hands were up when he was shot in the right forearm.

The article claims the expert said the autopsy didn't support witnesses who said Michael Brown was shot while running away or with his hands up. She apparently said nothing of the sort.

The expert quoted has since told Lawrence O'Donnell that she was only asked if the autopsy report was consistent with Darren Wilson's version of events. She was not asked if it fit other scenarios, though there are eyewitness accounts that differ from Wilson's account.

Now, here's a deeper dive with links and quotes - but before we take a look at what Dr. Melinek told the Post-Dispatch - or to be more specific, what the Post-Dispatch chose to print - let's take a look at who Judy Melinek is and how she happens to come into this.

Judy Melinek is a California forensics expert who is frequently called upon as a consultant to interpret autopsy results. She has spent time as a medical examiner, and has written a book about her experiences. When I first read the article in the St. Louis paper, I was flabbergasted at the quotes attributed to her - and you'll see in the excerpts below that the reports presented them as actual quotes, not as paraphrases. I'm not a forensics expert but even I know the fact that someone's hand is near a gun when it goes off does not necessarily mean that they were "going for the gun."

All I could think was that either the expert was incredibly biased, or that there were details in the autopsy that didn't make it into the newspaper. Silly me - I entirely missed a third possibility - that the reporters made up quotes out of their own heads - but that appears to be exactly what happened.

As to how she got dragged into this whole thing, here's the explanation in Dr. Melinek's own words:

A reporter from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch called me earlier this week, saying she had Michael Brown's official autopsy report as prepared by the St. Louis County Medical Examiner, and asking me if I would examine and analyze it from the perspective of a forensic pathologist with no official involvement in the Ferguson, Missouri shooting death.

I bring this up because earlier this afternoon, MSNBC's Joy Reid referred to Dr. Melinek as the doctor who performed the autopsy. Now, Reid is usually pretty on-point with the facts in her reporting, but this was a big oops. And if she's making it, you can be sure that others are definitely making the same mistake.

It's not the first time that Dr. Melinek has opined on an autopsy performed on Michael Brown, either. Back in August after the family released the results of the second autopsy, performed by Dr. Michael Baden, Dr. Melinek wrote this about the tweaked autopsy sketch that went viral:

Even if Dr. Baden, a board-certified forensic pathologist, looked at photos of the injuries taken prior to the embalming, the orientation and quality of the photos taken by the technician would influence his interpretation of the findings. Autopsy means "see for yourself"—and there is no substitute for seeing the undisturbed body for yourself if you are going to be offering opinions with legal ramifications.

It was difficult to reconcile the person who wrote that with the person who was quoted in Byers' and Bernhard's article. It's important to remember that Dr. Melinek was not offering an opinion with legal ramifications. Rather, she was offering an opinion to a reporter, whose reporting would help shape public opinion in a highly contentious court case. The reporters quoted her thus:

Dr. Judy Melinek, a forensic pathologist in San Francisco, said the autopsy “supports the fact that this guy is reaching for the gun, if he has gunpowder particulate material in the wound.” She added, “If he has his hand near the gun when it goes off, he’s going for the officer’s gun.”

I read that yesterday morning and thought, "Wait, what? That's a pretty big leap."

And indeed it is. If he has his hand near the gun when it goes off, it means ... his hand was near the gun when it went off. We don't know why or how his hand got there. It's just as likely that he was trying to block the gun because he was afraid that Darren Wilson was about to kill him.

And, in fact, Melinek appeared on Lawrence O'Donnell's "The Last Word" last night to essentially call bullshit on what the Post-Dispatch said she said, and followed it up with the previously-linked post on her blog. According to the doctor, this is what she told the reporter from the newspaper (emphasis mine):

The graze wound on the right thumb is oriented upwards, indicating that the tip of the thumb is toward the weapon. The hand wound has gunpowder particles on microscopic examination, which suggests that it is a close-range wound. That means that Mr. Brown's hand would have been close to the barrel of the gun. Given the investigative report which says that the officer's weapon discharged during a struggle in the officer's car, this wound to the right thumb likely occurred at that time.

We all know that "close to the barrel of the gun" is the exact same thing as "going for the gun." Or not.

But the reporters' fuckery doesn't end there. The article goes on:

Melinek also said the autopsy did not support witnesses who have claimed Brown was shot while running away from Wilson, or with his hands up.

...

A sixth shot that hit the forearm traveled from the back of the arm to the inner arm, which means Brown’s palms could not have been facing Wilson, as some witnesses have said, Melinek said. That trajectory shows Brown probably was not taking a standard surrender position with arms above the shoulders and palms out when he was hit, she said.

The part I cut with the ... was a description of the wounds to Michael Brown's head, chest and torso. No one disagrees that those shots were fired when Michael Brown was facing Darren Wilson. It's that last paragraph that's a problem. Here's what Dr. Melinek actually had to say about that forearm wound:

You can't say within reasonable certainty that his hands were up based on the autopsy findings alone. The back to front and upward trajectory of the right forearm wound could occur in multiple orientations and a trajectory reconstruction would need to be done using the witness statements, casings, height of the weapon and other evidence from the scene, which have yet to be released.

Again, there's a big difference between "did not support witnesses" who said his hands were up and "can't say within reasonable certainty" that his hands were up -- when that shot hit him. That particular wound goes from back to front, which actually supports earlier eyewitness testimony that Wilson shot at Michael Brown while he was running away, and appeared to hit him. And again, Melinek corrected the Post-Dispatch's reporting when she spoke with O'Donnell last night (emphasis mine):

All but one of the gunshots, Melinek said, seem to have struck Brown in the front of his body, which is consistent with witnesses who said Brown had been facing Wilson when he was shot. Depending on any witnesses physical proximity to the shooting, Brown could have been turning to Wilson in surrender, stumbling toward him after being shot or charging him.

The shot to the back of Brown’s upper arm, Melinek said, suggested he could have been shot from behind.

As of this writing, the story is still up and uncorrected at St. Louis Today. It's headed by the screen cap posted above, from WPIX News in New York. This is despite the fact that Dr. Melinek has disputed their story, saying it was full of "inaccurate and misleading quotes," and gone on television to correct the record. Frankly, I don't expect them to make the corrections. not do I expect the Washington Post or the various other newspapers, websites and blogs to do the right thing. You're going to hear that the autopsy proves Michael Brown was going for Darren Wilson's gun and that he didn't have his hands up. But at least you'll know where the misinformation came from and where you can find the correction.

10:34 PM PT: Thanks to skywriter for catching me in making the same mistake I accused other reporters of making - not checking my facts. In fact, the New York Times doesn't appear to have jumped on the bandwagon with this story, and I'm editing to reflect that.

Highlighted so that lazy trolls can follow along.

Congratulations.
You have managed to destroy the lives of innumerable families who had absolutely nothing to do with the death of Michael Brown, and who are simply trying to make a living.
Good job, you sub-human fucking animals.



http://stlouis.cbslocal.com/2014/10/30/ferguson-store-owners-customers-too-scared-to-bring-business-to-the-area/

Ferguson Store Owners: Customers ‘Too Scared’ to Bring Business to the Area

Benjamin FearnowOctober 30, 2014 12:22 PM

FERGUSON, Mo. (CBS ST. LOUIS) - Businesses in Ferguson say they are “going to wait and see” how to sustain what has been a tumultuous few months of riots and dramatically reduced revenue, with some local store owners saying customers are “too scared” to bring their business to the area.
Local stores and businesses throughout Ferguson expressed feelings of frustration and uncertainty as many have boarded-up windows, increased security measures and lost thousands of dollars in revenue amid protests stemming from the Aug. 9 police shooting death of Michael Brown. Many businesses said they will just have to wait and see what happens ahead of an expected November ruling on whether or not to indict officer Darren Wilson.
“We’ve lost $200 to $300 in business nightly, people are afraid to pick up in the night, after dark,” said Tammy Cao of the Hunan Chop Suey Chinese Restaurant. “People are too scared at night … I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”
She said the store has “paid $1,500 out-of-pocket for window damages” caused by rioters, because the $5,000 insurance deductible “did not add up.”
“I know customers who have left the area … I just want everything to go back to normal and everyone can do business again.”
A return to normalcy is a sentiment echoed by many Ferguson businesses.
Zisser Tire & Auto said the rioters “knocked out 90 percent of our windows, which are still boarded up.”
“We’ve just been trying to go to work, business as usual – nobody wants to take the boards down until we see what happens. It’s more of the not knowing what’s going to happen next.”
Jenny of Don Henefer Jewelers said that although their store has not been directly harmed by the Ferguson protests or rioters, they now “put all the jewelry away at night.”
The Swiish Bar and Grill owners have filed a lawsuit against the state of Missouri, St. Louis County, the Missouri State Highway Patrol and the cities of Ferguson and Jennings for what they claim is more than $25,000 in lost revenue. Owners Chantelle and Corey Nixon-Clark told KTVI-TV they were forced to close their doors for weeks as a law enforcement command post was set up in the Jennings shopping center amid the riots.
Some store owners said that customer and business fears are a shared experience.
“I feel scared about my business,” Rokhaya Biteye, owner of Daba African Hair Braiding in one of the modest strip malls that line West Florissant, told Reuters.
She said profits have evaporated to almost nothing since the shooting. In weeks prior, she generally pulled in about $800, but is now bringing in less than $100 each week.
“I don’t think it will work anymore,” she said, adding that she has no insurance.
Charles of Ferguson Burger Bar & More said that he has resolved not to make any added security provisions to the store because of his faith in a higher power.
“I’m going to leave it up to the man I put in charge originally, I’m going to leave it up to God,” he said. “I’m not boarding up, I’m not closing.”

http://stlouis.cbslocal.com/2014/11/03/expert-la-riots-with-rodney-king-is-what-should-be-expected-to-happen-in-ferguson/

Expert: ‘LA Riots with Rodney King is What Should Be Expected to Happen in Ferguson’


Regina F. Graham

November 3, 2014 11:31 AM



Lock and load, Whitey.

No propensity for violence in this family, is there?


http://www.inquisitr.com/1592386/michael-browns-mom-accused-of-beating-grandma-over-ferguson-shooting-t-shirts/

Posted in: News Posted: November 7, 2014

Michael Brown’s Mom Accused Of Beating Grandma Over Ferguson Shooting T-Shirts


Michael Brown’s mom may face felony armed robbery charges. Lesley McSpadden is accused of enlisting a group of people to “beat” another group of people who were selling Mike Brown T-shirts in Ferguson. One T-shirt seller was allegedly beaten so badly that hospitalization was required, and another seller was allegedly beaten with a pipe.
Lesley McSpadden and a group of about 30 people allegedly drove up to a group of Mike Brown T-shirt vendors and “rushed” them. One of the Ferguson Michael Brown shooting beating victims was reportedly the teenager’s grandmother and McSpadden’s former mother-in-law, Pearlie Gordon.
Mike Brown’s mom said, “You can’t sell this s**t,” according to Ferguson witness statements in a police report.
Pearlie Gordon allegedly refused to back down from the Lesley McSpadden group.
“Unless McSpadden could produce she had a patent on her son’s name, Gordo was going to continue to sell her merchandise,” the police report also added.
Ferguson police officers also noted that $400 in cash and more than $1,500 in Michael Brown merchandise was allegedly stolen by Lesley McSpadden and her group.

Artie60438 wrote:

Only real scum would want to profit off the murder of an unarmed teen....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/grand-jury-reaches-decision-in-case-of-ferguson-officer/2014/11/24/de48e7e4-71d7-11e4-893f-86bd390a3340_story.html

Grand jury reaches decision in case of Ferguson officer


By Wesley Lowery, Kimberly Kindy and Sarah Larimer November 24 at 1:37 PM    

A grand jury has reached a decision on whether to indict Darren Wilson, the white Ferguson, Mo. police officer whose fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager sparked days of turbulent protests, sources close to the process said.
News conferences are being prepared by the county prosecutors’ office and the Missouri governor, sources said. Those news conferences will likely come later today.




Well, here it is.
If they voted to indict, you’d better stay out of white neighborhoods tonight.
You never can tell what those fuckers are capable of.

It's like a reverse image of the proverbial clown car. It's amazing how much bullshit can be stuffed into one short article.



TUE NOV 25, 2014 AT 12:33 PM PST

Shorter Darren Wilson Testimony: Michael Brown was a 'Giant Beast Negro' That Had to Be Killed


bychaunceydevegaFollow


If you have not yet read Darren Wilson's testimony to the Ferguson grand jury which decided that he would suffer no ill consequences for his decision to kill Michael Brown, please do so.

Wilson's description of the events on the day that he decided to shoot and kill an unarmed person cannot be adequately relayed to you by a second party.

The absurd, unfathomable, and fantastical story which Wilson spun out of the whole cloth in order to justify killing an unarmed black teenager combines the deepest and ugliest white supremacist stereotypes and fantasies about black folks' humanity such as the negro fiend", "black beast", and "giant negro", with white racist paranoiac thinking, and dialogue from blaxploitation movies.

Darren Wilson's grand jury testimony purports to be an accurate description of his encounter with Michael Brown. In reality, it is closer to an amateurish summer stock theater production of the movie Birth of the Nation as performed by the KKK and/or Neo-Nazis.

After submitting a blank police report that provided no substantive information about his decision to kill Michael Brown, Darren Wilson was trained by attorneys from the police union (a common procedure when police kill civilians), and had many weeks to prepare his grand jury testimony.

During that time, Wilson was privy to the narrative and witness testimony that he would be confronted by in court.

Wilson was also aided by a prosecutor who was not at all interested in finding sufficient probable cause to proceed with a proper trial for the latter's decision to kill Michael Brown.

Ultimately, Darren Wilson was either 1) coached to recite a profoundly racist and bizarre version of his encounter with Michael Brown; 2) is deeply mired in the White Gaze and White Racial Frame to such a degree that he actually believes the white supremacist fictions he told the grand jury; or 3) some combination of the above.

The American legal system is not separate and apart from the social norms, cultures, values, and beliefs which produced it. Rather, the legal system (as well as schools, prisons, hospitals, etc.) is a crystallization of American society and its hierarchies of power.

Social scientists and others have produced volumes of research which have repeatedly demonstrated how the American legal system reinforces, perpetuates, and reflects disparate racial outcomes and white supremacy. For example, their findings include how black Americans face racial bias and unfair treatment at every level of the criminal justice system from initial police encounters to sentencing and parole decisions. Juries are influenced by implicit racial bias. Juries are also less likely to find black witnesses "credible" or "believable". And perhaps most troubling, white jurors can be subconsciously primed by images of apes and gorillas--this deeply racist association between animals and African-Americans in turn makes white jurors more likely to give black defendants the death penalty.

The empirical evidence for white racial bias in the criminal justice system is the context which produced the Ferguson grand jury's decision in favor of Darren Wilson. White supremacy makes Wilson's testimony an "intelligible" and "legitimate" type of truth claim as understood by the jurors, and the broader white society that supports Wilson's killing of the unarmed black teenager Michael Brown.

White supremacy and white racial paranoiac thinking makes Wilson's following statements about Michael Brown believable and valid--as opposed to utterances and transparent lies that most certainly do not surpass the legal standard of "reasonable doubt".

Wilson told the grand jury the following:

1. Brown possessed super human negro strength as he effortlessly crushed the weak white man's flesh with one hand. "And when I grabbed him, the only way I can describe it is I felt like a five-year-old holding onto Hulk Hogan...Hulk Hogan, that’s just how big he felt and how small I felt just from grasping his arm."

2. Brown is so strong and possessed of giant negro powers that he could attack Wilson with one hand while using the other to give his compatriot Dorian Johnson the box of cigars.

3. Even though he was shot several times by Darren Wilson, Brown let out a bestial grown like a feral monster, seemingly impervious to the threat of bullets and harm, he then charged at the police officer:

"So when he stopped, I stopped. And then he starts to turn around, I tell him to get on the ground, get on the ground. He turns, and when he looked at me, he made like a grunting, like aggravated sound and he starts, he turns and he’s coming back towards me. His first step is coming towards me, he kind of does like a stutter step to start running. When he does that, his left hand goes in a fist and goes to his side, his right one goes under his shirt in his waistband and he starts running at me."

"At this point it looked like he was almost bulking up to run through the shots, like it was making him mad that I’m shooting at him.

And the face that he had was looking straight through me, like I wasn’t even there, I wasn’t even anything in his way."

4. Brown apparently speaks like a blaxploitation movie character: "He grabs my gun, says, 'You are too much of a pussy to shoot me.'"

5. Brown, like other negroes, was irrational and crazed. Wilson was in a state of terror: "The only way I can describe it, it looks like a demon, that’s how angry he looked. He comes back towards me again with his hands up."

6. Brown also has melanin powered super speed. Because blacks are apparently natural athletes with overdeveloped leg muscles, Brown ran away from Wilson so fast that he left a trail of dust at his feet in a manner akin to that of a Looney Tunes cartoon character: "When I look up after that, I see him start to run and I see a cloud of dust behind him."

7. Because Brown is a giant negro he towered over Wilson: "He then grabs my door again and shuts my door. At that time is when I saw him coming into my vehicle. His head was higher than the top of my car. And I see him ducking and as he is ducking, his hands are up and he is coming in my vehicle."

Darren Wilson's testimony to the grand jury mates a cultural script that views black people as inherently criminal with recent empirical research that demonstrates how white folks actually do believe that black people are "super human" and a mysterious type of Other.

Wilson's tale is also a reminder of how the near past of Jim and Jane Crow lives in the "post racial" present of the Age of Obama.

A black man is President of the United States of America.

But, a white cop can use language and white racial logic of 19th and early 20th century lynch law--with its fixation on "negro fiends", "imps of the inferno", and "noble" defenders of white society--to avoid going to trial for taking the life of an unarmed black teenager, while also being elevated to hero status (and financially enriched) by those sick and morally deranged white folks who want to live vicariously through the act of killing a black person.

Dred Scott is buried several miles away from where Darren Wilson killed Michael Brown. Scott, in one of the most infamous United States Supreme Court decisions, was deemed to not have any rights that a white man is bound to respect. Almost 150 years later, Darren Wilson used the same white supremacist logic, and in doing so offered a version of events that would have been a perfect fit for a 19th century newspaper article about the lynching, disembowelment, and vivisection of a black victim of spectacular white violence.

"History is a moving train". Ferguson is a reminder of how those historical continuities of white supremacy as enacted through the American legal system (and other cultural and social institutions) are still killing and murdering black and brown folks with impunity in the present.

The fix was in from the start and another murderer of an unarmed black child goes free...
Prosecutor's grand jury strategy in Ferguson case adds to controversy

Quote :

In most cases, a grand jury is a supple tool in the hands of a prosecutor bent on an indictment. But the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., is no ordinary case, and some legal experts say it resulted in an extraordinary grand jury proceeding.

Over the course of three months, St. Louis County Prosecuting Atty. Robert McCulloch asked the jury of nine whites and three blacks to hear virtually every piece of evidence in the case: witnesses who both supported and contradicted police Officer Darren Wilson's account, three autopsy reports, bloodstains and shell casings.
A prosecutor has an obligation to ask questions and clarify testimony for grand jurors. This prosecutor did worse than abdicate his responsibility. - James A. Cohen, a law professor at Fordham University

"Our only goal was that our investigation would be thorough and complete, to give the grand jury, the Department of Justice and ultimately the public all available evidence," McCulloch said in announcing that the jury had found no probable cause to bring Wilson to trial on criminal charges.

The tactic was a shrewd maneuver, legal experts say, in which McCulloch both deflected responsibility for his own failure to charge Wilson and — deliberately or not — created conditions in which the grand jury would not be likely to charge him either.

"This was a strategic and problematic use of a grand jury to get the result he wanted," said Ronald S. Sullivan Jr., director of the Harvard Criminal Justice Institute at Harvard University. "As a strategic move, it was smart; he got what he wanted without being seen as directly responsible for the result."

Sullivan called the case "the most unusual marshaling of a grand jury's resources I've seen in my 25 years as a lawyer and scholar."
lRelated At a Ferguson shop damaged again, owner cleans up and perseveres

The grand jury ordinarily is a forum in which prosecutors present their best evidence for a criminal prosecution, testing whether 12 jurors consider it sufficient to proceed to trial. Typically, prosecutors present evidence of a crime and advise a specific charge, according to legal scholars. There are no rules of evidence and no cross-examination by defense lawyers.

The standard for determining probable cause to charge someone with a crime is so low that former New York State Chief Judge Sol Wachtler once famously observed that a grand jury would "indict a ham sandwich."

It is not until the public trial later that evidence challenging the prosecution's theory and witnesses who tell a different version of events are given a full airing.
Related story: Darren Wilson says his conscience is clear in Michael Brown's killing
Related story: Darren Wilson says his conscience is clear in Michael Brown's killing
Matt Pearce, Maria L. La Ganga

In the Ferguson case, several analysts said, the decision to present all available evidence essentially meant that jurors heard from witnesses both favorable and hostile to a prosecution. It provided an unusual opportunity for jurors to have doubts about whether there was probable cause for an indictment.

Jeffrey Toobin, a legal analyst writing in the New Yorker, accused McCulloch of using the Wilson case for "a document dump, an approach that is virtually without precedent in the law of Missouri or anywhere else."

McCulloch said he laid out five possible charges, ranging from involuntary manslaughter to murder, and asked the grand jury to decide whether any of them applied.

Most tellingly, legal experts said, McCulloch did not challenge Wilson's detailed account of his encounter with Brown. That, they said, prompted jurors to accept at face value Wilson's testimony that he feared for his life as Brown allegedly charged at him after he punched the officer and tried to grab his gun.

"A first-year law student would have done a better job of cross-examining" Wilson, said Benjamin Crump, a lawyer for Brown's family. "When was his credibility ever challenged?"

McCulloch "allowed Darren Wilson to sit there and give his side of the story," said Missouri state Sen. Jamilah Nasheed. "But there was no one there to give Michael Brown's side of the story."

James A. Cohen, a law professor at Fordham University, said the presentation of evidence was normally structured by prosecutors to help grand jurors understand it.

"A prosecutor has an obligation to ask questions and clarify testimony for grand jurors," he said. "This prosecutor did worse than abdicate his responsibility: He structured the presentation so the jurors would vote no true bill."

McCulloch's defenders say he was in an impossible position because police-involved shootings are handled much differently than other cases. And Brown's death exploded into an international story that triggered violent demonstrations and emotional public debate.

William Fitzpatrick, president-elect of the National District Attorneys Assn., and the district attorney in Syracuse, N.Y., said it was not usual in a police-involved shooting case for a prosecutor to lay out all the evidence and not ask a grand jury for a specific criminal charge.

"I think — and most of our members think — that Bob did it the right way in this case because he didn't want to be criticized later by people saying, 'Well, you didn't put in this or that piece of crucial evidence,'" Fitzpatrick said.

"Bob went in from Day One knowing no matter what he did, there was going to be adverse reaction on both sides. He decided that, before you criticize me, look at the evidence. Here — here it is."

McCulloch told reporters Monday night that grand jurors relied on forensic evidence more than on witness statements in deciding not to bring charges against Wilson. But critics said he did not apply forensic rigor to Wilson's testimony that he was badly beaten by Brown and feared that another punch might kill him.

"There is an enormous disconnect between how the officer describes the events in his car versus the 'injuries' he suffered," said Cohen, the Fordham professor.

Nor did prosecutors press Wilson on why he got out of his car and pursued Brown if he was afraid that Brown might kill him.

"He was frightened for his life — that's what he said," Cohen said of Wilson. "So why did he get out of the car? Why did he chase Brown? Why didn't he wait for [police] backup, which he knew was on the way?"

happy jack wrote:

Artie60438 wrote:

 

Over the course of three months, St. Louis County Prosecuting Atty. Robert McCulloch asked the jury of nine whites and three blacks to hear virtually every piece of evidence in the case: witnesses who both supported and contradicted police Officer Darren Wilson's account, three autopsy reports, bloodstains and shell casings.
"Our only goal was that our investigation would be thorough and complete, to give the grand jury, the Department of Justice and ultimately the public all available evidence," McCulloch said in announcing that the jury had found no probable cause to bring Wilson to trial on criminal charges.
………

In the Ferguson case, several analysts said, the decision to present all available evidence essentially meant that jurors heard from witnesses both favorable and hostile to a prosecution. It provided an unusual opportunity for jurors to have doubts about whether there was probable cause for an indictment.

[b]First, you demand transparency.
Then, when you get transparency, you whine about it.
Perhaps you'll begin to see things more clearly as soon as you stop weeping uncontrollably over the outcome of this situation.

The whole thing was a sham especially with the decision to allow defendant Wilson to testify for four hours.