The Killing of Michael Brown and the Ferguson Protests

[Ari]

This is why the Ferguson grand jury didn't matter, even if they had agreed to a trial the prosecutor, a known supporter of the police and Wilson, could have just refused to try him.

As happened recently in New Mexico.

Freethought project

Roswell, NM– The Roswell District Attorney’s Office has decided they will not prosecute two Santa Fe officers who shot a man in the face in August 2013, as he attempted to flee- despite a grand jury ruling the shooting unjustified.

District Attorney Janetta Hicks, who was appointed as a special prosecutor after Santa Fe District Attorney Angela Pacheco handed off the case citing a “conflict of interest,” announced her decision in a letter to New Mexico State Police on Thursday. In the letter, she goes against the grand jury’s rare decision and declares that the officers acted in self defense.

The Santa Fe police originally claimed that Mendez shot at the officers, however they later admitted this to be false and that he had been unarmed.

The department also claimed that when the officers tried to get Mendez out of his vehicle, he backed up and hit a police car, almost running down officers and drove toward them before they fired.

This claim was also proven to be false after a dash-cam video was released showing that the officers fired six shots into the vehicle as Mendez is driving away from and not towards the officers.

So the police department can murder someone, lie about it twice, have a grand jury agree to a trial and yet still get off completely free with the DA believing their lie of 'self defense.'
Welcome to the police state of america.
New Mexico Grand Jury Finds Police Shooting Unjustified- DA Refuses to Prosecute | The Free Thought Project

[Angakuk]

Prosecutorial Discretion meets Prosecutorial Misconduct. They fall in love, marry and have a child. They name the child Gross Injustice. The child is born with horrendous deformities and the couple discovers that are twins who were separated at birth.

This is a tragic love story for all time.

[lisarea]

DOJ report on Ferguson. I haven't read the whole thing yet, but what I have read is good. (By which I mean bad.)

Here's a little pullout:

The seven racist e-mails the Justice Department highlighted in its report on Ferguson police - The Washington Post

[Clutch Munny]

Rude Pundit's summary, with some pretty intense reflections near the end.

[mickthinks]

From the DoJ report

The City’s emphasis on revenue generation has a profound effect on FPD’s approach to law enforcement. [...] For example, in the summer of 2012, a 32-year-old African-American man sat in his car cooling off after playing basketball in a Ferguson public park. An officer pulled up behind the man’s car, blocking him in, and demanded the man’s Social Security number and identification. Without any cause, the officer accused the man of being a pedophile, referring to the presence of children in the park, and ordered the man out of his car for a pat-down, although the officer had no reason to believe the man was armed. The officer also asked to search the man’s car. The man objected, citing his constitutional rights. In response, the officer arrested the man, reportedly at gunpoint, charging him with eight violations of Ferguson’s municipal code. One charge, Making a False Declaration, was for initially providing the short form of his first name (e.g., “Mike” instead of “Michael”), and an address which, although legitimate, was different from the one on his driver’s license. Another charge was for not wearing a seat belt, even though he was seated in a parked car. The officer also charged the man both with having an expired operator’s license, and with having no operator’s license in his possession. The man told us that, because of these charges, he lost his job as a contractor with the federal government that he had held for years.

[California Tanker]

The DOJ at the same time also released their report on the original shooting which started this all off.

http://www.justice.gov/sites/default...el_brown_1.pdf

The salient quotes.

The evidence establishes that the shots fired by Wilson while he was seated in his SUV were in self-defense and thus were not objectively unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment.

The evidence does not support concluding that Wilson shot Brown while Brown’s back
was toward Wilson.

The evidence establishes that the shots fired by Wilson after Brown turned around were
in self-defense and thus were not objectively unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment

For all of the reasons stated, Wilson’s conduct in shooting Brown as he advanced on
Wilson, and until he fell to the ground, was not objectively unreasonable and thus not a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 242.

Note, there is a difference between "the evidence establishes" and "There is insufficient evidence to successfully prosecute."

[Ensign Steve]

Finally someone comes to this poor man's defense! I mean, honestly, who is the real victim in all of this?

[mickthinks]

If I were widely believed to have committed a racist murder and you knew that the evidence established my innocence, I hope you would come to my defence, ES.

[Ensign Steve]

Nope. I would tell you to go fuck yourself. In fact I will anyway. Go fuck yourself.

[California Tanker]

The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth I approve of?

[Kael]

I would say the fairly plain fact that he would never have treated a white youth in a way that would have started such an altercation in the first place, coupled with his own freely admitted lack of reflection or regret over taking a life, would make "racist murder" a pretty accurate descriptor of the event. Maybe the DoJ doesn't have good (enough?) grounds to bring charges, but that in itself is troubling. We give our police the tools of deadly force and the discretion to use them, shouldn't any gray areas in a shooting be cause for concern and action?

Also, fuck that guy. Seriously.

[lisarea]

What Kael said. If the evidence really does indicate what they say it does, OK, but there's a strong undercurrent of racism in that act, in Ferguson, and in the US as a whole that caused it to play out the way it did.

And maybe if the Ferguson authorities had bothered investigating it in the first place, the DOJ wouldn't have even had to.

[Ari]

Indeed this has long past the actual shooting.
Issues since the actual shooting include things like the clearly racist police department that would go on to drive around in armored vehicles playing Seal Team 6 on their streets pointing guns at everyone, smashing windows, gassing reporters, stealing and breaking equipment, blocking off roads to prevent reporters from entering and lying about why they wanted the air clear of news copters, among other things.

Then we get to the DA who went on air defending the police's actions and who clearly made sure the Grand jury wouldn't vote to prosecute by both including the testimony of known liars and playing defense attorney for the not yet charged man.

The amount of misconduct by the Ferguson justice system is what the DOJ should be investigating.

[The Man]

Two police officers shot and wounded outside Ferguson. Both officers are expected to survive. While the shots were fired during protests, they do not appear to have been fired by protestors, which suggests that someone took advantage of the protests to pursue their own agenda. The protestors will probably be blamed anyway (see Haymarket Square and any number of other comparable incidents from U.S. history).

[mickthinks]

mick: If I were widely believed to have committed a racist murder and you knew that the evidence established my innocence, I hope you would come to my defence, ES.
ES: Nope. I would tell you to go fuck yourself. In fact I will anyway. Go fuck yourself.

Okay, that makes you part of the problem.

[Watser?]

The Police Are Killing One Group at a Staggering Rate, and Nobody Is Talking About It

There are 5.1 million American Indians and Alaska Natives in the U.S. as of 2011, significantly fewer than the country's 45 million black Americans (as of 2013). But like black Americans, indigenous people are killed by law enforcement officers at rates that far outstrip their share of the population.

[Stephen Maturin]

What a difference a year makes, eh?

lol no not really

[mickthinks]

Tamir Rice shooting was 'justified' | BBC News

From the link

Retired FBI agent Kimberly Crawford, in a review of the shooting, wrote that "not only was Officer [Timothy] Loehmann required to make a split-second decision, but also that his response was a reasonable one".
He "had no information to suggest the weapon was anything but a real handgun, and the speed with which the confrontation progressed would not give the officer time to focus on the weapon", she wrote.

In another report, Colorado prosecutor Lamar Sims also concluded that "Officer Loehmann's belief that Rice posed a threat of serious physical harm or death was objectively reasonable, as was his response to that perceived threat".

So that's all right then.

[Ari]

Welcome to America where you have the right to carry a gun and the cops have the right to shoot you for it. I wonder where all the guns rights activists are as the kid was executed for his constitutional rights. Oh wait, that's right, racism.

[mickthinks]

The killing of seventeen-year-old Laquan McDonald in October 2014 by officer Jason Van Dyke is making news right now, with the very-much delayed release of a police dashcam recording of the 16 bullets Van Dyke fired into a harmless teenager:

Laquan McDonald: 'Graphic and chilling' video shows white police officer shooting dead black teenager | Americas | News | The Independent

[SR71]

and the beating/clubbing/tasering death of a 160 pound crazy person.

The police beat the charge but the city had to pay up in the civil case. 4.9M award to the victim's family.

[Ari]

One might think, though clearly one would be confused, that constantly paying out hush money to families not just one or two or ten or a hundred times but as basic policy is very similar to admitting guilt and wanting to pay a fine for murder, but clearly one would be confused because that's not at all what this looks like.
(If so officers would just go right back on duty and... oh many never leave active duty, I see.)

[Awareness]

Welcome to America where cops should actually stand proud and tall having a real big GUN !! But instead it's puny where citizens still carry guns like it was nothing !!

Instead of hiring would be possible criminals, people who discriminate, how about hiring good honest men and women, who sees everybody as equals ?

[The Man]

Loretta Lynch is just fucking done with the City of Ferguson's horseshit.

Justice Department Sues Ferguson After City Amends Police Reform Deal : The Two-Way : NPR

The U.S. Department of Justice is suing the city of Ferguson, Mo., for unjust policing that violates the civil and constitutional rights of citizens, Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced Wednesday.

The lawsuit came one day after the Ferguson City Council voted to change a proposed consent decree to reform the police and courts. The council said the package, which had been negotiated between the DOJ and city officials, cost too much.

In a news conference, Lynch said the DOJ was sensitive to the city’s cost concerns throughout the months-long negotiation. She also said, “There is no price for constitutional policing.”

Justice Dept. press release

“Today, the Department of Justice is filing a lawsuit against the city of Ferguson, Missouri, alleging a pattern or practice of law enforcement conduct that violates the Constitution and federal civil rights laws,” said Attorney General Lynch. “The residents of Ferguson have waited nearly a year for their city to adopt an agreement that would protect their rights and keep them safe. They have waited nearly a year for their police department to accept rules that would ensure their constitutional rights and that thousands of other police departments follow every day. They have waited nearly a year for their municipal courts to commit to basic, reasonable rules and standards. But residents of Ferguson have suffered the deprivation of their constitutional rights – the rights guaranteed to all Americans – for decades. They have waited decades for justice. They should not be forced to wait any longer.”

“Our investigation found that Ferguson’s policing and municipal court practices violate the Constitution, erode trust and undermine public safety,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “As shown by our lawsuit today, the Justice Department will continue to vigorously enforce the law to ensure that Ferguson implements long-overdue reforms necessary to create constitutional, effective and accountable policing. Ferguson residents and police officers deserve a law enforcement system that productively and fairly serves the entire community.”

And in further tone-deafness:

Cleveland Files Creditor's Claim Against Tamir Rice Estate For Unpaid EMS Fee

The City of Cleveland filed a creditor’s claim against the estate of Tamir Rice, the black 12-year old who was fatally shot by police in 2014, for not paying emergency medical service fees, CleveScene reported Wednesday.

The $500 fee is “owing for emergency medical services rendered as the decedent’s last dying expense under Ohio Revised Code,” according to the report.

If hell existed, there would be a special place for people like this.

Via.

Related, Sanders was on The View this morning and spoke about racial justice issues amongst other topics. Given the source of the interview, it's actually surprisingly in-depth.

[mickthinks]

Chicago police plagued by racism, says official report - BBC News



Task force chairwoman Lori Lightfoot