[Police State] "it is becoming clear that police in Ferguson are targeting journalists"

The activation of the Natl. Guard should be a forewarning to the content of the verdict.
I still don't know what to believe about the whole mess. It's hard to form an opinion when both sides are suspect.
For now, I'll just look at it as a "two wrongs don't make a right" deal.

You never say what it is about the "other" side that troubles you.

It's not game over, but the cop fired six shots into an unarmed man and then there's video of him a little later walking normally with no apparent injuries. What's on the "other side" that counters that?

If a poor black guy fired six rounds into an off-duty un-armed cop and then there was video of him appearing unharmed a couple hours later, he'd have been charged within the next hour, held without bail, and his lawyers would be begging the prosecutors not to seek the death penalty.

I don't even care that much about what happened, I'm just bothered by the reaction to the whole thing. Yeah, there's racial tension, and yeah, the police there are likely covering shit up, but I'm going with overreaction. Riots don't accomplish anything other than making your cause less credible.

For me, this isn't an either/or, it's both.
The "other side" includes all parties.
While cops are going off the reservation and becoming a real threat seemingly sanctioned by their collective forces, nationwide, there are things that kinda bug me about this
event.
The amount of shots fired are irrelevant. Have you ever tapped off rounds from a semi auto? Double stacked, he had 9 rounds left.
In the panic it'd be impossible to not go overkill. But......the apparent cover-up and secrecy surrounding what is/did transpire removes all credibility on the side of law enforcement.

Then there is the fact that this kid and his homey aren't the most credible people. Likable and the subject of mass media sympathy yes....credible....no.
I don't care if they are purple or white people.
I'd have the same apprehension when it comes to their credibility.
Neither side has a lick of credibility in my opinion.

The cops have demonstrated a strong armed approach to a strong armed opposition. This tells me that the mutual tension between each side is pre-existing
and acute.

??

I don't really care about sides, I care about whether this guy is indicted. I'm not in the grand jury room and don't know what they're hearing, but this is only a probable cause hearing to determine whether he should be charged.

At least one newspaper gets it.

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/2014/11/20/darren-wilson-affirmative-action/19291009/

Perhaps we should ask the drug-dealing defendants the St. Louis County Prosecutor’s Office commonly indicts. Perhaps we should ask the last 200 black defendants that office indicted.

We should ask them whether the prosecutor’s office offered them any of these benefits in their grand jury proceedings: the privilege of testifying; the advantage of exculpatory information and possible defenses; the benefit of having the prosecutors provide corroborating evidence, such as forensics reports or coroner’s examinations, that verified their stories and claims of innocence; the edge of a narrative that highlights their blamelessness and sublimates their guilt; and legal instructions to match the evidence to sundry possible charges, as opposed to a recommendation of what should be charged.

No doubt Wilson, who shot and killed unarmed black teen Michael Brown, has received more favorable treatment than any target of any investigation in St. Louis County history.​

That sounds like an editorial. This isn't a case involving street thugs that the GJ has to review.
I'm real surprised that there isn't a video of the incident. The way it stands now, is that each side has something to loose by the truth. So I doubt the truth will come out.

The best thing to come out of this is that the dialog about police tactics and militarization will
come to the forefront for a month or two then everything will resume as biz-as-usual. This type of thing is not new. I grew up with this crap happening on a nearly weekly basis. http://newsone.com/74471/racism-riots-and-police-brutality-a-never-ending-cycle/

Now we have a militarized police presence. Sheesh! Around here, there are military type police squads used to serve warrants for minor crimes or bench warrants. How fun it is to miss a
court date for a traffic ticket and have a MRAP pull up to your house and a bunch of wannabee soldiers crash your door and point AR15s at you and your family.
http://www.mailtribune.com/article/20140919/News/140919717

Almost completely agree on paragraphs two and three, except the militarization issue was gaining traction before Ferguson and though it will recede in the public eye some, it isn't going away.

Sure, that was an editorial. Usually thugs get prosecuted. When they wear badges, they rarely do.

The meme I saw had Barney and Andy. Andy was unarmed and Barney was only allowed to keep a single bullet in his shirt pocket. Shazaaam! (Wrong show?)

This militarization issue is the biggest issue we, as citizens, will face in our lifetimes.
It is downplayed and eclipsed by the media's sensationalizing of the human emotion aspect of events.
The media has a need to stir shit up but doesn't want to cross the line and stir up too much shit with the .gov guys.

Even local police recruiters are wanting military experience. " Military experience is highly valued."
http://www.ci.medford.or.us/Page.asp?NavID=1446

Remember Dirty Harry? The whole "Get tough on crime" thing? It happened around that time. After 9-11, it went into overdrive, with the whole "terrorists are going to blow up our schools and restaurants" scare.

As for the "before" picture, those folks, along with Dragnet and Andy Griffith, never existed outside a television screen.

I think they did. Take the radicalization of DWI laws. I've heard stories about how the cops used to make you poor out your booze (or shake out your weed) and tell you to go straight home, or have the most sober person in the car drive home. I knew a guy who had been a cop before he was a bondsman who used to joke about settling fights so that he didn't have to fack with all the paperwork. He used to say he wanted to "fine 'em both ten bucks and tell 'em not to do it again." Now they'd all go to jail and in some places have their vehicles searched by Fido.

The drug laws in the US didn't begin to get crazy until Nixon adopted the no-tolerance New York model that had recently implemented by then Gov. Nelson Rockefeller.

Malloy and Reed may not have existed, but I ran into some cops that were exactly what JLZ described. When I was 16 and blitzed out of my skull, I pulled into the city park to sleep it off.
Around 3:30am a cop tapped my window with his standard issue maglite and was going to write me me up/haul me in for open container, MIP and DUII. I told him I was too drunk to drive so I pulled over until I was sober. He told me that he appreciated not hearing the standard: "I only had two beers" BS and thanked me for my honesty. He then told me to be out of the park by 8:30am because there was going to be an Easter egg hunt. In the same town on my 18th birthday, I managed to get a little tiny old lady that ran the town's state liquor store to sell
me a fifth of JD. Some time between then and 4:30am I drank the whole thing and somehow scored an ounce of weed. I came to in a phone booth trying to call someone (don't remember who) and a sergeant of the city police was shining his flashlight in my eyes. They did the standard frisk and informed me that I'd left an ounce of weed four phone booths back and they had followed me around town laughing their asses off watching me go from phone booth to phone booth. Weed of any amount was a major felony back then (1975). They asked me who I was trying to call and where I got the dope. I told them I couldn't remember (shit, I could hardly stand up) and asked if I could please have my weed back. They got such a laugh out of that then they told me if I could get passed the city limits in 5 minutes they'd forget the whole thing. I drunkenly scrambled 1/2 mile and made the deadline.....never heard about it again.
Now days.........mandatory jail time for a lot of the shit I pulled on a daily basis.
IMHO:
The main things I see that have changed since the days of 'Adam 12' are serious things like:
*escalation of MIC (military industrial complex)
*for profit PIC (prison industrial complex)
*federal sponsorship of the militarization of local police forces
*a calculated, time delayed, concerted effort to weaken the 2nd amendment
*governments at the state and federal level growing exponentially in size and power

The race shit has not gotten better or worse, it's the same.
Attacks at schools? don't you remember all the bomb scares and threats of the 60's. School violence has just changed the weapon it's been there for awhile now.
Corruption and industry running the guv........it's an old thing. Jefferson warned against it for a reason.

In other words, society hasn't changed but the media and government has changed.

It really depends on the person and how you react to a cop. I think police brutality and cops with hot heads is a direct result of a huge anti-police mentality. I remember kids in high school would constantly say "oink" or claim they smelled bacon every time they saw a cop. Those also happened to be the kids who were constantly doing stupid shit that constantly got them harassed by police. Me? The small number of times a cop pulled me aside for anything I was polite and cooperative and was never in any trouble because of it.
When you have entire communities of "fuck the police" they're the problem, not the police imo.

That's in line with the experiences I've had with law enforcement. Every single time I was disrespectful and an asshole towards them, it didn't go well for me.
The same is true for the opposite. I learned early on to just take my lumps when I got myself in trouble and not blame the cops for my behaviors or the fact that I was in
trouble.
What I believe about the Ferguson calamity (again, this is IMHO) :
1. the kid and his friend was being a bully at the store and stealing shit
2. afterwards, he was was pumped up and disrespecting a lawful request from a cop that didn't realize who he was ordering around until too late
3. the kid tried to bully the cop and take his weapon (due to the long standing history of racial tension in the area)
4. the cop lost control of the situation and went into an adrenaline pumped panic and took back control of the situation with his weapon
5. Brown's friend and witness lied through his teeth as well as the police department lied through their teeth about all that happened
6. The police department pulled the same "use force to take back control" tactic as Wilson did
7. the public rioting and destroying their own community the way they did, may have given the police more credibility in their actions
finally:
8. All the tension has been there for years and years just like in every single population center in this country. Militant blacks (that aren't even from that area)
are using every opportunity and angle they can to use this incident to further their cause. The misuse of police power is one huge problem in this whole country.
It is separate from the other huge problem in this country. That problem is the attitude of many blacks. Ferguson is simply where two of our country's biggest
pre-existing issues collided. Police continuing with the attitude they have, and blacks with the attitude they have will not solve any problem at all.

I'm with you on all of that. Good points.

We have all been here before. Nothing changes, if nothing changes.
The way I see it, is that the only thing changing is that big guv is getting bigger and
police are getting more weaponized while using racial, social, economic and religious divide to their advantage.

Another post because it's a different angle to the topic:

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/fb...-civilians-were-killed-by-officers/ar-BBfEFx4

"It's not paranoia.....when they really are out to getcha"

Whether or not there's any merit to the belief that police=standing army, it's what the public perceives that counts. The police will commit to policy accordingly.

I also think that violent crime has actually been declining for years now. (Did I post something about that?) Like we're back down to 1970 levels?

Didn't violent crime go down a lot once Prohibition was repealed?

Grand jury decision announcement in 3 minutes . . .

No true bill. What a surprise. I guess if you're running from a cop and you stop, turn around and move towards him, he can empty his weapon into you, regardless of whether you have a weapon yourself or not.

I notice the prosecutor didn't actually answer the question about whether he recommended any charge or charges; it didn't sound like he did (they normally do I think)

We knew this was probably coming for days, but it was certain today, when they went through such a cack-handed way of announcing the verdict. Somehow the Grand Jury process was turned into a regular jury process through some presto-chango interpretation... And there's another no-fly zone. This time they learned their lesson, and made it for everyone.

Now Ferguson is burning. And being looted. And one officer in University City has been shot..

The social media as well as the parasite mainstream media that circulated rumor and outright fabrications
are complicit in this mess too .



I see a population influenced by pure bullshit knowing that it was bullshit.
They only needed fuel for their fire that was going to burn sooner or later.

And....police all over the nation will be hyper vigilant and hair triggered from here on out.
As I stated earlier: "The police will commit to policy accordingly."
Each attack on officers will reinforce the "us against them" mentality prevalent in most police forces and make it worse.
Each attack on citizens will reinforce the "us against them" mentality prevalent in most cities and make it worse.
Due to the violence following the announcement, a huge opportunity to actually change something got wasted.
Personal responsibility is not in the equation any longer. Way to go Ferguson.
WTF does tearing up your own shit accomplish anyhow?
All the rest of the population will come to think is: "So let it burn, it's their town."

Where's the part about the struggle for the officer's weapon inside the vehicle?
I'm not supporting the decision, I'm not condemning it either. We don't know what it was based on.

As for crime stats (glean what you will, stats tell a story about everything without telling a story about any one thing)
http://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/most-dangerous-cities-america-f832351
http://www.crimeinamerica.net/crime-rates-united-states/
http://www.bjs.gov/

One thing that was patently missing was any reference to Wilson's version and whether it held water **cough**all the black witnesses must have lied**cough** WTF?
PA McCullough gave a defense closing argument that would have made Clarence Darrow smile.

^^^ This. If only all grand jury proceedings were so thorough and fair to the defendant. (That is, if both sides were presented before charges are even filed)

It's a factor. It gave Wilson the right to chase Brown down but didn't give him the right to shoot him dead.

I really thought the way the crowd was behaving at the courthouse that there wouldn't be much rioting, but I forgot the courthouse is in Clayton, not Ferguson.

Here's a pretty good overall synopsis. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...i-town-under-siege-after-police-shooting.html

I was wrong about Wilson not having a scratch on him.

I've never heard anything about Brown's toxicology, which implies he was clean. It's a little hard to believe that a guy who was already shot at twice and hit once by the officer would turn and "charge" at that officer, who almost surely had his weapon drawn, unless the guy was majorly faxorred up-- and apparently he wasn't.

Never underestimate the power of fight-or-flight adrenaline. It can give small women the strength to lift cars off of trapped children. Ask any soldier who has been in combat, and not notice they were shot till after the action was over.

I liked one comment I heard, that Wilson got what a Grand Jury is supposed to be. He got the "Gold Plated" Grand Jury, while most of the rest of us get the regular "tin foil" Grand Jury, of the "indict a ham sandwich" variety...