Agent X

[mod hat]Folks, I am NOT attempting to single anyone out, but please, remember to keep it as friendly as you can, make your cases without belittling each other, and if you really feel like you're going in circles, agree to disagree.

 

No line has, as far as I can tell, been crossed yet, so this is intended as more of a precautionary note rather than any reprimand.[/mod hat]

It's become redundant. So, I'm pretty sure nothing is going to go down - at least involving me.

That is some selective awareness you have going on there:

 

According to which witnesses? Could it be that mythical juror number 40 who was never at the scene and a racist little monster? What about the two witness caught on camera at the same time Brown was murder saying his hands were up? 

 

As to the physical evidence supporting the cop, no it doesn't. The physical evidence says only that Brown most most certainly at distance when the next several shots were fired: including the killing shot and the shots that followed it. Most everything else is simply spin. 

 

La Rose. 

No selective awareness whatsoever. I was very specific and I included the appropriate qualifiers. It's not what you want to hear but I don't care.

Anybody with any objectivity can recognize that there was not enough evidence to support any definitive conclusion against the officer. It doesn't matter how much YOU are deeply affected by police brutality and YOU want to get rid of police brutality.

Brown was shot the first time because he wrestled and punched a cop. Why was he shot after stepping away from the vehicle?

According to some of the witnesses and the cop and supported as an explanation of events by the forensic evidence - Brown was moving toward the officer and his hands were not up with palms facing the officer as Brown's friend claimed. The officer claimed he was being charged at. Some witnesses agreed.

If it were the case that prosecutors only proceeded when they knew they could secure a conviction, then every trial that actually proceeded would end in conviction. That's not the case, so we can write that idea off. Trials and pretrials proceed by different rules, and they don't always end the same way. "Certain" convictions sometimes fall apart, and longshot prosecutions sometimes pull through against the odds. How the evidence is presented, what it is, how the witnesses handle cross-examination - all make a difference. There's a reason that testimony at a Grand Jury trip is treated legally as hearsay and is not normally admissible at an actual trial.

 

We'll just have to disagree on whether a trial would have helped defuse the issue: since it didn't happen, we'll never know. It has happened in the past though.

 

As for "that he was desperate to avoid a trial" comment, you'll note that I was referring to the prosecutor, not the cop, who of course would probably not have wanted to go on trial, even if he was truly innocent and assumed that h e was likely to be exonerated. Any trial is going to be stressful. To Badger, I should note that had the case gone to trial the officer would have been suspended on pay and the police department's insurer - not the cop in question - would have been paying legal costs. So stressful, yes, but financially he would probably be better off than he is now.

 

This is more than just technical futzing about: if the citizenry lose faith in the justice system, the consequences are inevitably terrible for everyone. I've lived in places like that, but you can just look across the border at Mexico for an example. And loss of faith seems to always start with "minor" things like this, where broader concerns get lost in local noise. You place emphasis on the fact that Brown was a big guy, does seem to reacted aggressively towards the cop, and isn't a poster boy for unwarranted use of deadly force. Maybe true. But see it from the community end of things: why was Michael Brown stopped in the first place? What heinous crime was he committing? He was initially stopped for ... jaywalking. Even later, when he was recognised as a potential suspect in a nearby robbery - of 3 cigarillos - that's not enough to warrant the use of deadly force, which requires the suspect be an imminent risk to the community or the officer in question. So using a gun in self defence - which arguably was the case when the officer was in his car - is fine. Pursuing the suspect and firing a further 10 shots at him and killing him - that's pretty dubious and not immediately clear that it's in accordance with the law. Here's the autopsy report - http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/12/heres-dods-report-michael-browns-autopsy and http://graphics8.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/08/13/ferguson-qa/819e10796b809e6135932cdd63a2bb937c390f1f/autopsycrop.jpg.

 

Seen from the community point of view, this is another case of a minor crime escalating into confrontation and death. Police in other countries are specifically instructed - first order of business - to try to avoid escalating things, which is maybe one reason that they kill citizens at 3-5% the rate that US officers do. It's almost certainly a major reason that Ferguson boiled over the way it did: less to do with the actual details of the incident - more to do with the nature of the incident.

 

cheers, Mark

 

Edit: oh, and I *have* tried skydiving: I got my B licence (unsupervised free fall) at university. It's awesome fun and can be highly recommended.

I just glossed over what you wrote. You and I fundamentally have a different idea of what trials are for. Apparently, you are fixated on their use for Public Relations and think that a trial will meaningfully change public opinion. I think you are wrong on both counts. I don't believe in show trials and I believe confirmation bias says a trial wouldn't have changed anyone's mind.

As to the particulars of the case, you are doing a very good job at ignoring WHY Brown was shot. Brown was shot because he wrestled and punched with a cop while the cop was in his car. He didn't get shot because he was big or black or because of cigarillos. Even witnesses who thought the cop was wrong agreed there was a fight at the cop car.

If you start winning a fight with a cop he will use his gun to keep you from using it.

Oh cry me a river. I am not going to feel sorry for an abusive nimrod thug and I am not going to feel sorry for an abusive nimrod thug with authority. 

 

La Rose. 

You sound a little bitter. And you're dehumanizing somebody, you know, like some cops do to poor people.

"Know won't go anywhere"? Are you implying a fixed trial? A grand jury is not a trial, and with more time, more evidence, and a different procedure, might yield different results. So, you don't need to be certain of a conviction to proceed. The only thing required is "probable cause" - is there a case to answer? I'll admit I don't know. But experience shows, that if there is any doubt, sending a case to court tends to defuse the situation more often than it exacerbates it - even though that's not always the case: there's no certainty in life. A badly-handled trial *might* be as bad as a badly-handled grand jury - but the lack of a trial emphasises the feeling in the community that justice is not being done. That's the real cause of the trouble in Ferguson. This particular shooting is just a trigger - as you note, maybe not even a very good case - for underlying problems.

 

And yes, it would have been hard for the cop in question - but then, so was deciding not to go to trial. He's lost his job and his home, so it's not clear that a trial would have been worse for him. And given the riots after the grand jury decision, it is clear that didn't work too well - an outcome that should have come as a surprise to no-one. So yeah, I think it could have been handled better.

 

Edit: No, actually, stronger than that. Given the pervasive and growing distrust of the police even among ordinary citizens, precisely *because* of the feeling that justice is not being served, I think it was handled really badly. The fact that the usual procedures for a grand jury were significantly altered in this case, indicates that the prosecutor knew what the issues were and fumbled it anyway. He gave the impression - even to me, who tends to give the cops the benefit of the doubt - that he was desperate to avoid a trial. Whether that is true or not, it's impressions and emotions that are fueling this.

 

Cheers, Mark

Are you being intentionally obtuse?

He knew the trial wouldn't go anywhere because it's the Prosecutor's job to know what evidence he needs to get a conviction and it was obvious the evidence wouldn't provide a conviction.

I don't buy your contention that trials defuse issues in the first place but I will emphatically say that the outcome of a "no guilty" verdict in a trial over this incident would have sparked as much or more violence. Confirmation bias is a powerful thing.

If you are getting an impression of desperation from the cop because he didn't want to go to trial then you and I live on another planet. If I get accused of something I didn't do and I can quash it before it goes to trial I quash it. Trials are very hard on the soul and occasionally are mishandled. Of course, I won't go parachuting or bungee jumping either.

Here's another one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMoTfLykVcA

Judging from the article and video that The Rose posted the training of a lot US police officers seem to consider of armed and unarmed techniques to get a person "down" (alive or dead) and of showing them a few Western and Dirty Harry movies for how and when to apply them - basically whenever you don't get the response you wanna hear or see when you ask a citizen: "Do you have a problem, pillgrim?" or "Do ya feel lucky, punk?"

 

As I said before: Does not primarily seem to be a racist cop force but a Legion of Judge-Dredd-Wanna-Bes that are the root of the problem - and that root is lack of training and accountability and a sense of professionalism, and not spurs clinking and blinking on Main Street at High Nooon.

That's a pretty good analysis of where quite a few police are. Our system bends over backwards to provide any plausible justification. I remember watching a video on Youtube. A cop car is following a car with two African American males to a fast food restaurant very closely. The brothers (they are brothers) are very aware the cops were tailing them and look annoyed and puzzled by it. They go in to order food. The cops come in behind them and ask them what the problem was. They said they don't know what they are talking about. Eventually, the brothers ask the cops why they are there. The cops say to eat so the brothers turn around to order. Next thing, the cops are demanding ID. The brothers want to know why and the cops don't bother to tell them. Eventually, one cop puts his hands on the chest of one of the brothers and the brother brushes his hands away and steps back. With his hands now spread to a few inches wider than his shoulders but close to his shoulders, palms out, and making no move toward the officer - the cop punches him and then punches his brother. And then it's on. When it was reviewed by Detroit PD they said the officer was justified because when the young man reacted to being pushed by brushing the cop's hands away he assaulted the officer. So, if cops hassle you, get in your face, and start pushing on you WITH NO REASON - and you brush the hand away from your chest - they get to hit you. It's messed up. Here is a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMaB2OkU1TY

Here is some good news:

 

The jerk that put a law abiding young woman in a chokehold for not respecting his 'authoritah' has resigned. He should have been fired and lost any benefits he had, but at least he isn't wearing the uniform anymore. Good riddance to filthy trash. 

 

La Rose. 

Geez, just celebrate the win. There's no need to wish decades of hardship on numbnuts. He resigned to avoid being fired. Good. We don't need to tar and feather him and set the wolves on him.

It's more that you don't know until hindsight kicks in.  Especially if, as in the Ferguson case, the authorities are sure acting like there's something untoward going on.  Most of the evidence that convinced the grand jury not to indict was not available to the public until afterwards (and some of it is pretty sketchy) so the eyewitnesses that sounded credible were taken at more or less face value.

That's the sad thing. The witnesses didn't sound particularly credible to me. We've got the running buddy who was with him when he's shoving a small man around. We've got a couple of women who may have seen some or all of it and who changed their story immediately after the preliminary autopsy. This stuff wasn't hard to find but people's CONFIRMATION BIAS set in and they started tuning anything out that didn't fit with the bias. Michael Brown is a sweet, lovable kid (who is huge and commits violent crimes against a storekeeper). Michael Brown's hands were up (but other witnesses said they weren't). The cop tried to pull Michael Brown into the cop car through the window (which one really ought to visualize before they don't get a little skeptical). So you get knuckleheads making stuff up about what they thought they saw. Then you've got the Law and Order crew who ignore the fact that Wilson's explanation of why he got so close to Brown is... stupid. One of them decides to take it further and put out a pic of some other victim and pass it off as the cop.

Meanwhile, everyone forms an opinion without doing any digging. If they want to push police brutality they go listen to MSNBC and read DailyKos and get the spin they desperately want. If they want to push a hero cop puts down a black thug they go to Fox News and read DrudgeReport and the Blaze to get the spin they desperately want. Eventually, when it all comes out, the wrong side (in this case the more wrong side) has invested too much and now they have to pretend they didn't screw up. So they chant, "Hands up, don't shoot!" when it's pretty obvious from forensics that scenario didn't happen. It's pathetic. Every few years somebody gets shot down by multiple cops without having done anything and without a weapon and it doesn't catch fire like this did, a case which should have had everybody be careful about jumping to conclusions as the first factoids dripped in.

"Picking their incident more carefully" seems a tricky business to me.  From what I've seen of the "white guy with gun kills unarmed black person" protests, the incidents that spark the most outrage are those where the authorities seemingly go out of their way in the early going to make it clear that the killer is going to get off scot-free.  And it only twists the knife if the authorities label the reaction to an outraging event as the problem to be solved, rather than the outraging event itself.

 

And honestly, what would it take to convince a jury (grand or otherwise) that the white police officer (or wannabe) was committing murder of an unarmed black person?  There's always some sort of excuse that could be used.

Does that mean you pick the wrong incident and portray it as something it isn't to make your point? Which destroys your credibility with people who aren't so invested in your cause that they think there are other things that matter too and makes you sound delusional when you circle around inconvenient facts. I want to rein in police brutality as much as anyone. I'm just not interest in making scapegoats to do it.

Starlin had a thing for Super Space Opera. Might check out Dreadstar and DC's alien Starman. Could also look at the old Micronauts Comics for ideas. I wouldn't worry about a label. Build the characters the way they need to be built and design commensurate challenges.

_{I tried to edit that post. I thought it was "short". For some reason, I couldn't.}

_{There is a massive incongruity with claiming you have a bias for justice.}

_{Your outrage toward the prosecutor just screams "grudge" to me. There was no meaningful difference in the autopsies. There were a host of witnesses who saw all sorts of things. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/newly-released-witness-testimony-tell-us-michael-brown-shooting/ Of course, some witnesses changed their story after the preliminary autopsy report, witnesses who had to tone down their description of what happened. We've got a young man who just threw around a store owner and is wandering down the middle of the road and a police officer who tells him to go to the curb to walk and it goes downhill from there.}

_{I know that a lot of people "voted" to make this incident the rallying point against police brutality, especially against minorities, and that gives everyone who desperately wants to change the system a motivation for endless special pleading against Wilson and for Brown. I looked into it and I can say I do not for a minute believe Wilson should have gone to trial. Oh, and I DO understand why people are so angry (and it's not about Brown and Wilson). That's why I can pick up on a lot of smart people willfully ignoring information they don't want to hear. I am not impressed with a militarized police force. I have witnessed shoddy police work. I was hassled by a cop for no reason other than being a teen. Once, I was an adult I thought that was probably over with. However, I discovered having a beard and walking on the sidewalk at 10 at night gives a cop a reason to hassle you as well. I've read up on cops who are too free using force. I've seen the footage of a man getting shot for following a cop's directions to produce his ID. I've read up on no-knock warrants on the wrong house leading to accidental death. I read up on the predatory policing in St. Louis and even talked to a friend of mine who lives in the area.}

_{I just wish people would have picked their incident more carefully.}

I think Markdoc's most recent post made an extremely good point. Justice needs to be done and needs to be seen being done. The public trust is extremely important and if the system ignores a fundamental aspect of our society (that people need to see justice being served), then it is no longer functioning.

 

 

 

You think a typical prosecutor knows the burden of proof can't be met in this case? Really? If that were the case, then why did the actual prosecutor have to hardball all witnesses for the victim, soft ball the murderer, swear in and accept obvious perjury (obvious in that he, himself, knew it to be 100% fake) just to get the murderer off the hook? Those aren't the actions of a prosecutor who is confident in his belief that he couldn't meet a burden of proof, those are the actions of a man afraid that he could. Those are the actions of a spineless swine who has had and will only continue to have a tradition of protecting murderous cops from justice at all costs. 

 

 

I like how you think the physical evidence only corroborates the murderer's story - it doesn't. First, there were three completely distinct autopsy reports done. None of which were in complete alignment. But all of which agreed that the boy was shot several times. Most of the shots were at a distance and that the killing shot was followed up by additional shots after he was already dead. We also have witnesses who at the time of the event were caught on camera talking about how the boy had his hands up and was surrendering when he was gunned down. And that video and their testimony is worth a whole lot more than the racist, mentally unstable, perjurer that the prosecutor decided to rely on.

 

So, Agent X, I don't think you really understand why people are so angry with this case and why it is so necessary that it goes to trial. Perhaps in the full course of a trial I could be shown to be wrong and the murderer could be shown to have been acting in the bounds of the law, but that is a little bit of justice we were all denied. The murderer is not obviously innocent and it is not clear that there is no way to meet the burden of proof. That is purely your opinion on the situation. And the best thing for the victim would have been to have an actual adversarial trial where his interests were given consideration - that did not happen. The best thing for society would have been to have an actual adversarial process where our basic need to see the system actively and righteously pursue justice did not happen. All that happened was that an old-boy prosecutor covered for his murderer friends as he has done so before. 

 

La Rose. 

Your bias is showing.

Actually, sometimes you do. A core concept of the English justice system - on which the US system is built - is that justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done. The justice system does not exist in isolation from the citizenry, and the prosecutor had the discretion to send this case to trial, if only to ensure justice was seen to be done. He should have done so, I think. After all his job - and the job of the system - is to maintain public order, and it does not look like that is what happened.

 

Our systems give prosecutors a lot of discretion, but the flip side is that we expect them to use it wisely.

 

Regards, Mark

Okay, so in the name of public order you put an individual through a show trial that you know won't go anywhere AND you provide an expectation on the part of the aggrieved that "this is for realz" AND, you know, you sell it too. It's not like you can't charge him without claiming you have a strong enough case. So, when he is found not guilty and the riots REALLY BLOW UP - How's your public order?

By the way, some of the witnesses against Wilson had already changed their story before the Grand Jury. Also, what witness holds more weight? The one that agrees with physical evidence or the one that doesn't?

The Prosecutor has prosecutorial discresion and can choose what he wants to take to court. If the prosecutor really thought that there was no chance in heck that the officer was guilty of any crime, then he should have never indicted him and stood up for his beliefs. But he didn't. No, he created a show trial of the Grand Jury for the sole sake of fooling stupid people who think a Grand Jury is anything like an actual trial - it isn't and is never meant to be. He purposely allowed people to perjure themselves in front of the court to throw the case. He purposely deflated every possible aspect of the state's (HIS!) case so as to destroy his case. He purposely made the entire event last longer than many trials just to wear down the jurors so that they would be too fed up to care anymore. 

 

Yes, it is true he has prosecutor discretion and he could have used it to never take it to trial. But he used it to convene a Grand Jury. Once he made that choice he should have had to follow through with it but he chose not to. He chose to cover for his murder friends and deny anyone of any chance of justice. 

 

If you so strongly believe that the officer was innocent, then he could have had his day in court where he could defend himself. As the old saying goes: innocent people don't need to fear the law. Darren wasn't innocent and the prosecutor knew it. That is why he did everything he could to prevent it going to trial.

 

Do you know whose case wasn't represented at the Grand Jury - the murdered boy. That boy had no one there to advocate for him. That boy was denied even the slightest semblance of justice. The officer would have had his chance to defend his actions with all the vigor the law allows had it gone to trial. But you know what is even better than that, having the prosecutor do that job for you at a Grand Jury hearing. 

 

La Rose. 

You claim to understand the legal system. Opinion: It is wrong to try someone for a crime when a typical prosecutor knows the burden of proof cannot be met. What I read is just talking in circles. Let me sum up your position as I understand it: It's okay to try someone for a crime the prosecutor doesn't think the accused committed. That you are doing the person a kindness by letting him exonerate himself. - Is that your position? Would you prefer an accusation against you to die with the Prosecutor or the Grand Jury or would you prefer for it to go to trial? 

But isn't that an argument for going to trial? In a trial, the evidence would have been given a thorough airing. You could argue that not only would it have given closure to the victims family, but would also have protected the officer in question. As it stands, he didn't go to trial - but he also had to quit his job amd apparently leave the area.

 

Cheers, Mark

I think that's twisted logic. If I'm a prosecutor and I know that the evidence does not support a trial but people are rioting because they think they know better, I don't go ahead and have the trial. I believe what the prosecutor attempted is called a "compromise". Bring all the evidence out in a Grand Jury hearing and let the chips fall where they may. Contrary to some here, a prosecutor is NOT obligated to put every weak case before a grand jury and stack the evidence to get an indictment. It's a no-win. If the prosecutor had just come out and said there wasn't enough evidence for a trial he would have been accused of a cover-up. He calls a Grand Jury to show the evidence to "regular folks" and is accused of being manipulative  by not "loading the box" against the officer. It's twisted logic to me for someone to argue that it would have been better for the grand jury to be ignorant of counter-evidence and that's exactly what they are promoting. I've read up on the various witnesses and the physical evidence. It's pretty clear the officer could not be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.  What I found is that he was guilty of poor judgment. His own account makes it clear he's not the brightest bulb. Why would you, as a cop, try to get out of you car within reach of someone who was a possible belligerent? I think Brown annoyed him. I think Wilson thoughtlessly put himself within reach of Brown and then Brown assaulted him. Wilson, I speculate, put himself in a position of vulnerability which led to massive escalation. So, I'm happy he's not a police officer anymore. He didn't murder Brown but I believe a more competent officer could have avoided what happened. (Similar issues with Tamir Rice - What's with Cops driving cars right up to a suspect like that?)

I don't think that's fair to the Prosecutor, that "wasn't man enough" bit. It appears, from his statements, that he was attempting to use the Grand Jury to communicate to the public that the evidence was properly considered. I think his view was that he was trying to minimize suspicion about why the officer wasn't going to be tried. Anyone who has read the physical evidence and the conflicting witness testimony knows that wasn't a winnable case for the prosecution. By the time the Grand Jury made its decision, propagandistic thinking had set into the camps. Everything would be interpreted in the worst light for the other side and the best for the same side.

It's not hard to google up details about grand juries. If you like them so be it. I don't. While I am very unhappy with the state of police work in this country (and the legal system overall) I am not going to assume every time a police officer shoots someone they "planted" the gun on them.

Some of you are starting to sound like Robespierre and we all know how that turned out. As for grand juries - I invite you to do some reading and find out how easy it is to be charged with perjury or contempt, etc.

Yes, but a grand jury doesn't fine the defendant or send him to jail.  It just permits a trial to go forward, and real trials are not rigged too much against defendants. As such, I have no trouble letting the indictment process be a little aggressive.

It's a fundamentally unfair process, IMO.

Hey there, long time no see. I can say there is a great deal of consensus that police training isn't all that great and that there are many instances when police choose to escalate when it is not demonstrably needed. There seems to be a divide with how to "feel" about this and how to view the nature of the average police officer's "soul". On the subject of the Greater St. Louis Area, I had read a long article about a fairly unique problem in the area. Evidently, Missouri law is fast and loose about the incorporation of municipalities. Over the decades, tiny little municipalities have been created as another option to "white flight". These little municipalities can't support themselves so they have moved to predatory policing a la the speed trap town - only it's a bunch of them right by each other - a recipe for disaster.

As far as the Grand Jury in Ferguson. I am convinced the Prosecutor only called a Grand Jury for political reasons. He had the discretion to not prosecute without one but chose to call a Grand Jury to be more transparent. I'm going to throw something out there that some won't like. I am happy he let the Grand Jury hear so much of the evidence. I have never liked the notion that "A grand jury will indict a ham sandwich." I've always felt the Grand Jury system was rigged too much against the defendant.

Re: Sixth Edition Showcase #2: New Combat Maneuvers; Objects As Weapons

Eh' date=' thats why you just have to shug off a too strict adhereance to damage caps, or simpy make sure move throughs/bys stay exceptional moves. If a move by, move through, or passig strike is a primary attack of a character, then you can get strict on the limitations.[/quote'] I don't think that's the only option. Haymaker was given a flat dice bonus. I see no reason why velocity couldn't be capped.

Re: Sixth Edition Showcase #2: New Combat Maneuvers; Objects As Weapons

Looks like velocity will continue to add to damage in move throughs and move bys thus creating a time-honored balancing issue for character creation: the really fast, strong guy will often exceed damage caps.