A Washington Post reporter who was arrested at a restaurant last year while reporting on protests in Ferguson, Mo., has been charged in St. Louis County with trespassing and interfering with a police officer and ordered to appear in court.
Wesley Lowery, a reporter on The Post’s national desk, was detained in a McDonald’s while he was in Missouri covering demonstrations sparked by a white police officer fatally shooting an unarmed black 18-year-old.
A court summons dated Aug. 6 — just under a year after Lowery’s arrest — was sent to Lowery, 25, ordering him to appear in a St. Louis County municipal court on Aug. 24. The summons notes that he could be arrested if he does not appear.
“Charging a reporter with trespassing and interfering with a police officer when he was just doing his job is outrageous,” Martin Baron, executive editor of The Post, said in a statement Monday. “You’d have thought law enforcement authorities would have come to their senses about this incident. Wes Lowery should never have been arrested in the first place. That was an abuse of police authority.
I had to read this a couple times before it sunk in that it was not them just reprinting a story on the anniversary and that it was new news. It’s somehow both depressing and perfectly fitting that so far, only the black journalist has been charged. For those of you who have forgotten, here is the video of the alleged crime in question:
We’re through the looking glass.
belae
They’re >>> Their,
Thought to get that out of the way.
serge
The good government of Ferguson is doubling down on its inherently corrupt racism. A big fuck you to everyone. Still that dipshit punk mayor in place, I presume. Fuck them.
LevelB
Journalism While Black…
A guy
You folks can’t get over the fact michael brown cause his own death can u?
Gene108
The press closes ranks to defend what they feel is a threat to their rights as reporters. Look for Ferguson to not be able to duck it and have it go away quietly.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@A guy:
You guys can’t get over the fact that Darren Wilson was such a coward that he couldn’t think of any way to subdue an unarmed man other than shooting him dead from 100 yards away. I bet Wilson’s officer buddies had to bring him a fresh pair of Depends when they showed up to rescue him.
greennotGreen
I’m so confused. Were the cops clearing out the McDonald’s? If so, why? If not, why did they make the reporter leave?
(And also, why were his fingers over the lens?)
Botsplainer
A charge had to get approved by a prosecutor. Someone who isn’t the defendant, isn’t a licensed attorney and never steps into Missouri can always bar complaint the prick.
Same thing for the arraigning judge. Go directly to the heart of the problem in a way which makes them feel it.
A guy
Wilson’s exhoneration was confirmed by holder. Lol
trollhattan
@A guy:
Words. You don’t comprehend them.
–or–
“English. Do you speak it, motherfucker?”
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@A guy:
Wilson pissed his pants in fear and killed a guy he didn’t have to. And he’s your hero now.
Hunter Gathers
Legal extortion. The Mob has nothing on these guys.
Roger Moore
I think the only thing to do is to show up with a couple of other reporters in tow. Demand a jury trial, and turn the whole thing into a giant media circus that shows just how awful these assholes are.
gratuitous
The Washington Post is upset about this, is it? Sally Quinn’s Parlor of Social Rectitude has never been rousted and bullied like this! It’s terrible. What they don’t understand is that their reporter came into Ferguson and trashed the place, and it wasn’t his place.
Nope, it still sounds like a stupid, bullshit excuse for harassing people just because they don’t conform to your standards. Doesn’t matter if it’s the Clintons in the 1990s or Mr. Lowery in 2015. The Post can take its attack of the vapors and shove it until such time as they have come to terms with how they contributed to the atmosphere that has now come back on them like a bad burrito.
BBA
The police are not there to “protect and serve”, which is only an LAPD motto anyway. The police are there to crush riots and kill any member of the underclasses who threatens public order. (See, e.g., the establishment of the Chicago PD after a riot by Irish immigrants.) Nowadays looking at a policeman funny is a threat to public order and the underclasses include anyone without a badge.
Tree With Water
Screw the Washington Post. That cock the paper has been fellating for decades belongs to the republican party, not Claude Rains. The Post’s shot-callers don’t seem to realize that the “heartland of America” both it and the republican party constantly lionize is chock full of pea-brains like those that just indicted their reporter. The paper aids and abets the GOP’s grip on national power on a daily basis. The indictment of that journalist is a damned outrage, but I’m certainly not outraged on the Post’s behalf because of it- far from it.
Gravenstone
@Gene108: Yeah, Ferguson is about the relearn the old aphorism about pissing off someone who buys ink by the barrel.
redshirt
Freedom isn’t free.
scav
The tantrum many cops are throwinig seems remarkably similar in tone to that of the Trumpasaurus. My Way! My Way! My Way! and AsLoudAndOffensiveAndInYourFaceAsPossible.
TealBomb
Black journalists wouldn’t be arrested by out of control cops if we only had single payer and a hike in the minimum wage.
Roy G.
I think proclaiming the anniversary to be ‘Darren Wilson Day’ is right up there too.
Villago Delenda Est
I’ll say this again:
John was absolutely correct last night. The cops in Ferguson have learned the lesson that being brutal fascist thugs is perfectly OK. Go nuts. Kill as many niggers as you like…nothing will happen. We’ve got your backs.
Big ole hound
NO SHIT> The St Louis cop’s union has declared this to be “Darren Wilson” day. My sympathies to all normal people who live in MO.
Ruckus
Wonder what it’s going to look like in a Ferguson courtroom when the WP shows up with it’s high priced law firms and a gang of reporters. Wonder if the McD franchise actually complained about him trespassing or if they will be witnesses for the defense.
But mostly I wonder what the fuck is going on in Ferguson. Well besides overt racism.
Kropadope
@A guy: Not enough evidence to prosecute is not the same thing as exoneration.
rikyrah
uh huh
uh huh
uh huh
Gimlet
@TealBomb:
Or a black administration running the federal government.
Elizabelle
Meanwhile, Officer Wilson is kind of — unemployable.
He killed Michael Brown out of fear (whether justified or not; most likely not), and no one wants to admit that.
Been a short year, hasn’t it?
srv
My dead grandfather could move faster than that reporter, even with a casket tied to his ankle.
Gimlet
@Elizabelle:
Remember if you maintain eye contact with the officer you’re being “uppity”. If you look humbly down at your feet, he’ll shoot you because of fear you are going to charge him.
Gimlet
@Elizabelle:
He killed Michael Brown out of fear
He was pissed at him for slugging him, and may have thought that before he could get the cuffs on he would be in a battle again.
John Cole
@srv:
Yeah, well, fuck your dead grandfather. If he shared a gene pool with you, he was probably a worthless piece of shit, too. If he’d died earlier, maybe we wouldn’t have to deal with your bullshit.
Two can troll, asshole.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
It’s kind of amazing that shooting an unarmed person used to be the sure sign of a bad guy in movies and TV, someone who was a really hissable villain. Now some people seem to think that shooting an unarmed person is the height of heroism. I guess that means that the people who have managed to talk armed gunmen into dropping their weapons are total wimps who shouldn’t be celebrated for their actions:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/21/us/georgia-school-gunshots/
Steve From Antioch
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): shot him from 100 yards away, eh?
That might not be consistent with Brown’s blood being in the officers car nor with the GSR on Brown’s hand.
srv
@John Cole: I credit you with more of who I am, at least we’re off the microaggressions.
In other news, Trump has already knocked one cuckservative out:
How long does Hillary have?
BillinGlendaleCA
@srv: Her checks are still clearing the bank.
Steve From Antioch
So is this story the thin branch on which the righteous indignation birdies are going to roost for the night?
I haven’t seen any posts today developing the theme that last. Nights shooting is just further proof that the Ferguson PD had/ had not learned their lessons. Was it the fact that it was, apparently, a different agency’s officer doing the shooting? Or was it the fact that the video shows a “protester”loosing a barrage of shots?
gbear
@srv:
8 years.
MariedeGournay
Here’s hoping for once the old adage is true: “Never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel.”
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA:
She should have set up her own bank in her basement.
Oatler.
What little MSNBC I could stomach had one of their drones asking police official about officer safety, and true enough, the “story” was on police body armor. Maybe a spot on Good Morning America tomorrow?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Becha she did, right next to the email server.
Ash
So I made the mistake of checking out right wing twitter for the first time through comments made in Deray’s tweets and… what the fuck is wrong with these people?! The constant harassing of activists and outright cheering when they get jailed for bs reasons is sickening.
Dolly Llama
@John Cole: Damn, Mr. Cole. Hammer, don’t hurt ‘im.
srv
@BillinGlendaleCA: Even the liberal Huffington Post is starting to wonder:
Probably Chinese, not sure ISIS has a PAC yet.
@Baud: gold star, or Hillary bitcoin for you. billcoin?
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Probably next to her cache of semi-automatics.
the Conster
Like Deray always says, watch whiteness work.
Gimlet
@Steve From Antioch:
Tyrone Harris, 18, was shot by four plainclothes detectives on Sunday night after allegedly firing on their unmarked vehicle as he walked from a gunfight between several people late on Sunday night, according to the St Louis County police department.
On Monday, Harris was charged with four counts of first-degree assault on law enforcement, five counts of armed criminal action, and one count of shooting a firearm at a vehicle, a police department spokesman said on Monday, adding that Harris was being detained on a $250,000 cash-only bond.
Harris remains in critical condition in hospital after undergoing surgery, according to police.
So why would someone shoot at an unmarked car with plainclothes cops in it?
Dolly Llama
@srv:
So you’re one of those, huh?
ms_canadada
@Elizabelle: Wasn’t there a ‘Go Fund Him’ account set up for D. Wilson, the coward? Seems to me cowards get money for being outed as cowards.
gwangung
@Steve From Antioch: I can think of fifty scenarios, one which is quite probable, which would be consistent with those facts.
Idiot.
srv
@Gimlet:
Tell us, exactly, where the rational shooter is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Xe8swJVGVE&feature=youtu.be
bk
@srv: I rarely post here, even though I am a faithful and constant reader of every post as well as the comments. You are just an asshole.
Baud
@bk:
Do come back.
sukabi
@srv: no, it was Trump
Gin & Tonic
@Steve From Antioch: Do you have some kind of alert programmed, telling you when to come by and troll?
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Steve From Antioch:
And where was Brown’s gun?
Face it: your heroes are guys who piss their pants at the thought of an equal fight. Waving your peni$ substitute around at the first sign of trouble is the act of a coward, not an act of strength.
Your police “heroes” are cowards, and you hide behind them and behind your guns to try and conceal your own cowardice.
ms_canadada
@MariedeGournay: “Never start a land war in Asia.” Works for me.
Gimlet
@srv:
What am I supposed to be seeing?
Dolly Llama
@Gimlet: That was my question. And, srv, which comments under that video are yours? You run with a nice crowd.
Steve From Antioch
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): so I take it your blather is acknowledgement that your shot him from 100 yards away was utter bullshit?
Look, Nutella spread, even front pager Ms. cracker called you out today on making up stupid shit and posting it here.
What is you fucking problem?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Lowery coming up on the Hayes show
Steve From Antioch
@Gin & Tonic: scratch a little to the left since you’re already down there.
gelfling545
Apparently it’s Trolls Night at Balloon Juice . What the hell?
The Thin Black Duke
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Wow. Stevie hates women too. What a surprise.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Steve From Antioch:
Also, that “gunshot residue” is disputed:
http://m.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/pathologist-who-did-private-autopsy-questions-finding-of-gun-residue/article_4798ac00-c1a8-54bd-b821-6b15a0167519.html?mobile_touch=true
But, hey, anything that lets you keep feeling like you’re a Real Man, amirite?
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Steve From Antioch:
Please dispute the report from Dr. Michael Baden referenced above.
You’re a coward who lionizes cowards.
redshirt
Thank God for Social Media. Seriously – nothing can be hidden any more.
Gin & Tonic
@Steve From Antioch: Your wit is too sophisticated for me.
I was just wondering about the technology behind your invariable prompt appearance in only threads mentioning guns or police activity.
Roger Moore
@gelfling545:
It’s a day ending in “y”.
Steve From Antioch
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): oh, it’s disputed, unlike whatever divine truth jeebus is beaming into your addled brain, right?
p.a.
@srv: The real reason the rethugs hate the Clintons is that the Clintons don’t bring a pillow to fight the pig peoples’ party knife fest. They bring guns.
raven
We pulled in from Charleston right when a big storm hit Athens at 4pm. We lost power because a huge oak fell on the next block and the crews are out there right now trying to restore power. Incredibly this tree fell right between two house and didn’t touch either one! Three weeks ago one of the owners sold a beautiful 55 Apache that would have been right there!
Belafon
@Roger Moore: They’ll be busy at Taco Tuesday tomorrow.
JPL
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: What happened?
Gimlet
@Steve From Antioch:
The blood and gunshot residue were from the struggle through the driver’s side window, not the final shooting later at a safe distance by Wilson.
srv
@p.a.: Hillary has a lot of experience being under fire.
Enjoy.
Steve From Antioch
@Gin & Tonic: if you will pay attention, you’ll see that I post about other things as well.
I confess that I don’t post about frittata recipes and sports… Except to occasionally point out how watching concussion ball is ethically indefensible for a variety of reasons. I guess I could post every time there is a concussion ball thread, but I lack the time.
BillinGlendaleCA
@srv: You left out the DPRK and the Cubans.
Uncle Cosmo
@srv:
Your dead grandfather can also think faster & clearer than you with a skull full of cobwebs & vacuum. You’d need about 40 IQ points to rise to the level of imbecile, fuckhead.
gbear
It’s hard to be an asshole on a food thread.
p.a.
Wapo & the mainstream press sure do react quickly and forcefully to these situations. To bad they aren’t so conscientious about doing their fucking job of political reporting.
BillinGlendaleCA
@gbear: Hey, the food eventually gets there.
Steve From Antioch
@Gimlet:
Where did those goalposts go?
You folks keep moving them..
But hey since we’re talking about football fields, do you sign on to repeated fabulist and general shitheel Mnemosyne’s assertion that Brown was shot while 100 yards away?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Uncle Cosmo: Now, lets not insult JustSomeFuckhead.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Huffington Post reporter who was with Lowery in the MacDonald’s also being charged:
srv
@BillinGlendaleCA: I’m pretty sure Jeb has Mark Cuban all locked up.
Gimlet
@Steve From Antioch:
Google is your friend.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2848279/I-followed-training-followed-law-Officer-Darren-Wilson-issues-statement-following-decision-not-indict-s-revealed-shot-Michael-Brown-12-times.html
St Louis Prosecuting Attorney Bob McCulloch announced Wilson fired at Brown 12 times: twice from a car, then a further ten times in the street from 125 yards away. Six or seven bullets struck the teenager.
pete
@BillinGlendaleCA: This is an example of why I like up-vote buttons.
Pie Happens (opiejeanne)
@gelfling545: That’s what I was wondering. For some reason the pie filter won’t work on my computer, so I see all of these and tonight we are Chock Full o’ Trolls.
Pie Happens (opiejeanne)
@Roger Moore: but it’s like a convention tonight. I think there’s only one of our current trolls missing right now.
srv
@Gimlet: ok, nothing personal here, but math:
Perhaps he meant the shooting was 125 yards (except, 153 feet) from the car. Have you ever shot a revolver? You know, 125 yards = 375 feet.
If you can hit someone from that distance with a handgun, you need to go pro.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Pie Happens (opiejeanne): Chock Full o’ Trolls. It’s like Chock Full o’ Nuts but less full flavored.
Fred Fnord
I met my first professional troll recently! He (I bet they are all more or less male) is, at least according to him, being paid by two different companies to troll liberal web sites all day under a couple of dozen assumed names. Apparently there is software that was explicitly designed for this task.
Must admit I wonder how many of BJ’s trolls are paid for the privilege. I would say their employers are not getting their money’s worth, except as boringly predictable and damaged-sounding as they are, y’all always jump at the bait. It’s half a dozen times as bad as it was three years ago when last I regularly hung out here. Getting too toxic for me, which is of course the entire point.
Gimlet
@srv:
You would have to ask McCulloch what he meant.
randy khan
@Roger Moore: Absolutely. Demand a jury trial, strike all of the white prospective jurors and let the fun begin.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Steve From Antioch:
Here, I’ll share a magical, never before thought of technique to deal with someone reaching through the window of your car to try and grab your gun:
Step One: Roll up the car window
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Fred Fnord: honest to god? I always thought paid trolls were an internet legend
Baud
@Fred Fnord:
He didn’t happen to give you the name and number of his employer, did he?
redshirt
@Fred Fnord: UNLIMITED CORPORATE CASH
trollhattan
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
You know perfectly well we haven’t yet mastered window technology. Nor pepper spray, nor nightstick, nor Taser, nor just driving away…. Only Guns (PBUT) can save us! Stevie loves him some guns.
smintheus
So that makes one WaPo reporter facing trumped up charges in Ferguson MO, and a second facing trumped up charges in Iran.
trollhattan
@srv:
The only question: pro what?
Redshift
@srv: Gee, almost makes you wish that conservative justices hadn’t arbitrarily overturned decades of precedent to gut our campaign finance laws and allow any rich “person” to dump unlimited anonymous dollars to help a candidate. You have no evidence other than speculation that it’s coming from any improper source in this case, of course, but you are correct that the Roberts Court has ensured that we have no way of knowing if a foreign government is spending massive amounts to influence our elections.
Freedumb!
nellcote
@Big ole hound:
Go Union!
/snark
srv
@Baud: It’s your kids. All y’alls kids pay me to keep you occupied.
If you had graduated a bunch of lawyers and doctors, we could get someone from India. But since they’re all in your basements, it is what it is.
SiubhanDuinne
@raven:
Yikes! So glad there was no personal or property damage. Hope your power gets restored before long. Do your pups freak out during storms, or are they chill?
That was one helluva tempest when it came through north Atlanta slightly earlier.
trollhattan
@p.a.:
Guns? Guns are for sissies. They bring brains. [Bwaiiiiiins!] Something universally repellant to Republicans.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Looking for some extra pocket change?
Baud
@srv:
Wow, our kids are as clueless about spending money as Romney.
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Always.
gbear
@srv: The parents are paying the kids to pay you so that you’ll be to occupied to make kids of your own. Who needs human interaction…
GxB
@scav: The (re)rise of authoritarianism. I’d joke about it being ok since that has never caused trouble in the past, but with the free-for-all trolling as of late, well that wouldn’t come across properly.
Pie Happens (opiejeanne)
@Fred Fnord:
My favorite comment about internet trolls.
Gravenstone
@Gin & Tonic: Pretty sure it’s the gun fondler’s equivalent to the Bat Signal.
srv
@Baud: But you stay out of the basement.
Maslow, man, maslow.
Ruckus
@Pie Happens (opiejeanne):
Mostly less I’d bet.
GxB
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Check out ‘persona management software’ on google. It’s been a thing for over a decade. Astroturf for the 21st century.
Steve from Antioch
@Gimlet:Yes, google is your friend, but you know what a better friend is? Knowing the difference between feet and yards.
Check out the scene diagram here: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/11/photos-michael-brown-darren-wilson-grand-jury
It shows Brown’s blood inside the vehicle as well as as several different locations 125 to 150 or so FEET from Wilson’s vehicle. Brown went down 152 FEET from Wilson’s vehicle. So there are two possibilities here:
Brown was shot at the vehicle, ran 125 yards (375 feet away) where he was shot some more, then he ran back 250 feet where he dripped some blood an then collapsed.
-or-
The person you quote confused feet and yards and Brown ran 125 FEET away where he bled some and then was shot some more.
Which do you think is?
Do you really want to go with your “The card says Moops” approach?
Bonus fact – if you will notice from the diagrams, there is a considerable amount of blood further away from Brown’ body away from Wilson’s vehicle. What does that mean? That means that Brown went some distance away and then started coming back toward Wilson.
Renie
I don’t understand the rationale of these trolls going onto liberal blogs with their conservative talking points. It’s not like we are going to agree with their b.s. So what’s the point? Just to flame us? It just makes them look even stupider. But I guess brains is not one of their strong points.
BTW what happened to R2R? He seems to have flamed out just like his buddy !JEB.
Fred Fnord
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Well, I admit he was not well-supplied with proof. However, he clearly spent a lot of time thinking about it if he wasn’t one, because he had a very clear idea of what the software looked like and how it worked. I don’t know, Occam’s razor says the simplest explanation is best: I’m just not sure which that is.
trollhattan
@Renie:
Suspect it’s 95% just to be disruptive. It’s certainly not to push an agenda; it might be a way to float talking point trial balloons. BIP doing the pro-Russia spin was certainly somewhat the latter.
Either way, hellofa way to earn taco money.
Renie
@trollhattan: Seems counter-productive too. Makes us more adamant in our own positions but if they need their taco money……
redshirt
@Renie: Trolls love the attention. That explains 95% of their behavior.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
Okay. Has anyone here actually read the DOJ report on the shooting? It covers a lot of the things that seem to be controversial in this thread, and it’s been available for a long time, so if you keep getting them wrong, it means you aren’t looking.
1) Contrary to what a lot of people think, though I haven’t seen it in this thread, Wilson almost certainly knew that there had been a robbery at the convenience store and that Brown matched the description. So Wilson likely did not just stop two kids walking in the road because he was an asshole; he was stopping two robbery suspects.
2) It unequivocably clear that Michael Brown reached into Wilson’s SUV, and almost certain that he punched Wilson multiple times. This is established not just by the gun residue on his thumb. Brown’s DNA was found inside the SUV, on Wilson’s face, on his collar, and Wilson’s DNA was found on Brown’s hand. In addition, the bullet was recovered from the driver’s side door, indicating that it was fired at something inside the car.
So, in addition to the robbery, Brown was also guilty of assault and battery on Wilson before any shooting took place.
3) There’s no way in hell that Brown was 125 yards away from Wilson when shot. Not even close. There was a large bloodstain 186 feet from the SUV, so Brown was at some point at least this far away from where the encounter started, but probably not a whole lot more. The distance from Wilson was less than this, because it’s well established that Wilson ran at least some distance after Brown. We don’t know how far, but it’s at least plausible that Brown and Wilson weren’t separated by more than 50 feet or so, a distance that can be covered pretty quickly if someone is running towards you.
And we know that Brown was moving towards Wilson, though we don’t know how quickly, because he fell dead about 22 feet closer to the SUV than that large bloodstain. The DOJ established that the shot that killed Brown would have stopped him immediately, so he made it that far under his own power. A combination of eyewitness accounts and the nature of the wounds indicate that Brown was leaning forwards when he was shot, which is indicative, though not entirely conclusive, that he was, in fact, charging towards Wilson when he was wounded in the head and chest prior to the killing shot. The only conclusive statements we can make about the distance at which Wilson fired are that it was more than 3 feet (because of the lack of residue from the later shots) and less than 180 feet, based upon the location of the bloodstains. He could have fired from any range in between those numbers, and we’ll never know what it was.
All told, Wilson made some tactical errors, largely around not waiting for backup before confronting Brown further after the altercation within the SUV. However, Michael Brown was not any sort of innocent here. He committed a robbery at the convenience store. He reached into the SUV and, at a minimum, punched Wilson and possibly also tried to wrestle the gun from him. (And, no, just rolling the window up would not have been an adequate solution here; not only does that happen pretty slowly by the standards of a fight, for obvious safety reasons, it wouldn’t necessarily have stopped Brown, though it would certainly have caused pain.) Then, after running away, he turned and began running at Wilson.
The Ferguson police department is guilty of many, many things, both before this incident and in the way it handled the protests after it. The attempt to prosecute Lowery for trespassing is outrageous. But while the shooting of Michael Brown betrays some tactical problems in how police handle physical confrontations, there is no compelling evidence that the shooting itself was some outrageous violation. It’s possible to construct a scenario from the evidence that we have that leads to the conclusion that it was culpable homicide, but it’s equally plausible to create a scenario in which it was absolutely justified.
If anyone says that they know for sure which it was, they’re lying, probably to themselves.
bullsmith
152 feet and running away and unarmed is a lethal threat? Distinction without a difference. A for being anal, at least. Arrest for trespassing in a McD’s is totally justified.
J R in WV
The little newspaper in my home town got ink delivered by a tanker truck. I imagine the WaPo get it via rail car, and needs a couple carloads a week, at least.
Barrels of ink went out not long after Ben Franklin was publishing a newspaper.
I can’t wait for the trial, I’m guessing they didn’t think about actually having a real trial, with video and national reporters and real lawyers with real experience. And if after it all is wound up, there are appeals both state and federal.
Steve from Antioch
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
Well put.
This shit ain’t complicated. The evidence and the reports has been out there a while.
Its amazing that some shitheels go around spouting their stupid fucking opinions without bothering to learn the basic facts.
Wag
@rikyrah:
Da
Da
Da.
I don’t love you You don’t love love me
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
I still wonder why it was impossible for Wilson to close his window or drive away and his ONLY choice was to get out of the car to shoot as his defenders claim.
I would suggest you re-read your own final line again.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Mnemosyne (tablet): I never said that getting out of the car was his only choice. In fact, I said that it was a bad tactical decision to pursue Brown before backup arrived.
So, as usual, I would suggest that you re-read the whole comment again.
Edit: As for rolling up the window, aside from what I said in the comment that you also apparently missed, what happens if he’s got Brown’s arm trapped and then the SUV goes into motion? No, rolling up the window to deter Brown was not a good idea. There’s all sorts of things that could go wrong if he does.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
Michael Brown is dead. I can’t see how closing the window on his arm and/or driving away could have led to a worse outcome than his death. Same outcome, possibly, but not a worse outcome. (I am not one of those people who thinks that paralysis or ending up in a wheelchair is a fate worse than death.)
I actually don’t think we’re that far apart — Wilson made a whole series of mistakes that led to Brown’s death. There were a lot of choices he could have made short of killing Brown, so to say that Brown was to blame for his own death (as at least two trolls have claimed) is excusing Wilson’s extremely poor decision-making throughout the entire situation.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
This is 20/20 hindsight. No, it couldn’t have led to a worse outcome than actually happened. However, the chances of a bad outcome at the moment he made the decision were probably significantly higher if he tries to close the window on Brown’s arm. And, as I said, we haven’t even covered all of the problems with that scenario. For instance, given where the buttons for rolling up a window are in vehicle, it’s no sure thing that he would have been able to do so in the middle of a struggle and he would have left himself more vulnerable had he tried to do so. I will say it more starkly: trying to roll up the window would have been a terrible idea, and anyone who keeps suggesting it has not thought through the situation.
I think we are, but it’s hard to tell because you keep changing what you’re saying. I’ll start by reiterating that Brown committed multiple crimes, including punching a cop who had not, at that point, threatened him. If that’s the way it starts, then he is, to some extent, to blame for his own death; if you don’t understand that starting a fight with a police officer could end up with you being dead, then you’re clueless.
Yes, Wilson made mistakes, but none of the ones that we can actually be proven were all that egregious. Even getting out of the vehicle, as much as I think it was an error, was not as cut and dried as it seems in retrospect. At the time Wilson did that, Brown was running away, so it wasn’t apparent that doing so was going to lead to a further physical confrontation.
The really big outstanding questions are: how far did Wilson run; why Brown turned around and started running back at Wilson; and whether Wilson resumed firing before or after he did so. That will remain forever unknown to anyone other than Darren Wilson, and even his memories of it probably are not reliable. None of the shots he fired hit Brown in the back, which is at least partial evidence that Brown had turned around before he resumed firing, though Brown was also hit twice in the right arm, and it’s impossible to tell what direction he was facing from those.
So, as I said, there are certainly scenarios that are consistent with Wilson having committed an unjustifiable homicide here, but there are also plausible scenarios in which he really didn’t do anything that was culpable or even terribly stupid. The people who keep arguing that they know one way or the other are assuming a lot more knowledge than they actually have.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
20/20 hindsight is all we have. Please explain your scenario of closing the window that would have been worse than death. Please keep in mind that I don’t think that Wilson’s death in that scenario is automatically a worse outcome than Brown’s death.
Since you seem to be confused about what I’m saying, I’ll repeat it as clearly as possible: I don’t think that Brown’s death was inevitable, or that he was responsible for his own death. I think that the person in the scenario who was supposedly trained to handle confrontations is more responsible for that outcome than the untrained person. I think Wilson made a series of bad choices that led to Brown’s death, and that Wilson is responsible for his bad choices.
Wilson chose the way he confronted Brown and he chose to escalate the confrontation. He had all the power, and he chose to use that power to kill an unarmed man. If he backed himself into a corner that he couldn’t get out of other than by killing Brown, he put himself there.
Sorry, but I don’t buy the oh, poor me, I’m just a poor beleaguered policeman with no responsibility for the outcome of my actions bullshit. Not anymore.
Tokyokie
Excuse me, but the State of Missouri is going to go to the trouble of extraditing a couple of people to stand trial for a midemeanor (assuming the defendants do the sensible thing and ignore the arrest warrants altogether) in which prosecutors will have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a couple of working journalists were trespassing in a public accommodation? Several minds appear to have gone missing.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
No. Again, you can’t judge that decision based upon the encounter ending with death. You can only judge it based upon the probabilities at the time the decision was made. Your point here is utterly irrelevant to any useful examination. If you can’t grasp that simple fact of analysis, that you need to examine decisions within the context of when and where they are made rather than using facts that occurred after that decision, you can’t really judge what people have done.
No, it wasn’t. But, again, it wasn’t inevitable when Wilson got out of the vehicle, either.
No, I’m not misunderstanding you. I get that you think this. I disagree. If you punch a cop, you are at least partially responsible for any bad outcomes. Michael Brown was a human being with his own agency, and things did not just happen to him; he initiated a fight of his own volition. You’re whole approach is that he somehow is not responsible for his own actions.
That’s true in some scenarios. On this one, I don’t see it. At some point, the person who starts a fight deserves a large share of the responsibility for what happens, and at some point, his actions carry more responsibility than the person who is more highly trained.
I also note the phrase “more responsible” in your comment. This is one of the things that makes talking to you so frustrating. You’re wobbling back and forth between insisting that Michael Brown was not responsible for his own death, full stop, and assigning relative responsibilities. If people are confused about what you’ve said, it’s because you seem to be confused about what you’ve said.
Sure. I don’t disagree with that. However, I don’t see in the DOJ report any solid evidence that Wilson’s bad decisions were the root of the problem here, or even that they were totally indefensible. If you would like to take issue with any of the specifics that I’ve laid out, please do so, but other than an objection, which I think is wrong, that he should have rolled up the window, you haven’t done that. You haven’t even tried to explain why you think that getting out of the SUV given that Michael Brown was running away when Wilson did so was indefensible.
Please explain where Wilson chose to escalate the confrontation. He is not the one who reached through the SUV window and punched the other party; that escalation is completely on Brown. Given that Brown was running away, and made it at least 180 feet from the SUV, getting out of the vehicle doesn’t constitute much of an escalation. And Brown is the one that decided to turn around and start coming back towards Wilson, and that, again, is likely on Brown, not Wilson; the only way that that was Wilson escalating the situation is if he started shooting before Brown changed direction, and, while we don’t have anything that could settle that question definitively, the nature of Brown’s wounds are such that there is at least some evidence that Wilson did not escalate this.
So, the only two moments when Wilson clearly escalated the situation are: 1) when he fired as Brown was struggling with him in the car, namely when Brown was in the process of committing felony battery on him; and 2) when he opened fire again (for either the second or third time, depending upon whether Brown was hit in the arm before turning around) after Brown was coming back at him. Again, this is a moment when someone who has committed felony battery against him has chosen to come at him again.
Your denial that Michael Brown had any agency whatsoever is pathetic.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
I should make clear that there are far too many cases of cops killing people, especially but not exclusively black people, unjustifiably and getting away with it. I just don’t think that, in making that case, Michael Brown makes for a very good hill to die on.
lol chikinburd
And now there are Oath Keepers, with semi-automatic rifles, on the ground in Ferguson.
The falconer regrets switching wireless carriers.
FortGeek
In the interest of fitting in with the trolling here and the pie in the new thread, I’ll let George Carlin do both: “And now, in the interest of equal time, here is a message from the National Institute of Pancakes: It reads, and I quote, F*ck waffles.”
Thank you.
gwangung
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
Isn’t this a somewhat irrelevant qualification, given that the legal justification for the use of deadly force relies on a threat (objective, not subjective) to the life of Wilson or others? A felony battery is, by itself, not a justification, therefore your analysis seems suspect.
AxelFoley
@A guy:
If only you met the same fate, bitch.
AxelFoley
@Steve From Antioch: Funny how you, srv and A guy always defend corrupt cops, you fucking racist pricks.
Steve From Antioch
@AxelFoley:
Funny how you and menosyne “always” make up stupid shit, attribute it to other people, then get you wank on by denouncing the imaginary arguments you just made up.
You deluded, dishonest child.
ET
Keep in mind this that this is Ferguson. Where they ticket everyone they possibly can to keep their local government/court in business. Unlike some of the neighboring government areas who decided to learn the right lesson from last years event, Ferguson had decided to keep to the status quo. This is just another example. That the WaPo has the lawyers to go to the court to with the journalist and make hay of this, is beside the point. Basically this is business as usual in Ferguson.
Applejinx
@TealBomb: Not sure if real activist holding grudge or paid troll using somebody else’s URL
Thoughtful Today
ET, fixed this for you:
“Keep in mind this that this is Ferguson. Where they ticket
everyone they possibly can[Blacks, disproportionally,] to keep their local government/court in business.”^ Economic racism. Hell, for a poor person it flirts with economic slavery.