Ferguson Riots

[StrangeSox]

I'm pretty sure that would be the opposite of what cops are trained to do. They're trained to have the person stay still while they move towards them. Brown would have been told to get on his knees with his hands up, then down on the ground.

I don't think anyone but Wilson has testified that Wilson told Brown to get on the ground.

[Jenksismyhero]

According to Wilson's testimony, he didn't give any of those orders, the guy turned around and charged at him like the hulk after he'd unloaded several rounds.

 

Well if he didn't have time, he didn't have time. But that would also refute your version where Brown, the golden boy who did no wrong, put his hands up and slowly walked towards Wilson. Which again there is no proof of since that's based on initial witness statements that have since apparently turned out to be incorrect.

[cabiness42]

Not exactly. I'm still waiting for something more conclusive than the non-expert conclusion reached by one member of the grand jury.

 

 

A few witnesses thought he was shot in the back and, I think, maintain that Wilson shot at Brown while Brown was fleeing. No one disagreed that Brown eventually stopped and turned around before being fatally shot from the front. That these witnesses mistakenly believed that Brown was hit by these alleged shots fired from behind doesn't undermine the rest of their testimony.

 

More conclusive? Blood pattens plus several witnesses show that Brown was moving towards Wilson. You have to be awfully stubborn in your position not to accept that.

 

There were witnesses who claimed that Brown was shot from the back and had never turned around, and once confronted with the physical evidence, changed their story.

 

 

[StrangeSox]

Someone really needs to see what the witnesses said in their grand jury testimony, because you keep relying on this but supposedly most of those witnesses changed their story later.

"Supposedly." McCullogh flat-out lied about at least one claim (said Wilson didn't stand over Brown's body when there's photos of him doing it) in his post-victory press conference. But you're right, and I imagine some pretty thorough breakdowns of the grand jury document dump will be forthcoming in the next couple of weeks.

[Jenksismyhero]

I don't think anyone but Wilson has testified that Wilson told Brown to get on the ground.

 

I don't know if he did or didn't or what the witnesses are claiming. I'll i'm saying is a cop is not going to allow a person to walk towards them with their hands up. If the situation was "under control" and Brown was following orders, he would have been told to stand still, then get on his knees. Moving forward would have been against typical orders.

[Balta1701]

Someone really needs to see what the witnesses said in their grand jury testimony, because you keep relying on this but supposedly most of those witnesses changed their story later.

Which is exactly why there needed to be an actual prosecution and not a document dump to a grand jury. Witness testimony is inherently fraught with difficulty, and the same standard should have been applied to the police officer, whose story you folks take as gospel even where it doesn't make sense.

[StrangeSox]

More conclusive? Blood pattens plus several witnesses show that Brown was moving towards Wilson. You have to be awfully stubborn in your position not to accept that.

 

Most witnesses support at least a couple of steps or a stagger toward Wilson. But "moving towards" and charging at him like a wild beast that only gets more aggressive with every bullet that hits him, which is Wilson's story, are two very different things.

 

And like I keep saying, it'd be nice to actually see this blood pattern evidence and have actual experts testify on it, not grand jurors drawing their own conclusions.

 

There were witnesses who claimed that Brown was shot from the back and had never turned around, and once confronted with the physical evidence, changed their story.

 

I don't believe any witnesses ever claimed that Brown never turned around, but I could be wrong. Do you have any links to that?

[Jenksismyhero]

More conclusive? Blood pattens plus several witnesses show that Brown was moving towards Wilson. You have to be awfully stubborn in your position not to accept that.

 

There were witnesses who claimed that Brown was shot from the back and had never turned around, and once confronted with the physical evidence, changed their story.

 

To me, even without reading the GJ stuff, this is the most damaging to those initial witnesses that started this whole surrender thing. 2 or 3 of them said he was shot in the back while running away. And the forensics show that he wasn't. Those are just flat out lies.

 

 

[Jenksismyhero]

Which is exactly why there needed to be an actual prosecution and not a document dump to a grand jury. Witness testimony is inherently fraught with difficulty, and the same standard should have been applied to the police officer, whose story you folks take as gospel even where it doesn't make sense.

 

? They had live witness testimony from these witnesses.

[StrangeSox]

To me, even without reading the GJ stuff, this is the most damaging to those initial witnesses that started this whole surrender thing. 2 or 3 of them said he was shot in the back while running away. And the forensics show that he wasn't. Those are just flat out lies.

No, they aren't.

 

Imagine you see someone running from someone else and distinctly hear several gunshots fired before the person stops and turns around. Is it a "lie" if you think one of those shots hit the person, especially if you see the person is wounded (which Brown was)? Or is it an honest-but-typical eyewitness mistake?

 

Like I said a few pages ago, if the ultimate result of this is that we apply the same level of scrutiny to all cases going forward as was applied at the indictment level here, great. But I'm not holding my breath for prosecutors to stop zealously pressing for convictions on evidence much weaker than what they had in this case.

[Jenksismyhero]

Most witnesses support at least a couple of steps or a stagger toward Wilson. But "moving towards" and charging at him like a wild beast that only gets more aggressive with every bullet that hits him, which is Wilson's story, are two very different things.

 

And like I keep saying, it'd be nice to actually see this blood pattern evidence and have actual experts testify on it, not grand jurors drawing their own conclusions.

 

 

 

I don't believe any witnesses ever claimed that Brown never turned around, but I could be wrong. Do you have any links to that?

 

This isn't really THAT important of a distinction. I mean, you've got the victim of an assault reporting what he was seeing. He's hopped up on adrenaline and just killed someone. You have others from a distance seeing a guy move towards another guy.

 

I've had this same problem in cases where some witnesses claim a bus jerked violently forward and others say it just stopped. A lot of that stuff is pretty relative.

[StrangeSox]

? They had live witness testimony from these witnesses.

With little or no pro-prosecution pressing and the grand jurors asking many of the questions, which is completely unlike a real trial.

[StrangeSox]

This isn't really THAT important of a distinction. I mean, you've got the victim of an assault reporting what he was seeing. He's hopped up on adrenaline and just killed someone. You have others from a distance seeing a guy move towards another guy.

 

I've had this same problem in cases where some witnesses claim a bus jerked violently forward and others say it just stopped. A lot of that stuff is pretty relative.

Staggering a couple of steps and charging for 10+ yards like the Hulk is a pretty damn important distinction. It's the distinction between justified and manslaughter if not murder to me.

[Balta1701]

? They had live witness testimony from these witnesses.

Which is the exact opposite of what a Grand Jury is supposed to do.

 

There was no one to cross examine any of the witnesses. You guys say that they changed their story and yet they were still presented to the grand jury. In the case of an actual trial, these sorts of witnesses would be judged as unreliable and likely not even put on the stand because they wouldn't stand up to cross examination. But, a prosecutor attempting to do a decent job would put together a story of what details actually made sense, appeared in most people's stories, and could have actually been seen by those witnesses.

 

A majority of witnesses who could have seen the fatal shots disagreed with the statement that he was charging towards him, several describe it as him turning around after being grazed by a bullet, stumbling, and moving his arms out. One used the phrase "he started to stagger forward" and "couldn't hardly stand up".

 

But there's no evaluation of that, instead we have the officer's version of him growing larger and turning into the Hulk. Crazy or incorrect statements in other witness testimony are enough to invalidate their stories, yet crazy, statements about adrenaline-fueled memories from the police officer are taken as fact.

[Balta1701]

This isn't really THAT important of a distinction. I mean, you've got the victim of an assault reporting what he was seeing. He's hopped up on adrenaline and just killed someone. You have others from a distance seeing a guy move towards another guy.

 

I've had this same problem in cases where some witnesses claim a bus jerked violently forward and others say it just stopped. A lot of that stuff is pretty relative.

And you have others saying he was stumbling and barely able to control his movements after being hit.

[cabiness42]

Most witnesses support at least a couple of steps or a stagger toward Wilson. But "moving towards" and charging at him like a wild beast that only gets more aggressive with every bullet that hits him, which is Wilson's story, are two very different things.

 

And like I keep saying, it'd be nice to actually see this blood pattern evidence and have actual experts testify on it, not grand jurors drawing their own conclusions.

 

 

 

I don't believe any witnesses ever claimed that Brown never turned around, but I could be wrong. Do you have any links to that?

 

Given the physical altercation that had already happened, it doesn't really matter how quickly Brown is moving towards Wilson. Once he gets that close, self defense is fully justified.

 

The prosecuting attorney during his press conference mentioned witnesses who initially said the fatal shots were fired from behind. I haven't yet verified that in the transcript.

[Jenksismyhero]

No, they aren't.

 

Imagine you see someone running from someone else and distinctly hear several gunshots fired before the person stops and turns around. Is it a "lie" if you think one of those shots hit the person, especially if you see the person is wounded (which Brown was)? Or is it an honest-but-typical eyewitness mistake?

 

Like I said a few pages ago, if the ultimate result of this is that we apply the same level of scrutiny to all cases going forward as was applied at the indictment level here, great. But I'm not holding my breath for prosecutors to stop zealously pressing for convictions on evidence much weaker than what they had in this case.

 

Yeah I probably would because "I saw him shoot him down" (what Crenshaw initially reported after seeing Brown run away) is different from "he was running and I heard gun shots." Dorian Johnson also clearly said he was shot in the back. You don't say someone is shot in the back unless you saw it. You say that someone was running and you heard gun shots. Or someone was running and you saw them get hit and fall.

 

I mean, best case i'm not taking their claims to be very credible. If they're going to report that he was shot down from behind (and that's not true) anything else they say, especially that Wilson supposedly pulled Brown into the car first, isn't very credible to me.

[StrangeSox]

The "prosecuting" attorney acted as a defense attorney and lied in his press conference blatantly at least once. This is abundantly clear from the questions that were asked--and not asked--of Wilson during his testimony.

[StrangeSox]

Yeah I probably would because "I saw him shoot him down" (what Crenshaw initially reported after seeing Brown run away) is different from "he was running and I heard gun shots." Dorian Johnson also clearly said he was shot in the back. You don't say someone is shot in the back unless you saw it. You say that someone was running and you heard gun shots. Or someone was running and you saw them get hit and fall.

 

I mean, best case i'm not taking their claims to be very credible. If they're going to report that he was shot down from behind (and that's not true) anything else they say, especially that Wilson supposedly pulled Brown into the car first, isn't very credible to me.

Those witnesses still corroborate the stories about the final shots told be several other witnesses who made no mention of getting shot from behind.

[Balta1701]

Given the physical altercation that had already happened, it doesn't really matter how quickly Brown is moving towards Wilson. Once he gets that close, self defense is fully justified.

 

The prosecuting attorney during his press conference mentioned witnesses who initially said the fatal shots were fired from behind. I haven't yet verified that in the transcript.

He was shot from behind but it wasn't the fatal shots. He was definitely shot while fleeing. The thing that an intelligent prosecutor would do is attempt to see which witnesses could actually have seen that, which ones couldn't have, and how those things piece together. It is included within even the officer's testimony that shots were fired while he was running.

 

If you hear like 5 gunshots ring out as a witness even at a distance, are you going to stand and watch or are you going to take cover before the last volley is fired? And then are you going to remember specifically which ones you saw do what? Very unlikely. Then you leave it to a group of non-experts in a grand jury to piece together those details and expect anything other than the grand jury throwing up their hands?

[StrangeSox]

Too bad we're all left having to argue over witness credibility and crime scene evidence* on the internet instead of having an actual trial, though.

 

 

*another fun fact: the St. Louis County medical examiner didn't bother to photograph the scene because his camera batteries died. Real professional operation they've got there.

[Jenksismyhero]

With little or no pro-prosecution pressing and the grand jurors asking many of the questions, which is completely unlike a real trial.

 

It's not meant to be a real trial. It's more relaxed. There is less scrutiny of the evidence because the standard is different. You guys keep complaining about there not being a "pro-prosecution" but you're ignoring there also wasn't a "pro-defense" which would have ripped the 15 different versions of the event as reported by the witnesses (at least to the press).

[StrangeSox]

He was shot from behind but it wasn't the fatal shots. He was definitely shot while fleeing.

 

I don't think that's been shown?

[Balta1701]

I mean, best case i'm not taking their claims to be very credible. If they're going to report that he was shot down from behind (and that's not true) anything else they say, especially that Wilson supposedly pulled Brown into the car first, isn't very credible to me.

And so since most of the witnesses who say they saw the final shot do not describe Brown as charging at him while the officer does, you're going to find the officer's testimony equally uncredible, right?

[Jenksismyhero]

Which is the exact opposite of what a Grand Jury is supposed to do.

 

There was no one to cross examine any of the witnesses. You guys say that they changed their story and yet they were still presented to the grand jury. In the case of an actual trial, these sorts of witnesses would be judged as unreliable and likely not even put on the stand because they wouldn't stand up to cross examination. But, a prosecutor attempting to do a decent job would put together a story of what details actually made sense, appeared in most people's stories, and could have actually been seen by those witnesses.

 

A majority of witnesses who could have seen the fatal shots disagreed with the statement that he was charging towards him, several describe it as him turning around after being grazed by a bullet, stumbling, and moving his arms out. One used the phrase "he started to stagger forward" and "couldn't hardly stand up".

 

But there's no evaluation of that, instead we have the officer's version of him growing larger and turning into the Hulk. Crazy or incorrect statements in other witness testimony are enough to invalidate their stories, yet crazy, statements about adrenaline-fueled memories from the police officer are taken as fact.

 

See above. There was also no defense attorney cross examining the same witnesses and poking a hole in a lot of their versions.