Guest Post by Paul Craig Roberts
Few, if any, of the correct questions were asked in the grand jury hearing to decide whether policeman Darren Wilson would be indicted for killing Michael Brown.
The most important unexamined question is whether police are trained to use force immediately as a first resort before they assess a situation or determine if they are at the correct address. Are the police trained that the lives of police officers are so much more valuable than the lives of possible suspects, or a houseful of people into whose residence a heavily armed SWAT team enters, that police officers must not accept the risk of judicious behavior when encountering citizens? If this is the case as all evidence indicates that it is, then the police when they gratuitously murder members of the public are merely doing what they have been trained to do. As police are trained to use violence as a first resort, the police cannot be held accountable when they do.
There are a large number of videos available online that show that the first thing that police do when they arrive is to use force.
No sooner is Michael Brown in the grave than Cleveland cops kill a 12-year old boy who has a toy gun that shoots plastic pellets. The child is threatening no one–indeed there is no one else present. The boy seems to be playing a fantasy game in his head. A busy body calls the police. The police arrive and instantly shoot the kid down.
Here is a selection of videos and reports. Some of the videos are compressed to save the viewer time. They range from 59 seconds to the full 7:51 minute video, which shows the kid is just walking up and down the sidewalk. All the action comes at the end. The police arrive and instantly open fire, making no effort whatsoever to assess the situation.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/video-shows-cleveland-cop-shoot-12-year-old-tamir-rice-n256656
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2850234/Video-released-showing-police-shooting-Tamir-Rice-12-carrying-BB-gun.html
http://nypost.com/2014/11/27/cops-release-video-of-officer-fatally-shooting-12-year-old/
Just a few days before Michael Brown is killed, Ohio police murdered John Crawford inside a Walmart store. What had Crawford done? He had picked up a BB rifle from a Walmart shelf and was on the phone with the mother of his two children, perhaps checking with her whether he could purchase it for the kids. A busy body named Ronald Ritchie felt threatened and called the police. The police rush in and shoot Crawford. The police claim that they ordered Crawford to drop the rifle, but the video shows the police shooting Crawford on sight. The busy body Ritchie actually caused two deaths, as the incident of Crawford’s murder caused Angela Williams to die from a heart attack as she fled the store in response to the police gunfire. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/09/25/ohio-wal-mart-surveillance-video-shows-police-shooting-and-killing-john-crawford-iii/
Yes, you guessed it. The grand jury decided the police were justified.
Here is another video that demonstrates that policemen shoot instantly without cause. http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/dashcam-shows-cops-shooting-an-unarmed-man-333655619609 This is a rare case in which the policeman was held accountable, most likely because the video prevented authorities from fabricating the usual story of police justification.
In this video, police shoot down an unarmed black man in the street. After shooting Kajieme Powell ten times, the cops hold guns on the dead body while they handcuff a dead man. Like an almost endless number of other such videos, this one shows that either psychopaths are recruited for the police force, or police training turns cops into psychopaths. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_68bmTlGtQ8
These two reports examine Officer Darren Wilson’s story of why he shot Michael Brown and conclude that Wilson’s story doesn’t make sense. http://www.vox.com/2014/11/25/7281165/darren-wilsons-story-side and http://www.vox.com/2014/11/25/7287443/dorian-johnson-story Most likely, Michael Brown was just another victim of the gratuitous violence that police are trained to use. Darren Wilson’s use of deadly force was in keeping with his training.
The problem with the grand jury and prosecutor in Ferguson and everywhere else is that the real problem–the training of police to use deadly force as a first resort–was not
identified as the cause of Michael Brown’s death.
The Ferguson grand jury’s decision is not an exoneration of Wilson’s use of deadly force. Anyone familiar with the American criminal justice (sic) system knows that any prosecutor can get or prevent an indictment from a grand jury. Prosecutors are allowed to determine what evidence is presented. Prosecutors are permitted to bribe witnesses with money or dropped charges, and they can coerce false witness testimony by threatening a witness with charges. Seldom does an indictment or refusal to indict turn on the true facts.
The US justice system is no longer concerned with justice, but with the careers of prosecutors, punishing the powerless, and protecting the powerful. As justice has largely departed the justice system, it is hardly surprising that police lack any concept of justice.
Note: Here is a video of the goon thugs in Albuquerque murdering a white man who was doing nothing but carrying some break pads. Notice how the handful of cops pretend the man who is shot to pieces is still dangerous. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBuwceiQ5Ik
A lot of cops are out of control. Paul Craig Roberts weakens his argument by including the Michael Brown case.
Iska I do not agree with you.
McCulloch did not want to take wilson to trial. This is another case where the police over stepped their bounds. This kid was identified and could have been picked up the next day.
The Ferguson grand jury’s decision is not an exoneration of Wilson’s use of deadly force. Anyone familiar with the American criminal justice (sic) system knows that any prosecutor can get or prevent an indictment from a grand jury. Prosecutors are allowed to determine what evidence is presented. Prosecutors are permitted to bribe witnesses with money or dropped charges, and they can coerce false witness testimony by threatening a witness with charges. Seldom does an indictment or refusal to indict turn on the true facts.
The big problem I have with this case is many of the people protesting had no idea what they were protesting about. They just wanted to cause trouble and make their neighborhoods pay.
The system is corrupt and the courts back the police.
give a brutish statist thug immunity against prosecution for any of a multitude of crimes against person or property and pretty soon the only right left to the individual will be whether they choose to continue to breathe or not..
“No policeman who has ever participated in a civil asset forfeiture can be declared innocent of thievery. Nor is it correct to point the finger and blame politicians when the police themselves are actively lobbying against legislation that would place the burden of proof concerning the legitimacy or illegitimacy of the ownership of the individual’s property on the accuser rather than on the owner.
In their commendable respect for authority, conservatives often tend to forget that authority can be legitimate or illegitimate, as well as honest or corrupt. They also tend to ignore the fact that every single totalitarian and authoritarian state in history has had a police force which the people quickly learned to fear and hate. After all, one can hardly have a police state without police.
Like it or not, “law enforcement officials” are actively attempting to undermine the remnants of the Constitutional limits on policing the public in their own pecuniary interest. An extrapolation from the DC data indicates that around 2.9 million Americans who are accused of committing no crime other than carrying $150 dollars or less have been robbed by these police thieves; will the defenders of asset forfeiture attempt to evade the point by demanding to know why these individuals are in possession of such outrageous sums of money?”
Vox Day @ http://www.voxday.blogspot.com/2014/11/a-thief-is-thief.html
A Police officer in the state of _______, in the course of his duties,
shall cause the death of a citizen, shall no longer be eligible for any office
in law enforcement within the state of _________.
No judgement of guilt, moral or legal, is implied by this statute.
A loss of employment in civil service to the community or state is called the ‘Citizen Safe Police Act’.
It strikes me as pretty standard that when a result doesn’t arrive as demanded, there are always those who say things like “the correct questions weren’t asked!!” which is just another way of saying “nobody asked the question I want answered…WWWWAAAAAAHHHHHHH”.
Grand juries are great. TPTB must hate them when they are allowed to free range, and do what is right, but love them, when only a slanted view is presented to them that they indict whomever TPTB wish.
Maybe some prosecutors actually let them free range and provide the people’s opinion on a topic just as someone might envision they should.
But that won’t stop those who didn’t get the result they wanted from whining.
Ferguson is easy to figure out.
If you want to put a beat down on a cop, don’t do it with your bare hands and leave the guy still breathing when you walk away. Lest the excuse you just gave him be as thorough as the one provided Darren Wilson, since validated by the grand jury.
“This is another case where the police over stepped their bounds.”
Nope. And the way you know this is that you, or I, as a legal armed civilian in the state of Missouri, being charged by someone far larger than us (me for sure) after already having roughed me up, would have been just as justified in putting a half dozen rounds into a fine upstanding soon to be college student alleged convenience store thief.
No cop-hood was required for this one at all.
I just don’t buy the police state bullshit, sorry. I have several police officers in my family. Those against them are refusing to view the whole picture. Police abuse happens in a very miniscule amount of cases. The majority are men and women of outstanding character who put their lives in danger every day, trying to protect law abiding citizens from the scum and lawless. In many situations the bad guys are better armed.
It’s those people screaming police state that help foster lack of respect for law and order. I pray every day that my family members would shoot to kill and ask questions later if ever in a Mike Brown situation. As far as I’m concerned, the less of his type walking in the middle of our streets, the safer for me and mine.
Yup, sometimes the good guy gets in the way but in war, and make no mistake, the streets are a war zone, you will have collateral damage.
Here’s another thought, don’t be waving a toy gun or bb gun around in public, no matter how young or old, acting like a threat to humanity and you may live another day.
MantuaMom said
Here’s another thought, don’t be waving a toy gun or bb gun around in public, no matter how young or old, acting like a threat to humanity and you may live another day.
If cops acting this way in the 70’s when I grew up, myself and most of my friends would be dead. We all had cap guns and the like. How bout this. Train police to assess real threats and not shoot first and ask questions later.
Not only are police today psycho, but they are cowards. I also had a father and two uncles on the Philadelphia police force Back in the day, before video games, they would never consider shooting a child.. Well unless they were in Nam… Point is, Amerika is not Nam.. although it is getting close..
Winston, unfortunately we are no longer living in those more innocent days of the 70’s. It’s a bigger, badder world. Back then we respected authority, may have questioned it but never disrespected it.
Police are all cowards? That’s such an asinine statement, it doesn’t deserve a rebuttal.
MantuaMom- I generally agree with your position and appreciate your families service. We live in a vast America with high levels of discrepancies between communities, not all are warzones yet. Although, I agree the warzone trend is on the up and growing. The Police fill so many roles in our society, increasingly they represent the State as it grows in our lives. So in this fourth turning we find the Police interfacing with us as Arbiters of the growing warzones and as primary interface with a growing state, the Fourth Amendment clearly limits their effectiveness in either of these arenas we have assigned them. Their unions actively lobby against it.
I find it deplorable that those who have stolen the most are the very ones whom have infiltrated the highest levels of our community and commandeered the various police agencies to clean up the growing mess resulting from their abuse and crime. The more this “possibility” is lost on our police forces at large the worse it will be for us.
Dammit, my mind was made up and then admin confuses me with this article, John helped also. Now I don’t know what to say because I never thought much of an incident that happened to me. I was walking down a busy street with a grocery bag in my hand, a car blocked my path in crossing a small street. Since he stopped in front of me, I began walking around him. a couple of police cars pulled up at that time but the guy in the plain car signaled to them that I was not the person they wanted and they were gone.
I think its really all about how the elected city council sets the department policy that police absolutely, positively must follow or put their job and pension at risk. Those elected officials are your 2nd source of danger. Your greatest source of danger are neighbors who call police and set them on hair trigger alert. (You can try it yourself: call 9/11 in a distressed voice right now, tell them your wife has mental problems, has a loaded gun and is threatening to kill you.)
Watch your local talking heads on the news for a few months and you’ll quickly see that some cities have all the police involved shootings and there’s zero news from other cities (and usually they have the same % of lower working classes in crappy neighborhoods). You have to pay taxes in some city: you get to choose where. The free market works.
What would have been the reaction if the governor would have allowed the police and national guard to kill everyone of the son of a bitches? Kill them in front of the whole world .
I remember watching a program about how the Mexican Government used attack choppers with machine guns to kill around 500 hundred mexicans students who were protesting the government in 1968 .Yelling their communist bull shit .Show them fly in and open up.No more protests.
Closer to home ,have there been anymore protests at Kent State ?If a governor or government would just kill these blacks just one time without pity or mercy you would hear another fucking word from these neegrows.Repeat this over and over finally even low IQ blacks would understand.
MantuaMom
Do you suck cop dick for free?
PCR is mostly right on even though he’s too quick to condemn DAs and cops at every level based on what he seems to know about the federal system.
Here’s a local, state court view:
My experience with the Grand Jury is that it’s a a DA’s device or institution. The DA controls the evidence presented to the Grand Jury. No defense attorney is there, neither are the defendant or his witnesses. Generally the DA asks all or most of the questions. The grand jurors look to the DA for advice and answers to their questions. My experience has been that the DA can get the result he wants in most every case. Keep in mind too that the police and DA work closely together. DAs have a tendency to see themselves as the police attorneys unless the cops do something that’s obviously illegal and can’t be explained away. Remember that in the Ferguson case the DA is a man whose father, a policeman, was killed by a black man, the DA has held his position for 25 years, and he has a reputation for supporting the police.
Here’s an excerpt from an 11-24-2014 article about the Ferguson shooting, accused police officers, the DA, and grand jurors. I agree with the analysis.
“Cases involving police shootings, however, appear to be an exception [to grand juries returning indictments in virtually all the cases presented to them]. As Reuben Fischer-Baum has written, we don’t have good data on officer-involved killings. But newspaperaccounts suggest, grand juries frequently decline to indict law-enforcement officials. A recent Houston Chronicle investigationfound that “police have been nearly immune from criminal charges in shootings” in Houston and other large cities in recent years. In Harris County, Texas, for example, grand juries haven’t indicted a Houston police officer since 2004; in Dallas, grand juries reviewed 81 shootings between 2008 and 2012 and returned just one indictment.Separate research by Bowling Green State University criminologist Philip Stinson has found that officers are rarely charged in on-duty killings, although it didn’t look at grand jury indictments specifically.
There are at least three possible explanations as to why grand juries are so much less likely to indict police officers. The first is juror bias: Jurors tend to trust police officer and believe their decisions to use violence are justified, even when the evidence says otherwise.
The second is prosecutorial bias: Perhaps prosecutors, who depend on police as they work on criminal cases, tend to present a less compelling case against officers, whether consciously or unconsciously.
The third possible explanation is more benign. Ordinarily, prosecutors only bring a case if they think they can get an indictment. But in high-profile cases such as police shootings, they may feel public pressure to present the case to the grand jury even if they think they have a weak case.”
[I believe that each reason is a factor in high profile cases.]
Anonymous , why are you such a bitch today?
progress, or merely feeding the crocodile?
A generation ago, Ferguson was a relatively affluent, safe, functional middle class American suburb. Naturally, it was then predominately white (85%). Over the last few decades it has progressed towards its ultimate future as a blighted, impoverished, dangerous, dysfunctional underclass welfare slum. Naturally, it is now predominately black (70% and growing).
Whites rage against this just as they’ve raged against slavery, animal cruelty, capital punishment, religious intolerance, ozone depletion, and all the other uniquely WEIRD societal concerns that non-European descended nations don’t care much about. Fortunately, Euros—who constituted 25% of the world’s population in 1950—are steadily shrinking as a percentage of the population. At the turn of the millennium, they had dropped to around 16% and by mid-century it is estimated will represent just 10% of the globe’s human inhabitants. So cheers to the diminution of whites and all their rage—the future looks very vibrant indeed!
http://happyacres.tumblr.com/post/103938821354/whites-rage-against-the-progress
murder is murder, regardless the uniform, whether it be that of thug or cop and thus should be meticulously investigated to avoid event the slightest the taint of foul play. Truth should never be avoided at any cost.
“I do not know what the truth is but what I do know is that nobody goes down at a full run on pavement without any unprotected body surface that takes said impact being materially damaged. Road rash sucks and I’ve fallen while running on pavement; it was not fun at all and if you’re conscious when it happens you typically will try to shield your body with your hands (resulting in significant scrape damage on your hands. ” Karl Denninger
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?blog=Market-Ticker
the double standard. violence is OK , but only at the behest of left wing loons.
“OK, Here are the names AND ADDRESSES of the 2 NY Slimes Nazi Liberal hacks who published Officer Wilson’s address..
This just in…. Reckless move: The NY Times publishes Darren Wilson’s address | Fox News
The New York Times, whether consciously or not, has just endangered Darren Wilson’s life.
With tensions running high in Ferguson over the lack of an indictment for Wilson’s killing of Michael Brown, the paper has published the officer’s approximate address — the street and town where he lives with his new wife, who also is named.
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http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/driveby/ok_here_are_the_names_and.php
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crime…because white privilege…keepin’ it real by feeding crocs.
I Was Mugged, and I Understand Why
Last weekend, my housemate and I were mugged at gunpoint while walking home from Dupont Circle. The entire incident lasted under a minute, as I was forced to the floor, handed over my phone and was patted down.
And yet, when a reporter asked whether I was surprised that this happened in Georgetown, I immediately answered: “Not at all.” It was so clear to me that we live in the most privileged neighborhood within a city that has historically been, and continues to be, harshly unequal. While we aren’t often confronted by this stark reality west of Rock Creek Park, the economic inequality is very real.
Year after year, Washington, D.C., is ranked among the most unequal cities in the country, with the wealthiest 5 percent earning an estimated 54 times more than the poorest 20 percent. According to the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute, just under 20 percent of D.C. residents live below the poverty line.
What has been most startling to me, even more so than the incident itself, have been the reactions I’ve gotten. I kept hearing “thugs,” “criminals” and “bad people.” While I understand why one might jump to that conclusion, I don’t think this is fair.
Not once did I consider our attackers to be “bad people.” I trust that they weren’t trying to hurt me. In fact, if they knew me, I bet they’d think I was okay. They wanted my stuff, not me. While I don’t know what exactly they needed the money for, I do know that I’ve never once had to think about going out on a Saturday night to mug people. I had never before seen a gun, let alone known where to get one. The fact that these two kids, who appeared younger than I, have even had to entertain these questions suggests their universes are light years away from mine.
I come from a solidly middle-class family, and, with relatives in Mexico City, certainly don’t consider myself entirely shielded from poverty. And yet I’d venture to guess that our attackers have had to experience things I’ve never dreamed of. When I struggled in school, I had parents who willingly sat down with me and helped me work through it. When I have a problem, I have countless people who I can turn to for solid advice.
When I walk around at 2 a.m., nobody looks at me suspiciously, and police don’t ask me any questions. I wonder if our attackers could say the same.http://www.thehoya.com/i-was-mugged-and-i-understand-why/
clearing the way..introducing the bb 5000
[img
?oh=d189a2a78dfeaddddb6f37a6b2e97610&oe=551ABCC3[/img]
You build a society that is at once both obsessed with material goods and the means with which to acquire them. You then make it next to impossible for vast numbers of them to ever achieve those ends, carefully construct, enforce and repeat a narrative that tells them the reason for their failure to attain those goals is the fault of a group of people who are readily identifiable and who already express a desire to avoid them, thus reinforcing the narrative. You simultaneously militarize the law enforcement while celebrating criminality via media/video games/music. Add generous amounts of mind altering drugs both legal and illicit, bump the population to ungovernable levels made up of multiple hostile ethnic tribal groups, ratchet up external anxieties over fabricated boogieman type threats, force the majority of the population into close confines, indoctrinate their children with mindless drivel and falsehoods, make them dependent upon nutritionally empty and chemically altered foodstuffs…
What could possibly go wrong?
Small correction to the post by “flash”.
I’m a native of the St. Louis area, and know its neighborhoods and suburbs well, including Ferguson, and I can tell you that Ferguson was NEVER an affluent, or anywhere near “elite”. It was, at best, a nice, well-groomed, crime-free lower-middle-class white suburb populated by conservative, quiet, but relatively uneducated folk, with a sprinkling of affluent people who were owners of local businesses,or professionals such as physicians and lawyers who served the local population.
It was always one of the easiest places in the area to get a ticket, and I always watched my speed very carefully when I had occasion to pass through the area. Revenue-hungry police pulled people over for anything, especially if they had municipal stickers from other towns on their windshields. Rarely was I anywhere close, because my family and I resided mostly in the area’s Central Corridor. The “white flight” from the Ferguson-Florrisant area, as well as most of the rest of the north St Louis County area, began in the 70s, and the entire area was becoming tense and hostile at that time. The few relatives of mine who lived in unincorporated North County, saw what was happening and fled the area in the late 70s. Near North burbs that were prime in the 50s, such as Normandy, Pasadena Hills, and Bellerive Acres, whose affluent denizens could afford to quickly cut and run, dropped steeply and rapidly in value in the 70s and by the 80s, the white working-class towns like Ferguson, Florrisant, Hazelwood became “mixed” communities with a lot of tension because these people were facing steep losses and the inability to replace their little homes with something comparable in other suburbs, so they hung on and clung to the vague hope that things would somehow improve.. which they did not.
Do any of the folks commenting realize that American police force training is very close to tactics used by Israeli security forces?
Our police forces are now trained in Israel by Israeli companies. Free trip to the Holy Land. Latest military tactics taught. Such a deal.
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2012/09/27/press-tv-tragedy-of-us-police-training-by-israeli-companies/
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Pro-Israel-Groups-Finance-Training-U.S.-Police-in-Israel-20140921-0015.html
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2009/12/30/the_israelification_of_airports_high_security_little_bother.html
2014-11-30 06:15 by Karl Denninger
The Real Question In Ferguson
It’s simple folks, really.
Read the autopsy reports. There are two published ones.
Read them in full.
Then watch the interview that Officer Wilson gave. He described the shooting sequence in quite a bit of detail.
The important thing to note is that he described Brown as charging him full-tilt, he shot, and Brown went down face first with his momentum throwing his feet forward up over his back.
That statement, if true, is sufficient to deem the shooting as justified.
But note the fact that this encounter occurred and Brown went down on pavement.
Wilson said he went down at a full run, face-first, with enough momentum to throw his feet up over his back.
Yet the autopsies do not contain any evidence of 300+ lb Brown’s face being turned into hamburger by said full-run impact onto the road — an impact that Officer Wilson says, both on TV and under oath, occurred and to which he was not only a witness but the closest person to it and the person who caused it.
The physical evidence just is. The story told by various witnesses and actors must match the physical evidence or they are either (1) wrong or (2) lying.
This is why I pushed originally for an indictment and trial. Through a trial we get cross-examination of every witness. We get the Medical Examiners on the stand who are asked point blank: In your professional opinion are Brown’s facial injuries consistent with dropping as Officer Wilson described? It is plausible to believe that Officer Wilson’s account is accurate?
I do not know what the truth is but what I do know is that nobody goes down at a full run on pavement without any unprotected body surface that takes said impact being materially damaged. Road rash sucks and I’ve fallen while running on pavement; it was not fun at all and if you’re conscious when it happens you typically will try to shield your body with your hands (resulting in significant scrape damage on your hands.
If you can’t get your arms in front of you (because you’re dead, for instance) then whatever hits the ground will get the hamburger treatment.
In this case Brown was instantly killed by the last shot to the head. That much has been established.
The entirety of whether this was a justified shoot or manslaughter (or worse) turns on whether Brown was charging Wilson at the time he fired.
That’s the beginning and end of it.
If you can’t analyze this situation and come to this conclusion you need to take a serious look at your own prejudices. If you believed that Zimmerman was justified in shooting Martin during that case did you come to that conclusion because the evidence showed that Zimmerman was having his head pounded against a concrete sidewalk by a man who had mounted him or was it because Martin was black — or, if you wish to try to continue to escape your own racially-charged beliefs, because he was a “thug”?
Be honest folks. It does not matter whether Martin was a thug or not, or black, or liked to smoke pot or anything else. All that matters is whether Zimmerman was having the back of his head pounded onto pavement by a person who knocked him down and then mounted him at the time he fired his gun. That’s how I analyzed it at the time and that’s the entirety of the law; Zimmerman is justified in shooting to stop either imminent great bodily injury or death.
Likewise, all that matters here is whether Brown was charging Wilson at the time Wilson fired the fatal shots.
“Likewise, all that matters here is whether Brown was charging Wilson at the time Wilson fired the fatal shots.”
big Mike crossed the line when he punched Wilson, it doesn’t matter if he was on his knees begging for mercy after that.
As my boss used to say, “I’ve killed for a lot less”