Grand jury decision in Ferguson

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Ferguson waits: no grand jury decision this weekend

This was - and is - a horrible, HORRIBLE, situation. BUT with the amount of unrest in this city, I really do think it's in the best interest of everybody in the entire city to just calm the hell down.

Screaming at people will not bring Michael Brown back. Smashing windows will not bring Michael Brown back. Stripping Officer Wilson of his badge and gun will not bring Michael Brown back. Violence will not bring Michael Brown back. Killing Wilson will not bring Michael Brown back. Hell, setting the entire police force on fire will not bring Michael Brown back. Nothing anybody can say or do will bring Michael Brown back.

Sheesh. :rolleyes: I'm pretty sure Michael's parents don't want this kind of headache added to their pain.

To me, this has gotten way out of hand. This is freakin' 2014! Let's NOT go backwards in time.
 
the waiting is the worst thing. the sense that it will go the way so many OTHER cases like it has gone makes it worse. I totaloly agree that violence & destruction of property/looting isnt the answer...there's a true & real sense of anger, frustratrion & helplessness. a predominantly black city, police by white officers & there's a history of abuse & harrassment? add that to the overall, shameful fact that black life is perceived as less valued & this is bared out in the justice system more than anything...ppl are just ANGRY & they want some kind of justice.

nobody has been fired, nobody (so far) has been held accountable & there has been more than a little attempt to cast Wilson in a sympathetic light, & I for one, have a problem w/ that.

violence, vandalizing & looting WONT bring Michael Brown back, but JUSTIC can @ least help ease the pain of loss & give some sense that police officers are NOT above the law.
 
I for one am thrilled to hear the Grand Jury has reached a decision and honestly it was the right one. I'm so sick of hearing about this, because in my opinion, that officer was attempting to control a hazardous situation. So many people seem to forget in all of the miniscule details here, this boy; this teenager was attempting to rob a store! While I do feel shooting him six times was extreme in this case, however, we really can't speculate how we would approach the situation, because we're not in law enforcement. I know if someone pulled a gun on me or if I was carrying a gun, and they attempted to grab it, I would defend myself at all costs. I'm sick of so many people using the race card as a crutch for their social injustice. If that boy was white and that officer was African American, would we see or hear about looting and other forms of violent behavior? Probably not. Many of these instances won't even make the evening news. Why does everyone make it about race? I could see if the officer used racist remarks or inkling to show he was prejudice against this boy. But honestly, I didn't see that at all. Plus, many of those so-called witnesses couldn't even get their stories to collaborate with the physical evidence. People will do anything in this country to either gain notoriety, such as the multiple women accusing Bill Cosby of rape, or they are attempting to seek "justice" through perjury. I'm sorry, but that is not justice. The President needs to get in there and control that shit, because these "peaceful" protests aren't happening.
 
Grand Jury won't indict Ferguson cop in shooting

This is disappointing. It once again reinforces that perception that black & brown lives have less value & that any & everything can be used as justification for excessive, brutal, lethal force when the same force would NOT be applied to a white person.

If I recall reading correctly, Michael Brown was NOT the boy robbed the store. He paid for his items, this was brought to light some time ago, & even IF he had been the robber, to KILL HIM? I cant see the justification for that.

Officers know better than to go out on the beat shouting racial slurs, doesn't mean their not racist. Racism in general has become more systemic & covert. That's evident in housing practices, banking/loaning, voter suppression efforts & most definitely law enforcement & the justice system. the numbers (among other things) prove it.

Cops have a responsibility to apply ETHICS & good judgement to carrying out their job & there are far too many stories & evidence to show that many do NOT.

People are ANGRY & they have a right to that. This kind of oppressive policing has been going on for some time & the black community knows this better than most. There's no excuse for cops acting like they are above the law & they should not be treated like they walk on water.

Burning down buildings, vandalzing & looting certainly AREN'T the right ways to express that anger, but suppressing legitimate protests is not the answer either.

Where's the justice for Michael Brown & the many others before (& surely to come after) him that are unfairly cut down?

Black lives matter too.
 
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I just feel that this entire situation could've been handled differently. This isn't even about race to me. Shooting an unarmed man six times is a bit much. I would've expected better from an officer of the law. If not charged with murder, at the very least he should've been slapped with a misdemeanor [but then, what do I know? I don't know how all of this works].

But looting, violence, burning police cars, etc, etc, will NOT make this better. I'm okay with ligitimate protesting but looting, violence, burning cars, what-have-you, is crossing the line.
 
There's a real problem w/ police conduct, police brutality in america & police being held accountable [or rather NOT being held accountable] for their actions. There's this reflex to treat police as if they walk on water & many of them PLAY on that fact when they say & do the things they do. Police departments have become more & more militarized & are quick to use excessive force in questionable circumstances & the lack of oversight over the depts is making things worse.

you're right, it could ...SHOULD have been handled differently. shooting an unarmed man six times (& firing two sets of 12 rounds...) IS a bit much, & while on the face of that alone, one can see a problem, in America, police brutality as it relates to race can't be ignored either.


there's a staggering amount of evidence, not to mention a long list of victims to show that police conduct towards black ppl is decidedly different than toward their white counter parts. u.s. justice dept stats show that a black adult is 21 times more likely to DIE, in what should a casual/"routine" encounter w/ police for anything from a traffic stop to jay walking, than a white person. there's something SERIOUSLY wrong here & until more ppl ADMIT that race is an issue, it's not going to change.
 
An unarmed 18 year old being shot to death with flimsy evidence as to why is exactly the reason as to why there should have been a trial. Even if you believe Brown was in fear of his life (which i doubt in the extreme) summary execution was not his call to make
 
The thing is though...it IS a race issue. I would bet $1 million that if the kid was white he a)wouldn't have been shot and b) if he had been shot we would have spent our time talking about what a good upstanding member of society he was. There would be no issue of if he was robbing the place. We make black people criminals and white people introspective genius weirdos. Just look at the news, when a black person guns down people he's a dirty criminal with a past. When a white person guns down people we say that he was really smart, kept to himself and had a blog of dark poetry. We go "oh how has society failed this white boy?" When it's a black person we don't stop until we until we find the smallest bit of incriminating information to throw through the news cycle. The fact is our racism and privilege is so deeply engrained into us that people don't even realize how easy it is to sit there and think this isn't a race issue..and the ONLY reason we don't want to say it is a race issue is because that would be admitting that racism is still by and large a huge issue in this country, no matter how far we think we've come. We are still dealing with institutions that were put in place to meet arrest quotas, give cops work and keep the prisons profitable. I can't even think about this without getting so mad. I get other people's points of view, and I understand them, but to me this is just another case of federal and institutionalized racism. The verdict is not good enough. It's just not.
 
Oh fuck this guy...I mean seriously. The main point of all of this to me is that you are given training for these scenarios. You are tested psychologically and put through the ringer, and we give you a gun contingent on the fact that when you are faced with situations that are scary and possibly intimidating ( a good CHUNK of the job of a police officer) that you do NOT revert back to some bullshit fight or flight instinct, but you will protect the interests and safety of the people in your community AKA not unloading your gun into a person who wasn't armed and didn't pose any other kind of threat outside of the fact that he may have been physically aggressive and or more physically intimidating with the cop. Even if every single thing went down the way he said it did. We train people to be cops SPECIFICALLY for these kinds of decisions. We are SUPPOSED to train them to use their judgment. You don't go around SHOOTING PEOPLE FOR THESE KINDS OF THINGS! You just DON'T. Case closed. Had that been me or any other person NOT wearing a badge? We'd be thrown in the slammer and a trial would commence. Even if we claimed we were "standing our ground" even if we claimed self defense. Six BULLET HOLES does NOT EQUAL self defense..not unless you were fighting with an equal amount of "fire".
 
WOW! I almost wish I hadn't read that. What a load of bull that just fell out of his mouth! he's making out to be that Brown was some kind of super being & he was DEFENSELESS. Give me a fucking break, he's a TRAINED POLICE OFFICER! THIS is who the citizens of Ferguson looked to to "serve & protect" them??

His excuse for unloading 2 sets of 12 rounds (6 of which hit the young man) is WEAK.


& it's obvious he has a "clear conscience" b/c he has no remorse @ all for what he did. My belief remains the same: He murdered that young man & didnt think he'd face any scrutiny for it. but he was wrong.
 
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If I were him, I'd get the hell out of there. He never should have said that thing about having a clear conscience. It may have been thee truth, but he's just thumbing his nose at the people. It's NOT helping.

On the other side, though, Brown's stepfather never should've said 'time to burn this **** down' or 'let's burn this m*********** to the ground' or whatever he was saying. He's a grieving father, I can appreciate that, but what he said is NOT helping.
 
Wilson's arrogance is astounding. But his COWARDICE wont soon be forgotten either. the whole "well meaning, defenseless white officer in fear for his life against the giant mean, super strong black man" is a pathetic excuse. & you're right, what he's doing now, it IS thumbing his nose @ the community he's traumatized.

It was reported that he planned to resign. I think he should. Resign & just GO AWAY. He's done enough damage to last a life time & he clearly feels no remorse for it.

I agree that the stepfather's choice of words is definitely inflamatory, but @ the same time, he's just one voice of many in an ANGRY community that is TIRED of being abused, harrassed & brutalized by a police dept that runs over them unchecked. We can't tell them how to feel or what to say, but I definitely agree w/ you from before that violence, looting & destruction is not the way. & yet...if that were my child? I dont know how *I* would act in this moment...I really don't.

This is why i say something needs to be done, things need to change & that change will not start until WE ALL ADMIT what the problems are here & come TOGETHER to help each other solve these problems.

#BlackLivesMatter #AllLivesMatter
 
The thing that really concerns me is the outsized coverage of the small percentage of people rioting. Actually, it pisses me off. White people in this county riot because their fucking team lost or even WON a sports game and no one says shit. NOTHING. Not one thing. But a small percentage of Black people in a group of thousands peacefully protesting get fed up with their lives meaning nothing and people want to raise hell over the same set fires and overturned vehicles that you see when fucking UCONN wins the NCAA championship?! I call BULLSHIT.

The truth is that the coverage of the riots in Ferguson are tainted by the same generalized fear of African-Americans that allowed that unarmed boy to be shot six times and then left laying in the street for four and half hours. As long as people can judge an action as more sinister or less sinister based on the color of the people doing it and we allow that shit to fly there will be more killings and even less trials.
 
Rampage said:
The thing that really concerns me is the outsized coverage of the small percentage of people rioting. Actually, it pisses me off. White people in this county riot because their ****ing team lost or even WON a sports game and no one says shit. NOTHING.
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I agree. I saw this so many times back in MI especially during college basketball season. & the news would paint it as "young ppl letting off steam" or some similar thing, even though businesses were damaged, cars were overturned, lamp posts were torn down etc. I even watched something just a couple months back where a group of white ppl started rioting @ a PUMPKIN festival!? & the news painted it as some mild, humorous thing.




Not one thing. But a small percentage of Black people in a group of thousands peacefully protesting get fed up with their lives meaning nothing and people want to raise hell over the same set fires and overturned vehicles that you see when ****ing UCONN wins the NCAA championship?! I call BULLSHIT.
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that's the part that's being overlooked...the WHY. there's real, legitimate anger & THAT is being overlooked.

Martin Luther King HIMSELF said: "a riot is a language of the unheard."

Now while I'm not suggesting "everyone go riot!" I feel like ppl put priority on the wrong things. where is the outrage & concern over the dangerous precedent being set by these police murdering black men? do we not think that it could happen to white men?

If my child was murdered by the police & there wasn't even an ATTEMPT @ justice, I don't know HOW I'd respond. I think about THAT before I cast judgement on someone else facing this :(
 
Clara Oswald said:
Judging whites based on their skin color is just as wrong as judging blacks by theirs.
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yes it is. nobody should be judging anybody else based on their skin color, however, whites don't have to WORRY about it the way blacks do. blacks face any number of obstacles in this society b/c of their skin color alone, including job discrimination, housing discrimination, being less likely to get credit/loans & definitely being in danger of being injured or dying in encounters w/ police.
 
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