“In this particular case, the black community has not only gotten everything wrong, they’ve made race relations worse.
This was never a case about an unarmed child, kneeling in front of a cop while pleading for his life and was then murdered-execution style, in broad daylight. This is more about a large street thug who just committed a strong armed robbery moments before (and it’s been leaked that he was also close to being charged in a murder while as a juvenile), shortly thereafter had contact with police, a struggle ensued where Mr. Brown tried to wrestle the service weapon from the officer, shots were fired and the person trained for such struggles prevailed at the cost of a life.
The community response that came afterwards, was 100% totally wrong. They are protesting a lie. There never was a “hands up, don’t shoot” scenario. That was 100% made up. False. Never happened. If anything, the slogan could be “I’m not gonna run, I’m gettin’ the cops gun”. And the same is true with the “riots” that came afterwards. They weren’t riots, they were “Got-it’s”, meaning you smash a window and you get that new cell phone, TV or bottle of gin you always wanted. Looting has nothing to do with perceived civil liberty violations.
Has it dawned on the black community that they’re the ones who are mostly to blame, for all of this? Any “training” shouldn’t be focused on police, it should be training for the inner city black community to act in a civil manner. With a fatherless culture, a culture of not working with police (and if you do you’re a snitch), a culture of entitlement dependency, a culture of government dependency and a pop culture of sex and violence, I’m not sure why anyone is surprised by the outcomes.
The black community needs a big dose of self reliance.” LA Time
Eyewitness testimony, hard evidence, and forensic evidence showed a racially mixed panel that the officer did not target or lawlessly shoot Michael Brown. The truth is irrelevant to black activists, including the President and Eric Holder, who continue to characterize the shooting in Ferguson as a police problem. Evidence and even the death is meaningless. The incident is simply a means to an end, a vehicle to press an anti-white, anti-American grievance agenda. This is a militant form of tyranny waged by a minority group within the minority community. The do not represent all people of color but they speak and act as if they do.
In a Ferguson commission established by Governor Nixon a black teen was shouted down and chaos ensued after he suggested that the police officer was doing his job. The facts do not matter.
The Obama administration has used every deceit in the book to weaken and divide America. The path currently being plowed by this group of black power activists will create a dangerous atmosphere of reluctance and hesitation all across the policing community. Neighborhoods most in need of policing will be less safe for the majority of citizens, including innocent law abiding black citizens, who live there.
Is Obama obsessed with the dreams he has from his father? What were his father’s dreams? We better find out before he and his cadre of militants completely destroy this country.
The title “Dreams From My Father” always seemed odd to me. Words have meaning. Writers and publishers don’t choose words randomly. If the titled referred to dreams Obama had about his father the word “of” would have been chosen. “From my father” implies dreams his father had that inspired him and that he shares.
Applicable definition, from: Used to indicate a source, cause, agent, or instrument.
What were Obama’s father’s dreams?
While originally I was accepting of the grand jury’s decision it seems that this process was handled in a very unusual way, with the prosecutor almost acting on behalf of the accused, and the accused being allowed to testify before the grand jury even though such a thing is unusual and possibly illegal.
I don’t know whether the officer’s shooting was justified, but a trial would have gotten us closer to finding out.
Tina, you could, you know, always read “Dreams From My Father” if you want to know what it’s about and what the significance of the title means. Heck, you could just Google the significance of the title and find the direct quotes in context from a non-conservative source. But it seems like you’d rather remain in the default state of ignorant and suspicious.
Chris, what are your thinking? The accused in this case didn’t even have a lawyer and a Grand Jury is completely different than a preliminary hearing. A pre-lim is adversarial, a Grand Jury is not.
Also, Wilson voluntarily appeared before the Grand Jury to provide evidence, not to be cross examined by the DA. The DA presented all the other evidence and let the Grand Jury arrive at a decision to indict or not to indict. There’s nothing unusual about that, this is their job!
A pre-lim and a trial would have produced no more evidence than what the DA, the FBI and the DOJ was able to present- how can you say it would??!! That’s just wrong.
You can’t just have a trial to satisfy the mob! We have laws Chris, we have a thing called reasonable suspicion or probable cause. And that test must be met before there can be a trial. If there is evidence to support that… then and only then can you have a trial! YOU MUST have a reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed first and the evidence fell far short of that. There was nothing to charged! The Grand Jury carefully reviewed all the testimony, they followed the evidence and watched as it proved some witnesses told the truth and some witnesses deliberately lied. Those who were found truthful supported the officer….you might not like it, but that’s the way the truth went.
Where do you get off saying a bunch of crap about the prosecutor, the grand jury, etc.?
The truth was rejected by fools who could not handle the truth, those fools instead latched on to the first lies that came out. These lies were told by people who perjured themselves and obstructed justice. Now they need to be arrested.
Those people are provocateurs, they’re disgusting, they broke the law by giving false testimony and they are race-baiting simpletons! But, is anyone mad at them in the black community? Not really. If stupidity was a crime they would be in jail for life. Only an idiot could still believe the false narrative by proven liars. That’s who you are climbing into bed with when you say such stupid nonsense about a show trial, and cast dispersions on the Grand Jury and DA in Ferguson! Good God you try my patients… and I think you mean, but there is just so much you don’t know.
The grand jury plays an important role in the criminal process, but not one that involves a finding of guilt or punishment of a party. Instead, a prosecutor will work with a grand jury to decide whether to bring criminal charges or an indictment against a potential defendant — usually reserved for serious felonies. Grand jury members may be called for jury duty for months at a time, but need only appear in court for a few days out of every month. Regular court trial juries are usually 6 or 12 people, but in the federal system, a grand jury can be 16 to 23 people.
The grand jury is one of the first procedures in a criminal trial, if used at all. See FindLaw’s Criminal Procedure section for more articles, including Criminal Procedure FAQ and How are Criminal Charges Brought Against Someone?
Oh, and Tina: it seems that many of the “quotes” you claimed were found in that book in a previous discussion were completely fabricated.
From FactCheck.org:
Misleading e-mail: From Dreams of My Father : “I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother’s race.”
Actual quote from “Dreams from My Father”: Nothing like this quote appears in Obama’s books.
Misleading e-mail: From Audacity of Hope: “I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.”
Actual quote from “The Audacity of Hope” [pg. 261]: “Of course, not all my conversations in immigrant communities follow this easy pattern. In the wake of 9/11, my meetings with Arab and Pakistani Americans, for example, have a more urgent quality, for the stories of detentions and FBI questioning and hard stares from neighbors have shaken their sense of security and belonging. They have been reminded that the history of immigration in this country has a dark underbelly; they need specific assurances that their citizenship really means something, that America has learned the right lessons from the Japanese internments during World War II, and that I will stand with them should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.”
Obama did not say he would side with “the Muslims,” which could easily be read as meaning he would side with the world’s Muslim population even if it meant working outside the best interests of the United States. He said he would side with “them,” referring back to his mention of immigrant communities and specifically to “Arab and Pakistani Americans.” Furthermore, he was speaking of an “ugly direction” like the mass internment of Japanese Americans.
This false quote goes hand in hand with the equally false rumor that Obama is a Muslim.
Misleading e-mail: From Dreams of My Father: “I never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn’t speak to my own. It was into my father’s image, the black man, son of Africa, that I’d packed all the attributes I sought in myself, the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, Dubois and Mandela.”
Actual quote from “Dreams from My Father” [pg. 220]: “Yes, I’d seen weakness in other men – Gramps and his disappointments, Lolo and his compromise. But these men had become object lessons for me, men I might love but never emulate, white men and brown men whose fates didn’t speak to my own. It was into my father’s image, the black man, son of Africa, that I’d packed all the attributes I sought in myself, the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, DuBois and Mandela. And if later I saw that the black men I knew – Frank or Ray or Will or Rafiq – fell short of such lofty standards; if I had learned to respect these men for the struggles they went through, recognizing them as my own – my father’s voice had nevertheless remained untainted, inspiring, rebuking, granting or withholding approval. You do not work hard enough, Barry. You must help in your people’s struggle. Wake up, black man!”
The e-mail cuts out important words, changing the quote’s meaning. Gone is the notion that he “might love” white or brown men. Gone also is that Obama was speaking not of white or brown men generally, but specifically about “these men,” his white, maternal grandfather Stanley Dunham and his Indonesian stepfather Lolo Soetoro. The doctored quote makes it appear as though Obama said he would never emulate any white or brown man, based on their race.
Another doctored quote is trimmed to make Obama sound as though he is wary of working for a white man because of his race, when Obama actually wrote that the “problem” of race had been raised by the man himself.
Misleading e-mail: From Dreams of My Father: “There was something about him that made me wary, a little too sure of himself, maybe. And white.”
Actual quote from “Dreams from My Father” [pgs. 141-142]: “Now he was trying to pull urban blacks and suburban whites together around a plan to save manufacturing jobs in metropolitan Chicago. He needed somebody to work with him, he said. Somebody black. …
He offered to start me off at ten thousand dollars the first year, with a two-thousand-dollar travel allowance to buy a car; the salary would go up if things worked out. After he was gone, I took the long way home, along the East River promenade, and tried to figure out what to make of the man. He was smart, I decided. He seemed committed to his work. Still, there was something about him that made me wary. A little too sure of himself, maybe. And white – he’d said himself that that was a problem.”
The e-mail’s edited quote makes it appear as if Obama is left with an unfavorable opinion of someone based on race. The full quote shows that Obama’s mention of Marty Kaufman’s race is made only after Kaufman raises it as a potential problem in light of his consideration to hire Obama for a job on a community organizing drive.
Misleading e-mail: From Dreams of My Father : ; “It remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names.”
Actual quote from “Dreams from My Father” [pg. 100-101]: To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets. We smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets. At night, in the dorms, we discussed necolonialism, Franz Fanon, Eurocentrism, and patriarchy. When we ground out our cigarettes in the hallway carpet or set our stereos so loud that the walls began to shake, we were resisting bourgeois society’s stifling constraints. We weren’t indifferent or careless or insecure. We were alienated. But this strategy alone couldn’t provide the distance I wanted, from Joyce or my past. After all, there were thousands of so-called campus radicals, most of them white and tenured and happily tolerated. No, it remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names.
On its own, the quote makes Obama appear racially militant. Whereas, in full context, the quote illustrates Obama’s confusion over his race and cultural heritage. This is emphasized in the preceding paragraph, where Obama describes himself as someone compensating for insecurity in his “racial credentials.”
http://www.factcheck.org/2008/06/obamas-dreams-of-my-father/
Thank you for once again proving that your perception of President Obama is based on your insistence on continuing to rely on bad information from unreliable sources.
Chris and Tina… Checking on the quote I must say that I found it was false as Chris alleges, it was actually taken from another person who was re-characterizing what Obama had said in his book. From SNOPES, “No such sentence (nor anything close to it) appears anywhere in either Dreams from My Father or The Audacity of Hope. This statement was taken from a March 2007 article about Barack Obama; they are not Obama’s own words, but rather those of the article’s author (recast in the first person): “In reality, Obama provides a disturbing test of the best-case scenario of whether America can indeed move beyond race. He inherited his father’s penetrating intelligence; was raised mostly by his loving liberal white grandparents in multiracial, laid-back Hawaii, where America’s normal race rules never applied; and received a superb private school education. And yet, at least through age 33 when he wrote Dreams from My Father, he found solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against his mother’s race.”
Read more at http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/coilofrage.asp#QWcAwUJuGZMp17tf.99
Wish we knew more about Obama’s father, but like most of his past it too remains a mystery. We do know he lived in a very affluent area of Hawaii after being abandoned by his father and left by his mother for her parents to raise. He went to a private school and was reported to use drugs in high school and college.
Poor blacks believe he understands their struggles because of the color of his skin even though he’s never experienced their low economic life-style. His idea of hope and change is much different from those who struggle in slums where a good education is nearly impossible. His actions on the DC charter schools spoke volumes on the length he’d go to to keep the poor black uneducated and with limited opportunities to have a better future life.
The internet is full of blacks speaking out against Obama, Holder and Sharpton. But, you won’t see any of them on the MSM. A young man even spoke up at the community meeting today supporting Wilson’s action, but was shouted down by others in the audience.
Our current economy after six years of a snail paced recovery and low employment which has hurt blacks the most should be a huge wake up call to everyone. Obama’s actions are purely politically driven and not done for the best for the American people.
His dream is to destroy our republic and transform us into a one party system with socialist Democrats in command forever.
Chris, maybe this will help you. I’ve never served on a grand jury, but my dad and a coworker did.
Grand Jury:
A grand jury is a legal body that empowered to conduct official proceedings to investigate potential criminal conduct and to determine whether criminal charges should be brought. A grand jury may compel the production of documents and may compel the sworn testimony of witnesses to appear before it. A grand jury is separate from the courts, which do not preside over its functioning.[1]
The United States is virtually the only country that retains grand juries,[2][3] although some other common law jurisdictions formerly employed them, and most other jurisdictions employ some other type of preliminary hearing. Grand juries perform both accusatory and investigatory functions. The investigatory functions of the grand jury include obtaining and reviewing documents and other evidence and hearing the sworn testimony of witnesses that appear before it. The grand jury’s accusatory function is to determine whether or not there is probable cause to believe that one or more persons committed a certain offense within the venue of the district court. The “grand jury” in the United States is composed of 12 to 23 citizens. In Ireland, they also functioned as local government authorities.
A grand jury is so named because traditionally it has a greater number of jurors than a trial jury, also known as a petty jury or petit jury (from the French word meaning “small”).[4]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_jury
Note:
“..investigate potential criminal conduct and to determine whether criminal charges should be brought.”
“A grand jury is separate from the courts, which do not preside over its functioning.[1]”
“The grand jury’s accusatory function is to determine whether or not there is probable cause to believe that one or more persons committed a certain offense within the venue of the district court.”
Thanks for the info, Peggy, but it doesn’t address the complaints I mentioned.
“In the 1992 Supreme Court case of United States v. Williams, Justice Antonin Scalia explained that, “Neither in this country nor in England has the suspect under investigation by the grand jury ever been thought to have a right to testify or to have exculpatory evidence presented.” The U.S. Constitution does not require prosecutors to present evidence favorable to the defense. It is the grand jury’s role to decide whether there is enough evidence for a criminal charge. Yet McCulloch presented evidence both against and in favor of Wilson’s prosecution.
Ronald Sullivan Jr., director of Harvard University’s Criminal Justice Institute, told the Los Angeles Times that this was a “strategic move” on McCulloch’s part to not make a strong case for a conviction without seeming responsible for his own failure as a prosecutor. Sullivan said it was “the most unusual marshaling of a grand jury’s resources I’ve seen in my 25 years as a lawyer and scholar.”
http://www.ibtimes.com/ferguson-grand-jury-documents-reveal-missteps-officer-darren-wilson-investigators-1730132
Peggy: “His actions on the DC charter schools spoke volumes on the length he’d go to to keep the poor black uneducated and with limited opportunities to have a better future life.”
Peggy, do you think it’s possible that Obama could simply have a reasonable, evidence-based disagreement over whether charter schools best serve African-American students?
Some evidence would seem to back that opinion:
“AUSTIN, Texas — Despite being promoted as a viable alternative to traditional public schools, privately owned charter schools in Texas have higher attrition rates for black students than comparable urban public schools, says a University of Texas at Austin study.
Dr. Julian Vasquez Heilig’s research shows that, although many privately operated charter schools claim that 90 percent or more of their students go on to college and many, such as the Houston-based KIPP chain of schools, spend 30-60 percent more per pupil than comparable urban school districts, more black students drop out and leave charter schools.
“Since the mid-’90s, charter schools have been heavily promoted as a panacea for minority students, a means of delivering to them the kind of high-quality education that public schools cannot,” says Vasquez Heilig.
An analysis of Texas Education Agency data of average black dropout rates in Texas secondary schools shows that Houston, Dallas and Austin public schools outperform privately operated charter districts, with charter districts having three times the dropout rate reported in the comparable urban districts (4 percent versus the charters’ 13 percent).
http://www.utexas.edu/news/2012/04/11/charter_vasquez_heilig/
Even better source of the grand jury process.
How Does a Grand Jury Work?:
http://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-procedure/how-does-a-grand-jury-work.html
Apparently Missouri chose the grand jury as their preferred legal process over the other options. I see no reason they can’t change it for future possible criminal action suits.
If anyone is interested the Grand Jury transcripts can be found at http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2014/11/us/ferguson-grand-jury-docs/ .
One question that keeps coming back to me over and over is, what is a man’s motivation when he charges an armed police officer. Keep in mind he attacked the police officer and attempted to take away his gun, a struggle that caused the gun to discharge wounding his hand. This is also a police officer he beat about the face. Any sane man would be concerned that he might get shot again. Any man concerned for his well- being would not have done what he did. Yet, he charged even though he repeatedly was told to stop. Even after he had been shot again he continued to charge while being told to stop. Clearly this was a man on a mission but what was his real intent. Either he had completely lost control or he was in an all or nothing situation. From his point of view he just committed a strong-arm robbery. I’m sure he was concerned about getting caught and going to jail. I wish we knew if he had any past criminal history because priors would definitely contributed to his concerned about being arrested. Did he really think that he could charge the police office, take his gun, and escape? I really doubt it. I’ve come to the conclusion that this was suicide by cop! He didn’t care. He just didn’t want to be taken alive.
Chris: “Thank you for once again proving that your perception of President Obama is based on your insistence on continuing to rely on bad information from unreliable source.”
Thank you for doing the research and for providing our readers with full quotes. You have done our readers a great service.
In my opinion the full quotes highlight further the racial elements that underpin and motivate Barack Obama. His ambition was not to become the President of the United States but the black president for the black cause. However he may wrap his words in inclusive sounding rhetoric when all is said and done, his reason for being and for being president is activism for “his people’s struggles.”
My perception of President Obama is based on the background and ideology of the persons he has said influenced him most, the persons with whom he chooses to associate, and upon his own actions and the actions of his AG.
I understand that you disagree with my perception of Obama and that’s okay with me.
I think it’s likely that your perceptions about Obama, and this case, are somewhat biased based on PC conditioning. I imagine that infuriates you. But it is not my intent to simply make you angry. My intent is to inspire curiosity and critical thinking in all of us. It does not make sense that a President of the United States would take a position and insert himself in an incident without benefit of information and yet he has done this three times. In every single case he asserted a false racially motivated narrative.
and it isn’t just Obama. We have a number of leaders in Washington that have come to Washington not to provide leadership for America but instead to serve the black (Marxist and militant) cause. You should have a problem with that and yet you either don’t notice, don’t care to see it, or content yourself with excuses and justification.
These black militants, and white sycophant supporters, do not represent all blacks or all minorities but they act and talk as if they do and therefore control the narrative. If we are going to have an honest discussion about race and how it affects the goings on in Ferguson we are going to have to step outside the PC box and the militant narrative.
I am thankful for the many black people that have stepped forward. Charles Barkley is one of them:
Ask yourself this, what (in at least three decades) has the black caucus, or any black leader in any black community done for the black people they serve? What I see is they have done absolutely nothing except keep alive the deceitful lie that they are hated and oppressed by whites! Now we can add that the police officers, including minority officers, want to kill them. This is outrageous and it needs to end!
My motivation, Chris, is that I hate race baiters and militant race activists as much as I hate racism. Your notions of what I’m about couldn’t be more wrong!
Jack I also appreciate your efforts regarding the quotes. Our readers are best served by clarity; sometimes I miss the mark.
Peggy: “His dream is to destroy our republic and transform us into a one party system with socialist Democrats in command forever.”
This wass my conclusion also but I’ve had to expand it after watching the man in action lately. His fathers cause was to push the whites out of Africa, take the land back. Obama sees America through the same lens. It’s people of color against white exploiters, a reality based on prejudice and a narrow view of history. Marxism is always behind such causes and movements and militant revolution is always the way.
The new slogan for the black cause is “hands Up Don’t Shoot”
A caller on Rush’s show this morning provided a slogan for the victims of the mayhem in Ferguson, “Pants UP Don’t Loot”
Does the President not see that his position and lack of clear moral leadership has granted permission to many confused, hormonal, young men and women to become criminals and to place their lives or futures at risk? It floors me every time I think of it!
Education News:
Jack, you sound as if this is the first you’ve heard anyone claim that the grand jury proceedings were handled in an unusual way. This is surprising to me, since this has received a lot of coverage lately. A conservative friend of mine is actually the one who brought this to my attention after I posted a status update defending the jury’s outcome.
(Hope you don’t mind me linking to my Facebook page; I don’t think you have to be on my friends list to see the status):
https://www.facebook.com/christopher.souza?fref=nf&pnref=story
You said: “We have laws Chris, we have a thing called reasonable suspicion or probable cause. And that test must be met before there can be a trial. If there is evidence to support that… then and only then can you have a trial!…
The grand jury plays an important role in the criminal process, but not one that involves a finding of guilt or punishment of a party.”
I agree with all of this. The problem was that in this case, the grand jury went beyond the role of simply assessing probable cause, and looked at a body of evidence that basically amounted to a defense for Wilson. That is not their role. (See the comments by conservative justice Scalia about a different case in comment #8.)
The best comment I’ve seen on this subject yet came from Barry Deutsch, aka Ampersand:
“It’s not illegal for a prosecutor to decide to present exculpatory evidence to a grand jury. But – especially taken to an extreme, as happened in Ferguson – it’s a perversion of the system, which goes against how the system is designed to work. The Grand Jury is supposed to be a check against a prosecutor pressing charges without probable cause; it is NOT supposed to weigh evidence for and against guilt.
And the reason for that is simple: There are supposed to be advocates for two sides in the courtroom. One side representing the state and seeking justice for Michael Brown, and another side representing Darren Wilson. When a prosecutor turns a Grand Jury into a show trial, as happened here, the effect was that only one side – the pro-Wilson side – had an advocate representing its interest in the trial. This is indefensible for anyone who believes in the rule of law.”
http://amptoons.com/blog/2014/12/01/on-ferguson/#comments
No it’s not the first time I’ve heard that Chris. I know the liberal sector that is siding with the false narrative loves to bring that up. The fact is there was nothing unusual at all. You do know that about half the states don’t even have a grand jury? And many stated that do have, also have their own rules.
Look, the DOJ under Holder was overseeing this whole thing and they didn’t object and neither did the FBI. So why try to make something out of nothing? Why?
You said, “the grand jury went beyond the role of simply assessing probable cause, and looked at a body of evidence that basically amounted to a defense for Wilson. That is not their role. (See the comments by conservative justice Scalia about a different case in comment #8.)” I looked at Scalia’s report, but I strongly disagree that the grand jury went any further than they were allowed too. They looked at all the evidence..they can’t be selective and only look at what makes the officer look bad. They have to look at everything and make a recommendation to the DA. It’s their job to look at the evidence and decide if it holds up. Again, this was not a trial, it was an inquiry and they have different priorities and obligations.
Chris that grand jury went above and beyond, they listened to over 60 hours of testimony and many more weighing evidence…they just couldn’t find anything to charge the officer on. Are we forgetting the who the real criminal is here? Why are you trying to hang the officer? Did you know that Brown was very close to being charged with murder before he turned 18? And lets not loose sight of the fact he had committed a strong arm robbery! This all goes to his character and credibility. Witnesses said he failed to cooperate with a lawful request by a police officer and assaulted the officer – which led to his demise. Brown was not of good character, that is prima-faci! He did bad things that a reasonable person would not do, yet I feel you are going after everything you can to blame the officer and/or the proceeding for some kind of injustice. It was not an injustice. Brown acted in a manner that caused his own death and he joins a tiny fraction of black males that are shot by police every year compared to black male arrests in total and to the number of black males shot by black males. This is such an OVERREACTION by the black community who are burning and rioting…its sickening. BROWN is not the guy they want to be a poster boy for police violence against black males.
There is a lot of blame here, why not focus some of it in the right direction? Why not rag on Obama for his lack of leadership and judgment? Why not go after Browns parolee, step father who said, Burn this bitch to the ground!” Why not demand the looters be identified and arrested? Why not attack the liars that gave false testimony, some of whom were never even present, but were swearing to hearsay!
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/11/25/us/evidence-released-in-michael-brown-case.html
READ THE EVIDENCE…
Jack: “They looked at all the evidence..they can’t be selective and only look at what makes the officer look bad.”
No, that is literally their exact their job according to Scalia.
“Neither in this country nor in England has the suspect under investigation by the grand jury ever been thought to have a right to testify or to have exculpatory evidence presented.”
Their job is not to look at both sides. That is the job of a jury in a criminal trial.
It’s possible that grand juries are allowed to let the suspect under investigation testify and present evidence from their side, but that is extremely rare, and I highly doubt the same opportunities would be extended if the roles were reversed and it were a young black male accused of killing someone. The grand jury’s actions here were not illegal, but showed preferential treatment to the officer that most suspects would never, ever receive.
No big deal, Chris is just goose-stepping along with the false political narrative his betters on the left provide him with.
It is very rare for a grand jury to choose not to indict a case, according to fivethirtyeight.com:
“Former New York state Chief Judge Sol Wachtler famously remarked that a prosecutor could persuade a grand jury to “indict a ham sandwich.” The data suggests he was barely exaggerating: According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. attorneys prosecuted 162,000 federal cases in 2010, the most recent year for which we have data. Grand juries declined to return an indictment in 11 of them.”
Police officers, however, are very rarely indicted:
“A recent Houston Chronicle investigation found 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.”
Now of course, it’s important to note that police officers have a special right to use force in cases where ordinary citizens cannot; this can account for many decisions not to indict, but I think we should be skeptical of the idea that it can account for all of them–especially for those of us who claim to be skeptical of government power. It seems plausible that at least some of the failures to indict were a result of special treatment for police officers. You’re right that the grand jury went “above and beyond” their responsibilities in the Wilson case, and I’m curious if this is more common when police are suspected of a crime than when ordinary citizens are suspected.
I also don’t agree that shootings of black youth by police officers are rare–at least, not rare enough. From Media Matters (an admittedly biased, though usually accurate source):
“An FBI report found that between 2005 and 2012, a white officer used deadly force against a black person almost two times every week. Of those who were killed, nearly one in five were under the age of 21, as compared to 8.7 percent of white people under 21 who were killed. An examination of FBI data from 2010 and 2012 found that black males between the ages of 15 and 19 are 21 times more likely to be shot dead by police than whites of the same age.”
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/12/03/conservative-media-still-denying-how-racism-and/201751
Of course, this doesn’t tell us how many of these black men were unarmed or if the shootings were justified, but the pattern is alarming. Black suspects are killed by police officers far more than white suspects. Some of that is due to the high rate of black crime, but again, we should be suspicious of the use of deadly force. Conservatives say that the right to life is the most sacred right of all, and I agree; we must make sure that a very high standard is met before anyone can take that right away.
It’s quite possible that the testimony of the officer was made necessary due to the activists prosecuting the officer in the court of public opinion based on false evidence and an assumption of guilt. Guilt by reason of color and occupation.
The pattern Chris speaks about has been debunked by statistics. The police go where crime is happening and their response is influenced by the attitudes and posturing of the perpetrator. This case has put the attitude and posture that invites violent response in clear perspective. That this kid might have thought he had the right to walk up to a police officer, punch him out and grab for his gun without adverse consequence is telling. What has formed this attitude? Did he believe he would be a hero? Did he see police officers as “the enemy” and if so, what has fostered this deadly belief system?
I reject the notion that police officers regularly target blacks. I reject the radical militant message to blacks that they are still being oppressed by whites in power. I reject the left message that only through massive redistribution will blacks have an opportunity in America. The militant radical minority must be exposed for the charlatan opportunists that they are and rejected for the divisive and damaging abuse of power that current black leaders are using to gin up anger, resentment, and violence for power.
Where is the hoopla over the “white” Bosnian man a few miles away who was beaten to death by black and Hispanic teens wielding hammers? The police say this was not a hate crime, focusing on his Bosnian heritage. But he was in his car and his skin, white! Would the teens have even known he was of Bosnian heritage or were they focusing on his skin color? What else could have motivated the attack? Indifference? What gave these teens the idea that a random violent attack is cool…how do kids even think of such a horrendous crime?
Is this community avoiding calling this a hate crime based on the facts or to avoid becoming another Ferguson. If the latter, justice is being shoved in a closet there. Tyranny, generated by race activists, has taken the place of the rule of law
There have been numerous random acts of violence of this nature in the last few years…why are they not elevated to the same level as the Brown incident?
It is outrageous that the radical left continues to avoid addressing the real problem, which is the negative and deadly attitudes they encourage and that permeate in our culture. Certainly “hands up don’t shoot” is not going to encourage law abiding attitudes (Or better lives) for American minority youths. Blaming the police for the violence will not help but instead will encourage more bad and stupid behavior. Leadership in Congress are promoting the ridiculous erroneous slogan. Inciting riot adds fuel to the fire. Encouraging or excusing the burning and looting will not change attitudes; it will justify them. This is insanity.
Is anyone on the left cognizant of the unbelievable lack of emotional concern or response toward criminality in the minority community? The detachment in leadership, media, and rank and file screams to be noticed! Chicago murders are not happening or relevant…minority violence is not happening…only racism is happening…violence is justified.
Pie: “No big deal, Chris is just goose-stepping along with the false political narrative his betters on the left provide him with.”
It would be helpful if you learned how to read. I changed my position after talking to a conservative law student friend who basically agrees with me on nothing. He was the one who showed me the Scalia quote (he kind of hero-worships that dude, which is a big disagreement between us). Prior to that my position was that the protesters should accept the grand jury decision and get over it. I changed my position after seeing evidence that the process was not handled in a normal manner.
I know changing one’s position after seeing more evidence is an alien concept to you. But that’s what happened. You can look at the Facebook conversation I linked to for proof.
Don’t come to my house and shoot me, though.
Pie: “No big deal, Chris is just goose-stepping along with the false political narrative his betters on the left provide him with.”
It would be helpful if you learned how to read. I changed my position after talking to a conservative law student friend who basically agrees with me on nothing. He was the one who showed me the Scalia quote (he kind of hero-worships that dude, which is a big disagreement between us). Prior to that my position was that the protesters should accept the grand jury decision and get over it. I changed my position after seeing evidence that the process was not handled in a normal manner.
I know changing one’s position after seeing more evidence is an alien concept to you. But that’s what happened. You can look at the Facebook conversation I linked to for proof.
Don’t come to my house and shoot me, though.
Chris, do you really think the protestors would have been satisfied if an indictment was handed down by the grand jury? Everything points to them preparing to riot no matter what the grand jury said. And if a jury trial was held and Wilson was acquitted, do you think they would have accepted that verdict? Everything points to a second riot, it was inevitable, too many major civil rights players wanted it to happen.
There was no way IMO to avoid what happened in Ferguson after the grand jury report came out, short of actually using the Guard and police to protect property and arrest people. I know, a crazy notion, but I think it might have worked.
Gov. Nixon bungled that part with the guard and made sure they were not deployed. And for whatever the reasons, law enforcement leadership was totally unprepared to do much except stand around in a police line, protecting city hall and the police station from nothing, while Ferguson businesses burned.
The whole fiasco in Ferguson is so laden with stupid people doing incredibly stupid things, it’s beyond shocking. I’m totally disgusted with all of them. Incompetents, bunglers, cowards, fools, race-baiters, hate mongers, militants,…they are all there in Ferguson. And to be extra clear, I’m talking about all the rioters, looters, protestors, black leaders like Al Sharpton, right on up to the Governor Nixon and beyond, all the way to the White House and Obama and Holder. Stupid, stupid, stupid…
I’m praying that the rest of America is somewhat more capable and rational than these morons.
Tina: “It’s quite possible that the testimony of the officer was made necessary due to the activists prosecuting the officer in the court of public opinion based on false evidence and an assumption of guilt. Guilt by reason of color and occupation.”
This makes no sense. I agree with you that many in the black community and on the left made unwarranted assumptions in this case. I personally think the officer’s story is credible. That doesn’t justify using the grand jury process as a de facto trial, nor does it justify the fact that this only seems to be done for police officers and rarely to never for the general public.
“Certainly “hands up don’t shoot” is not going to encourage law abiding attitudes (Or better lives) for American minority youths.”
I think the motto is stupid, as the idea that Brown ever said this has been largely discredited, but why would it not lead to better attitudes? If Brown had actually said this, the outcome might be different. Certainly there is a world of difference between surrendering to the cops and charging at them violently?
“Chicago murders are not happening or relevant…minority violence is not happening…only racism is happening…violence is justified.”
President Obama had acknowledge Chicago violence and violence within the minority community numerous times. Numerous leaders on the left have denounced the violence. Stop making strawman arguments.
Tina: “Where is the hoopla over the “white” Bosnian man a few miles away who was beaten to death by black and Hispanic teens wielding hammers?”
The police said there was no indication that ethnicity was a motivating factor. Funny how that’s good enough for you whenever a minority is the victim, but never when a white man is the victim. This despite that hate crimes against whites, while repugnant, are much more rare than hate crimes against other ethnicities.
More relevant is the story of Tamir Rice, the 12-year-old boy who was shot and killed by a rookie officer for waving a toy gun around at a park:
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/video-shows-cleveland-cop-shoot-12-year-old-tamir-rice-n256656
I don’t know if this cop would have done the same to a white kid. I do know this kind of thing happens to kids of color far more often. I also know that while most cops do their best to protect the public, there is an aggressive, militaristic mentality among police in many communities that makes them see the public in an adversarial role, and sometimes cops get trigger-happy. This death did not need to happen and could have been avoided with better training.
Jack you’ll get no argument from me that many of the protesters behaved badly, even the majority that had nothing to do with the riot made wild assumptions about this case and fueled a narrative that was not 100% backed by the facts. I still think the grand jury was badly handled and I think there are systemic problems in Ferguson, but I agree that Michael Brown should not be the face of innocent black men gunned down by police. I don’t agree that a riot would have happened if there had been an indictment.
Chris, everything coming from people in the Black Panthers, Al Sharpton, and all the other racists clearly said they were on a course to riot. To them this was like Selma Part II. The momentum was unstoppable. We can never know this for 100% sure, but there is just way too much to suggest they would have rioted no matter what. Maybe it would have been slightly less violent, I don’t know, but the thugs and racist had too much steam built up and they needed to do what they did, no matter what.
Did you know the New Black Panthers were trying to build a bomb and were busted just short of the act? This is the kind of momentum we were facing.
Tina:
Perhaps if police policy were changed to protect and serve in neighborhoods where there is little crime and ignore neighborhoods where there is heavy crime then Chris and his duplicitous statistic twisting cohorts would be satisfied. Even Media Matters might applaud!
There are several ways to interpret the FBI statistics Chris cites (well, sort of cites, using a disreputable and discredited source) that have nothing to do with racism, but don’t expect our local Soros whore to acknowledge them. It is at least mildly amusing that this fool gets some of his marching orders from the laughable and blatantly left wing radical propaganda organ Media Matters! Anything he pulls from that cesspool should be suspect if not summarily dismissed.
Rudy Giuliani on last Sunday’s “Fox News Sunday” was very enlightening, I hope you got a chance to see it.
Chris, the article and report was interesting and comprehensive in most study areas. It defined the difference between public, private and charter school. Charter schools operate under the guidance of local school boards and adhere to their state accreditation standards. Private schools on the other hand are not held to the same standards, while some may opt to comply with them.
The study did state achievement scores in almost all of the charter schools was higher than the public schools, but that the attrition/drop out rate was lower. What it didn’t specify was the grades for the decline. I would expect the decline in the 7-12th grades would be higher than the 1-6th grades.
This could be for a number of reasons. High school students may want to go to the local public school for the social and athletic programs not available at the charter school. Or there may be economic demands placed on them to get jobs to help support their families. These are my thoughts not addressed in the report.
The report does make it very clear the charter students did do better academically per the test scores measurements.
I didn’t think comparing DC schools to Texas was a fair comparison since Texas is the state that sets the standards for the rest of the nation, at least in text books used so looked up just how they compared in both public and charter rankings.
I was surprised to not be able to locate a state ranking based on academic standards for public schools. What I did find was information by individual states and an annual report by the NCES about the economics of education, but nothing comparing state’s public student’s success rate.
Here is an explanation of why the information apparently isn’t available, at least that I could find.
State-by-state rankings:
Question:
Do you have a state-by-state ranking of the quality of American schools?
Response:
NCES does not rank schools by student achievement; however, many states have statewide testing programs. Some states rank their schools and publish the results but others do not. NCES publishes results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and rates student performance nationally and state-by-state on various subject areas including the arts, civics, geography, mathematics, reading, science, U.S. history, and writing.”
http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=62
I was very surprised to find that DC came in first place and Louisiana came in second for charter schools national ranking.
This report doesn’t specify if these are expensive schools where only children of affluent parents attend or if they include low income open enrollment schools where children qualify for subsidized meals.
State Charter School Systems Ranked:
“The first-ever rankings from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools strive to evaluate quality and other factors.
Using that system, the District of Columbia ranked first, followed by Louisiana and Michigan. Nevada was the worst-ranked state, followed by Oregon and Utah.”
http://www.governing.com/news/headlines/gov-state-charter-school-systems-ranked-in-new-report.html
Even though I’m a retired public school employee I can see the advantages of private and charter schools over the public educational system. Ideally would be to incorporate the best of both to benefit the students. But, as long as unions are in control that’s not going to happen.
Every student and parent should be very cautious of enrolling in a private non-accredited school, tech school or college. They can be very expensive and without the state’s accreditation approval the credits/units will NOT be accepted at community colleges or universities. One of these tech schools closed its doors leaving the students with large student loans to pay off and no college willing to accept their completed course work.
Sorry went off topic, but wanted readers to be warned to check out a school’s accreditation BEFORE signing a contract for thousands of dollars. Community colleges are almost free, financial aid is available and worth every dollar spent.
Jack: “Chris, everything coming from people in the Black Panthers, Al Sharpton, and all the other racists clearly said they were on a course to riot.”
I don’t like Al Sharpton, but lumping him in with the Panthers is ridiculous. The Panthers are a group that believes in using violence to achieve its cause. Sharpton, for all his other faults, preaches against using violence. The comparison is unfair and makes the black community seem like a monolith or hive mind.
An indictment is what the protesters wanted, I don’t see how the riots would have been as bad if an indictment was granted. Of course there are some criminals that are going to burn and destroy shit regardless, but that’s not the fault of the peaceful protesters. (Of course, there have been riots from sports fans after their favorite teams WON, so anything’s possible.)
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/11/white-people-rioting-for-no-reason.html
Pie: “There are several ways to interpret the FBI statistics Chris cites (well, sort of cites, using a disreputable and discredited source) that have nothing to do with racism, but don’t expect our local Soros whore to acknowledge them.”
Accept for, you know, the parts where I explicitly acknowledged the reasons that have nothing to do with racism.
Again, it would be helpful if you learned to read.
As a side note, I’ve seen a lot of criticism and dismissal of Media Matters on this site, but I’ve never seen anyone point to any actual inaccuracies they are guilty of. When I point out that a source is discredited, I explain their history of lies and inaccuracies to explain why. Here the commenters seem content just to make baseless accusations. Media Matters is heavily biased and I sometimes disagree with their interpretation of stories, but I think most of the anger conservatives direct toward the site is simply motivated by the fact that Media Matters is so good at pointing out the right-wing media’s own lies.
Peggy, thanks for the informative reply. I personally have not made up my mind about charter schools, my only point is that there is a legitimate debate there and President Obama’s actions don’t indicate that he is purposefully sabotaging kids’ education for political purposes. Nor do I think conservatives in favor of charter schools are doing so.
Chris: “That doesn’t justify using the grand jury process as a de facto trial, nor does it justify the fact that this only seems to be done for police officers and rarely to never for the general public.”
It wasn’t a “de facto trial” simply because a few on the left wish to characterize it that way.
As for “this being done” only for police officers goes, what evidence do you have to prove this very broad assertion?
How many times has a case included mass protests, investigation and condemnation prior to disclosure of evidence, and the leaders of our nation insinuating racial implication based on a belief system and without real cause? This police officer was not being treated fairly or according to the law. I think the exception in his case was well warranted. It is imperative that we clearly uphold innocent until PROVEN guilty; radical militant activists, led by militant political leaders and activists, were in the process of undermining that basic premise of our justice system.
” why would it not lead to better attitudes? If Brown had actually said this, the outcome might be different.”
So I guess this means you believe the motto has been adopted as a teaching tool to help young people rather than a sarcastic militant call to resist police authority, protest and loot, and affirm racial justification for it? Interesting.
“President Obama had acknowledge Chicago violence and violence within the minority community numerous times. Numerous leaders on the left have denounced the violence. Stop making strawman arguments.”
Pathetic! A few statements pale in comparison. Know them by their works! This administration ONLY inserts itself dramatically when they believe they can create animosity and division and shore up the notion that blacks and minorities have continuing justified grievances against the white citizens of this country. It is not a straw man argument; it is key to understanding what is actually motivating Holder, Obama, the Black Caucus, militant activists and organization. It is also key to understanding what is actually going on in these cases.
“The police said there was no indication that ethnicity was a motivating factor.”
The police, as far as I’ve read, said there was no indication that he was targeted because he was Bosnian, a big difference.
“Funny how that’s good enough for you whenever a minority is the victim, but never when a white man is the victim.”
A stupid, unsubstantiated opinion! I am four square behind equal treatment under the law. Militant left activists have purposely attempted to distort facts and change how the law should be applied. My purpose in asking the question is to point out the insanity, not to mention the danger, in pursuing such an agenda!
Remember when a mostly white crowd of students at Penn State rioted over the firing of child molester Joe Paterno? That was fun.
Pie I didn’t see the Sunday show on Fox but did see Giulianni on the Fox Business channel. His remarks were particularly apropos since his policies as mayor of NY in cleaning up crime was incredibly effective. All New Yorkers benefitted.
Minister Jonathan Gentry speaks out against Holder and Sharpton.
http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/your-world-cavuto/index.html#/v/3920038246001
I wish he was meeting with Obama instead of Sharpton.
Jack it looks like the militants were trotted out to become a new platform on which the president can stand. The left does not problem solve; they are agenda driven. Obama’s approval is in the toilet and his record is terrible. He needs something to distract from the many failures of his administration and what better than a race war, the old standby. Unfortunately for him and the greedy militant race baiters, I don’t think the appeal holds the weight it once did. There is overwhelming evidence that black people have the same opportunities as any other Americans and if there is a problem it exists in portions of the black community itself and the leftist organizations (Including the teachers unions) that continue to perpetrate lies and policies that fail not only poor black children but poor children of all races. Americans of all races are saying enough race baiting politics. The real civil rights movement worked; time to declare victory and move on.
Regarding Chris’s concerns about some officers being poorly trained and having an aggressive, militaristic mentality I’d say if it’s true then local communities need to deal with it. However, given what cops have to deal with today, criminals with very aggressive, militaristic and threatening attitudes, may be justified in using these tactics in some cases. Is that opinion off base?
Chris is clueless when it comes to knowing anything about law enforcement. I mention the following only for the sake of establishing my expertise on this particular subject: I am a regional vice-president for the Internal Police Association which is world wide as the name implies and in every state in America.
We have mostly retired members and I get a chance to BS with many senior retired officers from all over, NYPD, Paris, Berlin, LAPD, etc. Here’s how it shakes out. There are fewer bad apples today in US law enforcement than in any other occupation…period.
The background investigations before hiring, the psyche testing, aptitude testing and training is tough and the schooling has never been better. This is why the number of law enforcement shootings is well within acceptable limits when considering armed and deadly assaults on the police, who 99% of the time respond just as they are supposed too.
It is a false narrative that police are trigger happy and black men have a right to be afraid of the police. Totally false. Many officers will retire having never fired their weapon. In fact that represents the majority of them. They go above and beyond in terms of lethal restraint and professional conduct on a daily basis, but you never hear about that because its not news.
Thousands of times every day across America police use restraint and a minimum of force to effect an arrest, but once in awhile, it is necessary to use deadly force to protect themselves or innocent people. When they do they do it right over 99% of the time.
As a uniformed officer and a police detective for many, many years…I’ve been in hundreds of fights with people because they resisted arrest… drugs, drunk, angry or just plain crazy, and I’ve never shot one of them and never killed anyone either. Probably could have, several times, but I didn’t. I’m not an unusual case, this is normal.
ANYBODY who thinks they have more reason to be afraid of the police than criminals is too stupid to be reasoned with. They’re telling the world how stupid they are when they make those kind of asinine statements.
Statistics are out here, anybody that can read can look at them, it’s not a secret. They tell the story…and it’s not hard to figure out. But, that doesn’t seem to stop some lazy people from talking out their A55 about stuff they no absolutely nothing about and won’t take the time to do some research. They are content to spout garbage, incite others and run down the police. They are typically people who break the law too…sure they hate cops, because cops bust them and send them to jail! I wonder how many of those fools in Ferguson that were inciting people had a criminal record? My guess is probably 98% of them.
Boy howdy! Chris is really laying it on thick. He even used the term “de facto”! (A favorite member of the vocabulary list for radical left cognizanti.)
Chris certainly must be a rising star amongst the de facto twits he gets his de facto marching orders from.
But the de facto is, he and his comrades are full of it.
Tina: “It wasn’t a “de facto trial” simply because a few on the left wish to characterize it that way.”
What is with everyone’s reading comprehension today? Again, I initially heard this charge from a friend on the right. Prior to that I publicly disagreed with the left by saying that protesting the verdict was wrong. I posted this on my Facebook page despite that most of my friends are lefties who were more sympathetic to the protesters than I was. It is disingenuous to act as if I am expressing these concerns simply because the left tells me I have to–especially when you are refusing to engage with the evidence I’ve provided which indicates that the grand jury was handled much like a criminal trial, in which the accused was allowed to testify and exculpatory evidence was presented, two extremely rare circumstances for a grand jury. No one has argued against this actual evidence–you’re simply dismissing the charges without a thought.
“How many times has a case included mass protests, investigation and condemnation prior to disclosure of evidence, and the leaders of our nation insinuating racial implication based on a belief system and without real cause? This police officer was not being treated fairly or according to the law.”
This makes no sense. There is no law that prevents people from protesting, or prevents government officials from expressing their opinions on a pending case. I agree with you that Wilson’s treatment in the media has been unfair, and many protesters were and remain wrong to act as if he is obviously guilty, when the situation is much more complex than that. But to say he was not treated according to the law is simply wrong. If anything, he was given preferential treatment by being allowed to testify at the grand jury (not a trial) and have exculpatory evidence presented. As Scalia wrote about another case, this is very rare and no suspect has a right to this at a grand jury.
“So I guess this means you believe the motto has been adopted as a teaching tool to help young people”
Yes, though again, I disapprove because I don’t think the motto matches the facts of what happened that night.
“rather than a sarcastic militant call to resist police authority,”
In what way is putting one’s hands up and shouting “Don’t shoot” resisting police authority? That’s a clear sign of surrender. (Again: I don’t think Michael Brown actually did this, and I think the officer’s story mostly holds up. But what you’re saying about this motto doesn’t make any sense.)
“protest and loot,”
No one needs a justification; that’s a civil right. Sometimes it is exercised in stupid ways, by people from both parties.
No one of any importance has used this as a justification to loot. The looters are criminals and opportunists who are using legitimate grievances as an excuse to steal.
“Pathetic! A few statements pale in comparison. Know them by their works!”
So you criticize Obama for not talking about black-on-black violence, and then when you find out that he does talk about black-on-black violence, you don’t admit you were wrong; you claim that he doesn’t actually care. Got it. Your critiques are not intellectually honest and you are not arguing in good faith.
“This administration ONLY inserts itself dramatically when they believe they can create animosity and division”
Blaming Obama for animosity and division between the police and the black community is effing ridiculous. That animosity already exists. Acknowledging that it exists and offering solutions–to both sides, as Obama has–is not creating animosity and division. It is acknowledging facts, and trying to solve the problem. You may disagree with the solutions. But this cartoonish notion of Obama as a sinister madman bent on destroying America from within amounts to nothing more than the paranoid delusions of a simpleton.
“The real civil rights movement worked; time to declare victory and move on.”
Thank you, white lady, for being the arbiter of when blacks have achieved equality. Without you telling them, how would they ever know? It’s not like they’re better at determining such things than you are.
“Regarding Chris’s concerns about some officers being poorly trained and having an aggressive, militaristic mentality I’d say if it’s true then local communities need to deal with it. However, given what cops have to deal with today, criminals with very aggressive, militaristic and threatening attitudes, may be justified in using these tactics in some cases. Is that opinion off base?”
Your complete lack of empathy for the dead 12-year-old is noted.
Sorry, the above should say:
No one needs a justification to protest; that’s a civil right.
Obviously, as I said afterwards, there is no justification for looting, and none has been presented by anyone in a position of power.
Missed this: “As for “this being done” only for police officers goes, what evidence do you have to prove this very broad assertion?”
I provided this evidence in Comment #21.
When dealing with violent and destructive riots like those over Ferguson, the police should not be be aggressive, militaristic, and threatening? If they should not then they might as well walk away and let the barbarians burn it down.
Come to think of it, isn’t that effectively what happened in more than a few cities where violence over Ferguson took place? People were injured and killed, stores looted and burned, property destroyed. The left must be preening itself over its power to intimidate police forces and subdue them into taking measures less than a full on aggressive, militaristic, and threatening response policy to protect lives and property. Ours is a world gone mad and handed over to mad dogs. Thank you radical left. You whine, shudder, and puff with outrage at the thought of an aggressive, threatening, militaristic response to riot violence yet remain wonderfully taciturn when it comes to the riot violence itself.
These smug bastards suggest aggressive police response FUELS riot violence. What a load.
Pie, you’re exactly right, no nonsense law enforcement breeds respect and order. There are far too many in our country that have no respect for the law and no fear of cops and the courts. They know they’ll just get a little time and back out in nothing flat. Time in the joint gives them street creds and when they go in, they just reconnect with old friends and relatives.
But, what if some day our prisons were too full and we couldn’t afford to keep them and we couldn’t risk releasing them? That’s the day we start ending generations of criminals breeding more criminals.
Thank you for your service in blue Jack.
Side note: Chris is an idiot. (Yep, I know, that is a broad assertion, but he provides plenty of evidence.)
Thanks Pie, it was my pleasure.
Chris: “This makes no sense. There is no law that prevents people from protesting, or prevents government officials from expressing their opinions on a pending case.”
A. I didn’t assert either of these things. Protesting that includes death threats and promises that a “wrong” outcome will result in burning the town to the ground are not civil protest. And government officials didn’t just express an opinion; government officials encouraged and promoted the politicization of the case. A grand jury was made necessary, at least in part, because of this.
But to say he was not treated according to the law is simply wrong. If anything, he was given preferential treatment by being allowed to testify at the grand jury (not a trial) and have exculpatory evidence presented.”
I didn’t say he “was not treated according to the law.” I also said nothing about “preferential treatment. I addressed the jury the information they decided they wanted to have.
The law says the accused has no right to be heard or defended. It does not say his testimony cannot be heard …there’s a difference. He had no lawyer; he was not defended. The accusation that he was is part of the politicization process.
“In what way is putting one’s hands up and shouting “Don’t shoot” resisting police authority? That’s a clear sign of surrender.”
As a motto it serves the purpose of reminding the masses of the militant assertion that Brown DID have his hands up and the cop shot him in cold blood. Chris you seem to be incredibly naive about the radicals (New Black Panthers, Muslim Brotherhood, their incognito political speakers) that arrange these protests. Once again I suggest David Horowitz book Radical Son. When I use the word militant it’s for a reason.
“No one needs a justification; that’s a civil right. Sometimes it is exercised in stupid ways, by people from both parties.”
“No one of any importance has used this as a justification to loot.”
No one of importance has done much to discourage or condemn it either. And please don’t tell me the President said people shouldn’t do this; I heard what he said. His record of inciting this behavior by speaking too soon, by condemning the police before the facts are known, his record of indifference to black on black criminal behavior and the knock out game, stand in contrast and far outweighs a soundbite or two.
“Blaming Obama for animosity and division between the police and the black community is effing ridiculous.”
Your opinion that that is the crux of my position is ridiculous.
It is also ridiculous that you have a problem holding Obama to account by any measure when he and Eric Holder have inserted themselves to make this a political issue!
“this cartoonish notion of Obama as a sinister madman bent on destroying America from within amounts to nothing more than the paranoid delusions of a simpleton.”
Please tell me what Obama has done to deserve anything other conclusion. Look at what he has done not at what he has said. His promises have not been kept, his polices have destroyed the economy for all but the rich, his politicization of incidents like Ferguson and his divisive class and race rhetoric are destroying America! He is fulfilling one promise…the fundamental transformation of America. Calling me names and taking an arrogant superior attitude is not persuasive!
“Thank you, white lady, for being the arbiter of when blacks have achieved equality”
Please name one thing that blacks are not allowed to do or have in America today.
And if your PC instruction is of any use whatsoever isn’t calling me “white lady” a bit racist or bigoted? Are you not a giant hypocrite!
“Your complete lack of empathy for the dead 12-year-old is noted.”
Putting words in my mouth, deciding what is in my head is a problem you seem unable to overcome. Please explain how the criminal element in the black community are all a bunch of 12 year old innocents that have not been using militaristic style methods in their dealings with the cops! In fact maybe you need to arrange a drive along in the city of Stockton sometime so you can get perspective beyond the PC civil rights classroom. Or, how ’bout you read this as a start to newly found empathy for the police officer ON THE STREET!
Add to that the newly invigorated sense of “entitlement to resist” and you have a recipe for death for civilians. It is NEVER a good idea to resist police enforcement and it is insanity to defend those who do for political gain.
Michael Brown was asked not to walk in the street by this officer and his response was to attack the officer. That is NOT a sane response and yet the protests give justification to his response. Your inability to see this is a problem.
Here’s the number Jack. The statistics came from a fatal injury database maintained by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Bill O’Reilly to Tavis Smiley: Many more whites killed by cops than blacks:
“If one listens to the so-called “mainstream media” and the rhetoric coming from Ferguson activists, one would get the impression that cops across America are doing nothing but killing black people by the millions. But, Bill O’Reilly told Tavis Smiley Wednesday, the number of whites killed by cops in one year is nearly three times that of blacks.
The two men clashed in a debate after a grand jury decided not to indict the police officer who killed Eric Garner with a chokehold. Both agreed Garner’s death was unfortunate, but took different positions on the claims that police are killing blacks at an alarming rate.
“There is no respect for the humanity and the dignity for black life in this country,” Smiley said after listing several black victims of police. That’s when O’Reilly mentioned the statistic.
“Do you know how many blacks were killed by police by gunfire last year?” O’Reilly asked. Smiley said he did not.
“The number is 123,” O’Reilly answered. “Do you know how many whites were killed? 326.”
“There are 43 million-plus black Americans — 123 were killed by police gunfire,” he added. “There isn’t an epidemic of this. … But when it happens it’s extremely troubling.”
The statistics, CNN explained, came from a fatal injury database maintained by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The database form allows visitors to search for results based on various criteria. “In the 15-19 age range,” CNN said, “the database shows 20 white people killed in 2012 and 14 blacks.”
The statistic flies in the face of another report that claims young blacks are 21 times more likely to be shot and killed by cops than whites. That number, CNN explained, came from syndicated columnist Nicholas Kristof, who cited a ProPublica study. The problem, CNN said, is that the statistics come from two completely different sets of data and the data covered different time frames.
“The 1,217 deadly police shootings from 2010 to 2012 captured in the federal data show that blacks, age 15 to 19, were killed at a rate of 31.17 per million, while just 1.47 per million white males in that age range died at the hands of police,” the ProPublica study said. ProPublica, CNN explained, “narrowed the scope of its analysis to the 15-to-19 age range, and adjusted for population differences to account for the fact that more whites live in the United States than blacks — both key differences from O’Reilly’s approach.” But those weren’t the only statistics O’Reilly has used.
“In the past 50 years, the rate of black Americans killed by police has dropped 70 percent,” he said Tuesday. “In 2013, blacks committed 5,375 murders in America; whites committed 4,396. Whites comprise 63 percent of the population; blacks 13 percent.”
“So, anyone — anyone thinking clearly can see that the homicide rate among blacks way out of proportion thus, the police intrusion into black precincts,” he added. “Since, in a whopping 90 percent of black homicides, the dead person is another black or the offender himself.”
Unfortunately, it seems that liberal activists are willing to simply ignore the statistics in order to advance their agenda. Smiley, for example, admitted there are more whites than blacks, but continued to claim that it’s “open season, hunting season” on blacks even after O’Reilly gave him the statistics.”
http://www.examiner.com/article/bill-o-reilly-to-tavis-smiley-many-more-whites-killed-by-cops-than-blacks
Also, anyone else notice a lot of the signs at the NY protests have SEIU printed on the bottom? Coordinated, organized and probably being carried by paid individuals. More community organizing stirring up unrest instead of people protesting for what they believe in.
Re: Chris at #43
The “evidence” illustrates that police officers are well trained professionals who do their jobs. The evidence only becomes sinister if you expect that police officers should be found guilty by statistics.
This is the same type of “logic” that maintains there are too many black men behind bars. It isn’t because they commit a disproportionate amount of crime. The high percentage must mean that the police target them unfairly.
Tina: “The law says the accused has no right to be heard or defended. It does not say his testimony cannot be heard …there’s a difference. He had no lawyer; he was not defended. The accusation that he was is part of the politicization process.”
Also, what Wilson said on the stand before the grand jury could/would have been used against him if the decision had come back to go to trial. He took a big chance of testifying.
Pie at #44…Excellent! We can’t say this enough.
Too many of our citizens today see citizenship as a right without the necessary attendant responsibility. We lose our civility and move into chaos and tyranny when people refuse to be responsible and hold others to high standards of civility.
Peggy, citing Bill O’Reilley:
Thanks for sharing! Smiley’s angry retort that it’s, “open season, hunting season” on blacks is the radical political narrative being pushed by the minority rights cottage industry and the facts be damned. The radical left’s agenda requires that blacks feel oppressed and targeted by whites. Black outrage is being ginned up by fabricated slogans like this. It is profoundly morally repugnant and damaging.
This is sick and it needs to stop!
Tina: “I didn’t say he “was not treated according to the law.”
Yes, you did. You said those exact words.
From Comment #35:
“This police officer was not being treated fairly or according to the law”
You can’t even keep track of your own words.
“The law says the accused has no right to be heard or defended. It does not say his testimony cannot be heard …there’s a difference.”
Yes, I already said that. Again, my point was that most people do NOT get this treatment.
“He had no lawyer; he was not defended. The accusation that he was is part of the politicization process.”
Except that the prosecutor essentially spoke on behalf of his defense in his instructions to the jury:
“And you must find probable cause to believe that Darren Wilson did not act in lawful self-defense and you must find probable cause to believe that Darren Wilson did not use lawful force in making an arrest. If you find those things, which is kind of like finding a negative, you cannot return an indictment on anything or true bill unless you find both of those things. Because both are complete defenses to any offense and they both have been raised in his, in the evidence.”
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/11/justice-scalia-explains-why-the-ferguson-grand-jury-was-completely-wrong/
Does that sound like an aggressive prosecution to you? Or does it sound like he is stacking the deck in Wilson’s defense?
Again, it has never been understood to be the job of a grand jury to consider evidence favorable to the suspect. That is the job of the jury in a criminal trial.
“As a motto it serves the purpose of reminding the masses of the militant assertion that Brown DID have his hands up and the cop shot him in cold blood.”
Yes, and I’ve already said that’s wrong. I disagree with the motto for different reasons than you initially expressed.
(It’s important to note that many witness said he did have his hands up, though some said his hands were balled into fists as if he were about to attack; others said they didn’t see him raise his hands at all. Eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable; the contradictions are likely due more to the failures of memory under stress than deliberate lying.)
“Chris you seem to be incredibly naive about the radicals (New Black Panthers, Muslim Brotherhood, their incognito political speakers) that arrange these protests.”
Wait. So now the Muslim Brotherhood is involved? Yeah, that doesn’t sound paranoid at all…
“Once again I suggest David Horowitz book Radical Son.”
David Horowitz is an absolutely terrible source. You are extremely bad at telling the reliability of a source, as noted by your previous record of citing of actual hate groups to prove racism against blacks is not a problem in America.
“No one of importance has done much to discourage or condemn it either.”
This is a lie, and you know it.
“And please don’t tell me the President said people shouldn’t do this”
I will tell you, because it completely contradicts the lie you just told. It wouldn’t matter to you how early or how often Obama called for peace and condemned the riots, you would still accuse him of sending secret messages of hate with his magical black people mind control powers.
“his record of indifference to black on black criminal behavior”
Again, if you ignore all the times he has commented on black on black crime, this makes perfect sense. But there is no reason for any rational person to ignore all of those times.
“and the knock out game,”
Obama has absolutely no reason to comment on your paranoid hobby horses.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2013/11/25/why_the_knockout_game_trend_is_a_myth.html
Me: “this cartoonish notion of Obama as a sinister madman bent on destroying America from within amounts to nothing more than the paranoid delusions of a simpleton.”
Tina: “Please tell me what Obama has done to deserve anything other conclusion.”
You are completely crazy.
“Calling me names and taking an arrogant superior attitude is not persuasive!”
Well…have you tried medication? That can be quite persuasive.
“And if your PC instruction is of any use whatsoever isn’t calling me “white lady” a bit racist or bigoted?”
No, it is not. And your continued attempts to appropriate the language of oppression for your own ends, to act as if whites are racially oppressed in this country (which is practically the GOP platform at this point), are pathetic.
Me: “Your complete lack of empathy for the dead 12-year-old is noted.”
“Putting words in my mouth, deciding what is in my head is a problem you seem unable to overcome. Please explain how the criminal element in the black community are all a bunch of 12 year old innocents that have not been using militaristic style methods in their dealings with the cops!”
Dafuq are you talking about? I never said any such thing. I brought up the case of Tamir Rice, an actual 12 year old boy killed instantly by an officer for holding a toy gun at a playground. Your immediate reaction was to express empathy for police officers rather than the dead child. That is shocking and monstrous. You cannot blame me for your horrific reaction to that news.
Here’s another Bill O’Reilly show worth watch. Giuliani explains how he dealt with Sharpton and how he saved thousands of lives in the minority community by turning the NY city from the crime capital to the safest large city in America. Just look at what he did for Time Square.
Giuliani: What Has Sharpton Done for Black Community?
http://insider.foxnews.com/2014/12/04/ex-mayor-giuliani-talks-policing-america-oreilly-factor
Not a big O’Reilly fan, but sure like what Giuliani did for NYC.
Re: #46 Post Scripts
I have never served in law enforcement. However, as I have mentioned here previously, for a time Jack and I served in the same unit when we wore our respective military uniforms. He is a man who speaks the truth. When it comes to law enforcement, he has been there, done that, and has the scars to prove it.
To his remarks I would also add that cops are real people. Just like everybody else? No. For the most part, they are a cut above. They have to be to make the “cut” to pin on that badge, and to do the job they do.
I have had the good fortune to observe just what it takes to become a Police Officer—earning a Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice, graduating from the department academy, and finally becoming a patrol officer. Am I bragging? Yeah, just a little. I’m a dad. Sue me.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2736070/Operation-photo-bomb-Pair-duty-police-officers-strike-dramatic-poses-background-family-photo.html
Officer Thompson is my daughter.
Thanks Peggy and thanks to brother in arms RHT, I hope your daughter is doing well, is she with the city or county? I wish her much success.
Re #57 RHT447:
HAH! Thanks, I needed that! Love it! The very best to you and yours. You should be proud and have well earned bragging rights.
Re #55 Chris :
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Go blow it out your ear you weak, specious, whining, word twisting, horrid little boy.
“At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child — miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless. Liberalism is a philosophy of sniveling brats.”
P.J. O’Rourke
Sad to say we are.
20 Signs You Are Living in a Progressive Utopia:
“It can be said that progressivism at its core seeks to turn the world upside down.
It is an ideology and a tactic of modern-day Sophists who seek to replace facts with narrative, justice with injustice, morality with immorality and virtue with vice — but it does so with a smile on its face.
Consequently, in order to identify whether one is in fact living in a progressive Utopia, one merely needs to identify instances in one’s society, economy and political system, themselves a natural outgrowth of the culture (itself an outgrowth of the ideas that a people has imbibed), in which facts, logic and history have been shoved aside in favor of the whims of the wise collective.
Here are 20 signs that you might be living in such a blissful place:”
Click on link to see list.
http://www.theblaze.com/contributions/20-signs-you-are-living-in-a-progressive-utopia/
Chris: Yes, you did. You said those exact words.
My exact words in context reveal the intent behind my words:
Most shooting by police officers DO NOT include the above highlighted elements which I believe represent a concerted effort to undermine not only the laws and procedures normally used in these cases, but the rights of the officer as well!
“Does that sound like an aggressive prosecution to you?
His job was not to “aggressively prosecute;” this was NOT a court trial!!!
His job was to instruct the panel as to the standard that must be met in order to send the case to trial which is exactly what that paragraph does!
The rest of your comment is filled with arrogance and condescension unworthy of my time. This may come as a shock, but you are not the center of the universe and your thoughts are not the only thoughts of interest on any point or issue.
See sock puppet segment of “Pitch Perfect” for my closing statement.
Peggy that’s some list! I’d post to front page but I don’t have enough time to do it justice with the links added…also my home connection is in and out, grrrr, so the weekend time is up in the air at this point.
I hope all of our readers will take a look.