Ferguson, MO Shooting

[Downtown Shocker Brown]

I think first is to revisit FCC regulations on the ability to provide the public information. Right now one company can own up to 39% of the population. While I don't know how the current breakdown is, you will continue to see smaller companies sell out. You will get to 3 or 4 controlling companies. While I am a true believer in free market, the ability to control information and lie and manipulate the truth creates an issue for me. It is the reason you cannot yell fire in a crowded theater.

Also, increasing online propaganda is an issue. Free speech is something that must be protected, however Slander and Libel laws need to be updated to be able prosecute those who create patterns of mis-truth to push an agenda.

And finally, throwing money at problems, penalizing school districts, and rewarding teachers without accountability must stop. If schools were able to hold their teachers to a higher standard, and reward those who hit it with bonuses and extra incentives, I believe you would get better teachers at lower income schools due to the opportunity to make a difference and be rewarded for their performance. This is another instance of government having too much power over a situation. We know, as proven with Obamacare, The VA, and basically every government program out there, that the government is not capable of running schools. So maybe the answer is to look to private enterprise and develop a system that rewarded them for high performance and penalized them for under performance. You must increase knowledge and opportunity to make a change.

Most of these are unlikely, as the government giving up status quo will never go away. And as long as Reps and Senators get paid an obscene amount of money yearly, which they control, and they get it FOREVER, there is no incentive to change it.

[shock]

Yes. There are thoughts that there was too much evidence presented by the prosecutor. Would be interested to see what some of our law experts on this board think about that.

[Kung Wu]

They need to make a new sequel called "Escape from Ferguson"! I can't WAIT to see the return of Snake Plissken!

[Downtown Shocker Brown]

http://fox2now.com/2014/11/05/police-investigating-assault-felony-robbery-following-fight-among-michael-browns-family/

Nice family. Will be interesting to see how this court case works out.

[jdshock]

Didn't the DOJ provide a lot of assistance in the gathering of the evidence and taking extra steps in oversight to make sure correct procedure was followed?

I understood it the way you did regarding the recovery of evidence and the doj. That's another point of potential concern. Police officers might not want to find evidence against a coworker. My point was about the prosecution's presentation of the evidence. It's easy to get an indictment. That's not to say grand juries never return not true bills, it's just rare. It seems LIKELY to ME that if the prosecutor wanted an indictment he could've gotten one. Reading through the evidence the grand jury had, it seems LIKELY to ME that the prosecutor could have been way more strategic in picking what evidence to submit. All of that makes it seem suspicious. That said, there's certainly an argument to be made this is a more just process than typical. All I'm saying is that the misalignment of incentives and the odd way the prosecutor submitted evidence make me suspicious of whether the prosecutor really wanted an indictment.

[1972Shocker]

If the grand jury could not even satisfy a "probable cause" standard to render any indictment there is very little chance of a successful criminal prosecution where the bar is "beyond a reasonable doubt". The prosecutor probably did not want an indictment because he knew there was no way he could win this as a criminal case. There is no way with all the conflicting accounts and the physical evidence available that a fair jury could meat the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard.

A civil suit is a crapshoot where the standard to rule against the defendant is "more likely than not". How this will go will largely depend on the makeup of the jury selected. I'm not sure who all the Brown family will be suing. No doubt Officer Wilson and the City of Ferguson. Unlikely, they could get much money out of a working stiff like Officer Wilson so they will need to make sure they have a deep pocketed defendant along with Officer Wilson.

And then apparently Obama and Holder are still considering filing Federal Civil Rights violations against Officer Wilson which I assume is also a criminal proceeding.

So the good people of Ferguson may still have to deal with this turmoil for sometime yet. Although there are those are find this situation quite beneficial and lucrative.

[WuDrWu]

Edit: and anyone who thinks that the actions the police officers were taking last night were not a little scary was not in St Louis.

The city of St. Louis and the surrounding cities, the State of Missouri and anyone with a voice has been calling for peace and calm for almost 2 weeks. The police were exceedingly prepared for the worst last night. If I may ask, what would you have done differently?

[AZ Shocker]

So in the future when a "criminal" comes wailing at a police officer to obviously do some harm to the officer...what will police officers do now????? A. - Just take the brutal assault like a man and let the criminal have his way with you? B. - Hold both hands out suggesting to the on-coming assailant that the person should slow down and simply approach the officer calmly where the criminal can gently take the officer's gun from him?. C. - Officer start yelling that he is sooooooo sorry slavery existed a long time ago and beg for forgiveness to the oncoming assailant while handing over his gun? or D. - Run

[Kung Wu]

http://fox2now.com/2014/11/05/police...browns-family/

Nice family. Will be interesting to see how this court case works out.

Good Lord.

[WuDrWu]

A civil suit is a crapshoot where the standard to rule against the defendant is "more likely than not". How this will go will largely depend on the makeup of the jury selected. I'm not sure who all the Brown family will be suing. No doubt Officer Wilson and the City of Ferguson. Unlikely, they could get much money out of a working stiff like Officer Wilson so they will need to make sure they have a deep pocketed defendant along with Officer Wilson.

They'll sue everyone they can name. They'd sue you and me if they could, and they just might. Just one of the huge problems with our legal system. This whole thing has been about the civil suit from day 1. Again, it's clear no crime was committed or could be under Missouri law. This entire charade has been about drumming up sympathy for the eventual civil suit that will either get settled for a massive tax payer sponsored pay day for the Brown "family" and their band of ambulance chasers or some bleeding heart libs in the jury box will ignore the facts and give them something they do not deserve, just like the federal government does every single day. Why wouldn't they sue? It's a way of life for the underclass.

[Play Angry]

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but isn't the officer city police and not a state trooper?

Suing a municipal or county employee is a very different animal from suing a state or federal one. If it's a city police officer, the coffers will be much shallower but easier to penetrate since there is no sovereign immunity.

[WuDrWu]

Good Lord.

This, from the article:

Lesley McSpadden is trying to send a message of peace and is scheduled to speak to the United Nations later this month in Geneva, Switzerland.


Perhaps this is a joke?

Or is this a preview of what we can expect on the telestrator?

[SB Shock]

What can you do? I wish there was a simple answer.

Promote them as Ambassador to Libya, Syria or ISIL?

[SB Shock]

To put the legality of what would have to be done to convict Officer Wilson

http://legalinsurrection.com/2014/11/ferguson-grand-jury-police-officers-account-of-shooting/#more-107338

To make this more than a mere re-packaging of the official transcript, I suggest it might be a useful exercise as you read through Wilson’s narrative to ask yourself whether it meets the required five elements of the law of self-defense. (Strictly speaking, just four of those elements apply, as there is no duty to retreat for a police officer in the performance of his duties.) These four elements, then, are:

• Innocence: Wilson must not have been the unlawful physical aggressor.
• Imminence: Wilson must have been facing a threat that is either about to occur right now, or is in actual progress.
• Proportionality: To be justified in the use of deadly force in self-defense Wilson must have been facing a threat of death or grave bodily harm.
• Reasonableness: Wilson’s perceptions, decisions, and actions must have been those of a reasonable and prudent police officer in the same circumstances, with the same capabilities, possessing the same specialized knowledge, and under the same stresses of an existential fight.

Keep in mind that if Wilson had been indicted, at trial the prosecution would have been required to disprove any one of those elements beyond a reasonable doubt in order to obtain a conviction. As it happened, of course, the fact the the Grand Jury found not even probable cause to indict means that disproving self-defense beyond a reasonable doubt would have been simply impossible on the facts in evidence.

[Kung Wu]

This, from the article:

Lesley McSpadden is trying to send a message of peace and is scheduled to speak to the United Nations later this month in Geneva, Switzerland.


Perhaps this is a joke?

Or is this a preview of what we can expect on the telestrator?

Good Lord, chapter 2.