Thread: Looting After Vigil for Missouri Man

Police arrest 32 in riots over killing of black teen in Missouri
Police arrested 32 people after rioting and looting erupted in Ferguson, Missouri, late on Sunday and spread to neighboring towns in protests that turned violent over the killing of a black teenager by a police officer, officials said on Monday.

Crowds broke the windows of cars and stores, set a building alight and looted shops following a day of demonstrations over the death of Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old shot on Saturday by a Ferguson police officer.

At least two dozen businesses were damaged, St. Louis County Police spokesman Brian Schellman said on Monday. More than 300 police officers, many in riot gear, tried to control the crowd, and one officer was struck by a brick while another hurt his knee while making an arrest, Schellman said.

"The words I heard them use about the scene were 'chaotic," even 'scary,'" Schellman said.

He said the unrest had spread from Ferguson, a largely black St. Louis suburb, to adjacent communities before ending early Monday.

Supporters of the teen had previously said they planned to protest again later on Monday outside the Ferguson police station, but it was unclear if that would still go on, Schellman said.

The 32 people arrested will face charges that could include assault, larceny and burglary, Schellman said.

Police said Brown was shot after a struggle over a gun in a police car. It was not immediately clear why Brown was in the car. At least one shot was fired during the struggle, and then the office fired more shots before leaving the car.

The officer, who was not identified, is a six-year veteran and has been put on administrative leave, St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar told a news conference late Sunday. The officer's race has not been disclosed.

Sunday's protests turned violent after dark, according to news station KMOV-TV, with rioters smashing windows of stores and restaurants and damaging cars.

KMOV-TV footage showed a QuikTrip convenience store set on fire after it was looted. A teenage witness told KMOV, "They destroyed everything."

Mobs rushed out of other stores, including an AutoZone and a Ross Dress for Less, with armfuls of stolen goods, KMOV-TV and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper reported.

Brown's mother told television station KSDK that her son was a "good child getting ready to go to college" and that he was visiting his grandmother when the shooting took place.

The St. Louis County branch of the civil rights group NAACP has said it wants the Federal Bureau of Investigation to look into the killing. The NAACP called a meeting for 6 p.m. (2300 GMT) Monday to discuss the case, according to a spokesman for Murchison Tabernacle C.M.E Church, where it will be held.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has instructed the Justice Department's civil rights division to monitor the case, and the FBI said it is assisting police in the investigation, CNN reported.

Civil rights leader the Rev. Al Sharpton said in a statement Sunday that he had spoken with Brown's grandfather and had agreed to visit St. Louis to help the family.

http://news.msn.com/crime-justice/po...ocid=ansnews11


August 11, 2014
Ferguson riots: Death of unarmed black teen by white cops leads to riots

Ferguson riots followed Michael Brown's death, an unarmed, black St. Louis teenager who was gunned down by white cops. The story, as one might expect, took on an instantaneous racial overtone. African Americans within the St. Louis suburb where Brown was shot have now taken their protests to an aggressive level – looting, burning, smashing storefronts and windows of parked cars, even pilfering goods by the armful.

Reports the USA Today on Aug. 11:

“Police began using tear gas to disperse crowds early Monday morning in suburban St. Louis after multiple stores were vandalized and looted Sunday night. Crowds became unruly at a vigil for an unarmed black man who was shot and killed by police.”

Killed on Saturday in the town of Ferguson was 18-year-old Michael Brown, who was reportedly unarmed and had his hands raised over his head when he was gunned down by a white officer.

USA Today summarized the story as follows: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/n...ting/13856377/

“It began with an altercation involving two men and the officer around noon Saturday, [St. Louis County Police Chief Jon] Belmar said. One of the men pushed the officer into his patrol car, there was a scuffle inside the car over the officer's gun, and the officer fired one shot inside the cruiser. Seconds later, outside the cruiser, he fired several more shots and 18-year-old Michael Brown lay dead.”

A candlelight vigil Sunday night drew a crowd of over a thousand individuals, and the scene took a decidedly violent turn. Angry protestors, taking to the streets to demand answers, shouted: “We want answers” and “No justice, no peace” while a news conference was being conducted. Some men spray painted “RIP Michael” in the middle of the street. Others walked into the St. Louis police station and shouted, with their hands up: “Don’t shoot me!”

Over 60 officers were brought in to quell the riot, including members of the ST. Louis SWAT team. The disturbance lasted into early Monday morning. Tear gas grenades were propelled into the crowds, and over 30 arrests were made.

Brown’s mother Lesley McSpadden, who attended the vigil, said she needs answers, and she wants the officer who killed her son to face the death penalty.

“I would like to see him fired,” McSpadden said. “I would like to see him go to jail with the death penalty. My son just turned 18 and graduated from high school, and he don't bother nobody. They told me how many times my son was shot. Eight.”

The Daily Mail, which carried multiple pictures of Brown and handkerchief-wearing black looters robbing stores, wrote:

“TV footage showed streams of people walking out of a liquor store carrying bottles of alcohol. In some cases protesters were also standing on top of police cars and taunting officers who stood stoic, often in riot gear. Other witnesses reported seeing people vandalize police cars and kick in windows. The footage showed an ATM machine taken from a small market and loaded into a pick up truck. Television footage showed windows busted out of a TV station van.”

Ferguson’s mayor, James Knowles, denounced the riot and crime spree.

“Contributing to the unrest that is going on is not going to help. We're only hurting ourselves, only hurting our community, hurting our neighbors. There's nothing productive from this… We understand people want to vent their frustrations. We understand they want to speak out. We're going to obviously try to urge calm.”

Details surrounding the shooting have not been released, though police have confirmed that Brown was not armed. With the divisive nature of the story, the specifics of the shooting may come out very slowly, if at all. It was not said yet whether the other man with Brown was armed. It’s also unclear if Brown was the man that struggled with the officer inside of the police cruiser.

According to the Daily News, John Gaskin, who serves on both the St Louis County and national boards of directors for the NAACP said, “We're outraged yet again a young African-American man has been killed by law enforcement.”

The Reverend Al Sharpton also weighed in, calling the shooting “very disturbing” and stating that he will meet with the family this week.

Let’s hear from you on this controversial story. One man’s shooting, appeared brought on by some sort of kerfuffle with police, led to his death. Excessive force? Or too soon to say? And why does a community respond in kind by exercising ferocity through violence, unrest and committing crimes?

http://www.examiner.com/article/ferg...to-riots-naacp

‘Loot … and rob them, not your own';
Twitter users advise black people to loot white neighborhoods
http://twitchy.com/2014/08/11/loot-a...neighborhoods/

‘Loot in the White Neighborhoods!’ – Rioters Burn Store, Assault Reporter, Shoot at Police in St. Louis

By Brian Hayes August 11, 2014 in

The mayhem outside St. Louis we reported last night continued late into the morning hours in Ferguson, Missouri, as rioters looted dozens of stores, including a WalMart and Target, damaged or destroyed over 200 cars, including 5 police cruisers, and even burned down a QuikTrip convenience mart.

One official also reported that gunshots were fired at police by some rioters.

Earlier, looters ransacked that QuikMart, along with at least 4 dozen other stores on the main thoroughfare, West Florissant:

“We take anything we want!” Rioters loot a QuikMart before setting it ablaze

The situation had escalated quickly in Ferguson after people began protesting Saturday’s police shooting of the unarmed Michael Brown on Sunday afternoon.

During the rampant looting and vandalism, one local official, Patricia Byrnes, reported that rioters were shooting at police:

Patricia Bynes @Patricialicious

The officers have asked me to stay behind their vehicles. Shots have been fired toward the officers

10:23 PM - 10 Aug 2014

After the fire had been put out, KTVI-TV reporter found what she called a “deeply distrubing” spray painted message on a neighboring store:



Even as the QuikMart burned, local Blacks took to Twitter to express their anger at the rioters. But not for the wanton destruction, which sullied the cause of protest against the police killing of an unarmed teen.

No, these Tweeters were angry only that rioters attacked stores in “Black areas”, instead of White ones. A seemingly endless thread of vile racist Tweets (h/t Twitchy) followed throughout the night, putting several communities on notice:

http://twitter.com/#!/illmatic_kid/s...73187995914242

http://twitter.com/#!/Hii__PoWeR/sta...87597871628288

The Original Man @ItsMeGrizz

Loot in the white neighborhoods guys!!!

I can't get down with niggas ripping up their own neighborhoods

9:59 PM - 10 Aug 2014

Nat Turner @Salute_DeezNutz

Not saying I'm in support of looting but....
Maybe the lesson that has not been taught to White America in peace,
can be taught in fear.

Pound Cake Killa @JP_Izzzz_Me

@Salute_DeezNutz gonna have to loot the white neighborhoods then

10:23 PM - 10 Aug 2014

Madam Nori @JamaicanHoney

Smh they tearing up their own neighborhood instead of terrorizing the white neighborhoods...
loot, burned down and rob them, not your own

10:46 PM - 10 Aug 2014

H. Don Datta @HollowDaGatMan

If you're gonna riot and kill people at least kill WHITE people. Why attack your own people?

10:42 PM - 10 Aug 2014

killa @_FuckMeOnika

The rioters should go into white neighborhoods and burn their buildings.
why destroy your own environment?

11:56 PM - 10 Aug 2014

http://toprightnews.com/?p=5073

Two Businesses in Ferguson Riots Escaped Looting.
Why They Did Should Be a Lesson for Politicians
By Gina Cassini on August 13, 2014

Over the past two nights, dozens of businesses along West Florissant in Ferguson, Missouri were ransacked by rioters, including Target, Dollar General and WalMart, and looted and a QuikTrip was burned down.

Here’s what’s left of the QT:


And here’s what WalMart employees went through:



Hundreds of business owners and employees had to cut and run or hide in terror as waves of rioters arrived.




But not everyone was cowering in fear. At two businesses the owners (and some employees and friends) were standing firm, right outside, ready to take on all comers. Why? Because they were armed to the teeth.

At Riverfront Tattoo, owners Mike Gutierrez ( below left) and Adam Weinstein (third from left) brought AR-15s, body armor and lots of high-capacity magazines (the type Obama wants banned) to guard their store against mayhem:



And rioters passed them right by.

And over at Mally’s Supermarket, had men with concealed 9mm handguns and revolvers, lined up and ready to defend , right on West Florissant:

Ray Downs @RayDowns



These guys are guarding their store in between lots of looting. Some poor dude tried to buy liquor, but it's past 12.

12:12 AM - 11 Aug 2014

And the lesson for politicians, and all Americans (particularly liberal gun-grabbers) is that being armed — and armed to the teeth — is the ONLY defense against a rioting mob. There were police everywhere in Ferguson Sunday night, and not one of those stores were protected against looters. But the two businesses above WERE spared — because they were able to arm themselves.

The lesson should have been learned for good after the 1992 L.A. Riots, when only shop owners in Koreatown were spared because they defended their stores with force of arms:



The right to bear arms must be sacrosanct, but so must be access to unlimited magazine capacity. As Tyler Kee of The Truth About Guns reminds us: http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/201...l-ferguson-mo/

At any point in a discussion with a gun control advocate about the need for magazine capacity restrictions, feature tests, or any other arbitrary restriction, flash the pictures of these riots. Show them what happens when mob mentality takes over. The people in these examples worked hard for the life they have. To deny them the best tools possible to protect it is criminal.

Amen, brother.

http://toprightnews.com/?p=5136

Ferguson Police Chief Releases New Info That Turns Michael Brown Shooting Case On Its Head

Ferguson Chief of Police Tom Jackson has released more information about what happened...
B. Christopher Agee — August 14, 2014


Following a vigil held Sunday for the black teen shot by a Ferguson, Mo., police officer the previous day, widespread violence and looting plagued the city, instigated by those upset by incident.

Since then, without details regarding what precipitated the 18-year-old’s death, numerous sources have attempted to convict the officer – and his department – in the court of public opinion. Reports indicate the New Black Panthers traveled to Ferguson to pass out a list of “demands,” which include identifying the officer responsible and charging him with murder. http://youngcons.com/this-pamphlet-t...ng-ridiculous/


The group also reportedly wants to see “the racial composition of the Ferguson Police Department” more accurately “reflect the racial demographics of the community.”

As Fox News contributor Todd Starnes noted, Barack Obama spoke out on behalf of Brown and his family but “did not release a statement offering sympathy to the police officer who was allegedly attacked” or “to the business owners whose stores were burned and looted.”

Todd Starnes
News Personality · 138,352 Likes ·
August 12 at 4:05pm ·

President Obama releases an official statement offering his "deepest condolences" to the family of Michael Brown - the man who was killed after allegedly attacking a Missouri police officer.

The president called Brown's death "heartbreaking."

He did not release a statement offering sympathy to the police officer who was allegedly attacked.

He did not release a statement offering sympathy to the business owners whose stores were burned and looted.

He did not release a statement offering kind words to the reporters who were attacked by the angry mob.

He has yet to release a statement noting the assassination of Major Gen. Harold Greene either.

He has yet to release a statement about our Marine held prisoner by the Mexicans.

But he has offered his support to individuals like the Harvard professor and Trayvon Martin and now -- Michael Brown.

I'm sensing a pattern...

Additional information came out Wednesday that suggests Brown’s death was anything but a murder. Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson confirmed the still unidentified officer who shot him was serious injured by the teen. http://www.kmov.com/special-coverage...271079471.html

The “side of his face was swollen” after Brown struck him, Jackson confirmed, though he did not offer specifics regarding the officer’s condition.

Police did, however, offer some insight into the events leading up to the shooting. According to reports, Brown was with a friend at an apartment complex when the officer attempted to get out of his cruiser.

The teen reportedly initiated an altercation, pushing the officer back into the vehicle and struggling to retrieve his weapon. A fatal shot was then fired within the car, police confirm.

While some onlookers claim Brown had his hands raised just before he was shot, the confirmation that the officer sustained facial injuries suggests there was, in fact, an altercation prior to the incident that sparked widespread anger in the community.


According to the Associated Press, some in the crowd of hundreds gathered to protest the shooting advocated violence as a solution with chants of “Kill the police.”

Police also confirm a local officer received death threats after he was falsely identified as Brown’s shooter.

Sadly, a NBC analyst doesn’t think the city needs peace; instead, she encourages for outrage and more violence.

Noah Rothman @NoahCRothman

Wow. @LisaBloom says Obama's call for calm in Missouri was wrong.
"We need outrage."
Incitement?

12:19 PM - 13 Aug 2014

http://www.westernjournalism.com/bre...rown-shooting/

Noah Rothman @NoahCRothman

Wow. @LisaBloom says Obama's call for calm in Missouri was wrong.
"We need outrage."
Incitement?

12:19 PM - 13 Aug 2014

The shooting of Michael Brown:
Why it’s time to move beyond condolences
August 13, 2014 at 8:05 am

resident Obama offered his “deepest condolences” to the family and community of Michael Brown, the unarmed black teenager who was shot to death by police Saturday.

“I know the events of the past few days have prompted strong passions, but as details unfold, I urge everyone in Ferguson, Missouri, and across the country, to remember this young man through reflection and understanding,” Obama said.

“We should comfort each other and talk with one another in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds. Along with our prayers, that’s what Michael and his family, and our broader American community, deserve.”

Talk with one another? Prayers? With all due respect, Mr. President, we need more than calm reflection and quiet conversation. We need outrage. We need change.

Our criminal justice system has been crying out for it since well before the shooting of Trayvon Martin (whose killer walks free: what happened to that FBI investigation?). Should we just keep “reflecting” as we add names to the ever-growing list of unarmed black men like Amadou Diallo, Kimani Gray, Kendrec McDade, Timothy Russell, Sean Bell, Oscar Grant, Jonathan Ferrell and so many others killed by cops?

Reams of studies document over and over again what should be our national shame: that our criminal justice system is rife with racial bias. From hugely disproportionate policing in inner city neighborhoods, to who is considered suspicious, to disgusting racial disparities in arrests, convictions, incarceration and beyond.

From start to finish, it’s a major advantage to show up on our streets or in our system with white skin. In judgment calls where a suspect may be held or let go, African Americans are more likely to be detained than whites accused of the same crimes. If arrested, whites are more likely to be permitted to plead down to a lesser crime. When tried and convicted, whites get lighter sentences than blacks for the same crimes.

To take a particularly repulsive example, first-time child offenders, black kids are six times as likely as white kids to be sentenced to prison for identical crimes.

(Rich, white) Wall Street crooks whose criminal actions torpedoed our economy in 2008 walk free. No one’s gone to jail, though megabanks have paid out billions in civil fraud and corruption settlements. Yet police are all over (poor, minority) inner cities, stopping and frisking “suspicious looking” residents – which we all know, and which exhaustive empirical evidence documents, means young black men.

In Ferguson, Missouri, for example, African Americans are far more likely to be subject to traffic stops, far out of proportion to population numbers, even though whites, when stopped, are more likely to be found with contraband. A New York City stop-and-frisk study had the same conclusion: minorities stopped more, whites more likely to be carrying something illegal. Even after police knew this, they continued to stop and hassle mostly young black and Latino men.

“All we ask of America,” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said in his final speech, before he was gunned down by a white shooter, “is be true to what you said on paper.”

We need action to make that a reality. Specifically:

1. Every police car in American should have a dashboard camera recording every incident. If we can afford a $25 billion annual drug enforcement budget for local law enforcement to harass, arrest, prosecute and incarcerate mostly nonviolent drug-users, surely we can afford $60 dashcams in every cruiser so we can see what our tax dollars are paying for in local police activity.

In 2014, we shouldn’t be enduring a 20th century inquiry into what happened in the shooting of Michael Brown, combing through witness accounts of what happened. We should have a video.

2. Every police force in America should reflect the racial diversity of the community it serves. Ferguson, Missouri is 65 percent African American, yet, shamefully, only three of its 53 police officers are black. Residents have complained of police harassment for years.

When 80 percent of white Americans test for moderate or severe implicit racial bias against African Americans, meaning that we walk around with subconscious negative stereotypes against blacks, race matters. Wishing it didn’t is understandable. Ignoring the evidence that it does is inexcusable while young people are being shot to death.

Every police force must also require continuing education in racial and cultural sensitivity. This isn’t a Kumbaya, feel-good measure. Understanding that black skin does not equate with criminality saves innocent lives. Good programs are working in pilot cities. Expand them, now.

3. Rethink “broken windows” policing – targeting offenders for petty infractions – because it has too often become official abuse of the poor. Michael Brown was walking with a young friend on the road, not the sidewalk, so the police got involved. Are you kidding me? I walk in the road nearly daily in my nice Los Angeles suburb (sidewalks are sometimes nonexistent or unwalkable in my neighborhood) and never once has a police officer pulled up. Clearly road-walking is an infraction only for black folks.

Police officers swarm poor neighborhoods across America and virtually ignore the suburbs unless they’re called. The result is that black Americans get arrested for “blocking the sidewalk” – standing in front of their own home – drinking in public, or marijuana possession. Though whites and blacks smoke pot at the same rates, four times as many blacks are arrested for it.

Enough. How many painful stories of police abuse, how many beating, chokehold and shooting videos do we need to wince at before we make a decision to focus police on serious, violent criminals? How much longer can we as a nation accept allowing our armed police officers to demean, smack around and shoot the poor?

4. Transparency, transparency, transparency. When police like those in Ferguson appear to have made a terrible mistake (or worse), being open and honest with the public is the first step in accountability.

Three days after Michael Brown was shot on the street by a police officer, we don’t even know how many bullets were fired, the identity of the officer who shot the teenager, whether Brown was shot in the front, back or both, inside or outside the patrol car, or many other important details.

When the police withhold this information, one must wonder whether they are circling the wagons to protect their own, allowing the shooter to come up with a story that’s consistent with the evidence, or getting their witnesses’ accounts in line. Perhaps they’re not, but it is reasonable to suspect such misbehavior as the facts remain hidden.

Condolences are not enough when we know what needs to be done. If we truly value the lives of all of our children, we’ll go beyond expressions of grief at another tragic loss.

Can we get on with it?

http://nakedlaw.avvo.com/lisa-bloom/...#ixzz3APSDsBgw

Now what? Michael Brown committed a robbery before hand? He is seen grabbing the store clerk by the neck before he was encountered by police? No, frickin way...

http://video.foxnews.com/v/373182509...michael-brown/

Soooo. My theory is that mr. Brown after committing a strong arm robbery is confronted by the officer . Mr. Brown realizes at this point that he will be going to jail and not college .... enter a bad decision on his part... bang.

Teen shot by cop suspect in recent robbery
40 min ago | By DAVID A. LIEB and ALAN SCHER ZAGIER of Associated Press

FERGUSON, Mo. (AP) — A suburban St. Louis police chief on Friday identified the officer whose fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager ignited days of heated protests, and released documents alleging the teen was killed after a robbery in which he was suspected of stealing a $48.99 box of cigars.

Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson released several police reports and documents during a news conference where he also identified the officer involved as Darren Wilson, who has been on administrative leave since he shot 18-year-old Michael Brown on Aug. 9.

Brown and his friend, Dorian Johnson, were suspected of taking a box of cigars from a store in Ferguson that morning, according to police reports. Jackson said Wilson went to the area after a 911 call reporting a "strong-arm" robbery just before noon. He said a dispatcher gave a description of the robbery suspect, and Wilson, who had been assisting on another call, was sent to investigate.


An incident in a store in Ferguson, Missouri August 9, 2014 is seen in these still images taken from a security camera and presented to the media during a news conference by the Ferguson Police Department on August 15, 2014

Wilson, a six-year veteran of the police department, encountered Brown just after 12:01 p.m., with a second officer arriving three minutes later, Jackson said.

Brown's uncle, Bernard Ewing, questioned whether Wilson really believed Brown was a suspect. He noted Johnson's account that the officer told the two young men to get out of the street and onto the sidewalk, and that Brown had his hands up when he was shot. "If he's a robbery suspect, they would have had the lights on," Ewing said. "If you rob somebody, you would tell them, 'Get on the ground' or something, not, 'Get off the sidewalk.'"

"It still doesn't justify shooting him when he puts his hands up," he added. "You still don't shoot him in the face."

A phone message seeking comment from the family's attorney, Benjamin Crump, wasn't immediately returned.

Brown's death has sparked several days of clashes with furious protesters in the city. The mood was quelled on Thursday after the governor turned oversight of the protests over to the state Highway Patrol. State troopers walking side-by-side with thousands of peaceful protesters replaced the image of previous nights: county police in riot gear and armored tanks.

But the police chief's announcement Friday was met with immediate disbelief and anger by several dozen community members who also attended the news conference, which was hastily held at a gas station burned during a night of looting earlier in the week in Ferguson, a town of 21,000 that is nearly 70 percent black and patrolled by a nearly all-white police force

"He stopped the wrong one, bottom line," yelled Tatinisha Wheeler, a nurse's aide who was at the news conference.

A couple dozen protesters began marching around the charred gas station and in the street chanting, "Hands up, don't shoot," and, "What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now!"

Police have said Brown was shot after an officer encountered him and another man on the street during a routine patrol. They say one of the men pushed the officer into his squad car, then physically assaulted him in the vehicle and struggled with the officer over the officer's weapon. At least one shot was fired inside the car before the struggle spilled onto the street, where Brown was shot multiple times, according to police.

Dorian Johnson has told media a different story. He said he and Brown were walking in the street when an officer ordered them onto the sidewalk, then grabbed his friend's neck and tried to pull him into the car before brandishing his weapon and firing. He said Brown started to run and the officer pursued him, firing multiple times.

Tensions in Ferguson boiled over after a candlelight vigil Sunday night, as looters smashed and burned businesses in the neighborhood, where police have repeatedly fired tear gas and smoke bombs.

By Thursday, there was a dramatic shift in the atmosphere after Gov. Jay Nixon assigned protest oversight to Highway Patrol Capt. Ron Johnson, who is black and grew up near Ferguson. He marched alongside protesters, along with other high-ranking brass from the Highway Patrol and the St. Louis County Police Department. "We're here to serve and protect," Johnson said. "We're not here to instill fear."

The streets were filled with music, free food and even laughter. When darkness fell — the point at which previous protests have grown tense — no uniformed officers were in sight outside the burned-out QuikTrip convenience store that had become a flashpoint for standoffs between police and protesters. "All they did was look at us and shoot tear gas," Pedro Smith, who has participated in the nightly protests, said Thursday. "This is totally different. Now we're being treated with respect."

The more tolerant response came as President Barack Obama spoke publicly for the first time about the shooting — and the subsequent violence that shocked the nation and threatened to tear apart Ferguson.

Obama said there was "no excuse" for violence either against the police or by officers against peaceful protesters.

Attorney General Eric Holder has said federal investigators have interviewed witnesses to the shooting.

http://news.msn.com/us/police-teen-s...recent-robbery

These stories are not matching up ....

Brown's uncle, Bernard Ewing, questioned whether Wilson really believed Brown was a suspect. He noted Johnson's account that the officer told the two young men to get out of the street and onto the sidewalk, and that Brown had his hands up when he was shot.
>snip<
"It still doesn't justify shooting him when he puts his hands up," he added. "You still don't shoot him in the face."

Dorian Johnson has told media a different story. He said he and Brown were walking in the street when an officer ordered them onto the sidewalk, then grabbed his friend's neck and tried to pull him into the car before brandishing his weapon and firing. He said Brown started to run and the officer pursued him, firing multiple times.

Police said Brown was shot after a struggle over a gun in a police car. It was not immediately clear why Brown was in the car. At least one shot was fired during the struggle, and then the office fired more shots before leaving the car.

So he was shot in the face - standing on a sidewalk with his hands up .... OR ... he was shot in the back while running away .... OR ... he was shot in the back of a patrol car fighting with an officer for control of the officers weapon - version one... OR ... shot in the back of a patrol car with his hands cuffed behind his back. ????

Images coming from Ferguson, Mo., reveal unfiltered, uncomfortable truths
By Philip Kennicott August 14 at 6:31 PM 

A photograph is never sufficiently proportional to truth. The truth — the full story, the context of things — is too large and complicated to be encompassed by any single image. So from Ferguson, Mo., where daily protests have erupted after Saturday’s police shooting of an unarmed African American teenager, we get only photographic data points.

A man lights a rag in a bottle and prepares to throw a Molotov cocktail; militarized police sit atop armored vehicles, guns drawn and aimed at protestors who have their hands raised. Both are volatile images, and both confirm aspects of the truth: There are provocateurs among the mostly peaceful protestors, and the police have adopted a terrifyingly aggressive posture in relation to the citizens they supposedly serve.

But these images aren’t coming from Egypt or the Gaza Strip or Ukraine. These are our own, homegrown documents of social unrest and they can’t, like images from more distant lands, be kept safely at bay.

The manipulation of photography has become so complex and widespread that images from conflict zones often tend to cancel each other out. Propaganda has trickled down from the state to the D.I.Y. level, and it’s hard to tell the difference between the two.

The resulting frustration, our inability to be certain of the authenticity of the image and the accuracy of the caption, is in many ways a relief: If we can’t be sure whether the bloodied corpse of a dead child was the result of a bomb from Hamas, or the Israeli army, we push it aside, grateful not to have to take a moral position on the conflict. The self-canceling nature of images releases us from the responsibility to think things through.

We don’t have that luxury when it comes to the images out of Ferguson because this is us. These are the cities we have made, the police we have hired and paid to protect us, the social fissures we have allowed to fester, the social inequity we accept as necessary collateral damage from our larger pursuit of prosperity. So we must ask: Do these images really cancel each other out? Does the man with the Molotov cocktail in some mathematical way create a deficit in the social order that requires the compensation of a military confrontation? Are both sides of the equation balanced?

The state was once well served by its near monopoly on the ability to manipulate and control imagery. But today, just the opposite is true. People in authority benefit from our distrust of images because that distrust feeds a seeping, nihilistic detachment, which leads to civic disengagement. We turn away from our responsibility to watch the Watchmen; we tend our own garden.

Police brutality, caught on tape so many times now that it is a wonder more communities haven’t erupted in outrage like Ferguson, can only be dismissed if the citizenry is adept at disbelieving what it sees. The video tape gone viral on Facebook or YouTube, we are told again and again, doesn’t capture the context of the beating, the tasering or the shooting. It must be interpreted by professionals; you can’t believe what you see. We’ll form a task force and get back to you . . . after you’re no longer interested, or angry.

Many of us, children of the Cold War and still keenly aware of the great propaganda regimes of the violent 20th century, have been so well trained, for so long, to disbelieve images that we are at the mercy of our own robust sense of suspicion. To be a sophisticated consumer of images, we became reflexive skeptics; that same reflexive skepticism is the thing that propaganda manipulates.

But where certainty is elusive, common sense is the best defense. Every photograph requires two very different kinds of motion: The photographer moves through the world, quickly looking for images that dramatize and illustrate what he or she thinks is happening; and the world, slowly, over long arcs of time, comes to exist in a way that offers the photographer opportunities and material. One is a rapid motion of searching and selection, the other a near-glacial movement of social and historical forces. The photographer, or the photo editor, or the person who describes the events in an image, may all indulge chicanery and manipulation, but if the world keeps presenting itself, over and over again, in the same way, revealing the same things, that is much more difficult to ignore, dismiss or contextualize away.

Put another way, an image of a man with a Molotov cocktail captures one man with a Molotov cocktail; but multiple images of a phalanx of men in riot gear, deploying tear gas, wielding machine guns, can only exist if disparate and complex social, economic and historical forces have conjoined to produce the events represented therein. The actions of a few angry people are asymmetrical to the existence of sophisticated weapons, the troops and the authority deploying them. These images don’t cancel each other out because it takes a lot more social energy and investment to produce a hostile police force terrorizing its citizens than it does to create a handful of violent protestors co-opting peaceful assembly.

That, at least, is what common sense tells us. But the people of Ferguson are telling us the same thing, too.
“If you can find a single person in this community who trusts the police, that is like finding a four-leafed clover,” Corey Crawford told Washington Post reporters in Ferguson.

It’s also what the details in some of these images are telling us. We have armed and equipped our police like our military, and that equipment is now shaping the men and women who use it. Ferguson is a city of low-slung buildings, with lots of fast food, chain stores and quickie marts, a classic “near-in suburb” that hasn’t benefited from the rejuvenation of the urban core; it is a land of cars, disconnected from the popular light rail line that connects other parts of the larger St. Louis County. That too is likely shaping the larger social context of these events — and may presage a new era in which the suburb is the focal point of social unrest.

And now Ferguson has become a place where the distrust and despair are so deep that no one is afraid of what political animals call “the optics” of the moment. White men with assault rifles are now facing down African Americans, who have discovered and made instantly iconic a new gesture of social resistance — hands held up in the air, in angry, ironic “surrender.” One side seems immune to the shame of playing the role of authoritarian enforcer; the other side angry enough to wear the indignity of surrender as a badge of defiance.

On Thursday, President Obama weighed in, calling for healing. But when it comes to the distrust of authority, he has presided over the enlargement of the problem. The head of the CIA has been caught lying, but hasn’t been punished; the security state has expanded its powers to include pervasive domestic spying, with access to our telephone calls, our e-mails and our online lives. And the rise of what one critic calls “The Warrior Cop” hasn’t slackened since President Obama took office. The detainment of journalists, on Wednesday, by police in Ferguson may seem like just more bad optics in St. Louis County; but a 2013 report by the Committee to Protect Journalists claims the current administration has been one of the most aggressive ever in limiting press access, guarding information, pursuing leaks and whistleblowers, and limiting transparency.

Images from far away may cancel each other out as we seek to evade their meaning. But the images coming out of Ferguson now seem cumulative, their impact escalating, and they don’t seem far away at all but deeply connected to larger national trends. The man with a Molotov cocktail and the military showdown by lethally armed soldiers of the state are both true; taken together, they show us the world we have built, the injustice we have tolerated, the cynicism we have indulged. They show us the most intimate truth: We have come to this.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entert...390_story.html

All the Photos of Ferguson Shooting Victim Mike Brown the Media is Afraid to Show You

At the heart of the controversy over the death of Michael Brown was whether the police’s shooting of the “unarmed young man” was justified or if the policeman used unnecessary and excessive deadly force.

The facts of the Michael Brown case are still disputed, and a social media war over the framing of his image is ongoing (just like with the Trayvon Martin case).

Here are 11 images that show a different picture of Mike Brown, each one separately telling a different “narrative” of what kind of young man he was:

At graduation:



Younger, with a relative:



Brown standing in front of a home:



Another photo of Brown:



More hand signs:



Images can be selectively picked to tell a one-sided narrative about who Mike Brown was – some of them to suit agendas. Brown simply may have been a human being with various aspects to his personality – just like anyone else.

Gateway Pundit claims Michael Brown is flashing gang signs corresponding to allegiance to the “blood” gang. While it may appear that way, it is best to keep an open mind that things may not be like they appear.

Many news media outlets have one-sidedly painted Brown as a “friendly giant” who was days away from beginning college; through image selection, some news media imply that the police were picking on an innocent black teenager, most likely because of his skin color.

The official police report claims the eighteen-year-old was resisting arrest, however, and tried to reach for a sidearm.

What do you see in all of these images of Michael Brown? Was he a thug that could have tried to grab a police officer’s gun and forced him to make a terrible decision to take his life? Or was he a “gentle giant” who loved his family and was gunned down heinously? Or is the truth somewhere in between?

Whatever truth we can ascertain, whatever insight we might gain, we all seek that justice be served.

http://www.ijreview.com/2014/08/1681...im-mike-brown/