Darren Wilson suffered an orbital fracture to the eye socket from Michael Brown

[NumberSix]

I haven't been involved at all in discussing this Ferguson story, but it seems like I can see both sides here from the police and from the African Americans in the community.

Can anyone logically explain the following actions of the police and defend them:

-leaving the kid out for 4 hours after death

-not even bringing an ambulance, but an SUV

-arresting members of the media whilst they're just doing their job i.e. 1st amendment.


I can understand debate about what happened w/ the actual killing of Brown and that the looting/vandalism is incredibly stupid.....but how can the above be defended?

Whether or not the above can be defended is irrelevant. They have no impact on whether the shooting was justified or not.


The problem with the whole "I can see both sides" mentality is that there is an implication that both sides are on equal ground when in reality both sides are inherently unequal.

In a situation like this of very little evidence, both sides are not on equal ground. Guilt and innocence are not equals. In our legal system and society, there is a presumption of innocence until proven guilty. Not a presumption of guilt until proven innocent. A presumption of guilt is not equal to a presumption of innocence. He is innocent of any wrong doing unless otherwise can be proven.

The people who are assuming the officer is guilty don't have an equal position to the people who are assuming he is innocent.

[97 bulls]

Yet, 12 random people agreed with it.

12 random people believed it wasnt murder 2. Which it wasn't. But I do believe it was manslaughter.

Plus, how is it Zimmermans account that Trayvon made it all but home and backtracked?

Adkins being the aggressor, talking out of your ass. Saying Adkins attacked Jude.

He was the aggressor. Unless you feel Jude intentionally tried to hit him. You apparently do. I feel Adkins went way overboard with his reaction. But Jude still shouldn't have shot him.


does that....just

Yet, his word is always flocked too.

Not by black people.

Jude was questioned at the scene & released, as due process was taking place. Without an iota of self defense existing.

Zimmerman was taken in, questioned, & released as due process was taking place with physical injuries existing.

And again, what's your beef with how both stories ended? You.agreed with both outcomes. Was anyone in the black community defending Judes actions?

You can't bring in the conviction for squat, just retarded to do so. And yes, because Zimmerman was a cop as well! And cops have never killed a white man!

Why? Who tells a story and then leaves out the ending? Why bring up the Adkins case anyway? Black people didnt defend Judes actions like

And yes, that explains why ignorant ****s make everything about race!!

By the way, here's an ACTUAL COLD BLOODED murder at the hands of MULTIPLE police officers.





Here's another man, killed in cold blood, by multiple officers

What happened to Kelly Thomas was a travesty.

[NumberSix]

12 random people believed it wasnt murder 2. Which it wasn't. But I do believe it was manslaughter.

This doesn't make any kind of sense.


The difference between murder and manslaughter is intent. It's not like Zimmerman accidentally killed him with illegal actions while only intending to harm him with illegal actions.

The entire case was about whether Zimmerman's actions were illegal or not. Not about the intent of admittedly illegal actions.

If they did charge him with manslaughter, it's still the same problem as to why they can't convict. There is a reasonable possibility of it being self defense.

[dude77]

guess people forgot about the trial .. manslaughter was on the table .. they didn't convict him because of reasonable doubt .. prosecution wasn't able to disprove self defense

[NumberSix]

guess people forgot about the trial .. manslaughter was on the table .. they didn't convict him because of reasonable doubt .. prosecution wasn't able to disprove self defense

This.

Intent is irrelevant because they weren't able to prove that he did anything illegal in the first place.

[kentatm]

Manslaughter ONLY applies to an unlawful killing or a killing as a result of an unlawful act.

Unlawful killing can't possibly apply because there is certainly a reasonable belief that it could have been self defense.

Now, if the justified self defense killing was the result of an unlawful act, then manslaughter can apply.

The problem is, there is no evidence of an unlawful act creating the situation where there possible self defense killing took place. You might think profiling or following is immoral, but it's not illegal.

Had Zimmerman been the one who initiated the physical confrontation, that unlawful act would lead to the killing and manslaughter would apply. There is no evidence that Zimmerman started the physical confrontation. Not to say that he didn't. Maybe he did, but there is no evidence of it.

Now, even if Trayvon did start the physical confrontation, if an unlawful act on Zimmerman's behalf created that situation, manslaughter would apply. Say if, Zimmerman pointed his gun at him or did something threatening to Trayvon. Maybe he did, but there's no evidence.


Long story short, manslaughter would not have been possible. There's just not sufficient evidence. Not to say Zimmerman didn't do anything worthy of a manslaughter conviction. Maybe he did. There's just no way of knowing. For example if he did something to threaten Martin, Zimmerman is the only person who knows that and the rest of us have no way of knowing about it.

IMO negligent manslaughter could apply b/c as a person that took neighborhood watch training courses he was taught to never engage a suspect. By getting out of his car and following the kid (against the 911 ops requests) he exhibited a disregard for his training which directly led to a death. Manslaughter doesn't require you to do something illegal in that regard.

[AlphaWolf24]

To be clear about the imminent danger to yourself or another, there has to be a legitimate articulable threat to an actual person(not abstract society) at least that's the way Ive been taught my whole time in this line of work(approx 7 years)

Based on Texas law(which again is not Missouri law and the laws always vary by state, which is why you have to retake your peace officers test if you transfer to a new state) Wilson would have been justified in shooting brown if brown was actively attempting to take the gun. Whether or not brown had previously attempted to take the gun could make the situation murky as far as how being unarmed effects his threat level.

Every department has a use of force scale. My particular departments is command presence(just be there)
Verbal directives(tell them what to do)
Empty handed control(hands on with no weapons or spray)
Chemical agents(pepper spray)
Non lethal weapons(tasers/batons but again you cant use a taser after you spray)
Deadly force

Generally you are taught to use a one plus level of force but there are times when you are allowed to skip ahead if the situation calls for it. If in Wilson's mind brown was coming to take the gun(and if multiple shots were necessary to get him to stop this is possible) then Wilson's paramount responsibility is to ensure that he does not allow a violent felon to take his weapon and become a greater danger to society. That becomes much more difficult to do if he allows brown to get physically close enough to him to actually be wrestling over the gun at the time of the shots. One other thing about this, you never under any circumstances shoot to wound as a police officer. If deadly force is justified, you shoot to kill if not, you dont need to be shooting. So IMO the shots that hit him in the arms were basically misses.

Anyway that's basically background information but to answer the original question I was trying to answer kevinnyc, if the hypothetical situation is that a subject has assaulted an officer but is attempting to run away and there is not a third party in immediate danger(and again this has to be an actual tangible person, not an abstract figure somewhere in the future) then no, you would not be justified in shooting that person in Texas. However I'm not ready to say that that is for sure what happened. Ill be all for punishing Wilson if it turns out we know he was wrong, I'm just waiting till we know more.

Thanks...

[NumberSix]

IMO negligent manslaughter could apply b/c as a person that took neighborhood watch training courses he was taught to never engage a suspect. By getting out of his car and following the kid (against the 911 ops requests) he exhibited a disregard for his training which directly led to a death. Manslaughter doesn't require you to do something illegal in that regard.

Yes, it does. That's why it's called "criminal negligence". Because it's illegal.

Zimmerman disregarded neighbourhood watch training isn't illegal. You're not legally required to do what the neighbourhood watch training manual says. There's nothing illegal about following a person unless it's on a private property that you're not authorized to be on.

Actions that lead to a justifiable homicide is not manslaughter. Only UNLAWFUL actions the lead to such a situation meets the legal standard for manslaughter.

[KevinNYC]

The difference between murder and manslaughter is intent.

No. It's not. It's the killer's mental state. Murder requires premeditation or malice aforethought

If I find you are sleeping with my wife and I go over to your house and shoot you dead, it's murder.

If I come home and find you in bed with my wife, and in the "heat of passion" I grab my gun and shoot you dead, it's manslaughter. In both cases, I intentionally shot you, but my mental state was different.

Manslaughter also applies in cases of "imperfect self-defense"in most states. They use a model that allows for criminal blame between murder and acquittal on self-defense if you're self defense is unreasonable. It's not ALL or NOTHING. If you use more force than is necessary to defend yourself. For example, if I'm slapping you across the face, you can not shoot me. That is an overreaction and in 75% of States that most likely would in a manslaughter conviction Florida doesn't use this standard That worked to Zimmerman's advantage. Florida is All or Nothing. It also worked to Bernie Goetz's advantange in NYC.

Recall the case of New York "subway vigilante" Bernhard Goetz. On Dec. 22, 1984, Goetz claimed he was surrounded in a subway car by four young African-American men who attempted to rob him. After they asked him for money (they later claimed they were merely panhandling), Mr. Goetz pulled his gun and began firing rapidly as they scattered, hitting each of them at least once.

It might have been enough for Mr. Goetz to simply pull his gun. The display alone might have sent his alleged assailants running. Shooting might not have been necessary. Yet Mr. Goetz reasoned that if he hesitated in shooting, one of the four, all at close quarters, could have grabbed him or his gun, leaving him unable to save himself. This is the kind of situation where a jury is likely to give the defendant the benefit of the doubt and conclude that he "reasonably believed" he needed to shoot.

But that is not the end of this story. After the group scattered in the subway car, all wounded, Mr. Goetz walked over to Darrell Cabey, who was grasping a seat near the conductor's cab and said, according to Mr. Goetz's own statement to police, "You don't look so bad, here's another." Mr. Goetz told police he then shot Mr. Cabey again, leaving him paralyzed and with brain damage. Mr. Goetz was charged with four counts of attempted murder, among other charges.

Could Mr. Goetz have "reasonably believed" that this last shot was necessary to protect him from a person "about to use deadly physical force," as the New York defense required? That seems doubtful. Yet the jury gave Mr. Goetz self-defense, finding him innocent on all four counts of attempted murder and guilty only of carrying an unlicensed weapon in a public place. Why?

New York, like Florida, had adopted the all-or-nothing approach rather than the Model Code's sliding-scale formulation. Thus, to deny Mr. Goetz's claim of self-defense meant the law would treat him the same as someone who simply shot another person out of the blue, without any self-defense context.

The jury faced two bad options: give Mr. Goetz a complete "reasonable" self-defense, which he probably did not deserve, or find him fully liable for the shooting and guilty of attempted murder. Given the choice between allowing a failure of justice and doing an injustice, a jury in such a case will commonly consider the former unattractive but the latter intolerable.

[NumberSix]

No. It's not. It's the killer's mental state. Murder requires premeditation or malice aforethought

If I find you are sleeping with my wife and I go over to your house and shoot you dead, it's murder.

If I come home and find you in bed with my wife, and in the "heat of passion" I grab my gun and shoot you dead, it's manslaughter. In both cases, I intentionally shot you, but my mental state was different.

Manslaughter also applies in cases of "imperfect self-defense"in most states. They use a model that allows for criminal blame between murder and acquittal on self-defense if you're self defense is unreasonable. It's not ALL or NOTHING. If you use more force than is necessary to defend yourself. For example, if I'm slapping you across the face, you can not shoot me. That is an overreaction and in 75% of States that most likely would in a manslaughter conviction Florida doesn't use this standard That worked to Zimmerman's advantage. Florida is All or Nothing. It also worked to Bernie Goetz's advantange in NYC.

Mental state has nothing to do with this case. Intent is the decider between murder and manslaughter in THIS CASE. but that's only if you can prove the killing was unlawful in the first place, which could not be proven.

[SunsN07BookIt]

Damn Ferguson is effed up. Look at the amount of home foreclosures for such a small city. 3 pages:

http://www.zillow.com/homes/make_me_...01_rect/13_zm/


My city has twice as much people with a 50% Latino population and my city has 5*. But I guess they probably blame the banks for this.


*edit. Total, not pages

[MadeFromDust]

Buulshaat. This was done after the murder by the cop's "brothers in blue" as a cover story. These pigs will go through great lengths to get each other off when they've been caught dirty. They told the murderer, you gotta take one for the team, it's for yur own good, then paPOWWWW

[qrich]

12 random people believed it wasnt murder 2. Which it wasn't. But I do believe it was manslaughter.

Plus, how is it Zimmermans account that Trayvon made it all but home and backtracked?

Where did I say it was?

He was the aggressor. Unless you feel Jude intentionally tried to hit him. You apparently do. I feel Adkins went way overboard with his reaction. But Jude still shouldn't have shot him.

does that....just

Trayvon was the aggressor, as he confronted a man keeping an eye on his neighborhood, after backtracking!

Not by black people.

Bullshit. By the majority, it is.

And again, what's your beef with how both stories ended? You.agreed with both outcomes. Was anyone in the black community defending Judes actions?

What do the endings have to do with people being idiots and "protesting" prior to due process taking place?

Are you really that ignorant?

And you are attempting to make Jude look more innocent by saying he didn't do anything to be considered the aggressor.

Why? Who tells a story and then leaves out the ending? Why bring up the Adkins case anyway? Black people didnt defend Judes actions like

And yes, that explains why ignorant ****s make everything about race!!

Are you really this dense, I mean, really?

It's just


What happened to Kelly Thomas was a travesty.[/QUOTE]

[97 bulls]

Where did I say it was?

You keep saying Martin backtracked and attacked Zimmerman. Where are you getting your info?

Trayvon was the aggressor, as he confronted a man keeping an eye on his neighborhood, after backtracking!

You can't possibly be this dumb. Martin has just as much a right to question a man who is following him. Even chasing him. How does that make him the aggressor? Besides. I was referring to Adkins. I said you must feel that Jude intentionally tried to hit Adkins in order to accuse him of being the aggressor.

Bullshit. By the majority, it is.

http://www.democraticunderground.com...ss=102x2111105

When blacks were asked to come up with the person they considered "the most important black leader," 15 percent chose Jackson, a civil rights activist who ran for president in the 1980s, while 11 percent picked Secretary of State Rice, 8 percent chose former Secretary of State Powell, and 6 percent named Obama, a freshman Democratic senator from Chicago.

Combine that with the fact that Sharpton was booed by the African American community in Ferguson. They don't speak or represent us

And you are attempting to make Jude look more innocent by saying he didn't do anything to be considered the aggressor.

My point is who started the confrontation? I dont consider what Jude did initially (almost hitting him comming out of a drive thru) to be a sign of aggression. Because I don't feel he intentionally meant to do it. I can understand Adkins being upset because it sounds like Jude wasnt paying attention. But he went overboard when he began swearing and trying to damage Judes car. But Jude still shouldn't have shot him. And thus deserved to get manslaughter. How is this defending Jude?