St Louis - Shooting - Riots - Anonymous Threats

[seemslikeadream]

^^^^^
thanks!

‘We Finally Got One of Those Animals’: Community Organizer in Ferguson Recounts Arrest
By: Kevin Gosztola Saturday August 23, 2014 11:31 am


Taurean Russell, a black community organizer who was been working to mobilize residents since Michael Brown was gunned down by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson, was arrested earlier in the week. At a press event, he recounted his arrest.

During the evening, Russell had been on multiple mainstream news programs. He had the opportunity to meet rapper Talib Kweli. He decided to explain to Kweli how unlikely it was that Brown could get from the Ferguson Market, where authorities alleged he stole cigars, to Canfield Drive, where Wilson shot him.

Russell said he left the area on West Florissant Avenue, where community has been gathering for nightly demonstrations, and police were following them. And, at some point, police were yelling, “There he goes in the gray shirt! Get him!”

Once he was arrested, according to Russell, he heard the officer say, “We finally got him. We finally got one of those animals and that’s the one we want.”

Russell remembers a young white police officer standing nearby a black county officer. “I was called nigger by a city police officer, a young white guy,” he added. The black county officer just stood by there and didn’t really say anything.
He believes he was targeted for arrest just after he finished a media interview.
“When I came out of an interview, we saw police officers stand directly looking at us. We cross the street and two of them cross the street.”
Russell was taken to the central police station in Clayton, Missouri, which is about a twenty-minute drive from Ferguson. In jail, Russell saw a Turkish photographer, a Canadian journalist, an “undocumented man from Mexico,” a paramedic, a lawyer and even a “rich guy, who wanted to see the protests and how real was racism and what was really going on.”

“My response to him was, did it get real for you yet?”

On the media, he said it was crazy that journalists were being put in jail, but that police were “trying to block the cameras” because a lot of what is happening occurs every day to people like him. And there is “no accountability.” Police lock young black men up, they go missing and family has to try and figure out what happened.

Russell explained that parents have to teach their child “survival skills” to not be killed by police. Or, children can grow up and decide to stand up for themselves and “become Mike Brown.”

“Any response, if he said hello, if he didn’t jump out of the street fast enough—It’s basically like they’re giving [police] a license to kill.”

*More video from the press event to be posted soon.

[82_28]

Thanks for those Brand clips, SLAD. I keep forgetting to check him out on a regular basis. Reminds me of this, which is hilarious:

[seemslikeadream]

The Ferguson riots
Overkill

Police in a Missouri suburb demonstrate how not to quell a riot
Aug 23rd 2014 | FERGUSON | From the print edition
Timekeeper

NEARLY every night, Felicia Pope’s house fills with smoke and tear gas. Her four-month-old granddaughter has no idea why the air stings her throat. Her family feels trapped. But the protests outside over the death of Michael Brown, a local 18-year-old, show no sign of ending.

Ferguson, a suburb of St Louis, Missouri, erupted after Mr Brown, who was black, was shot six times and killed by Darren Wilson, a white policeman, on August 9th. Each day the protests start peacefully, with demonstrators holding their hands in the air and chanting: “Hands up, don’t shoot!” But night after night, they have degenerated into mayhem, with bottles thrown, shops looted and police dishing out tear gas, flash grenades and rubber bullets.

No one knows for sure what happened in the moments before Mr Brown died. The police say he attacked Mr Wilson and tried to seize his gun. Not so, says a friend of Mr Brown’s who was with him at the time: he was shot while trying to surrender.

To begin with, the crowds knew neither the name of the cop who shot him nor much about Mr Brown himself, besides his family’s description of him as a “gentle giant” (he was six feet four). After angry demands for more transparency, the police released Mr Wilson’s name on August 15th. They also released a video showing a man they say was Mr Brown robbing a liquor store minutes before his fatal encounter with Mr Wilson. Mr Brown can be seen shoving and menacing a tiny shop assistant who tries to stop him.

It is unclear whether Mr Wilson knew that Mr Brown was a robbery suspect when he shot him. And the release of the video infuriated the crowds even more. Some dismissed it as a smear; others, as irrelevant. “That is some bullshit,” says Nestlé Webster, a protester. “How does it justify six bullets in him? It’s just wrong.” Soon after the video aired, looters ransacked the store Mr Brown allegedly robbed.

Ferguson is a small community—some 21,000 people live there—with a rapidly changing population. In 1990 it was 75% white; in 2010 it was 67% black. The police force has not adapted: it is 95% white and widely distrusted. The mayor, who is also white, has appeared clueless since Mr Brown’s shooting. He said in a television interview that there was no racial divide in Ferguson. That is not how many black residents see it. Stephan Hampton, for example, recalls that his grandfather was killed by police in 1984. He also remembers the date when the cops first stopped him: “May 26th, 2010”. Mr Webster remembers being stopped on his bicycle when he was 15; he adds: “I can’t count how many times I’ve been stopped since.”

In this context, “it is hard to point to anything that Ferguson police did [since Mr Brown’s shooting] that was not wrong,” says Gene O’Donnell of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. They left Mr Brown’s body on the street for four hours. They withheld the name of the officer who shot him. They confronted peaceful demonstrators and rioters alike with a stunning show of force—armoured cars with snipers on top—and precious little tact. This is despite the appointment of a black state highway patrol officer, Ron Johnson, to co-ordinate state and local law-enforcement agencies in Ferguson.

On August 18th Barack Obama joined a bipartisan chorus of disapproval, saying that America needs to “maintain a distinction between our military and domestic law enforcement”. The Pentagon supplies local police all over America with surplus military kit of the sort seen this week on the streets of Ferguson; Mr Obama vowed “to make sure that what they’re purchasing is stuff that they actually need”.

Before midnight on August 19th clergy in Ferguson led protesters in prayer. Before the crowd could disperse, someone threw a bottle at the police. Within minutes, chaos reigned. The police gave chase. Clergy made a human chain between the police and the protesters. Journalists, including your correspondent, were ordered into a “designated media area”. Protesters took refuge in their midst.

Eric Holder, the attorney-general, arrived in Ferguson on August 20th to meet federal investigators. That same day the county prosecutor presented evidence about Mr Brown’s shooting to a grand jury, which could take months to decide whether or not to indict anyone.

There was less violence on August 20th, as the police started to work with clergy and community leaders to defuse tensions. Officials say Ferguson wants to hire more black police and is considering requiring all cops to wear cameras.

The riots have hurt business. “It’s going to kill us,” says Dan McMullen, the owner of Solo Insurance. His windows were broken by looters. He has had only one customer since the shooting, and has laid off most of his staff. If no one is indicted, he worries that things will get worse. “I’ll think I’ll stay home,” he says.

Rioting seldom makes life better for anyone, and the damage can last for years. Looters often make shopkeepers flee permanently to safer towns. Those who remain face less competition and therefore raise prices, making life even harder for residents. Newark and Detroit have never fully recovered from the riots of 1967.


Smug television broadcasts in Russia and China have wildly exaggerated the sickness of which Ferguson is a symptom. But it is real enough. The police in and around Ferguson have shot and killed twice as many people in the past two weeks (Mr Brown plus one other) as the police in Japan, a nation of 127m, have shot and killed in the past six years. Nationwide, America’s police kill roughly one person a day (see chart).

This is not because they are trigger-happy but because they are nervous. The citizens they encounter have perhaps 300m guns between them, so a cop never knows whether the hand in a suspect’s pocket is gripping a Glock. This will not change soon. Even mild gun-controls laws tend to fail. And many Americans will look at the havoc in Ferguson and conclude that it’s time to buy a gun, just in case

[conniption]

The Politics Blog
(embedded links)

The Body in the Street

By Charles P. Pierce
August 22, 2014

View All Comments (201)


Getty Images

..they have built the electric chair and hired the executioner to throw the switch all right we are two nations America our nation has been beaten by strangers who have bought the laws and fenced off the meadows and cut down the woods for pulp and turned our pleasant cities into slums and sweated the wealth out of our people...

-- John Dos Passos, "The Big Money," USA

I keep coming back to what seems to me to be the most inhumane thing of all, the inhumane thing that happened before the rage began to rise, and before the backlash began to build, and before the cameras and television lights, and before the tear gas and the stun grenades and the chants and the prayers. I keep coming back to the one image that was there before the international event began, before it became a television show and a symbol in flames and something beyond what it was in the first place. I keep coming back to one simple moment, one ghastly fact. One image, from which all the other images have flowed.

They left the body in the street.

Dictators leave bodies in the street.

Petty local satraps leave bodies in the street.

Warlords leave bodies in the street.

A police officer shot Michael Brown to death. And they left his body in the street. For four hours. Bodies do not lie in the street for four hours. Not in an advanced society. Bodies lie in the street for four hours in small countries where they have perpetual civil war. Bodies lie in the street for four hours on back roads where people fight over the bare necessities of simple living, where they fight over food and water and small, useless parcels of land. Bodies lie in the street for four hours in places in which poor people fight as proxies for rich people in distant places, where they fight as proxies for the men who dig out the diamonds, or who drill out the oil, or who set ancient tribal grudges aflame for modern imperial purposes that are as far from the original grudges as bullets are from bows. Those are the places where they leave bodies in the street, as object lessons, or to make a point, or because there isn't the money to take the bodies away and bury them, or because nobody gives a damn whether they are there or not. Those are the places where they leave bodies in the street.

Bodies are not left in the streets of the leafy suburbs. The bodies of dogs and cats, or squirrels and raccoons, let alone the bodies of children, are not left in the streets of the leafy suburbs. No bodies are left in the streets of the financial districts. Freeze to death on a bench in the financial districts and you are whisked away before your inconvenient body can disturb the folks in line at the Starbucks across the street. But the body of a boy can be left in the street for four hours in a place like Ferguson, Missouri, and who knows whether it was because people wanted to make a point, or because nobody gave a damn whether he was there or not. Ferguson, Missouri was a place where they left a body in the street. For four hours. And the rage rose, and the backlash built, and the cameras arrived, and so did the cops, and the thing became something beyond what it was in the first place. And, in a very real way, in the streets of Ferguson, the body was still in the street.

***

The rage rises.

The very last march in which Martin Luther King, Jr. participated ended violently. He had come to Memphis to lend support to a strike by the city's sanitation workers. On March 28, 1968, King led a march in support of the striking workers. It did not end well.

King arrived late and found a massive crowd on the brink of chaos. Lawson and King led the march together but quickly called off the demonstration as violence began to erupt. King was whisked away to a nearby hotel, and Lawson told the mass of people to turn around and go back to the church. In the chaos that followed, downtown shops were looted, and a 16-year-old was shot and killed by a policeman. Police followed demonstrators back to the Clayborn Temple, entered the church, released tear gas inside the sanctuary, and clubbed people as they lay on the floor to get fresh air. Loeb called for martial law and brought in 4,000 National Guard troops. The following day, over 200 striking workers continued their daily march, carrying signs that read, "I Am a Man"... At a news conference held before he returned to Atlanta, King said that he had been unaware of the divisions within the community, particularly of the presence of a black youth group committed to "Black Power" called the Invaders, who were accused of starting the violence.

The backlash builds.

Whites, angered by the property damage to businesses during the aborted march, blamed blacks. The President of the Memphis Chamber of Commerce told the New York Times: "You can't take these Negro people and make the kind of citizens out of them you'd like."(sic). Rev. Lawson would later note that the nonviolence of thousands of black citizens who moved back to the church and their homes was lost in press accounts of the story.

A week or two later, Dr. King stepped out onto the balcony of his motel room in Memphis. A white man shot him through the neck and he died. They covered his body with a sheet. They did not leave it there on the balcony, blood pooling around it, for four hours.

***

In 1965, the editors of the National Review traced the violence of the Watts riots back to the baleful influence of Dr. King's various campaigns throughout the South.

For years now, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King and his associates have been deliberately undermining the foundations of internal order in this country. With their rabble-rousing demagoguery, they have been cracking the "cake of custom" that holds us together. With their doctrine of "civil disobedience," they have been teaching hundreds of thousands of Negroes - particularly the adolescents and the children - that it is perfectly all right to break the law and defy constituted authority if you are a Negro-with-a-grievance; in protest against injustice. And they have done more than talk. They have on occasion after occasion, in almost every part of the country, called out their mobs on the streets, promoted "school strikes," sit-ins, lie-ins, in explicit violation of the law and in explicit defiance of the public authority. They have taught anarchy and chaos by word and deed - and, no doubt, with the best intentions - and they have found apt pupils everywhere, with intentions not of the best. Sow the wind, and reap the whirlwind. But it is not they alone who reap it, but we as well; the entire nation.

In 2014, the editor of the National Review traced the violence of the disturbances in Ferguson to the baleful influence of MSNBC.

You get the feeling that the enormous emotional investment in Ferguson from the left-from Eric Holder to MSNBC on down-reflects a nostalgia for the truly heroic phase of the civil rights movement. They (most of them, at least) can never be Freedom Riders, but they can write blog posts complaining that the police gear in Ferguson looks scary. They can never register voters in the Jim Crow South, but they can tweet dramatic pictures of tear-gas canisters going off. They can never march over the Edmund Pettus Bridge circa 1965, but they can do some cable hits. Ferguson is all they've got, so it must be spun up into a national crisis-our Gaza, our apartheid-to increase the moral drama.

They do not leave bodies in the street in Arlington County in Virginia, where the editor of the National Review grew up.

***

The story now seems to be about the "healing process" going on in Ferguson. The nights are quieter. The National Guard has pulled out. Some of the reporters have moved on to other things. There will be a funeral on Monday for the boy whose body was left in the street. It will be a dignified spectacle and it will be terrific television and it will be said to be "healing" the wounded place. Meanwhile, there are other people finding their healing in many different ways.

I support officer Wilson and he did a great job removing an unnecessary thing from the public.

An unnecessary thing.

The body they left in the street.

The body that, in so many ways, is still in the street.

An unnecessary thing.

The body they left in the street. For four hours. Ferguson, Missouri was a place where they left a body in the street. For four hours. And the rage rose, and the backlash built, and the cameras arrived, and so did the cops, and the thing became something beyond what it was in the first place. And, in a very real way, in the streets of Ferguson, the body was still in the street. What kind of place leaves the body of a boy in the street? What kind of country does that?

Dos Passos was correct.

All right.

We are two nations.

All right?
_______
View All Comments (201)

[Zombie Glenn Beck]

Re the economist graph:

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how ... each-year/

Earlier this month, a police officer shot and killed an unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown, in Ferguson, Missouri. The shooting and the response have reignited concerns about racial profiling, police brutality and police militarization. The incident has also drawn attention to a remarkable lack of knowledge about a seemingly basic fact: how often people are killed by the police.

Also, the England stat is kind of misleading. The London PD is notorious for murdering people, they just do it the old fashioned way and beat them to death.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/opensecur ... since-1969

[seemslikeadream]

Ferguson Police Coordinated Racist Darren Wilson Online Fundraiser
By karoli August 25, 2014 5:30 am -
Ferguson police admitted they were working with the originator of the fundraiser to coordinate it, even as racist comments were rolling in with the money.

Ferguson Hires All-White PR Firm to Help Deal With Black Uprising

[Project Willow]

Rallies across the country tomorrow night, Tuesday, August 26, 2014:

https://tw-handsup.squarespace.com/

Hands Up Don't Shoot United

Local Demands

Swift and impartial investigation by the Department of Justice into the Michael Brown shooting and an expanded Department of Justice investigation into patterns of civil rights violations by police across North St. Louis County.
Immediate arrest of Darren Wilson.
County Prosecutor Robert McCullough to stand down and allow a Special Prosecutor to be appointed.
Firing of Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson.
Accountability for police practices and policies, including effective civilian review regarding shootings and allegations of misconduct.
Immediate de-escalation of militarized policing of protestors to protect constitutional rights.
Immediate release of individuals who have exercised their rights to assemble and protest.

National Demands

Obama to come to Ferguson to meet with the people whose human rights have been violated by aggressive and militarized policing, including the family of the victim – Michael Brown.

Eric Holder to use the full resources and power of the Department of Justice to implement a nationwide investigation of systematic police brutality and harassment in black and brown communities.

Ensure transparency, accountability, and safety of our communities by requiring front facing cameras in police departments with records of racial disparities in stops, arrests, killings, and excessive force complaints.

Immediate suspension without pay of law enforcement officers that have used or approved excessive use of force. Additionally, their names and policing history should be made available to the public.

[seemslikeadream]

Ferguson Police Officer Justin Cosma Hog-Tied And Injured A Young Child, Lawsuit Alleges
Posted: 08/24/2014 5:48 pm EDT Updated: 08/25/2014 12:59 pm EDT


WASHINGTON -- A Ferguson police officer who helped detain a journalist in a McDonald's earlier this month is in the midst of a civil rights lawsuit because he allegedly hog-tied a 12-year-old boy who was checking the mail at the end of his driveway.

According to a lawsuit filed in 2012 in Missouri federal court, Justin Cosma and another officer, Richard Carter, approached a 12-year-old boy who was checking the mailbox at the end of his driveway in June 2010. Cosma was an officer with the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office at the time, the lawsuit states. The pair asked the boy if he'd been playing on a nearby highway, and he replied no, according to the lawsuit.

Then, the officers "became confrontational" and intimidated the child, the lawsuit claims. "Unprovoked and without cause, the deputies grabbed [the boy], choked him around the neck and threw him to the ground," it says. The boy was shirtless at the time, and allegedly "suffered bruising, choke marks, scrapes and cuts across his body."


The 12-year-old was transferred to a medical facility for treatment, but the lawsuit says Cosma and the other officer reported the incident as "assault of a law enforcement officer third degree” and “resisting/interfering with arrest, detention or stop."

Jefferson County prosecutors "refused to issue a juvenile case" against the young child, the suit says.

The allegations against Cosma were made in September 2012, shortly after he was introduced as a new officer at a Ferguson City Council meeting. Jefferson County is south of Ferguson.

Captain Ron Arnhart of the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office, who is a candidate for sheriff, did not respond to The Huffington Post's request for comment on the circumstances of Cosma's departure. Neither Ferguson police spokesman Tom Zoll nor Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson responded to requests for comment.

A dispatcher at the Ferguson Police Department said she would relay a message to Cosma, who was out in the field on Sunday afternoon.

Richard R. Lozano, the lawyer representing the young man in the lawsuit, declined to be interviewed due to the pending claims against Cosma and the other officer. He said he anticipates a trial date early next year. However, Lozano did provide a statement.

"The lawsuit alleges that Justin Cosma and Richard Carter, two deputies with the Jefferson County, Missouri sheriff's department in 2010, assaulted my client during an encounter on my client's driveway while his mother was inside their house. My client was 12 years old at the time, shirtless and was not suspected of any criminal behavior. He was checking the mail. The deputies approached my client and the encounter quickly escalated. My client was restrained, choked, thrown to the ground and hogtied by the two deputies. He suffered scrapes and choke marks to his neck. No charges were ever brought against my client. It is my understanding that Justin Cosma is currently an officer with the City of Ferguson," Lozano wrote.

Cosma was also one of the officers who detained journalists from HuffPost and The Washington Post earlier this month in a local McDonald's. He declined to give his name or badge number at the time, and has subsequently refused to identify himself to the press. A reader tip allowed HuffPost to match his name and face after the altercation.

While still at the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office, Cosma received an award for dealing with a person in psychiatric crisis, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Cosma isn't the only officer whose past has received new attention in the wake of the shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown and the subsequent protests in Ferguson. Eddie Boyd III, an officer who faced allegations of hitting children while serving under the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, quietly resigned and sought employment with the Ferguson Police Department. Boyd faced three complaints of physical abuse against children between 2004 and 2006, two of which were dropped. Internal affairs sustained the third complaint against Boyd, saying there was sufficient evidence to support the allegation that he struck a 12-year-old girl in the head with a pistol, and recommended Boyd be fired. The St. Louis police chose to demote him.

Less than a year later, a teenage boy alleged that Boyd hit him in the nose with a gun, and the officer quietly resigned from his role at the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department. His license was not revoked in the ensuing lawsuit. Boyd was hired by the Ferguson Police Department sometime between July 2009 and December 2010.

St. Louis County officer Dan Page, who has been on the force for 35 years, was suspended from duty for inflammatory comments made while addressing the Oath Keepers of St. Louis and St. Charles. Page made racist and sexist remarks, called President Obama an “illegal alien,” denounced hate crime laws and spoke flippantly about violence and killings. The video, uploaded to YouTube in April, was uncovered by CNN after Page pushed anchor Don Lemon on Aug. 18 during demonstrations in Ferguson.

St. Ann Lt. Ray Albers was also suspended from duty after he threatened civilians in Ferguson, pointing his gun at them and shouting, “I will fucking kill you.” Reporter Joe Biggs was among the group being threatened.

“I can’t believe that that happened in America,” Biggs told HuffPost of the confrontation. “That’s something I’ve seen in Iraq and Afghanistan. In our country? Mind-blowing.”

Darren Wilson, the officer who shot Michael Brown, joined the Ferguson police after the city council in nearby Jennings disbanded the police department and brought in new officers over three years ago because of the poor relationship between cops and residents, the Washington Post reported.

Read the lawsuit laying out the allegations against Cosma below.

[seemslikeadream]

Attorney: New audio reveals pause in gunfire when Michael Brown shot
By Holly Yan, CNN
updated 9:00 AM EDT, Tue August 26, 2014

A forensic audio expert says at least 10 shots are fired in the recording
Lawyer: The FBI questioned a man whose audio might contain the Michael Brown shooting
The audio was recorded during a video chat with a friend
CNN cannot independently confirm whether the shots heard were from the Brown incident

(CNN) -- Could a newly released audio provide more clues on what led up to Michael Brown's shooting death?
The FBI has questioned a man who says he recorded audio of gunfire at the time Brown was shot by Ferguson police on August 9, the man's attorney told CNN.
In the recording, a quick series of shots can be heard, followed by a pause and then another quick succession of shots.
Forensic audio expert Paul Ginsberg analyzed the recording and said he detected at least 10 gunshots -- a cluster of six, followed by four.
The funeral of Michael Brown The funeral of Michael Brown
"I was very concerned about that pause ... because it's not just the number of gunshots, it's how they're fired," the man's attorney, Lopa Blumenthal, told CNN's Don Lemon. "And that has a huge relevance on how this case might finally end up."
The man, who asked that his identity not be revealed, lives near the site of the shooting and was close enough to have heard the gunshots, his attorney said.
He was speaking to a friend on a video chat service and happened to be recording the conversation at the same time Brown was shot, Blumenthal said.
What could audio of shooting reveal?
The attorney said she learned of the man's recording late last week from a mutual friend.
"I had to get his consent before I could reach out to the FBI," Blumenthal said.
CNN cannot independently verify the authenticity of the tape and has asked the FBI for confirmation of their interview with the man who made the recording.
The meaning of the pause
It's difficult to prove from the audio why the pause took place or whose narrative it supports.
Attorney Chris Chestnut said he was surprised by the gap in shots.
"It's the pause that gives most concern in a police shooting, especially with an unarmed victim, because at this point Mr. Brown is defenseless -- he has no weapon," said Chestnut, who represented the family of Jonathan Ferrell.
Like Brown, Ferrell was an unarmed African-American man who was shot and killed by a white police officer.
But if the gunfire heard on the audio is indeed from the Brown incident, the pause doesn't automatically suggest wrongful intent by the officer.
"To be fair, there could be other explanations for that pause," said attorney Van Jones, co-host of CNN's Crossfire. "Maybe the officer will say, 'Well I fired, and he kept advancing, so I fired again.'"
Witnesses and a friend of Officer Darren Wilson have given conflicting accounts of what led up to Brown's death.
Dueling narratives in Michael Brown shooting
Dorian Johnson, a friend of Brown's who was walking with him at the time of the shooting, said the officer shot Brown once by the police car and again as he ran away.
According to Johnson, Brown was struck in the back and then turned around and put his arms up as the officer kept shooting.
But a friend of Wilson said Brown mocked the officer and charged at him before the shooting began.
An autopsy showed that all the entry wounds were in the front of Brown's body.
Will autopsy shed any light on what happened?
Key witness speaks out
Ferguson police said Brown allegedly robbed a convenience store shortly before the shooting.
And reports that his friend Johnson had a criminal record that including lying to police has put Johnson's credibility in question.
In 2011, Johnson was arrested and accused of theft and lying to police about his first name, age and address.
Johnson said Monday night he doesn't understand why some are questioning his credibility.
"I see they bring up my past, my history, but it's not like it's a long rap sheet," Johnson told Lemon. "This one incident shouldn't make me a bad person."
Michael Brown's funeral: Hope, tears and a call for social change
Complete coverage

[BOOGIE66]

Attorney: New audio reveals pause in gunfire when Michael Brown shot
By Holly Yan, CNN
updated 9:00 AM EDT, Tue August 26, 2014

A forensic audio expert says at least 10 shots are fired in the recording
Lawyer: The FBI questioned a man whose audio might contain the Michael Brown shooting
The audio was recorded during a video chat with a friend
CNN cannot independently confirm whether the shots heard were from the Brown incident

(CNN) -- Could a newly released audio provide more clues on what led up to Michael Brown's shooting death?
The FBI has questioned a man who says he recorded audio of gunfire at the time Brown was shot by Ferguson police on August 9, the man's attorney told CNN.
In the recording, a quick series of shots can be heard, followed by a pause and then another quick succession of shots.
Forensic audio expert Paul Ginsberg analyzed the recording and said he detected at least 10 gunshots -- a cluster of six, followed by four.
The funeral of Michael Brown The funeral of Michael Brown
"I was very concerned about that pause ... because it's not just the number of gunshots, it's how they're fired," the man's attorney, Lopa Blumenthal, told CNN's Don Lemon. "And that has a huge relevance on how this case might finally end up."
The man, who asked that his identity not be revealed, lives near the site of the shooting and was close enough to have heard the gunshots, his attorney said.
He was speaking to a friend on a video chat service and happened to be recording the conversation at the same time Brown was shot, Blumenthal said.
What could audio of shooting reveal?
The attorney said she learned of the man's recording late last week from a mutual friend.
"I had to get his consent before I could reach out to the FBI," Blumenthal said.
CNN cannot independently verify the authenticity of the tape and has asked the FBI for confirmation of their interview with the man who made the recording.
The meaning of the pause
It's difficult to prove from the audio why the pause took place or whose narrative it supports.
Attorney Chris Chestnut said he was surprised by the gap in shots.
"It's the pause that gives most concern in a police shooting, especially with an unarmed victim, because at this point Mr. Brown is defenseless -- he has no weapon," said Chestnut, who represented the family of Jonathan Ferrell.
Like Brown, Ferrell was an unarmed African-American man who was shot and killed by a white police officer.
But if the gunfire heard on the audio is indeed from the Brown incident, the pause doesn't automatically suggest wrongful intent by the officer.
"To be fair, there could be other explanations for that pause," said attorney Van Jones, co-host of CNN's Crossfire. "Maybe the officer will say, 'Well I fired, and he kept advancing, so I fired again.'"
Witnesses and a friend of Officer Darren Wilson have given conflicting accounts of what led up to Brown's death.
Dueling narratives in Michael Brown shooting
Dorian Johnson, a friend of Brown's who was walking with him at the time of the shooting, said the officer shot Brown once by the police car and again as he ran away.
According to Johnson, Brown was struck in the back and then turned around and put his arms up as the officer kept shooting.
But a friend of Wilson said Brown mocked the officer and charged at him before the shooting began.
An autopsy showed that all the entry wounds were in the front of Brown's body.
Will autopsy shed any light on what happened?
Key witness speaks out
Ferguson police said Brown allegedly robbed a convenience store shortly before the shooting.
And reports that his friend Johnson had a criminal record that including lying to police has put Johnson's credibility in question.
In 2011, Johnson was arrested and accused of theft and lying to police about his first name, age and address.
Johnson said Monday night he doesn't understand why some are questioning his credibility.
"I see they bring up my past, my history, but it's not like it's a long rap sheet," Johnson told Lemon. "This one incident shouldn't make me a bad person."
Michael Brown's funeral: Hope, tears and a call for social change
Complete coverage

The plot thins.

[stickdog99]

Big Brother is Watching Cops

[82_28]

Me and an old girlfriend of mine were pulled over once. She was driving. There were two cops. They asked if they could search the car. She said yes, I said no!!!! They have no right to search your car!

Sir, sir, she has given me consent to search the car. So they handcuffed her while they searched it and found marijuana gear. A pipe or something. Anyhow I "hung out" with the other cop while she was being terrorized in a city (Denver) that all that shit's legal now to have on you. Here's what the other cop told me:

I have to level with you. I hate this fucking job. He saw her fear but could do nothing about it.

He said "look at this guy" -- the guy handcuffing my girlfriend while he rifled through the car. I have to ride around all night with this motherfucker and don't agree with one thing he does. But he said that when he pulls over people he knows and they say "you're a fucking cop now?" broke his heart. It was definitely a moment of clarity as far as the "good cop" motif. He was just a human and I wasn't black, but the guy saw through it and hated it and told me so.

Bear in mind this was all in the same county as:

http://www.rigorousintuition.ca/board2/ ... t+sullivan

That idiot harried every single kid in the 80s and 90s. Now look at him.

[seemslikeadream]

Rachel Maddow: Evidence in shooting calls suicide ruling into question

Hannah Rappleye, NBC News Investigative Unit reporter, walks Rachel Maddow through the strange story of a Victor White III, whose death in the back of a police car was ruled a suicide despite being shot in the chest while he was handcuffed behind his back.

[stickdog99]

Why blacks can't carry guns

[8bitagent]

Rachel Maddow: Evidence in shooting calls suicide ruling into question

Hannah Rappleye, NBC News Investigative Unit reporter, walks Rachel Maddow through the strange story of a Victor White III, whose death in the back of a police car was ruled a suicide despite being shot in the chest while he was handcuffed behind his back.

"Worst case of suicide we ever did see", an old joke but sad to see it still applicable. I'm still pissed about Eric Garner. We know 100% what happened to him, it was caught on film. Not saying there shoulda been riots in New York, but where are all the people marching in the street and challenging the NYPD there? Oh that's right, they are too busy sipping their expensive lattes and on their fancy laptops at star bucks.