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I don't know MO caselaw on this specifically, but Wilson should be able to take advantage of various levels of qualified immunity from the civil lawsuit(s).
To think that there's no justification for peaceful protest in a situation like this one is beyond ignorant. There have been plenty of anecdotal tales of Ferguson police dealing with black citizens in ways that many could deem unjustified. To use the death of Michael Brown at the hands of a police officer as a basis to bring that problem to light and to try to urge change in ways that might eradicate those cir stances is precisely what protest should be about. Nobody protests things that they agree with; few protest when there's a consensus that justice has been done. Dr. King made considerable strides for racial progress with the mostly peaceful protests that he and his allies led throughout the South. Protests in these contexts -- civil disobedience -- may be seen as ridiculous by some, but those sorts of peaceful protests have changed policy and law throughout American history.
To equate those who peacefully protest with those who usurp peaceful protests to carry out lawlessness is laziness. To simply assume that all protesters engaged in the sort of ridiculous lawlessness that got so many headlines last night and today is equally lazy.
I don't know MO caselaw on this specifically, but Wilson should be able to take advantage of various levels of qualified immunity from the civil lawsuit(s).
In each one of those examples, the guys with the weapons got off with no penalty... and in Wilson's case, not even a trial. That's their issue here. People are mad because they don't feel like there's any accountability, and they don't feel they're getting a fair say in the process of accountability. The Rodney King jury had 10 whites, a Hispanic, and an Asian. There was one minority, a Puerto Rican, on the Zimmerman jury. Wilson won't even be going to trial.
The problem is not that innocent black kids are being gunned down every day. These are extreme examples that, for these people, illustrate the larger problem. Black Americans are disproportionately suspected of crime, arrested for petty crimes, and given harsher sentences for those crimes. But they are certainly more at risk than any other race of being shot, unarmed, by police for doing something that doesn't require that kind of force. And in the most high-profile of those cases (whether you agree they should have been high-profile or not), there has been no penalty for the shooter/beater.
There is a 0% chance that a white kid walking through a neighborhood at night gets shot by the neighborhood watchman, or that a 12-year old white kid playing "cowboy" and pretending to shoot cars with his toy shotgun in the suburbs gets gunned down by police. And that's without considering what the trial might look like if that did happen.
Meanwhile, the rest of America tells them to suck it up and deal with it. They tell them it's their problem, that they need to change their culture. Try telling a black guy who works hard and hasn't committed any crime in his life that he just needs to quit complaining and accept a higher level of scrutiny and risk because other people who look like him have a higher tendency to be criminals. Or that his kids will have to watch out for that as well. Tell him that he has a responsibility to evolve the culture of people who look like him. Because he's part of that group.
You'd be pissed off too, if the roles were reversed. But you'll never have to worry about it. You were born with the benefit of the doubt.
And you've go not response and no justification for either the protesters or looters..
I don't have to justify protesters. I support the right of people to assemble and protest for anything.
I never claimed the looters were justified. them for their selfishness and opportunism, and moreso for being a distraction and excuse for people like you. That said, it's a little strange how much we mourn for the loss of cars and bottles of Heineken in the context of things like Katrina and Ferguson. But we've always favored big commerce over humanity.
X2
The prosecutor had access to the same facts the grand jury did. if it had been a white guy shot with the same facts and no media attention it would have never even gone to the grand jury.
People do protest stuff like this quite a bit. And nobody cares.
The only reason this case got any attention at all is because they vandalized that gas station.
I don't agree with your generic characterization of police officers, but I do agree with the notion that we've made it far too easy for police officers to quickly resort to deadly force when less dramatic means are available to deal with suspects.
I posed the hypothetical before, and I think it still works -- suppose the Brown situation had been reversed; that for some reason, Officer Wilson had been punching Brown and chasing him down. If Officer Wilson was doing those things, would we (societally) think it was a perfectly reasonable thing for Brown to have pulled a gun and shot Wilson dead? I doubt it. I get that police officers put their lives on the lines in some instances, but I don't believe that their willingness to do that also clothes them with authority to be judge, jury, and executioner whenever they get scared; we certainly don't tolerate it too much when citizens who are scared try to defend themselves against aggressive police officers.
double post
Cops don't carry guns to protect us. They carry guns to protect themselves.
Smart people know this and don't with the cops.
Yet here are a bunch of people who come to an internet forum devoted to a basketball team talking about it.
I don't think you can say that nobody cares. It may not result in any change, particularly if the protestors don't try to build political coalitions to put public pressure on those who make and carry out policy. But it's difficult to say this morning that nobody cares about the protests in Missouri.
The family will get their day on civil court. Criminal cases aren't between private parties. What the could the family have done in court anyway? Testify that "my son would never hurt a fly!!"
I also think its far too easy for the media (including social media) to spread false or sketchy information about these events. Then the professional grievance industry starts parroting this information as if they are facts.
I'm not concerned about Ms. Dubose. There's a 95% she votes for and supports the race hustlers that perpetuate this .
Come on vy, nobody forces the prosecutor to do anything. If he didn't feel like he could bring a case forward, he should've either not brought it, or simply removed himself from the case, and let some other prosecutor that firmly believe there was a case to go for it. Both you and I know there's indictments every day on cases much, much flimsier than this one. Because it was a cop involved, then all prosecutorial diligence changes? That's what makes cases like this stink.
Well, for one, they could've requested cross examination of these alleged incongruent witnesses. And sure, part of a public trial is exploring character's personalities. They simply never had the chance to present their side of the argument. That was, in a way, the prosecutor job, and he apparently did not do that. A public trial is a completely different animal. Even if Wilson was innocent, it's a lot different when they get to say their side of the story.
errr. Yes.
Among the legal commentary yesterday (though it was fairly superficial), there was mention that they should have a good shot at the civil level. Take it with a grain of salt.
It's unlikely that any other person presented to the grand jury in St. Louis County, Missouri has gotten the kind of treatment that Officer Wilson got in terms of the way the evidence was presented to the grand jury. One wonders how the indictment rate might change if all of those presented to the grand jury were afforded the same courtesies.
If, God forbid, a police officer is killed by a citizen in that jurisdiction, I sincerely doubt that the suspect will be given the same time and attention by the grand jury and that the grand jury will resolve all doubts in favor of the citizen.
they dont have a side of their story that will be taken seriously. they had nothing to do with the incident, have no way of knowing what happened (to this day go along with the hands-up-dont-shoot narrative) and any testimony of how precious their son was would be taken with heaps and heaps of salt anyway
I think that's actually unlikely. It's very hard to succeed on a civil case against a police officer who is acting in the course and scope of his official duties. The claim generally has to be brought under federal law (28 USC s. 1983, specifically) and in federal court, and officers tend to enjoy at least some kinds of immunity -- at least in certain cir stances. It's been a long time since I've dealt with such a case (and I've never looked at the issues under Missouri law), but my recollection is that while there's a visceral appeal to a civil case, it's a legal longshot.
Pretty much. Heck, at the federal level, the rate of cases in which a grand jury denies an indictment is 0.00006%
How it's taken it's up to the jury. It at least affords them to go through all the evidence, be involved in the case of their son's death, and, as I pointed out earlier, a sense of justice: they were heard. The outcome might not end up being what they want, but that's a different story altogether.
I'll take your word for it.
I suspect the numbers are roughly similar at the state level, even in St. Louis County.
The grand jury system is actually set up to prefer indictments to no bills, slanting the field decidedly against the accused (accused individuals are rarely invited to grand jury proceedings, even more rarely asked to tell their story in their own words) and requiring only a probable cause showing (not the adduction of proof beyond a reasonable doubt). A grand jury proceeding shouldn't be a mini-trial, but that is apparently not what this prosecutor thought of this particular presentation.
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Smart move by the prosecutor imo. A long drawn out media hyped trial ending in a not guilty verdict probably would have led to more violence than no indictment.
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