MO - Grief & protests follow shooting of teen Michael Brown #12

[Apollo]

"not to sway the public and possibly cloud the judgment of any possible future jurors"????

What about releasing the video of the store robbery? Surely that will sway and cloud the judgment!!

Goes BOTH ways. The store robbery video was released by the POLICE.

There are a lot of posters on this thread who repeatedly mention the robbery to explain MB's state of mind and just take it as a given that he MUST have assaulted the police officer because of what he did in THAT VIDEO.

YES it's an ONGOING INVESTIGATION. That means you don't release any information about the INVESTIGATION as a whole. Not release damaging information for one party and not a thing for the other.

Seems to me when the Chief of Police was asked by someone in the media why the video was released his reply was ''Because YOU requested it through the FOIA so I had to release it''. Anyone else remember that?

 

[Tawny]

Absopostivelutely! Any conflicting statements given by a witness before, during and after the official statement can be used to impeach their credibility. He would need to be able to provide a clear and concise reason why his version of events conflicted and hope the jurors will "understand." I am not saying that conflicting statements are an automatic impeachment - just that they assist an attorney to prove the unreliability of a witness.

DJ has already made comments in interviews that he "can't remember" because he was "in shock". Sounds like that'll be his reason.

The release of the video was explained during a press conference. If there was video of the shooting and the media filed a request to have that video released, then it would either be released immediately or it would be heard by a judge to have the video released. The release of the video was not part of a smear campaign against Brown. And truth be told, if Brown had behaved in the way that other law abiding citizens do instead of the way criminals do, then there would be nothing that goes against Brown in the video.

MOO

Ah yes, good point. FOIA, right?

 

[TheDuchess]

Just had a thought this a.m., while reading through thread. There are many people who just do not have appropriate social skills and/or don't know what body language is acceptable and what might be dangerous. They use what they have learned from their environment and really don't know what is appropriate/safe.

In one of the posts I read that MB may have put one of his hands in his pocket when standing near or approaching OW. This body language would be very very wrong in this type of situation. Another individual might turn and start to walk away when called on by LE and this too would be inappropriate behavior. But, do these behaviors have a bad connotation in and of themselves? Do they occur and lead to bad results that could be prevented if those persons knew what was inappropriate/dangerous.

Maybe LE could offer insight to young people who are still in school so they could develop appropriate interpersonal skills to use when having to interact with LE.

My work in home health in urban, suburban and rural areas showed me some things I never would have imagined! I never faulted anyone as I believed anyone could be truly ignorant, and by this I mean they do not know any better and only use what they know and have learned. If I wanted to change this I have to do something to educate those persons, and I did. Most of the time results were great and change was made. Do we need something like this in society, in our educational system? Thanks for letting me ramble. Now off to send email to a friend who is a psychology professor in NYC.

All this talk about change needing to occur...well here is the flipside, right? Honestly. DJ said on several occasions that they refused the order of the police to get out of the street. Stating that you will be reaching your destination in just a moment is NOT an appropriate response, whether you are white, black, young, old, just committed a burglary or are completely innocent. Any fool knows you don't walk down the middle of the street and then disobey an officers orders when doing so. The officer had every right to tell them to "get the **** out of the street. I'm not even going to get into the response of assaulting the officer, because I think anyone would know that is wrong.

But justified or not, why would you put yourself in danger of starting "stuff" with a police officer with a weapon??? Justified or not, we are talking about your life here. I don't care if the cop that is giving you crap is the biggest jerk on the planet and has absolutely no right whatsoever to hassle you, it is never a good idea to backtalk them.

 

[krimekat]

"not to sway the public and possibly cloud the judgment of any possible future jurors"????

What about releasing the video of the store robbery? Surely that will sway and cloud the judgment!!

Goes BOTH ways. The store robbery video was released by the POLICE.

There are a lot of posters on this thread who repeatedly mention the robbery to explain MB's state of mind and just take it as a given that he MUST have assaulted the police officer because of what he did in THAT VIDEO.

YES it's an ONGOING INVESTIGATION. That means you don't release any information about the INVESTIGATION as a whole. Not release damaging information for one party and not a thing for the other.

It is my belief Ferguson PD released the video of MB/DJ at the Market because "they could" & at that time, the strong armed robbery would not be part of the investigation since it was prior to the incident with ODW; maybe FPD did it so it WOULD be considered in the whole scheme of things (NOTE: DOJ didn't want FPD to show the video) Going to try & find the FOIA request

I'm fine with what FPD did -- it's their jurisdiction! Kind of like Cole County outing the arrest warrant for DJ (theft & lying to LE)

 

[Tawny]

Oh yeah and let's not for a moment think the "lying to LE" arrest warrant won't immediately be brought up to impeach DJ. His credibility is completely shot, IMHO.

 

[TheDuchess]

The release of the video was explained during a press conference. If there was video of the shooting and the media filed a request to have that video released, then it would either be released immediately or it would be heard by a judge to have the video released. The release of the video was not part of a smear campaign against Brown. And truth be told, if Brown had behaved in the way that other law abiding citizens do instead of the way criminals do, then there would be nothing that goes against Brown in the video.

MOO

I love this! So many times we see people acting out on tape in an embarrassing way and their immediate reaction is to chastise the person recording them, or the person that released the recording. C'mon people...it is 2014. Have you not heard of the Internet??? People have cameras on cell phones, hidden cameras, security cameras, etc... You act like a fool in public and find yourself all over the Internet and you shoot the messenger??? Cry me a river!

 

[TheDuchess]

Oh yeah and let's not for a moment think the "lying to LE" arrest warrant won't immediately be brought up to impeach DJ. His credibility is completely shot, IMHO.

I think his lawyers know that already. The only reason they are parading him around like they are is to get themselves on TV. They want to try to attach themselves to anyone who might be able to secure a monetary settlement and also to give their firm free advertising. I'd love to know what DJ is paying them for their service. Do you think he has the cash available to pay $100 an hour legal fees? I would be willing to bet he retained them for $1.00.

 

[krimekat]

Before he released the name, Jackson discussed a robbery that had occurred shortly before Brown's death on Aug. 9. He said that police were releasing footage and records related to that robbery, responding to "sunshine" requests for public information.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way...elease-name-of-officer-who-shot-michael-brown

 

[DebinGA]

http://www.obamaphone.com/

We live in an age when everyone who wants a cell phone can have a cell phone, and most do.

 

[TorisMom003]

I love this! So many times we see people acting out on tape in an embarrassing way and their immediate reaction is to chastise the person recording them, or the person that released the recording. C'mon people...it is 2014. Have you not heard of the Internet??? People have cameras on cell phones, hidden cameras, security cameras, etc... You act like a fool in public and find yourself all over the Internet and you shoot the messenger??? Cry me a river!

Exactly. I have two daughters (almost 13 and 17). I have always told them to behave in a way that they have no problem with the world seeing them.

On another note. I remember reading a post a day or two ago (can't remember which thread it was because I started with the first thread for this case and read until I caught up) about the people in the community getting together and paying for the dash cams/body cams for the officers to be installed. There's a problem with this line of thought in my opinion. Since it appears that so many in the community want to claim police brutality and/or police picking on a certain group of people, would they really want to pay for their interactions with those same police officers to be recorded? After all, the store owner wanted to make sure that the community knew that it was not himself or any of his employees that called 911 during or after the strong arm robbery by Brown. It sounds to me as if there are more in the community that believe they should be allowed to behave however they want (stealing, lying, ignoring LE, etc) than there are those that truly want to abide by the laws and would have no problem with their actions/interactions with LE being recorded.

MOO

 

[Lovejac]

Fox News Megyn Kelly interviews Attorney Daryl Parks 8-26-2014. Around 4 min 34 sec.

http://video.foxnews.com/v/37505293...ses-fallout-over-investigation/#sp=show-clips

That was awesome to watch. Thanks for posting.

 

[Frydaddy]

Thanks so much again frydaddy. I'm going to throw out my last bit of confusion and then just leave it alone because I don't want to bog everyone down with my own incompetence. 12388 appears to be the complaint number, not an identification of the officer doing the investigation. It appears the majority of the narrative reports found in the first 10 pages are done by another officer, who actually responded to the robbery call. The narrative on pages 7 and 8 appear to be a new officer assigned to the robbery on the 11th. This new officer also happened to have been dispatched to the shooting on the 9th. From reading it, it appears to me that this officer, some time after being assigned the case, ID'ed MB as the suspect in the video. Again, I think 12391 is a reference tot he complaint number associated with the shooting, not an actual identification of a responder. On the one hand, I understand and am glad they didn't include the officers' name on the reports, but it would certainly help clear them up to know who is writing what.

Thanks as always.

Oy, this is why bouncing things off one another is good. I see what you are saying and I agree with you. I think the incident numbers can be tied to certain officers and certain responders and such, but I agree one cannot assume any specific officer based off the report or incident numbers. So, I could see if you were a defense lawyer, the validity of the question of why he related this information in the supplement days later.

My personal take is that he was merely noting the relationship of this case to the shooting case while tidying up his investigation, but I could see how someone might argue that he added this after the fact to cover his department. The reason I believe the former is due to the other innocuous supplements also referring to previous dates on the 12th and the notation on page 15 at 12:09:48 that said "was advised". If you then look at page 18, there are two cars dispatched and arrived within two minutes of that advisory and I would bet one of those was him showing to identify Brown and Johnson. I am sure if we had all the reports, we could nail this down. As such, since we do not, I will leave this as an open issue moving forward.

Thank you for staying on this...never allow confusion to stop you from pursuing accuracy of information, we need you!

 

[bettybaby00]

Seems to me when the Chief of Police was asked by someone in the media why the video was released his reply was ''Because YOU requested it through the FOIA so I had to release it''. Anyone else remember that?

I also remember in an interview (possibly subsequent to when he answered the above) he stated, "we sat on it as long as we could"

 

[PaperDoll]

I'm curious about something. For anyone saying that Wilson was unjustified in the shooting of Brown, what do they think would have happened if Wilson had allowed Brown to flee the area without stopping him? We already know that Brown had previously (10 mins before) strong armed and stole from a quick mart owner. We also know that Brown was aggressive towards Wilson. If Wilson had allowed Brown to flee from the scene, and Brown attacked someone else in the neighborhood (possibly causing more damage than what he had done to the store owner and Wilson), would Wilson be blamed for not stopping someone that was clearly in the state of mind to cause harm to others? Would the public be shouting for Wilson's head (still) if Brown had injured and/or killed someone after the encounter with Brown?

I also don't understand how anyone can claim that the strong arm robbery that was 10 mins before the encounter with Brown has no bearing on the encounter with Brown. However, even if we take away the strong arm robbery that Brown committed, Wilson was still justified in the shooting if Brown was coming at Wilson. A police officer has as much right to protect themselves and fire in self defense as anyone else.

MOO

BBM: I don't understand that either, to me it all ties together. MB just robbed a store, bullied the store owner, was walking in the middle of the street, would not obey the police officer to walk on the sidewalk, then gets defiant with the officer, reaches into the police car and a fight breaks out, who's fault is it? To me it's MB fault because when you back up to the robbery it shows his state of mind and he carries that over to the police officer. When you start messing with a police officer you are asking for trouble, IMO. A police officer has EVERY right to protect himself if he feels he's in danger, or if he feels the public is in danger.

 

[DebinGA]

I can't even imagine what the public reaction would be if, a year or two from now during the criminal/civil trial of defendant Darren Wilson, the robbery tape made its first public appearance.

 

[reedus23]

Brought this over from the other thread. Sorry for delayed reply, was just too tired to hunt it down last night.

First, PP is the Political Pavilion where I normally hang. I'll save this tangent discussion for another day. You are certainly not stupid, so no worries there!

As to the meat and taters of your reply...

I agree with first two bullet points.

On the third bullet point, agree for the most part, but only DJ and OW (so far) saw this thing from the onset, so there are questions here.

On the fourth bullet point, agree with this, but I do have a question as to whether FPD based their statement about shot in car on DJ's statement, Wilson's, both, or evidence in the car.

On the fifth bullet point, this is where things get real murky for me. I'd like to know where the 35 ft. conclusion came from and the witness accounts about the disengagement and running have no bearing for me. Explain why below.

On the sixth bullet, I agree no bullets struck him in the back. The how and why of Wilson exiting the car and firing are to me, unknown quantities. Again, explain why below.

Agree with last two bullet points.

The reason why the stuff in the middle are still open questions for me is quite simply, I do not believe that Crenshaw, Mitchell, and Brady's accounts are believable. I haven't completely dissected Brady's account because of a lack of time to give specifics why. However, I have done so for Crenshaw and Mitchell on posts #26 and #53 on the link below. Please read my thoughts and the related excerpts they are based on if you are interested.

http://www.websleuths.com/forums/sh...el-Brown-*Media-Timelines-Maps*-No-Discussion

I'll stop it here for now, just wanted you to know two things. One, I don't discount witnesses supportive to Brown because I want to believe one version or the other, as I still couldn't vote either way based on evidence we know for a fact if I were a juror. Two, there are only three witnesses that I believe have any merit at this point. DJ, whose statements are extremely shaky. Josie, who gave the officer account. And the guy no one has wanted to talk about, the bystander in the Black Canseco video who corroborates a "Mike was coming at him theme". In order for me to fully give my take on this, I have to step back and start from scratch at how my opinion has been formed. Given there is so much info the group here has discussed, it's difficult to do it any other way without appearing to have a desired outcome. I don't expect to change minds, I only hope to gain credibility and comprehension of how I assess things through logic and intellectual analysis of the information. If I gain that, perhaps people will see information in a new light, which for me is the purpose of participating in a case like this. I have seen info in a new light based on thoughts you and others have provided and adjusted what I think accordingly. Only issue I have is that some (not you) don't seem interested in going about things that way, it's what they believe in spite of what is discussed. Everything has an alternative explanation, which I have no problem with so long as it is logical and practical. Sorry to be so wordy, will try to be more brief if you desire going forward.

Biggest divide between the two schools of thought is assessment of witness accounts, so my ask is that you browse my thoughts on Mitchell and Crenshaw and review the bystander statement from the street video, I am sure someone can link if you are not intimately familiar with it. Thanks for the interest in discussing!

Great post Frydaddy. I do enjoy reading your takes and certainly, there are reasons to call into question each witness' statements. Heck, there's obvious reason to call OW's eventual statements into question because he has an obvious reason to make them self serving. What my bullet points was attempting to do, was take all of the various statements, regardless of how questionable other aspects of their statements are, and see if there weren't a common set of facts that could be agreed upon by all sides. Re-reading my bullets, the one change I wish I would have made is to say MB disengaged from the officer's vehicle, not from the officer himself, because that part may still be up for debate.

As to Black Canseco and the import of what those facts in the bullets mean, I wasn't trying to draw conclusions, or at least I hope I wasn't. Just trying to see what, if any, common ground there is within the statements that we have heard.

 

[reedus23]

Witness Statements and the media

You may discuss the case with anyone you wish. The choice is yours, but it is not always a good idea. Be sure you know to whom you are talking when you discuss the case. If a defendant approaches you and you find this upsetting, please tell the Antitrust Division attorney immediately. While you may discuss the case with the media if you wish, we encourage you not to do so since you are a potential witness in a criminal case and the rights of the government and the defendant to a fair trial could be jeopardized by pre-trial publicity.

In the interest of ensuring a fair trial, after you have testified in court, you should not discuss with other witnesses what was said during your testimony until after the case is over. Thus, please do not ask other witnesses about their testimony or volunteer information about your own.

More at link:


http://www.justice.gov/atr/victim/vwhandbook.htm


My question is all attorney's know this so why would they permit their clients to give a public statement to the media when they know it will interfere with the investigation? It's not as if the witnesses are defendants.

I hear ya Lambchop. Not just for the reasons stated in your post, but as a lawyer, they know that the more tellings of a story, the more inconsistencies there will be. Anyone who doesn't have some inconsistencies in multiple tellings has been too well coached. So why would an attorney allow his client to give more statements that will only be picked apart for inconsistencies.

Now, on the flip side...as a member of WS I don't know what we'd talk about if people didn't talk to the press.

 

[reedus23]

MB had just slammed a door into him and punched him in the face. I'd assume he reasonably believed MB was a danger to those around him.

I never made a comment one way or the other. There is no way IMHO to make that determination yea or nay at this point. I only provided that because liloleme was questioning whether or not reasonableness came into play or just the cop saying so was sufficient and asked for a link. So I provided a link.

 

[Lovejac]

I'm surprised there is such little attention given to the the detail that both the witness Paige or whatever her name is (sorry) and DJ said that MB was falling to his knees as he was raising his hands and getting shot again.

So how can he be falling to his knees and "charging" at the same time?

Someone who is about to charge is going to be standing up. How can you feel threat from someone who is slumping to his knees?

Two witnesses said that same thing and they said it right after the killing.

We are still waiting to hear what OW says, and at this point, frankly, he's had weeks to come up with a story that takes into account what the other witnesses say as well as what videos show and what the new audio tape shows. So talk about being able to tailor your story to the evidence. I'm not saying that's what will happen, I'm sayiing the other witnesses spoke up right after the murder, so they didn't have time to change their stories or tailor their stories.

Having said that, we the general public don't matter. What matters to OW is going to be just the 12 people sitting on his jury, if it gets there. So I think it's actually smart of him NOT to talk.

JMO.

If falling to his knees, right before the final 2 shots, why haven't we heard about any abraisons on his knees?

We heard about abraisons on his face when he fell face first onto the pavement. Per Dr. Baden

 

[Tawny]

I never made a comment one way or the other. There is no way IMHO to make that determination yea or nay at this point. I only provided that because liloleme was questioning whether or not reasonableness came into play or just the cop saying so was sufficient and asked for a link. So I provided a link.

I know. I was just commenting on it with my thoughts No disrespect intended!

Also, we'd talk about a whole lotta nothin' if no one talked to media LOL