Running gun violence thread

Alabama fans identified the guy in pictures as Nick Fairley.

 

That was weird. I guess it started with a breakdown of what shoes he was wearing in the photo of his dead body? But then he wasn't wearing shoes.

I have no problem concluding it was him in the video. Just as I have no problem concluding that Trayvon Martin was getting ready to mix up some Fire Ass Lean. But neither of those is an offense punishable by immediate execution.

Still the main, and probably only, indisputable facts are that Brown was shot many times ("more than just a couple of times, but not much more," the chief said) and that he was 35 feet away from the car when he was shot the final time. If witness accounts prove correct and the officer got out of the car and chased him down the street while firing, I don't know how in the world that squares as the punishment fitting the crime of stealing cigars.

 

Comparing this to Treyvon Martin is a non-starter.

"If witness accounts prove correct" is always a pretty critical, pretty iffy hypothetical.

The officer is claiming that Brown assaulted him to a degree that he reasonably believed his life was in danger. The fact that Brown was willing to throttle a clerk half his size in the course of shoplifting certainly makes that more plausible.

"I don't know how in the world that squares as the punishment fitting the crime of stealing cigars."

Spinny spin spin. The "crime" would be assaulting a police officer to the degree that he had to defend himself with deadly force. Maybe the officer was wrong and Brown was innocent of that crime, but nobody shot him over stealing cigars.

 

Good thing I'm white, because when I shoplifted as a pre-teen that's what saved me from being justifiably shot and killed by police.

Congrats to the Ferguson police for deflection in making this about whether Michael Brown was a Big Scary Black Man, not whether the use of fatal force was justified, and for writing Hannity's show for him tonight.

 

I don't think anybody thinks that shooting an unarmed teen in the back is acceptable. There is nobody here, to my knowledge, saying that.

However, we were sold, and I bought in, to the narrative that this was a good kid, just innocently Walking While Black.

Fuck that.

 

Once the determination is made to use deadly force, officers are trained to keep shooting. There's no "shooting him once and then letting him run away." Whether that's a good policy is up for debate, but whether this specific officer was in the wrong or not depends more on when the first shot was fired than the last.

 

Forty-five years later, they still shoot to kill.

 

Well, it helped that the police said nothing for five days.

And now they're trying to take advantage of the American populace's inability to not compare apples to oranges. It is very plausible and possible that a person could not be pure as the driven snow, yet should not have been treated as he was by police.

In fact, the witnesses and family, I'm sure, pushed the pure-as-the-driven-snow line because they knew (as is being proven now) that a lot of people would suddenly feel less sympathy for his plight if he wasn't. So now it's no longer about police misconduct and the militarization of law enforcement -- it's about another young black thug, because, you know, that's how they all are.

 

No, I don't know how "they all are." But I know this one was a turd, stealing from a convenience store and strong arming a clerk. I feel like a complete idiot for my spirited rant to my co-workers a couple of days ago, about the jerkwater cops shooting an innocent kid who was just walking down the street at 2:15 in the afternoon, minding his own business.

 

Bob, serious question I've been wondering all morning...

On what day would the release of the video and stills NOT been viewed in the light it is being viewed? If they would have released it one day before the release of the officer's name would people in the community have been OK with it? People here? People across the country?

My gut tells me the reaction would have been the same no matter when it had been released.

 

See, I just can't see that. What you're talking about *does* happen.

But this isn't a picture of him dressed "thuggishly" or a 5-year-old vandalism misdemeanor.

He's accused of assaulting the police officer to such a degree that the officer was reasonably concerned for his life. The fact that he was being arrested for a crime in which he throttled a man half his size for trying to stop him from shoplifting makes that seem a bit more plausible.