Video of Michael Brown robbing store just before being shot to be released today.

a reply to: Wrabbit2000

At the same time, you are relating your view of where you live as being what you perceive as middle to upper middle class. I'm going to sound really snooty after this post. Yikes. The images that I saw of Ferguson, MO, to be quite blunt, was what I view as a lower middle class neighborhood based on my own context as well. Where Brown was shot? That would be viewed as a really low income neighborhood in my city.

This is pretty representative of an upper middle class neighborhood. This is the kind of neighborhood that my mother lives in, house after house, with Whole Foods and Four Seasons as the primary neighborhood grocery stores. There's a dinner theater with leather seats nearby where a couple can spend about $90 on a good steak dinner and a movie. Most of the shops nearby are boutiques, salons and day spas where most of the women out here with zero common sense spend about $60 on a haircut and $30 for a manicure. That's upper middle class.
Upper middle class home

My city's median income is around $56k. Only 13% of our population is below the poverty level. They live in apartment complexes like where Brown was shot. The city library used to be in that area til they moved it into the older and now gentrified area with a beautiful park and water feature. That part of town features old fashioned renovated street lamps with lights swirled up them for nighttime and tremendous flower baskets hanging off of them for day.

That's middle to upper middle class. Ranges from places that look like the only thing that's been done to renovate them in the recent past is a slap of paint (lower middle class for homes, poverty level for apartments--closest to what I've seen in Ferguson based on streams and zooming around on street view) to renovated older homes with updated front yards (gentrified) to minor McMansions to outright McMansions.

The eye of the beholder probably lands somewhere in here. When I lived on the Navajo reservation, I lived in an area called "Karigan Estates". Everyone viewed that as "where the rich people lived" though most of the residents made between $50-90,000. Our house was about 1600 sq ft.

Those houses kind of looked like this at the lower range:
www.navajopartnershipforhousing.com...

And this for the most expensive house in the development:
www.navajobusiness.com...

That was "rich" for our neighbors based on their own context of run down older ranch homes and plywood shacks. I remember when my Navajo family first walked into my father's 10,000+ sq foot home. They look positively terrified and astounded. They had no idea that people lived that way.

This is why context both does matter and also is irrelevant because it is so subjective. And why statistics do actually matter.

a reply to: HauntWok

Nope, if your a black thug criminal animal your already guilty, if not right now then surely later when you commit another crime

originally posted by: Sremmos80
a reply to: HauntWok

Nope, if your a black thug criminal animal your already guilty, if not right now then surely later when you commit another crime

God I hope that was sarcasm.

originally posted by: j.r.c.b.
After seeing how Brown treated the little store owner, I really wish we could see how he treated/spoke to the officer...is there NO dash cam at all? That's surprising to me, as I've never seen a police car without a cam of some sort.....

Guy tried to imprison him by locking him in the store. Setting aside whether or not he actually took the cigars without paying... you wouldn't stick up for your rights, too?

You don't get to imprison people. Cops do.

a reply to: zysin5

why does what he did before the shooting, that the cop didn't even know about, change how the cop reacted?
He was not responding to the robbery call, just to the two jaywalking.

It's amazing to watch some of the same folks who routinely wail and gnash teeth about government overreach, rampant tyranny and trampling the Constitution ... are now railing that "the Law is the Law" and jumping through their metaphorical anuses to justify what the (literally) jackbooted government agents did to an American citizen and then to a whole neighborhood's worth of American citizens.

What disgusting displays of hypocrisy on the part of some of you here!

You have multiple eyewitness and video accounts of a TRUE and ON VIDEO Real Police State in Action, and yet you're trying to figure out yet another way to spin Michael Brown into a thug who deserved to be shot in the street and left there for hours like a butchered animal.

True patriots ...

a reply to: loam

I need to correct my previous entry in this thread. The Quik Mart was not the store involved in the robbery. It turns out it was the Ferguson Market & Liquor store.

Shooting Witness Dorian Johnson Confirms He and Michael Brown Robbed #Ferguson Convenience Store — UPDATED!!



UPDATED MAP:

a reply to: loam

So what does that do for your timeline of events?

Did Mr. Brown have the time to rob the store, ditch the merchandise, and encounter the cop in the time allotted?

Well after seeing those still pictures I hope everyone learned something.Simply we still do not have all the facts yet to be making any pre judgements here.

a reply to: loam

How about, instead of linking to a blog that doesn't provide a source at all, link it instead to a verified media source instead?

Via KSDK: Attorney: Dorian Johnson confirms he was with Brown at store robbery

Glad the kid confirmed it. After looking at a better quality of footage and comparing, I was pretty certain that it was in fact Johnson and Brown at the robbery.

a reply to: WhiteAlice

originally posted by: WhiteAlice
How about, instead of linking to a blog that doesn't provide a source at all, link it instead to a verified media source instead?

The blog links to a WDEF source saying the same.

I chose the blog link, because in addition to confirmation of the robbery by Johnson's attorney, the blog had twitter posts confirming the actual store.

originally posted by: loam
a reply to: WhiteAlice

The blog links to a WDEF source saying the same.

I chose the blog link, because in addition to confirmation of the robbery by Johnson's attorney, the blog had twitter posts confirming the actual store.

Gotcha. I didn't see any obvious link and Twitter posts aren't always a confirmed source.

a reply to: WhiteAlice

originally posted by: WhiteAlice
Twitter posts aren't always a confirmed source.

Yes, but I checked every store using Google maps south of the Quik Trip location and that location seems correct and consistent with the police reports. Moreover, the police officer who first responded to the robbery call indicated he was at the Park Ridge Apartment complex immediately behind....and then the location is blanked out- presumably because this was the exact location of the robbery. Google maps confirms Park Ridge Apartments is behind Ferguson Market and Liquor.

a reply to: HauntWok

originally posted by: HauntWok
So what does that do for your timeline of events?

Well, what we know is that according to the police reports, officers indicate they received a robbery call at at 11:51.

At 12:04, officers are dispatched to Brown's shooting.

So only somewhere between 13-19 minutes had likely elapsed between the two events.

We can assume the robbery took place shortly before the 11:51 time and that the shooting took place before the 12:04 time.

a reply to: Gryphon66

originally posted by: Gryphon66
It's amazing to watch some of the same folks who routinely wail and gnash teeth about government overreach, rampant tyranny and trampling the Constitution ... are now railing that "the Law is the Law" and jumping through their metaphorical anuses to justify what the (literally) jackbooted government agents did to an American citizen and then to a whole neighborhood's worth of American citizens.

What disgusting displays of hypocrisy on the part of some of you here!

You have multiple eyewitness and video accounts of a TRUE and ON VIDEO Real Police State in Action, and yet you're trying to figure out yet another way to spin Michael Brown into a thug who deserved to be shot in the street and left there for hours like a butchered animal.

True patriots ...

To be clear, I'm not impressed at all by what took place after Brown's shooting- particularly the arrests of journalists or the rubber bullets and tear gas against peaceful protesters. Makes me mad as hell.

But I'm also not impressed with the looting and damage to property by the rioters.

Finally, I'm not impressed with the newest revelation about Johnson and Brown.

I guess when Johnson said "we wasn't causing no harm to nobody," he only meant AT THAT PRECISE MOMENT. Never mind the 13-20 minutes before when they robbed the store and roughed up the clerk.

Johnson omitted that context, didn't he? ....So his version of the facts is suspect at best.

Of course, if Johnson's description of the shooting is accurate, then the LEO still didn't have the right to execute Brown. But the problem is we don't really know if Johnson's story is correct or the LEO's.

Frankly, I think there are plenty of wrongdoers in this mess.

a reply to: loam
Police report
"The entire incident takes place on Saturday, 08/09/2014 between 11:52:58hrs and 11:54:00hrs"

10 minutes later, Brown was shot at that end point, approximately 12:04pm.

originally posted by: buster2010
In the report it says he stole a box of cigars.

So where are they at? He has a bottle in his hands not a box of cigars.

He's assaulting the store owner. I think the cigars are rather irrelevant in this instance.

a reply to: loam

Hi Loam good to see you. I'm waiting for the autopsy report, the family is having an independent one done too.

The number of bullet wounds, the direction they entered the body from, and the angle, will tell us what happened in the final minute of Brown's life.

Des

a reply to: Destinyone

Agreed. It will be good to see what those reveal.

originally posted by: Bilk22
He's assaulting the store owner. I think the cigars are rather irrelevant in this instance.

Store owner is trying to lock (imprison) him inside the store.

That's something you can't legally do, so far as I know.