The Michael Brown Shooting: Facts & Wilson's account

a reply to: Greven

Thank you for your post Greven.

Silly me. I thought this was going to be a discussion about the facts of the case, and establishing an accurate timeline, according to the news sources.

I didn't realize it would be another thread of character assasination and hyperbole.

Is there a reason why the tittle says facts, when there is none present. Looks like another troll thread to get people to jump at each others throat.

originally posted by: Greven
I would like to note that, so far as I am aware, warning shots are considered deadly force.

edit: This statute will be relevant in the future case (thanks, Domo1):

...

I had found this yesterday while doing some research while others were just spouting their mouths off as if they're (what we used to call in the Army) "barracks lawyers." I'll call them "screen lawyers" here.

I mentioned in another thread (maybe not directly to you) that an assault on a police officer--and assault doesn't have to include physical contact--is a felony. If you look at paragraph 3(2)(a) in the above statute, officer Wilson was within his rights to use deadly force, no matter if Brown was running away or toward Wilson. I think it's pretty clear by most "witness" comments I've heard so far that the narrative that Brown was just standing there with his hands up, surrendering to Wilson, is not how things went down.

Furthermore, I have never heard of an SOP in law enforcement that advocated "warning shots," as that endangers others around the situation at the time. Officers, military, and anyone else trained to properly use a firearm for deadly force are trained to aim center mass and fire until the threat is neutralized. The Hollywood myth that LEOs fire warning shots is a fantasy. If it was a "warning shot," then that means the officer missed while aiming at his center-mass target, nothing more.

Yes, I have a background as a paralegal, and I generally understand how better to interpret the application of certain guidelines and statutes and elements of charges better than the average screen lawyer out there.

a reply to: kelbtalfenek

What else do you expect? That's how this discussion will go on, long after any exhoneration or trial until this event just peters out into the ether of forgotten happenings. Some people are just not interested in facts because their brains only work off of emotion.

Notice how the same people demonizing Brown are so quiet when it comes to this case...Unarmed White Teen Shot Dead By Non-White Utah Cop.

No threads jumping up demonizing this victim...nothing...Gee I wonder why?

Do you see the difference?..

a reply to: Onslaught2996
I'm sorry but I don't understand your point.

Are you questioning why people who say Brown is to blame for his actions aren't saying the same thing about this young man?

If that is the case I would have to say it is because the white community isn't rioting and burning down the city demanding the cops head.

Odds are he played a major role in the way his fate played out just as Michael Brown did.

originally posted by: tinner07
a reply to: Onslaught2996
I'm sorry but I don't understand your point.

Are you questioning why people who say Brown is to blame for his actions aren't saying the same thing about this young man?

If that is the case I would have to say it is because the white community isn't rioting and burning down the city demanding the cops head.

What does the community rioting and burning..have to do with anything.

I am asking a very simple question..where are these same people who are going out of their way to turn the victim into a violent criminal when it comes to Brown or anyone who speaks out against the cop. In case you missed all the threads, doing this....just a reminder.

Where are these people..who say it is not about race, yet only demonize Brown...and nothing to say for this guy..no threads making him out to be a bad guy..etc.

Right wingers cry about being called a racist and then do things to prove it is true. A cop shoots a black kid...well he must have deserved it...let search the net for proof. Witnesses for Brown...well they must also be criminals or covering their own butt ..somehow.

A cop shoots a white kid..one of two things happens, they look to make the cop to be the bad guy...or the kid had mental issues or whatever excuse they can come up with.


See the double standard.

a reply to: GogoVicMorrow

You say "I'm not defending the criminal", then you say:
You don't know that he was a bully. What if it was a one off incident. For all we know his friend tried to buy them, was under age and the clerk presumed they were for the friend when brown tried and an argument ensued.

1. Yes I do know he was a bully and so do you,it's right there on the video.
2. "What if it was a one off incident"? What if it was? Are you not a murderer because you only did it once?
3. The rest of this statement is pure conjecture in defense of the criminal act.

Then you have the great brass cojones to say "the storw owner may have agged it on."

So it's probably the store owners fault. Seriously? but you're not defending the criminal....right.

a reply to: kelbtalfenek
Well, it should be about the facts. I can't help that certain people immediately went to engage in hyperbole and character assassination.
a reply to: dukeofjive696969
I can't control other members. If you feel the facts as I've outlined in the OP are mistaken, please correct them.

Here are some additional facts - we know the location of the shooting (an old Google Street View from 2012):

As verified by the initial witness picture (by @TheePharoah):

And subsequent pictures that show that the building was remodeled, with trees being taken down as well:

We know that, as the crow flies, this is approximately 0.3 mile away from the store where the incident took place. It's slightly further by street, about half a mile.

a reply to: SlapMonkey
It is good of you to point that out, but if that is the case then everything hinges on what happened at the vehicle. That is an unknown, still.
If they do not fire warning shots, then the shot that Wilson fired while Johnson and Brown were running was not a warning shot and was aimed at them.

originally posted by: Greven
a reply to: SlapMonkey
It is good of you to point that out, but if that is the case then everything hinges on what happened at the vehicle. That is an unknown, still.
If they do not fire warning shots, then the shot that Wilson fired while Johnson and Brown were running was not a warning shot and was aimed at them.

Right. My point is that, even if attempting to flee, according to what you posted and the events that allegedly happened prior to firing the first shot at them (assuming it was done while they were running away...many of the witnesses' credibility doesn't exactly seem to be pristene), Wilson was in the legal right to do so. That's all I'm getting at.

And from a courtroom standpoint, a lot does hinge on the vehicle confrontation, but we know zero facts, yet, as to that, so assuming one story or the other is accurate is not good to do, although I tend to give Wilson the benefit of the doubt since...well, he's not a criminal and there has been nothing that I've seen brought up from his past that indicates AT ALL that he was some racist vigilante rogue cop out to just shoot people in the back for not listening to the directive to quit walking in the middle of the street.

See, having the legal background that I do (yes, I've interacted with judges during trials, dealt with vior dire [boooring], witness interviews, discussions about credibilty and how that affects trials, etc.), at this point, even though it's a he-said-they-say version of events, one must take credibility into account--not necessarily form an opinion based on it, but at least give that version of events some additional weight until all of the forensic evidence comes out.

a reply to: Greven

Just re-read my post. I wasn't pointing a finger at you, or your post. I think you did good work in presenting the timeline. Apologies if my post wasn't clear at that.

a reply to: SlapMonkey
The statement that Wilson fired while Johnson and Brown were running is from the New York Times, and the NYT reported that law enforcement authorities said this. This is more credible than just a witness report.


By the way, I have just come across what appears to be the missing reports I mentioned in the OP. I must leave shortly, so I do not have time to analyze them in any way. Here are the reports:
Ferguson Police Report #2014-12391
St. Louis County Police Report #2014-43984
Take caution that these may or may not be the reports. It is what I was told.

originally posted by: abe froman

originally posted by: GogoVicMorrow
a reply to: Greven








I qill be the dirst to say Nrown was a punk, bt the officer is a murderer. Its dishy. No denying.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Could have spelled it better though.

a reply to: Onslaught2996

Demonizing the cop or the kid?

a reply to: Greven

Having returned and looked at these reports now, I'm... honestly confused as to why it took so long for them to release them. There is essentially nothing new to be gleaned from these reports as they are so short and bare of information as to be almost useless. The ACLU of Missouri (PDF) appears to be the organization that obtained these documents, and they are heavily redacted.

Very strangely, the county documents say (I assume the username is the first bit):

Printed By / Reason: #rubme1 / For St. Louis County Counselor

They do provide further confirmation of the location of the shooting - the same address I'd researched above: 2947 Canfield Drive.
The county document doesn't appear to have been entered until the next Tuesday (8/19) morning, though it says officers from the county were dispatched on behalf of another agency (Ferguson PD) on Saturday (8/09). It also says officers from the county arrived at the scene at 1:30pm.

Not much else there so far as I can tell.

It seems that the radio caller identifying herself as "Josie" and supposedly putting forth Wilson's account as a friend was basically just reading a post on Facebook on air. It looks like he initially got this debunking wrong, but it seems that the premise ended up being pretty accurate.

Someone posted an account on the page of a person named "Josie Meadows" and shortly after, "Josie" calls in to Dana's radio show to share the oh-so-personal account (12pm-3pm is the radio show):

8/15 Jill Meadows posts a story on Josie Meadows’ facebook page at 7:29 am
8/15 Josie goes on Dana’s show to spew
8/17 the fake Darren Wilson post goes up

So Josie was just recounting a different Facebook post than I originally thought. Still means that the media is treating Josie’s (at best) third hand account of the shooting as equal to actual witnesses.

And notice Jill Meadows never says where she got her info. Just a cryptic “I believe in my heart for it to be factually true because I know someone very well who was there.”

Cached Facebook post (this does not seem to work well with ATS tags, so I have to use a shorthand link: Goo.gl short link
The "Josie" account