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Ted Cruz

7 (6.5%)

Rick Santorum

16 (14.8%)

Michelle Bachmann

13 (12%)

Chris Christie

23 (21.3%)

Rand Paul

49 (45.4%)

Total Members Voted: 107

[Phmcw]

Theres a video. And yeah, I think it stinks of racism- the dude was standing around shouting "Shoot me!". He wasn't charging the officers. If that'd been a white dude, I'm confident he'd have simply gotten tackled and given a slap on the wrist or something.

Well it's a possibility, but I'm under the impression that the americain police will empty several magazine on you diplay any level of agression against them.

[Baffler]

Our enforcers are supposed to use the continuum of force, but it seems to be more of a suggestion than a rule in the St. Louis area at this point.

[SalmonGod]

Supposedly, the guy had a knife... and you can sort of see it.  When the police show up, it looks like he retrieves something from his pocket, and you can just barely see it poking out of his fist.  And I've already seen dozens of people saying that it was a justified case of self-defense for this reason.

But there are so many reasons that should barely matter in this case.  There were several units less than a minute away, but those officers chose to initiate the confrontation immediately, to initiate at close range and make zero effort to maintain a safe distance, to immediately have lethal force prepared without any effort to assess the situation first for appropriateness, and to show zero concern for the suspect's life after shooting at him.

If a couple dozen police in the UK can subdue an angry machete-wielding psycho in a few minutes without any sophisticated/ranged equipment or tactics and nobody getting hurt, then I see no reason to believe a couple dozen U.S. police can't subdue an agitated, slightly aggressive guy on a street corner with a little pocket knife.  I can't accept the self-defense argument in a case where the suspect is on open ground, not posing a threat to any bystanders, does not have a firearm or serious weapon of any sort, and the police have every opportunity to take ownership of the situation.

[GlyphGryph]

I'm not sure that racism have anything to do with the matter.

Except that it very clearly does. If you think it doesn't, it's ignorance, either true or willful.

During the Martin Trial, peoples were screaming about racism while I was scratching my head : why didn't anyone say that having armed unidentified civilian without any form of training "tipping off" law enforcement by suspiciously stalking peoples at night was a bad idea? Why didn't anyone say that the stupid "strong men" mentality conveyed by rap harmfull to the community?

Plenty of people said the first one. The second one was completely irrelevant.

In this case we have the same problem : a seemingly harmless teenager that choose to confront the police.

What? He didn't confront the police. He fled from the police. In what world is running away from the police confronting
them? The police officer did grab him first, but that's still not a black teenager "confronting" the police.

Exept this time, a policeman is supposed to be able to subdue an unarmed man without resorting to lethal force.

There was no "resorting". There wasn't even a reason to subdue! He fired on a fleeing civilian that as far as he knew had committed no crime beyond jaywalking.

And don't use kid, it's misleading.

Less misleading than the number of people calling him a violent criminal. He wasn't an adult, that's for sure, and for my own part I've predominantly used teenager anyway.

Police reports have been released. For reference:
The reports on the shooting:
Ferguson Police Report
SLCPD Police Report

The reports on the robbery Brown allegedly committed:
Ferguson Police Report

[nenjin]

Man, I can't even read open debate elsewhere about this topic. When people starting calling that cop a hero for shooting an unarmed man, it makes me not want to live in this world anymore. Agree or disagree that it was a justified shooting based on the set of reports you choose to believe, fine. A cop killing an unarmed man? What in the hell is heroic about that? Or about most instances of cops using their weapons? Cops with guns drawn ready to mow a suspect down isn't heroic. It's an overwhelming application of force. Real heroism would be holstering your gun and taking them down unarmed because you want to avoid someone dying.

[GlyphGryph]

Also, evidence for the racism/stunning incompetency of the Ferguson police department:
This guy was a Sergeant Major:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jFtXG4fC5A
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/officer-who-pushed-don-lemon-relieved-of-duty-after-racist-rant-emerges/

[Lord Shonus]

What? He didn't confront the police. He fled from the police. In what world is running away from the police confronting
them? The police officer did grab him first, but that's still not a black teenager "confronting" the police.

That confused me too. There's currently two shootings being discussed in the thread, and the second one did kind-of-sort-of provoke a confrontation, although video evidence suggests that vastly excessive force was used. That may have been what the post quoted was referring to.

[smirk]

vastly excessive force

Aye. Haven't watched the video for that one, but from the reports it sounds like a case of suicide-by-cop that the officer in question was far, far too happy to oblige. Semi-relevant quote from an article about someone trying to put together a national database on use of deadly force by police:

You know who dies in the most population-dense areas? Black men. You know who dies in the least population dense areas? Mentally ill men. It's not to say there aren't dangerous and desperate criminals killed across the line. But African-Americans and the mentally ill people make up a huge percentage of people killed by police.

[SalmonGod]

In summary...

Don't think there's really anything else to say...

Edit:

Nevermind... there is one more thing.

A more technical explanation for why there's so much more to analyzing a region's power structure than demographics, by breaking down how Ferguson manages to be so institutionally racist, despite having a majority black population.

[Phmcw]

Here they carry guns but if they shoot it, they have to justify every single shot in front of the police of police. And they hate it.

[smjjames]

Hrm, theres only going to be three african-americans on that grand jury. :/ Shouldn't it be at least half so that it's at least fair? Or at least 7 out of 12 to reflect the demographics of Ferguson?

[GlyphGryph]

The demographics match that of the county.

[Strife26]

Also, evidence for the racism/stunning incompetency of the Ferguson police department:
This guy was a Sergeant Major:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jFtXG4fC5A
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/officer-who-pushed-don-lemon-relieved-of-duty-after-racist-rant-emerges/

In defense of the military everywhere, it's well known that part of the Sergeant Major Academy is the removal of anything close to common sense or the ability to form reasoned discussions.

[smjjames]

Hey pro-gun people, chew on this.

My wtf of the day. CNN said that a child accidentially killed a gun instructor in Arizona when a 9 year old lost control of a submachine gun. Who the fuck gives a kid a submachine gun? I picture the kid using a tommy gun (what I think of when I hear 'submachine gun'), kid loses control, bullets fly and ricochet every fucking where, gun instructor gets killed. I'm surprised the kid didn't get killed or injured either.

It was a goddamn Uzi.

The tommy gun is just my visual of it, but yeah, seriously, what the hell Arizona?

Again, who the hell thinks it's a good idea to give a kid an uzi? Given that it flew out of the kids hands.....

[Sergarr]

But you don't understand, the right to have guns is given to True Americans in Second Amendment by the God himself!
To abolish that right is to go against the God's very will! Heathen!