Apparently Black people just don't know what's good for them. They don't know how to pick their own heroes according to Joe Scarborough, because he says that "Michael Brown is a Thug... who knocked over a Liquor Store...and doesn't deserve to be the face of Black Oppression in America"
"The cops have every reason to be pissed off this morning," Scarborough said. He argued that the five players on the St. Louis Rams who raised their arms in solidarity with Ferguson on Sunday based their gesture on "lies" that contradicted findings of a grand jury investigation.
There are a lot of things to respond to in this, but I'm just going to address how many facts Joe gets grossly wrong. He buys into the Darren Wilson narrative hook line and sinker, claiming that that Dorian Johnson's story - that Wilson was the aggressor, that he grabbed Brown by the throat, that he
shot at him as he ran away and then functionally executed him as he attempted to surrender, is the only sane, rational, reasonable conclusion.
In the end though, he perpetuates the sin he so clearly claims to abhor. The deadly dangerous arrogance of certainty.
Continued over the fold.
Before I get into the meat of this one other thing that Joe gets wrong is the claim 12 year-old Tamir Rice who was shot dead by police in Cleveland had a real gun, not a toy. It was a Toy, a BB Gun, and the Officers refused to give him first aid or CPR.
So when he goes on and on about "Lies" - he just told a Whopper right there.
Apparently what set Joe off was five players of the St. Louis Rams holding their hands up in solidarity with the Michael Brown protests, and the police union who demanded that these player be punished. The NFL has declined to do so, meanwhile the Ex-Cop who demanded the punishment turns out to have a history of lying to protect crooked cops.
Roorda, a Democrat who most recently served in the Missouri House of Representatives before running for a seat in the state Senate and losing, was fired from the Arnold, Missouri police department in 2001 for misconduct after having been previously warned in another case where he was found to have lied in a police report.
According to court documents, in 1997 Roorda was reprimanded for attempting “…to try to ‘cover’ for another police officer by filing a report that contained false statements as to what happened during a suspect’s apprehension and arrest. As a result of this false report, all charges against the defendant involved were dropped.” The court notes that Roorda was informed, “If it is ever determined again that you have lied in a police report, you will receive a more severe punishment, up to and including termination.”
So that's the perfect person for Joe to hitch his wagon too.
But something truly odd seems to have happened here, somehow a Grand Jury which is supposed only make determination if probable cause exists has now become the Determiner of FACTS in this case. That simply because they choose not to vote for indictment, everything that was presented in Darren Wilson's favor has been deemed and blessed as true and everyone else who disagrees is a liar who needs to be punished with perjury.
That. is. Total. Lunacy!
Let's for the sake of argument say that you could pursue perjury charges for anyone who said Brown put his hands up or was attempting to surrender. Well, normally a case like that would turn on having at least two other witnesses that can confirm this particular point is a lie. The problem is that it wasn't just Dorian Johnson who said that. Not even.
Witness 16
I looked outside. I saw [Brown] turn around and put his hands into the air. ... I heard several more [gunshots]. I can't put a number on it. It was several of them ... it just sounded like chaos. (moved again)
Witness 37
[Wilson] kinda gave him a chase and that's where I see Mr. Brown slow up and throw his hands up. ... He slows right up. ... [Wilson] steps out, he gives him a little pursuit. It was like kinda lazy like he made no effort to actually catch up with him. He gave him a little pursuit. He slowed up. He stopped.
Witness 42
[Wilson] shot again, shot the individual in the back ... I see the officer chasing after the individual and he hit him "pow" one time ... I don't know what part of the back he shot but [Brown] turned around ... Mr. Brown turned and literally put up his arms, in a fashion that means surrender. ... the individual realized he was shot he turns around and immediately put his arms up.
Witness 45
[Brown] stopped and with his arms up, [his arms] never went down to portray that he had a weapon or anything. ... I was right there by the dumpster ... this is where he ran and he stopped. ... And that's where he turned around, and he started going back towards the police to defend himself, like to give up. ... he turned back around with his hands up, to go back towards the police.
Witness 64
I saw the cop following [Brown] ... the officer had the pistol in hand and was chasing him and fired a couple of shots at him while he was running ... I saw [Brown] turn around like he had given up or something, you know. But he was still moving, he was like coming back at the officer and the officer just kept shooting at him. (indicates by motion that Brown may have been hit in the hip or leg)
Witness 48
[Wilson] got out of his cruiser and chased him. ... [Brown] turned around. And the police officer stopped. Stopped running and the dude started running back towards the officer. ... He was just running like this. (raises his hands over his chest, with hands clenched). ... [Brown put his hands up] for a few seconds and then put his arms down and he kind of put them close to his chest and he started running.
And there were those who said he didn't have his hands up, but there are also reasons to doubt what they have to say.
Witness 30
That's when the officer shot him in the leg. And it certainly looked like a leg shot to me, the way he (chuckles) ... spun around. ... he flung [his hands] out as he was running away and got [shot] ... and staggered around. ... And right after he was hit, he turned around and he started back toward the police officer. ... I've heard lots of people talking about how he had his hands up. He did not have his hands up.
As we now clearly know, Brown was not shot in the leg - so this could a secondary mistake on their part.
Witness 40
The cop was wobbling ... the big kid turned around and had his arms out with attitude. The cop just stood there. Dang if that kid didn't start running at the cop like a football player, head down.
This witness also wrote in their journal on the same day that they needed to learn to "
Stop calling Black people Niggers", so that kinda covers that.
Simple math says we have 6 witnesses, not including Dorian, who all say Brown put his hands up and/or was shot at and potentially hit while fleeing while just 2 witnesses - who have other problems with their testimony and credibility - side with Wilson.
If you include Wilson and Johnson's testimony that's 7 to 3 against Wilson. If we were a country that cared about what a more than 2 to 1 majority has to say about something, we wouldn't have quite so many people thinking there wasn't any "Probable Cause" against Wilson, but apparently this Grand Jury has shown we don't really care about stuff like the majority view unless it's a view that supports the view we already have.
If you need a "tie-breaker" on this, even though it's not even close to a tie, you have the opinion voiced by Dr. Cyril Wecht that Brown was shot while he had his arm raised and while he was falling, not charging.
Of course a Prosecution Witness, like Wecht, wasn't called before the Grand Jury by this prosecution team. And I don't see how you win a perjury case, when every person you would be trying to convict has six other coorberating witnesses and only 2 (or 3 if they actually would dared to present Wilson as a witness) on their side.
The only person that says Brown attacked Wilson, is Wilson. The fact Wilson only has a small bruise on the right side of his face, which was on the opposite side from Brown doesn't corroborate his claim of being "attacked", he could have just as easily be hit in the face by the recoil of his own gun. The only person that says Brown tried to "take his gun", is Wilson. The wound to Brown's thumb indicates proximity but it doesn't prove which way his hand was moving or disprove the possibility that this was in fact a defensive wound as Brown attempted to prevent his being shot in the face.
This is not a slam dunk argument, not going in either direction IMO. The purpose of the Grand Jury wasn't to have this argument, because that would require having both a Prosecution and a Defense to raise their various issues and each let them be challenged vigorously. That's what a Trial is for.
So sayeth, Antonin Scalia.
It is the grand jury’s function not ‘to enquire … upon what foundation [the charge may be] denied,’ or otherwise to try the suspect’s defenses, but only to examine ‘upon what foundation [the charge] is made’ by the prosecutor. Respublica v. Shaffer, 1 Dall. 236 (O. T. Phila. 1788); see also F. Wharton, Criminal Pleading and Practice § 360, pp. 248-249 (8th ed. 1880). As a consequence, neither in this country nor in England has the suspect under investigation by the grand jury ever been thought to have a right to testify or to have exculpatory evidence presented.
[Technically Scalia is saying targets don't have the right to bring their own exculpatory evidence into a Grand Jury,
unless a Prosecutor decides to do it for them as was the case here as the St. Louis DA put it to
this Grand Jury.]
And you must find probable cause to believe that Darren Wilson did not act in lawful self-defense and you must find probable cause to believe that Darren Wilson did not use lawful force in making an arrest. If you find those things, which is kind of like finding a negative, you cannot return an indictment on anything or true bill unless you find both of those things. Because both are complete defenses to any offense and they both have been raised in his, in the evidence.
What we had instead of an actual Grand Jury was a
Mock Defense Trial without any Prosecution. A
Reverse Kangaroo Court where the only outcome possible was "No Case". The Prosecution
was the Defense in this case, who put the defendant on the stand without any cross-examination, without asking him why his story changed from the initial interviews to his later statements, and didn't ask him about his previous job with the Jennings, MO. police department where
he and all he other Officers on the Force were Fired for their treatment of Black residents. A "Prosecution" team that not only failed to ask Wilson tough questions, but also
misrepresented the law on "use of force" to the Grand Jury for 3 Months. In addition we had a medical examiner who didn't take any measurements and couldn't be bothered to get batteries for his camera. We had investigators who didn't secure Wilson's weapon from him, instead letting him put it into evidence himself, and then later didn't bother to test it for prints which could have confirmed, or
refuted his claim that Brown tried to "grab the gun".
Even if things did go mostly as Wilson claims during their initial encounter, and he either simply didn't see and notice Brown's hands go up, or the gesture wasn't made clear enough and Wilson truly and honestly thought Brown was charging at him (going at only about 4 ft per sec, which is a pretty slow "charge") that's now only part of the issue.
It's now become about how sloppy and shoddy the investigation was. It's not become about how this Grand Jury was used to sanctify that shoddy investigation. It's become about all the levels in which the views, opinions, feelings, lives and survival of black people have been step-by-step Systematically Disregarded and Disrespected.
They're treated like children who don't know any better.
So is it then any surprise, when all the institutions of authority, from the police to the prosecution to the courts and the juries all show this disregard and disrespect that some people just plain freak out and throw a tantrum?
And I'm not saying everyone, not all of the protestors, because the vast majority of them - all across the nation - haven't been violent or committed acts of arson.
They aren't all looters.
The vast majority of them have tried to be peaceful. The vast majority of them want positive and effective solutions to this and telling them the reason they're getting killed by cops so much - ala Giuliani - is because they're already getting killed so much [from which obviously the police are failing to prevent and protect them from] is no solution at all. It's just shifting blame from the killers to the victims they're most likely to kill.
But yet that vast majority of them still get tarred with the same brush, just as Scarborough does so casually here, of being violent and of causing damage.
That they're all thugs. Just like Michael Brown, who remember was about to start his first day of college that week, is just a "thug" to them.
It's the same shit yet again that Scarborough is spouting. Everything I think is the Fact and the Truth and everything YOU think is Bullshit and Lies.
The fact is, it's not either. It not one or the other. Not any single person is only a Hero or only a Thug. Depending on the circumstances we call all be either at any particular point in time.
But people continuing to think that way, only one way that people are all good or all bad, isn't going to make even the simplest of disputes get resolved.
Vyan