Ferguson, MO

[TonyB06]

Originally Posted by PiKA2001

Are you asking if he had the motive to lie through his ass in order to get off? Of course, anyone facing possible criminal charges has that motive. I would think if he did lie in his incident report it would have been noticed during the hearings. Evidence and many other witness accounts would have conflicted with his statement of events.

This is my point, reading this stuff. It's hard to find a place where he was really challenged on his narrative of events. That's what got a lot of people shaking their heads.

[PiKA2001]

Originally Posted by TonyB06

This is my point, reading this stuff. It's hard to find a place where he was really challenged on his narrative of events. That's what got a lot of people shaking their heads.

I'm not sure myself since I wasn't on the grand jury and I'm not an expert in the process but I did hear how the Brown family attorney was disappointed that he wasn't given the opportunity to challenge his testimony. I recall hearing that he was on the stand for three hours, but who was asking the questions, and if and how he was challenged I don't know. I will say that if I was sitting on the grand jury and I thought his testimony was false it would make my decision to indict much more easier.

[StealthMode]

Originally Posted by AGDee

This is where the problem is, because people assume that in a high adrenalin situation where you've just been attacked and the person who attacked you tried to take your gun and is now charging toward you, you're going to stop and think "I'm going to shoot him in the knee". I think survival instinct causes anybody to just shoot and stop that person in any way possible. Shooting a moving target is also not going to result in shooting them in one specific body part. Brown was almost twice the weight of Wilson and significantly taller. There's no way Wilson would win a physical fight. Once Wilson was unconscious, Brown would have his gun and would then be armed.

Are you saying Wilson was considering what would happen if he fell unconscious and Brown got his gun? If high adrenaline and the heat of the situation kept Wilson from even thinking where he was going to aim to shoot, then it stands to reason he wasn't playing out possible situations in his head either.

Also, to what's in bold, officers are supposedly trained to assess and react in a calculated manner so they don't respond solely on "survival instinct." I know it's a difficult situation with an impossible amount of pressure but I would still expect the average person to completely lose their cool and shoot at whatever they can before I expect a highly trained officer to do the same. By this reasoning, Wilson may not have reacted according to a racial bias but still did not react as well as he could have.

Originally Posted by DrPhil

2. The public needs to know more about law enforcement training and the policies regarding use of "force", use of "deadly force", and firearm use.

I agree with everything you said but especially this. I spoke at length with a retired officer today about the Ferguson incident (we were just having lunch and it came up). The info he gave me about how officers are trained and the flaws in the system (as well as the strengths and rationale for how things are) were incredibly enlightening. I wish more people knew about it if for no other reason than you can't call for change if you don't understand why things are the way they are.

Originally Posted by PiKA2001

It comes from the amount of ridiculous, unrealistic statements I've read about what Wilson should and/or should not have done. People lay blame on Wilson for defending himself but no one bats an eye about Brown going for Wilsons gun in the first place.

I see. I'm not sure what you've seen but I have also seen comments from numerous people who called him a "drugged up thug who deserved to die" and that's not okay either. However, the majority of comments I've seen say Michael Brown wasn't an innocent angel and, were he still alive, desperately needed a lesson in how to respectfully interact with police. That being said, very few think there's enough evidence to say he deserved to die either. If the GJ saw evidence that said so, nobody (I know) heard it or read it in anything that was presented, a point at least 3 reporters made on the news here yesterday.

Originally Posted by Tom Earp

I was never trained to profile anyone, just the ones that broe the law.

Were/Are you a cop, Tom? I don't know much about you so forgive me if that's been posted somewhere.