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sheshe2

(83,354 posts)
Fri Mar 6, 2015, 09:35 PM Mar 2015

Uncomfortable 'Truths': Have You Read the DOJ Report on the 'Legal' Killing of Michael Brown by Darr



1. There is an extraordinarily high standard of evidence necessary to prove if a police officer violated a victim's civil rights. Many of those laws have been gutted by the courts. As has repeatedly occurred with police abuse cases in the United States--especially when the victim is a person of color, poor, or mentally ill--that cops can and have killed with impunity and without consequence.

2. Just because something is legal does not make it just.

3. The rational and reasonable upset by the good people of Ferguson at the killing of Michael Brown was directed towards how he and his family were denied basic due process under the law. This denial of their rights continued with the systematic cover-up, and judicial malfeasance of the Ferguson police department and prosecutor's office.

snip

4. Ferguson's police practice white supremacy as a matter of policy and protocol. Their systematic harassment and denial of black citizen's rights are the context for Darren Wilson's decision to harass Michael Brown for the Jim Crow era crime of "bumptious walking".

Cause and effect: the Ferguson police are a KKK-like force that created the cultural norms that legitimate, encourage, and reward the behavior of police such as Darren Wilson. The Department of Justice's data on Ferguson's debt peonage extortion schemes against, violence and excessive force towards, and denial of the constitutional rights of black folks prove this to be true.

5. Darren Wilson's killing of Michael Brown is still onerous and unreasonable. Wilson chose to use lethal force in a situation which he unnecessarily initiated and then fatally escalated. Wilson also chose to repeatedly shoot someone who was already grievously injured and no longer an objective threat to him.

Read More http://www.chaunceydevega.com/2015/03/uncomfortable-truthshave-you-read-doj.html#more

You just have to read it. The full impact was hard to bring here in a few paragraphs. Thank you.
15 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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Uncomfortable 'Truths': Have You Read the DOJ Report on the 'Legal' Killing of Michael Brown by Darr (Original Post) sheshe2 Mar 2015 OP
Yes. Nye Bevan Mar 2015 #1
What a tragic day. We live in a society where laws only apply to some. nm rhett o rick Mar 2015 #2
No even more scary, we live in a society where a cop can murder an unarmed person Rex Mar 2015 #3
The bottom line of the report is that if a cop thinks someone is making a threatening movement rhett o rick Mar 2015 #5
"9/11 changed everything." Rex Mar 2015 #7
And he STILL GOT OFF and will not go to jail or face any punishment Number23 Mar 2015 #4
All or nothing works in the cops' favor loyalsister Mar 2015 #6
I have been on DU for almost 8 years, had my third or fourth hide tonight rufus dog Mar 2015 #8
What a load. pintobean Mar 2015 #9
I alerted on it, but I wasn't the first. mythology Mar 2015 #10
I would have pintobean Mar 2015 #11
your opinion rufus dog Mar 2015 #15
I am so angry about all of this. Trillo Mar 2015 #12
Point 1 is irrelevant to the DOJ report. Vattel Mar 2015 #13
I read it and it reaffirmed to me why AG Holder sees the need to change ... Spazito Mar 2015 #14

Nye Bevan

(25,406 posts)
1. Yes.
Fri Mar 6, 2015, 09:40 PM
Mar 2015
The only possible basis for prosecuting Wilson under Section 242 would therefore be if the government could prove that his account is not true – i.e., that Brown never punched and grabbed Wilson at the SUV, never struggled with Wilson over the gun, and thereafter clearly surrendered in a way that no reasonable officer could have failed to perceive. Not only do eyewitnesses and physical evidence corroborate Wilson’s account, but there is no credible evidence to disprove Wilson’s perception that Brown posed a threat to Wilson as Brown advanced toward him. Accordingly, seeking his indictment is not permitted by Department of Justice policy or the governing law.

http://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/press-releases/attachments/2015/03/04/doj_report_on_shooting_of_michael_brown_1.pdf
 

Rex

(65,616 posts)
3. No even more scary, we live in a society where a cop can murder an unarmed person
Sat Mar 7, 2015, 01:21 AM
Mar 2015

and it be legal. Even if it is considered immoral or unethical. THAT is scary shit. Like I said, cops get away with murder. They have the law on their side.

 

rhett o rick

(55,981 posts)
5. The bottom line of the report is that if a cop thinks someone is making a threatening movement
Sat Mar 7, 2015, 01:28 AM
Mar 2015

they are allowed to empty their gun into that person. What a dream job for a psychopath.

 

Rex

(65,616 posts)
7. "9/11 changed everything."
Sat Mar 7, 2015, 02:06 AM
Mar 2015

I agree and no wonder we see so many articles about psychopathic cops.

loyalsister

(13,390 posts)
6. All or nothing works in the cops' favor
Sat Mar 7, 2015, 01:35 AM
Mar 2015

There is no accounting for excessive responses, overkill, etc and what they clearly represent.

5. Darren Wilson's killing of Michael Brown is still onerous and unreasonable. Wilson chose to use lethal force in a situation which he unnecessarily initiated and then fatally escalated. Wilson also chose to repeatedly shoot someone who was already grievously injured and no longer an objective threat to him.
 

rufus dog

(8,419 posts)
8. I have been on DU for almost 8 years, had my third or fourth hide tonight
Sat Mar 7, 2015, 02:20 AM
Mar 2015

Not for the year, but my entire time. And it was well worth it. Someone trying to say the DOJ report exonerated Wilson, and if you don't like it take it up with Holder.

Friggen mind boggling that someone would claim that, for the Feds to win the case they would need to prove what thoughts were in Wilson's head.

Much easier for some to believe that Wilson was a good hard working cop who had to unload his gun on the hulking intimidating Brown. The only b.s. missing was Brown uttering, "you got me."

 

pintobean

(18,101 posts)
9. What a load.
Sat Mar 7, 2015, 09:45 AM
Mar 2015

I said that, like Holder said, read the report. Then the OP replied, and went back and edited a personal attack into that reply. I responded to the attack that was edited in and, for some reason, that set you off. Anyone can go read it and see that you're seeing things that don't exist.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026324109#post11

Yeah, you deserved that hide, but it didn't bother me and I didn't alert on it.

 

mythology

(9,527 posts)
10. I alerted on it, but I wasn't the first.
Sat Mar 7, 2015, 11:18 AM
Mar 2015

It was absolutely a deserved hide, and it's sad that the poster is proud of telling somebody "fuck you asshole".

 

rufus dog

(8,419 posts)
15. your opinion
Sat Mar 7, 2015, 03:48 PM
Mar 2015

you are entitled to it, as I am entitled to mine.

btw it was a squeaker hide, 4-3, mind boggling it wasn't 7 to 0. Wonder why.

Trillo

(9,154 posts)
12. I am so angry about all of this.
Sat Mar 7, 2015, 01:48 PM
Mar 2015

I'm white. When I went to compulsory schools, long, long ago, great efforts were made by staff, particularly teachers, to help us understand how wrong racism was. I use the past tense in the same way they used it. It was a part of our past which we as a people had overcome.

I was actually gullible enough to believe it. Now I learn that other areas of the country are flaming racists. Literally FLAMING racists --- they would use fire to slay humans with black skin.

 

Vattel

(9,289 posts)
13. Point 1 is irrelevant to the DOJ report.
Sat Mar 7, 2015, 03:04 PM
Mar 2015

The report concluded that, judging by the evidence, Wilson's use of force was objectively reasonable. They didn't need to get into the issue of whether they could meet the burden of proof in a criminal civil rights trial because they concluded that there was no crime.

Point 5 needs to be defended. The DOJ report provides a careful and thorough argument that, judging by the evidence, Wilson's use of force was not unreasonable or onerous. It is fine to disagree with that, but one should counter the argument of the report if one does that.

Spazito

(49,765 posts)
14. I read it and it reaffirmed to me why AG Holder sees the need to change ...
Sat Mar 7, 2015, 03:13 PM
Mar 2015

the law under which federal authorities must meet almost impossible standards when it comes to civil rights violations.

Eric Holder: 'We need to change the law' after Trayvon Martin case

“We do need to change the law. I do think the standard is too high,” Holder said in an interview with NBC News. “There needs to be a change with regard to the standard of proof.”

Victor Goode, an associate professor of law at CUNY School of Law, said this standard was much easier to prove during the civil rights struggle of the 1960s and 1970s, when crimes could be tied to groups such as the Ku Klux Klan or others that had declared support for violent acts against minorities. In high-profile fatal shootings by police officers in recent years, the standard is much more difficult to prove.

“Unless the police issued a racial epithet moments before they shot someone, it’s almost impossible to determine what their motivation was,” said Goode. “Especially when after the shooting they openly state to their superiors: ‘I was in fear of my life and I openly discharged in accordance with my police training.’”

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/27/eric-holder-civil-rights-law-changes-trayvon-martin

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