FBI Opens Investigation into Shooting of Michael Brown
 

Ferguson, Missouri (CNN) -- The FBI has officially opened an investigation into the shooting of a teenager by a police officer in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, Missouri, a U.S. law enforcement official tells CNN.

Federal investigators are joining the U.S. Department of Justice in assisting local authorities to garner the facts surrounding the killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown, who was shot Saturday night.

Tensions have been high in the town of 21,000. Dozens took the streets Monday to march and chant, "No justice, no peace!" A vigil for the teen devolved into chaos Sunday when violence and looting broke out among protesters.

Witnesses to Brown's shooting said he had been unarmed and had his hands in the air.

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Pretty great twitter hashtag has sprung up from this called #iftheygunnedmedown. It exposes the different ways we view victims/criminals based on the images served to us by the media.

Regardless of who the blame lies with the actions of the protesters last night is inexcusable. Does more harm then good. I read during the riots/ looting they ripped an ATM machine from a gas station. How exactly does that show support for any cause?

Doesn't that assume that everyone in a crowd is a protester? I'm going to assume that there are just some folks wanting to cause trouble, too.

SI

Let's just hope it's a fair investigation rather than one with a predetermined outcome.

You're right. I hope the investigation doesn't pretend that cops are above the law.

People do crazy shit when they are feeling angry/scared/marginalized.

As observers I think we have to be smart enough to not let the protests tinge our view of the tragedy that fueled them.

It's funny how if you didn't know Jon you could read this one way, but if you do know him you read it 180 degrees the other way.

Election season coming up, a "Justice" department under the watchful eye of the current administration ... yeah, I don't think there's much chance that law & order will be getting the benefit of the doubt on much on this one.

Well, my "under" bet has already lost out. Thread still alive, and not really even a tire fire yet...who knew?

Might want to keep an eye on the ATM machine.

Odd how fast "protesting" turns into "give me free stuff" in certain communities.

I was just listening to the radio, and they were talking about a resident on the TV being interviewed. He was saying it is a model community with the diversity it has. He said he didnt recognize any of the looters.
The talking heads then proceeded to talk about how much the community has improved in the last 10 years.

Why? Why do we have to be anything? What does our personal view of the tragedy matter at all?

That's a philosophical question to which I don't really have an answer. I suppose I'm just trying to understand why this happened. I want to take meaning from it. I want others to understand and take meaning from it so it won't happen again. My concern about Lathum's comment is that people will focus on ancillary events like the protests/riots/looting and lose sight of the tragedy of what happened. Doing that keeps us from reaching a solution. I don't know. That's all I have.

Good luck with that.

I don't think anyone is denying or losing sight of the tragedy, but the tragedy and the way the community acts are tied together. If the kid was a part of a community that just showed the capacity to become violent very quickly, then the perception is, as a part of that community, the kid has that capacity.

Not saying it is my opinion or how I feel. Regardless, I stand by my comments that it is inexcusable to ac that way. Did some come looking for trouble, most certainly, but there are likely many others who went to protest and got caught up in the mob mentality, and I think that is going to hurt the cause of this young man in the long run.

I wouldn't be surprised if the FBI was doing some COINTELPRO shit again.

We don't know what is and isn't a tragedy yet. We know that innocent business owners who had their places destroyed are victims in this tragedy. We know that taxpayers who had no part in this but will have to cover the costs are victims in this tragedy. But we don't have nearly enough evidence in the case to determine whether the shooting was justified or not.

As for the riots afterward, it is natural to "consider the source". If the people telling me that this was a senseless act are the same people who are running around committing senseless acts, it's fair to question the position.

I've been told it was a black cop. Shouldn't change the storyline one bit but I wonder if Mr. Sharpton will cancel his trip.

(And I am not a big fan of overzealous cops, sure thinks it sounds like this cop was in the wrong, but am not naïve enough to think the story/outrage has to do with this at all)

What's the police version of the story. The family's is basically that he was walking home doing nothing (probably on his way back from feeding the poor and rescuing a fireman from a tree...). Sorry, I get that family is going to say that type of stuff but it always makes me roll my eyes.

From CNN, the story begins the same for both police and witnesses:


The police version, which does not include what happened after police confronted Brown and his friend, includes a struggle inside the police car with Brown trying to apparently take the officer's gun, and ends with the Brown shot multiple times some distance from the police car. At least one shot was fired from within the car.

Hard to know what is fact or fiction, but both stories seem to end with Brown with no weapon and his hands in the air being shot multiple times.

I imagine both stories are exaggerated in opposite directions, but I find it pretty hard to give the benefit of the doubt to the police here... I don't condone rioting or any of that stuff, but at the same time I understand the anger given these don't seem to be blue moon events.

There doesn't seem to be a lot of factual evidence floating around on either side. The police don't seem to be helping themselves out by being so hush hush. When you don't get out and control the story early, it lets other people create the story. It also does sort of look like they are covering up something.

The other side has your race hustlers running in trying to turn the story the way they want it portrayed. Doesn't help that there is a local politician going around to the media with conspiracy theories about the shooting being recorded and the police arresting the person who recorded it and hiding her in jail where no one can get to her.

I'd probably wait till more stuff comes out. Seems like each media outlet has a narrative they want to run with on the story. Each side has a different version of events.

When people are abused by the Police, govt., etc. and they have no way to legally make change, this is what happens.

Every day there are stories of Police brutality and abuse of power against common Americans. Most stories involve the Police officer saying he/she was in fear for their life when they committed the act. It usually ends with the authorities saying upon review they see it as an acceptable use of force. Case closed!

As this type of thing occurs, what do you think is going to happen? Not everyone will just walk to the slaughter politely.

And in the enormous majority of cases I agree with them.

I certainly have a great deal more faith the Generic Police than I do in Generic Mob.

So that makes it OK to become a criminal and destroy innocent peoples property?

OK, we'll have to agree to disagree.

Solid reference

I would give the protesters some credit if they took up arms and looted the police stations. That would be Boston Tea Party like. Burning down the gas station and robbing hair extensions from a beauty supply shop? Not sure John Adams would have supported that.

Seems a bit odd that the police haven't interviewed Brown's friend and the primary witness yet.

Eyewitness to Michael Brown shooting recounts his friend's death | MSNBC

Hair extensions?

SI

Yeah we get all the local coverage here so they go pretty in depth. :) And of course they are stirring up racial problems by being specific about "hair extensionss".

Rumor has it that the Mike Brown's name was circulating after being caught on camera shoplifting from the local QT. Local police found him and kid ends up dead. QT burned down in protest. Of course who knows what is rumor and what is fact (I have also heard the cop was black) but sounds like the QT being a target makes a little more sense.

I have said all along that the situation of an unarmed person being shot multiple times by a cop is at minimum excessive force. However I find the rioting and protest completely unworthy of trying to justify in any way.

No taxation without tresses elongation

He wasn't excusing their actions. He was supplying context to their actions.

When LA burned after the Rodney King thing, it was the local minority stores and houses that burned, not of those who perpetrated the act. Blind rage is simply that, blind. It's stupid, but those who feel helpless against police brutality will tend to lash out in irrational ways.

I've already taught my son that the police are not his friend and they are not interested in "justice". 4 out of 5 cops on the force may be good, but that leaves 20% who are total dirtbags (like a cousin of mine) with the bigger problem being that the other 4 will stick up and lie for the dirtbags.

I'm a pretty big skeptic about police and government overreach but unless your son is older your lesson is often what leads to nonsense like the QT burning down.

He is a teenager, which is old enough to understand why cops aren't your friends. That doesn't mean he shouldn't be anything but polite to an officer, but he also needs to understand why you don't answer their questions without your attorney present, you don't submit to searches of your car or person, why they will lie to try to trap you and so forth.

Sure, their anger may have been misdirected. But the idea stands that sometimes, actions like those* are the only ones that seem to get attention. But they no doubt hit easy targets - I don't think targeting a police station would have lasted very long or come out very favorable for them.


* I still think there's a nice bit of hypocrisy here where it comes to some 2nd Amendment defenders. It's ok to open carry in a Target. At the same time, you might be shot in a Walmart for holding a toy gun. You need to be armed to protect yourself against an oppressive government. But you have to be quiet and do what the police tell you to do and accept that they may be a little overzealous at times and eh, gun you down.

The local police turned over the investigation, so it would be tampering if they interviewed anyone.

And you have this public statement from Holder that the "FBI will help local authorities undertake a “thorough, fair investigation.” Which different agencies can take different ways, and who knows what is being said behind the scenes. It makes sense to be deliberate even for the outside local agency, and if you're super-cautious, you consult the feds on everything, and maybe try to get them present at interviews, which takes some time. You can see how cynical people are about police investigations. No matter what happens, there will be people who think it's rigged. You can't do anything about them, but you can at least be as thorough and organized as possible to at least mitigate the risks that you're perceived as influencing the people you're interviewing.

Which is why the whole idea that the "police", as a broad unit are covering anything up here already is silly. There was at least a couple of police witnesses, and at least a couple of civilian witnesses. Most likely, in high stress situations, everyone will perceive things a little differently. Everyone can tell what they believe to be the truth and still tell different stories. But I know one thing for sure, if the officer committed a crime, or knows he exhibited poor judgment under stress bordering on criminal activity, he's not going down to his superiors and breaking that down in detail. He'll be in touch with his union rep and go home. The information that the "police" have right now will be from anything that was called in before and right after the incident. That's probably why they were able to say that there was some kind of physical conflict prior to the shooting. But that information only comes from that officer and any other officer at the scene. It could be made up, or exaggerated, or an incorrect account based on stress. There may never be a way to know for sure. But there will be plenty on "both sides" who have already made up their mind just based on the headline. (Putting "both sides" in quotes just because I hate that there's "sides" on something like this, but that's what it is. )

Just like there's only such much information "the police" can know at this point, we can't really attribute anything to the "black people" in this town either. They weren't collectively rioting. Just like whenever there's unrest, or a sports championship, there were some criminals who acted out. Some are just regular criminals, some are maybe people who see businesses as part of the governing structure of their lives, along with the police. It's irrelevant to what happened. Unless this is a violent city generally, in which case officers might be a little more stressed and a little more prone to poor judgment, but I have no idea if that's the case, and even if it is, it doesn't really say anything about fault on either side, it just provides realistic context.

The thing people need to understand these riots and looting is in most instances, the businesses people are destroying aren't owned by locals, but carpetbaggers making a buck there.

There's lots of discussion about how this itself is problematic, but...when people are mostly renters, the banks don't contain local money (if there ARE banks) and the police are almost outsiders too, it's easy to see why people would feel powerless or a lack of ownership about their communities when for all intent and purpose they're just visitors who happen to live there.

A lot to unpack here, but...



This isn't from Halo

Carpetbaggers? I'm pretty sure their tax dollars count the same as everyone else. I'm sure the jobs they offer are real jobs.

I can't wait to hear the next story about food deserts or how businesses don't want to setup shop and offer jobs in the community. At least now we have video evidence as to why they won't.

This point should not go unnoticed.

What difference does that make? Does it make their lawlessness any less criminal or wrong because the business they are destroying isn't a Mom and Pop shop?

It's also pretty lawless for a thug cop to gun down a civilian.

so 2 wrongs make a right?

That's funny, I don't remember saying that.

And if that "civilian" attacks the cop?

Gets very gray really quick when that happens. No, wait, it doesn't.

then please elaborate on your point.

Simply that the rioters weren't the only lawless ones here.

Do they not have votes in that city? Are they not able to run for local office? Are they not able to file lawsuits? There are plenty of ways to legally make change.

Now there are a lot of issues with today's police. I'm not denying that. But the only change burning down local businesses accomplishes is less tax revenue for your city, less jobs for your residents, and cops who are even more on edge. The riotining/looting didn't bring about positive change, it actively makes the community a worse plays with less opportunity.

Additionally, tying is into the previous pictures, in what way are these businesses symbols of our government?

See, I'd repunctuate that as:

And if that civilian "attacks" the cop?

Cops are human. They are flawed, they may act on emotion. Some are probably biased or racist. Some aren't the best and brightest.

So without proper training and supervision, they're going to fuck up. Sometimes, they are going to abuse power. When they do, they are going to fit the story to cover their own asses.


Without that film, we would have gotten the same story here. It was the perp's fault he's dead, not the cops. They were just protecting themselves. He was resisting arrest and/or violent.

It's probably nothing more than a simple question:
which do you trust more, police or random civilian

Given what I think of the average civilian my answer is quite consistent with my overall beliefs.

Oh, by no means are all civilians pristine. But cops aren't either. They come from that same civilian pool, it's not as if they come from some magically ordained pot of superior individuals. Some officers will join the force because they wish to serve and protect. Some will join because it's a job and has a decent pension. Some will join because it gives them power and the ability to lord it over others. No different from anyone else.

Are some cops trustworthy? Absolutely. Most of them, probably. All of them? Hell no. No different from the random civilian.

I'm curious, what makes the average cop more trustworthy than the average civilian in your eyes?

Because in general there's a vetting process that goes into becoming a cop, there's also a general sense of duty and civic responsibility that goes into wanting to be a cop.

Yeah it has nothing to do with them being incapable of finding employment in lucrative fields.

AHHHHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

More ... "vetted" might be a decent word for what I'm trying to say.

They've had more training, been more closely observed, been subjected to more evaluation, been subjected to more scrutiny, etc & so on. They've had more opportunities to have their shortcomings identified & dealt with than the random (and I do mean random, literally pick one from amongst 318.6m) person.

Secondary to that I suppose is anecdotal experience. Lord knows, between my somewhat misspent youth & years of dealing with law enforcement first hand as a broadcast journalist it's not as though I don't have some first hand knowledge. I've most definitely seen the bad along with the good -- from rural to metro to suburban -- but on average if you pick one person with a badge at random vs one person vs the non-badge population at random & put them in law enforcement Situation X I believe the odds of the officer acting properly are significantly higher than the civilian.

edit to add: just ftr, Suicane posted while I was composing, I had not seen his word choice when I made mine.

I think all of our views on this are jaded by our regional experiences.

In my hometown, for example. I'd trust the average street walker in the worst neighborhood before I'd trust most LEO.

I'm trying to organize my thought into a coherent post, and as horrible as this analogy is Im going to use a numerical representation on "quality of person" as flawed as that is.

Around here in the civilian pop ulation we have 1-100s just like everywhere.
In a worse, more crime inflicted neighborhood the average probably skews into the 30s...with a few 100's and a lot of 0's.

On our police force we probably have a range on 35-50...its a rural area, very economically depressed. I think starting deputies are still under $25k/yr...you only go into Law Enforcement if you literally cant do anything else.

So if I encounter a "thug" in a bad neighborhood. He may be a 0 but he may also be a 100. When I encounter a cop I know AT BEST (again around here) he is a 50 and more likely to be worse.

All that is said with family and high school friends who are those cops. Its just damn old small town politics. Arrests, seizures then the seizure auction is poorly advertised and the cop who arrested youis now driving your old car he paid $1 for.

Obviously I dont live in St Louis, so that is different.

However I also think that as a cop you probably tend to observe behavior patterns. The fact that a large % of a community would devolve into the looting we see, probably means they encounter this behavior daily for weeks , months and years on end. So when they engage a situation they bring those expctations and prejudices to the party. That probably causes them to react overly aggressive.

Not saying its right, just saying human nature being what it is it likely happens.

I'm sure for some it does. So what?

I've trained police officers (edit: not on tactics, on legal stuff), have been to a few academy graduation ceremonies, and have worked with many officers in all kinds of contexts. The bulk of them are really inspiring. It's not an easy job and there's a lot of turnover, a lot who can't make it through the first few years. They all make mistakes at some point, and I've seen many agonize over those and too harshly question themselves. Of course it's also a job where royally fucking up can have huge stakes. Which they all are well aware of. Training is critical but you can't guarantee perfect performance in all situations or even perfect vetting.

Everything being equal, taking a random police officer and a random citizen, I would trust the officer more for all the reasons mentioned. But where there's an situation involving an officer action that looks fishy or questionable, that officer is no longer "random", so the equation can change in a hurry.

Molson, I'd generally agree with you. I worked with a lot of law enforcement personnel over 7 years and the majority were pretty good guys.

The problem is that the "Thin Blue Line" is really a "Thick Brick Wall" and as such when something is done that is bad nothing happens. The whole system is corrupt in their rush to protect police offers from any criticism and repercussions from their actions. That's not much different than any other big bureaucracy, but it makes a difference when those actions take place at the barrel of a gun.

Combine that with the increasing militarization of the police forces and it becomes a critical problem. The mentality is often "shoot now and we'll sort it out later", knowing that there's little chance of any disciplinary action later. That's why we see almost on a daily basis some evidence of police brutality.

Call the Cops - Rob Hustle ft. Liv - The CON Trail

You're trying to make them out to be some honorable citizens who sacrifice to perform a civic duty for the greater good. That "sense of duty and civic responsibility" you talk about seems to go away awfully quick when one of their own does something wrong. It seems to disappear into a vast void when it comes to firing one of their own (which is almost impossible to do). Or reporting crime statistics accurately. And see the kind of response you get if you want to file a complaint against an officer.

Then again I live in a city that dishes out hundreds of millions in lawsuits to people and blatantly lies about the crime stats. Maybe they just haven't heard about that duty and civic responsibility part.

Now I'm sure most are good people. Just as I'm sure most of any profession are good people. But I also realize most are in this because it's the best opportunity available and beats digging ditches.

I think there is definitely a disconnect between the reality and how a lot of agencies express these things to the public. Many officers are fired, many are disciplined, many at lectured in front of their peers, some go to prison, and there's always tension between police chiefs and DOC staffs that want to fire bad veteran officers but are told by lawyers that they can't yet.

A lot of agencies are terrible at communicating this general distaste for bad policing to the public. (And there's definitely terrible agencies out there too with bad cultures, but I don't think that's the norm). Maybe there's a defensiveness when you have so many people who are incredibly over-cynical about everything police do. Sometimes there's policies about what they can say publicly. I think there's some misunderstandings about the law sometimes too, or there's grey areas where many in the public see it as a slam-dunk-cop-is-evil deal.

And I don't think a lot of individual officers really consciously think "what the fuck, I'll shoot this guy, nothing will happen to me." Statistically, I'm sure there's psychopaths like that out there in any profession (and cops are the ones who actually can act on it in the course of their jobs), but for most of them, it's a terrible and stressful thing.

There's usually a reason that certain communities distrust law enforcement. It's rare something like this happening in a majority white community, but, these incidences seem to happen with a frequency that seems 'peculiar' at best in minority communities. Maybe it's the way the media reports these things, I don't know. Kind of like once a cute white girl goes missing, it's national news, but, when a minority girl goes missing, it barely gets a mention by the media, if at all.

I don't care one way or another.

My position is there is an underlying cause to this kind of behavior that dates back to the past and it begins and ends with people having some investment in the places they live.

Of course, if you take the National Review position on it, we can just call them all lawless savages, shoot them all and call it a day.

I have some strong opinions on the reactions, as well as some of the other things going on, but those issues don't negate the origins of why places like this exist in the first place.

All of these issues are about policies that predated the actions. Failing to talk about structural policy will leave us spinning our wheels until we recognize that all of this stuff was crafted deliberately and leads to the powder keg we're seeing now.

I guess I just don't see how people would fail to have a connection to the grocery stores, pharmacies, coffee shops, etc that they shop at everyday because they have a known brand on the outside vs "Tim Smith's Pharmacy".

There's more police activity generally in poorer communities where there's more crime. And that activity can breed hostility towards police and you can see how it can become a vicious cycle. In a town without a lot of police activity, there's fewer bad incidents, less distrust, it's more likely a citizen will show submissive deference to authority. And it's easier for the bad cop to operate in a community with so much real hostility and physical resistance directed towards officers, a bad cop will stand out much more quickly in malibu or whatever. In a lot of suburban areas the main thing going on police-wise is DUIs and domestic violence. It's a totally different dynamic of interaction from places where there's more street patrols.

I don't know where you're getting the "many officers are fired" part but the number is incredibly low. I used to do statistical work for pension systems and the number of officers who are fired compared to the private sector is minuscule. There were major cities like DC that would go years without an officer over the age of 40 being fired.

To put it into perspective, teachers were fired at 3-4 times the rate police officers were. And we all know how hard it is to fire a teacher.

It is very hard to fire veteran officers, but much easier in most places to let them go in the first years. I wish more lawyers weren't so cautious about the advice they give regarding that. But my point was that the administration and the wardens want these people gone. I've been in these meetings. I've worked in an agency that represents the state and counties when they try to fire police officers. It's not this scenario where an officer does a bad thing and everyone is high-fiving each other and making jokes about how much power they all have. It causes a lot of angst and I wish the agencies were bolder about communicating that.

There sure is.

Like the incredibly high rate of convicted felons in certain communities.

The general population rate is approaching 10%.
The rate among black males is around 25%.

People hate getting caught.

And of those fired I wonder how many get reinstated. Like the cop who kindly handed Jeffrey Dahmer one of his victims.

I'm not explaining it well enough, but I doubt I could explain it on a message board anyway.

There's also "leaders" in those communities that like to stoke the flames because it's good for their brand/business. There's a reason Al Sharpton is on a flight out to Ferguson and not Chicago despite the fact more black youths will be shot here in the next 24 hours.

Just saying that even among the young officers, the rate is miniscule compared to the private sector. They are not firing the bad cops as much as they should.

Right, so they were fired for sucking and the union and the courts put them back. Any police leadership (like the ones that fired those guys), and the lawyers that represent the state, would completely agree with you that that sucks. Which I think goes against the cops-as-a-collective-evil narrative.

It's also interesting that the lesson to take from that case from a police perspective is that police shouldn't be too cautious. They should extend a Terry stop if they believe have reasonable suspicion to, even if they get closer to that line of an unreasonable seizure. I know people aren't going to believe this, but I think many officers and most young officers are way too cautious when it comes to the 4th Amendment. They're afraid of suppression hearings, they're afraid of defense attorneys and cross-examinations, they're afraid of having their job performance being picked apart, they often leave evidence on the table. The incidents we hear about are such a tiny minority of police interactions.

I'm pretty pro-firing generally so I'd agree. I just don't think its the culture that keeps that from happening. And I think there's probably not as many truly bad, dangerous cops as others think there are, but that can vary a lot by agency.

It is also a bullshit move not to release the officers name by now. They've had plenty of time to put safety measures in place.

Latest local rumor is that cop was jumped in his car and beaten (apperently he looks really messed up) and his gun was grabbed at. Threw kid from car, threw car into reverse and kid came charging at car. All on video. Like I said it all rumor but if true I can't wait to hear continued justification for the burned down gas station.

Kind of perplexing why the police wouldn't get in front of this if true but I have heard this same story in a couple of different circles.

Likely to due rules or even simple realism about what you release prior to an investigation being completed.

They could have all this on video (they do not, I'm saying could have had) and it wouldn't matter to a large portion of the protestors.

I don't know what the problem is exactly, I just think more should be fired. Police force should be culling the bottom 5% of their department every year.

It's stuff like this that bother me.

Police Officers Who Shot at Two Innocent Women 103 Times Won't Be Fired - Yahoo News

Even if you believe it was a terrible accident, the officers are not competent enough to hold that position. We should have higher standards but instead every incident has excuses. You wouldn't find excuses like this at most private businesses, why do we accept it in something like police work?

Police departments are well versed in leaking information that benefits themselves and if something in the investigation would make them look better, you bet it'd be out there. We have justifiable shootings by police all the time in Chicago and they never handle it in this manner.

I'm trying to keep an open mind here but the way that department has handled things so far is sketchy at the least.

Maybe it can't be explained. Putting us down doesn't help, either.

We have our equivalents in Suburbia. Every time they announce a new Starbucks, inevitably you hear about the demise of the local diner or coffee house. Ten years ago, Borders was killing the local book store.

What I don't understand is the violence. Tell me what justifies theft or violence against a stranger who did absolutely nothing to you.

We're all carpetbaggers. Every single one of us. There isn't a person in America who can trace his or her roots back to the first Americans who left traces of some sort of community thousands of years ago in what's called Poverty Point, Louisiana.

You've got the feds breathing down your neck, a delusional percentage of population that won't believe anything other than "oh the poor 'victim' " b.s. ... I wouldn't have much to say either, especially if the feds have said "not a word".

I would if my town was being burned down and my officers were being put in danger. If they had overwhelming evidence, they'd have released it by now. They aren't that stupid.

I believe you grossly overestimate a lot of the population.

There is a similar situation about 25 miles from where I live. A 22 year old kid was killed in a Walmart because he had a BB gun. The controversy is really about whether or not the kid was just carrying it or if he was wheeling it around in a threatening manner. The gun was one from that Walmart. Officers shot and killed him saying he refused to put it down upon orders to do so. Family says he was on the phone talking to family and didn't hear. Witnesses are a mixed bag. This happened almost a week ago and there's been no video released or discussed yet despite all kinds of pleas to do so.

See, this is it right here though. We have no information, but on the surface "unarmed 18yo shot at distance multiple times" doesn't look good. We have a dead black man/boy and little other information - but the first inclination for many is to side against the black kid and call the suggestion that he might be a victim (again - the dead one here) b.s.

Either that's a misguided trust in authority, or it's racism.

Life is fairly simple. Don't attack a cop and go for his gun...

Even if that's what happened, does it mean the cop is OK to shoot him to death as he's running away?

If someone broke into my house and attacked me, I managed to get free, get my gun, chase them out of the house and down the street then shot them to death, what would happen to me?

Well, if it's Florida...

Darwinism FTW

I guess it's like a debate on religion in that, if you're OK with the idea of a cop making that call, I don't know that we're going to find the middleground to have much of a discussion.

Good article, though I'm sure some of you will be quick and eager to rip holes in it: America Is Not For Black People.

Hmm, maybe Google Glass wouldn't be such a bad thing after all...

Are we really the land of the free?

Didn't even have to get past the first paragraph to see the bias in that article.

No holes but I did a search for 'Chicago' and nothing came up.

I'll see your picture taken out of context and raise you with...