Michael Brown - the 'kid' shot by cops 4 days ago in the US, who might have been unarmed and maybe was not fighting the cops.

[Donegeal]

Oh, btw, if there wasn't a curfew in place, then they were extremely stupid; both for not putting one in place and then for acting as if there was.

[Imran Siddiqui]

**** off, Imran; and learn to read. I have said multiple times that I didn't know if there was actually a curfew. I only said it just makes the most sense. You make it sound as if I knew and was ignoring on purpose.

You were.

They are violating curfew

STOP LYING!

[Imran Siddiqui]

It's not 'lets make stuff up' it's 'lets reason things through'. Having been a cop for 16 years, I have a tendency to believe police have legitimate law enforcement reasons for doing what they do; and 99% of the time I am proven right.

Yes, you are a great example of the pernicious effect of the Thin Blue Line.

[Lorizael]

Having been a cop for 16 years, I am emotionally invested in my perspective and thus vulnerable to confirmation bias.

Interesting. Tell us more!

[Donegeal]

You are a fool Imran. I skipped stating that I didn't know if there was actually a curfew in place in every statement with the understanding that you could remember that was the direction I was coming from.

[Sava]

Jesus christ, you should be a politician. You make this wonderful little statement that makes this problem sound so simple that an infant could have taken care of this. However, you are not taking into consideration what that simple little statement means.

In what manner do you mean, 'the police should have only been on scene in a hands off capacity in case the situation escalated'? Do you mean they should have instantly had hundreds of officers in uniform just standing idly by waiting for the situation to escalate?

By your next statement, it sounds to me like you do actually want the police to have hundreds of officers on the ground instantly. In order to do this, you'd have to have all these officers on standby. And since you never know when a riot is going to take place, this would have to be an almost constant state or preparation. I fear the police state you are recommending by this statement, and I'm a cop!

The show of force was to prevent further rioting and looting (and it did a great job of that, yet no one seems to care that the rioting was so quickly stopped). Part of preventing rioting and looting is to place a curfew on the area. If you are inside that area, the curfew applies to you. Standing around, en mass for this particular situation, is then violating the law. The police could have detained and issued citations for violating that curfew to each and every one of the protesters. They didn't. Instead they gave fair warnings to the people assembled and they refused to obey. They chose to continue to violate the curfew and then get all puffy that the police did exactly what they told them would happen. Looks to me like a collective Darwin situation. Thankfully it didn't come to that.

The little "rioting" there was ended when the local police left (and the STL county swat team).

Police actions (shooting of the unarmed kid) and police presence made this situation worse.

[Donegeal]

You people jump to the conclusion that 'cops are bad and do evil'. I say 'they probably have a pretty good reason for doing what they did' and then I state what those reason might have been instead of just instantly condemning the police.

In this case, they should have put a curfew in place, but they didn't. Everything was pointing to them doing so. Because they didn't, they ****ed up.

[Lorizael]

Nah, most cops are probably decent people, just like most people. There are certainly going to be some bad cops, because there are bad people, too. The difference comes down to mistakes. When regular people make mistakes, nothing much happens. When cops make mistakes, bad **** happens.

[Sava]

You people jump to the conclusion that 'cops are bad and do evil'.

I'm consistently maintaining that this is an issue of policy, not people.

It would be easy for you if I was all "**** THE POLICE", wouldn't it?

[Donegeal]

I like that you're not like that; however, you do still jump to conclusions. Everyone does to some degree. Anytime you type 'indefensible', that's saying there is no possible reason for something to happen, and you type it assuming you already know all the information.

And yes, it would be easier if you were the Felch type. He's easy to ignore.

[Sava]

I like that you're not like that; however, you do still jump to conclusions. Everyone does to some degree. Anytime you type 'indefensible', that's saying there is no possible reason for something to happen, and you type it assuming you already know all the information.

And yes, it would be easier if you were the Felch type. He's easy to ignore.

I can only respond to the input I receive.

I've read today that there is speculation Brown may have been involved in a convenient store robbery earlier in the day. There's some blurry camera footage. The officer involved in his shooting will have to face a legal process. But from what I understand, it is not legal to shoot a running suspect in the back unless (and forgive me, I'm paraphrasing some legalese BS from another site) there's an ongoing danger to the public.

So yeah, the shooting seems to have been indefensible. The FBI will conduct their investigation and official conclusions shall be reached. I'm obviously not a part of that process. I'm not sure why my reactions or opinions on the matter are so upsetting.

A kid died. Seems like any possible outrage should be focused on that.

[Sava]

Speaking of indefensible:

The officers got the wrong man, but charged him anyway—with getting his blood on their uniforms. How the Ferguson PD ran the town where Michael Brown was gunned down.

Police in Ferguson, Missouri, once charged a man with destruction of property for bleeding on their uniforms while four of them allegedly beat him.

“On and/or about the 20th day of Sept. 20, 2009 at or near 222 S. Florissant within the corporate limits of Ferguson, Missouri, the above named defendant did then and there unlawfully commit the offense of ‘property damage’ to wit did transfer blood to the uniform,” reads the charge sheet.

The address is the headquarters of the Ferguson Police Department, where a 52-year-old welder named Henry Davis was taken in the predawn hours on that date. He had been arrested for an outstanding warrant that proved to actually be for another man of the same surname, but a different middle name and Social Security number.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/15/the-day-ferguson-cops-were-caught-in-a-bloody-lie.html

[Donegeal]

I don't know about the 'indefensible' part, as we don't know all the information. The gun did go off in the squad car. We don't know how or why at this point and it will play a part in the investigation. Perhaps the kid managed to get the gun and fire it at the cop but missed. If this happened, it is possible that the cop, Wilson I believe he name is being reported as, felt that someone who tried to shoot a cop is an ongoing danger to the public.

'Indefensible' is an absolute. It isn't realistic to use absolutes in a situation with so much ambiguity.

[Sava]

Fortunately, folks at the top disagree with that attitude... or at least recognize that America does.

[Sava]

Petty theft should never result in death. That's a failure of law enforcement procedure.

I watched a video on LiveLeak yesterday of a guy in China (COMMIE RED CHINA). Some nutcase was walking around with two meat cleavers, chopping at people. Thankfully, he didn't kill anyone. But a few people were seriously injured. How did Chinese police handle the situation? They surrounded the guy and then tackled him.

This is commie red torture prison China.

We can do better.