So after reading numerous articles on the testimony of the police officer this is the bit that I find odd. After assaulting the police officer and reaching for his gun, the officer then is able to fire off a couple of rounds that his the side of the door which startled Brown. He then ran off up the road, the officer gave chase. At this point Brown stopped, turned and charged at the officer.
Does that not seem strange? An unarmed man running from the law then all of a sudden stops and decides to run at a police officer who has a gun. Not only that but as he is running at the officer the gun is fired 5 times at him but still he continues to run at the officer before finally being hit with the following shots.
I'm not saying it didn't happen like that, I just can't understand why someone would do that. First, to stop, turn and charge after running and then to continue charging the officer as a gun is being fired at you.
Didn't someone say earlier in the thread that Browns autopsy showed he had been taking drugs?
Not sure if that would explain it though. Even if it was part of the reason for doing what he did it still meant he had the rationality to run from the officer in the first instance.
Perhaps when he started to leg it, he once again decided he could take the copper on.
If these "witness statements" are proven to be false, regarding Brown being an angel who just so happened to be gunned down by a demonic police officer, complete with a tail and pointy ears, and a swastika tatoo on his forehead, with a KKK hood on, I hope they get done for perjury, its things like that that lead to race riots...
I do think that sometimes there can be a propensity to blame the white man for everything... The same way that many will mindlessly blame immigrants for everything, it means that you don't have to look at yourself for the reasons you have messed up. Almost every culture has "the other" that they like to blame for their problems.... And like in a lot of cases, there are no doubt reasons they could be seen as right, and reasons that they are most likely wrong, but people cling onto them regardless...
Imagine you were a black woman and didn't get a job that a white person got, you could be inclined to think that it was racism that led to that decision, whereas in reality, the other candidate was better... If you are white, you don't tend to have that problem (although with quotas these days, some people might feel that way) hence many people could actually believe a lot of racism exists where it simply does not... It's easy for me to say this as a white male, I know, but like I said, if Michael Brown had been white, I don't think we would have heard about this at all...
So after reading numerous articles on the testimony of the police officer this is the bit that I find odd. After assaulting the police officer and reaching for his gun, the officer then is able to fire off a couple of rounds that his the side of the door which startled Brown. He then ran off up the road, the officer gave chase. At this point Brown stopped, turned and charged at the officer.
Does that not seem strange? An unarmed man running from the law then all of a sudden stops and decides to run at a police officer who has a gun. Not only that but as he is running at the officer the gun is fired 5 times at him but still he continues to run at the officer before finally being hit with the following shots.
I'm not saying it didn't happen like that, I just can't understand why someone would do that. First, to stop, turn and charge after running and then to continue charging the officer as a gun is being fired at you.
Didn't someone say earlier in the thread that Browns autopsy showed he had been taking drugs?
Not sure if that would explain it though. Even if it was part of the reason for doing what he did it still meant he had the rationality to run from the officer in the first instance.
Perhaps when he started to leg it, he once again decided he could take the copper on.
The only person that knows why he turned is dead.
Possibly but bit different thinking you can take a copper on who is sat in his car unable to get out and another thinking you can take him out when you are unarmed and he has a clear shot at you. Hard to try and guess his mindset though.
So after reading numerous articles on the testimony of the police officer this is the bit that I find odd. After assaulting the police officer and reaching for his gun, the officer then is able to fire off a couple of rounds that his the side of the door which startled Brown. He then ran off up the road, the officer gave chase. At this point Brown stopped, turned and charged at the officer.
Does that not seem strange? An unarmed man running from the law then all of a sudden stops and decides to run at a police officer who has a gun. Not only that but as he is running at the officer the gun is fired 5 times at him but still he continues to run at the officer before finally being hit with the following shots.
I'm not saying it didn't happen like that, I just can't understand why someone would do that. First, to stop, turn and charge after running and then to continue charging the officer as a gun is being fired at you.
Don't both the witness testimonies corroborate that he did though ? Agree it's strange but strange seems to have characterised a lot if things Brown did that day (allegedly).
I think there were quite a few testimonies, not sure on the numbers but think some supported the officer's version of events, others had different accounts. Pretty much the reason for the start of the unrest there.
I think there were quite a few testimonies, not sure on the numbers but think some supported the officer's version of events, others had different accounts. Pretty much the reason for the start of the unrest there.
Ah right, I've only read the four testimonies that the BBC had on their site and thought that was the extent of them - of those four the only one which seriously contradicted the officers statement was from Browns mate.
It infuriates me to read on here that so many people are still jumping on the 'how can a black kid be shot while running away/holding his hands up surrendering', without looking at the reports that have been presented.
The witnesses who came forward initially said Brown was running away and shot in the back. Not surprisingly these were his friends. When informed that the autopsy showed that all the bullets hit him in the front, these 'reliable' witnesses then altered/manipulated/bullshitted their story to say that Brown was shot while holding his hands up.
Then, the ballistics report showed that he DIDNT have his hands up when he was shot. Which by this point had pretty much discredited these 'fantastic' witnesses.
But hey, it doesn't matter that these people clearly lied on multiple occasions and caused so much public uproar and devastation. Without their blatant lies we wouldn't even be discussing this here and now.
In addition to this, some of the INDEPENDENT witnesses (that's a very important word to consider when using witnesses, as it means they are impartial and not lying to get their mates off) corroborate exactly what the police officer stated. Even more so, some of these witnesses were BLACK (which kind of hinders any ridiculous conspiracy theory that the racist police killed the poor little black kid who did nothing wrong, and the White people all covered it up).
Further, how many people on here have actually been attacked by someone and had to deal with that situation? Its easy to claim you would know what to do, when hiding behind a keyboard. Try and put yourself in that position, having a split second to decide what to do to stop the man who has just grabbed your gun from shooting you.
And many people question why the officer then ran after Brown. It's his job to apprehend criminals, no matter what situation he has just been in.
USA and UK Police Officers are under instruction when using a firearm to aim for the 'body mass', i.e. the trunk, chest and abdomen area .. two reasons: 1) Such a shot will usually stop the recipient and put an end to the situation as quickly as possible, 2) Shots aimed at smaller parts of the body, the head, kneecap, foot, hand, arm etc. have a good chance of missing a smaller target and therefore putting innocent bystanders at risk of being shot accidently. The rule is that if it has become necessary to use a weapon, stop the recipient in his/her tracks. The idea of fancy shooting to disarm or disable is strictly for the westerns.
One can still detonate explosives even if you've taken several body shots.
Bit difficult with a 5.56 round in your head.
so you're saying that in extremis when confronting a proven suicide bomber, the order is to aim for the head ? .. I see your point, but that is going to be a VERY rare occurrence and would require a very good marksman .. in the normal/abnormal scheme of things, a body shot is definitely the preferred method of stopping a violent assailant.
One can still detonate explosives even if you've taken several body shots.
Bit difficult with a 5.56 round in your head.
Didn't that de Menezes Brazilian guy get something like 6 hollow point bullets in his head? Would definitely suggest this rule is there in suspected bombings.
One can still detonate explosives even if you've taken several body shots.
Bit difficult with a 5.56 round in your head.
Didn't that de Menezes Brazilian guy get something like 6 hollow point bullets in his head? Would definitely suggest this rule is there in suspected bombings.
The cops were about six inches away from him though. Pretty easy to hit the target from that range
Seeing as adapted ammunition is against the GC, it's unlikely the Met Police firearms officers are busy sitting in the back of their vans reversing the bullets or filing away parts of the rounds.
This story really doesn't need any debate, but of course, being Charlton Life there's plenty of it. I really don't know how an unarmed man with his hands in the air being shot 9 (?) times by a police officer is anything but wrong. And I'm in no way anti-police. I wonder whether the Eric Garner case would be as hotly debated on here. No doubt there would still be some saying he deserved it too.
At no point did the unarmed Man (who tried to take the police officer's gun) have his hands in the air. That has been proven to be a lie. Hence why the officer is not standing on a murder charge.
Proven? How has it been proven to be a lie? What you mean is, in the last 3 months that has become the accepted truth. Yet 3 hours after the shooting, there were several witness accounts claiming his hands were in the air - prompting the 'hands up, don't shoot' campaign. Is 3 months enough time for witnesses to appear and the officer to cover his tracks? Of course. Is 3 hours enough time for several eye witnesses to come together and cook up an elaborate lie (for unknown reasons) about the man having his hands in the air? I know what I think.
It's been proven by numerous other eye witness accounts and the forensic evidence. Yes, there was eye witness testimony that said he had his hands up, 3 hours after the shooting. But of course the media wouldn't focus on these sensationalist stories just to sell a story, would they? But i forgot that you are a legal expert.
I ask the question, why did an initial police stop for an offense as petty as walking in the road lead to a tragic shooting? Brown, apparently, did the very thing that African-American youths are taught by their elders not to do in confrontations with the law because of the very fact that young black men are so often shot in encounters with the police.
He was defiant. He refused to obey an order to get out of the road. He had allegedly just stolen some cigars from a convenience store where he and a friend pushed the clerk out of the way before leaving. Brown then made the stupid decision to get in a fight with the law officer. He was confrontational, yes, but did he deserve to die?
No. If Wilson, a trained law enforcement officer, had tried to defuse the situation rather than escalating it at every turn this whole affair could have had a very different outcome. Agreed, police officers face life-threatening situations, and they are frequently called upon to make split second decisions. I don't think that was the case here though.
Why was Wilson obsessed with two young men walking in the road? How much of this was about his ego and anger over being challenged and sworn at? Once the men had ignored Wilson's order to get out of the road and he knew there could be trouble why didn't he wait for his backup to arrive? When Brown took off running, again why didn't he wait for help instead of running after him? Wilson said he feared for his life when he was in the car fending off Brown's punches. He said he thought Brown would kill him or knock him unconscious. But, where was the threat to Wilson's life after Brown took off running? He went after him.
Yes, I think there are big flaws in his lengthy testimony.
lol... because he's a police officer and brown had just committed a criminal act against him?? I thought police officers were meant to chase suspected criminals?
lol... The point was that he had been fearful for his life and suddenly overcame that and chased after the person who had been causing that fear. Surely he would have waited for backup, unless he had every intention to gun him down.
Some jobs you have to take fear. He was in one of those jobs.
If I get mugged and the police turn up, and the officer gets punched in the face.. I would still expect him to carry on. He may ask for assistance but I don't expect him to say "Fuck that. He hit me!". In the UK I would expect his baton to be drawn and a verbal command requesting compliance: in the US replace baton with sidearm.
He asked for assistance, until that assistance came the situation was still his to deal with. He drew his weapon as a final resort and to gain some form of compliance. His attacker didn't comply and attempted a further assault. His attacker got shot.
I think there were quite a few testimonies, not sure on the numbers but think some supported the officer's version of events, others had different accounts. Pretty much the reason for the start of the unrest there.
The evidence is available online.
Off the top of my head, the witnesses who claimed alternative versions were rejected by the court as they changed versions multiple times.
Whereas most of the witnesses accepted by court who stood by their initial statements and testaments gave a clear and common version of events.
One witness in particular was a convicted felon who mentioned his reluctance to talk to the police as he "had no love" for them. However he felt the police officer acted appropriately and he was increasingly concerned about the talks in Ferguson which were legitimising violence and looting by using a false version of events as a social issue.
Physical evidence also throws those accounts out. Consider this:
He raises his hands and turns around slowly; why were the initial shots to his arms then? The officer would've been under NO stress to make those initial shots under pressure, he could've aimed and been done with it in 1 or 2 shots. Instead he cocked it up and ended up shooting all over the place.
Blood in the car, on the gun and initial wounds to the hand provide proof that there was indeed a struggle for his weapon in the car.
Witness testimonies that didn't change under questioning or contradict physical evidence also suggest this.
Seeing as adapted ammunition is against the GC, it's unlikely the Met Police firearms officers are busy sitting in the back of their vans reversing the bullets or filing away parts of the rounds.
I think you may be surprised. The GC applies to armed forces in military conflicts only, as far as I know.
Ammunition that violates the GC is available for purchase and manufactured quite commonly. No need to resort to DIY and change its ballistic prooerties, and thus accuracy.
I'm fairly sure that the properties of such a round are desired for law enforcement anyway, if a round fragments it prevents over penetration and limits the risks to those around the target.
Engagements won't be that far, consider contacts in Afghanistan averaging 400 meters - accuracy matters, and it isn't a great problem if a ricochet occurs or theres over penetration. In contrast, law enforcement engagements are going to be a lot shorter.
Its a pretty grim topic, but the crux of it is that we're talking about metal objects aimed at killing someone.
Police are trained to aim for center mass, it puts someone on the floor and is easy to hit. Simple.
If someone has the ability to trigger a bomb on their person, or similar, the threat has changed and the response needs to accomodate that. The met consulted the Israelis regarding 7/7 and that's where the advice came from.
The threat against the officer in question wasn't quite that severe, however his initial rounds hit the arm and forearm before rising. There's a clear line on the court documents that suggest his initial shot hit the arm and he continued shooting until the threat stopped, during this time the recoil of his weapon meant his shots followed the arm up the body and ultimately led to the head.
It would appear his initial aim was lower and possibly center mass, his aim was off and he hit the arm. Recoil did the rest and he ended up hitting the head as a result.
One can still detonate explosives even if you've taken several body shots.
Bit difficult with a 5.56 round in your head.
so you're saying that in extremis when confronting a proven suicide bomber, the order is to aim for the head ? .. I see your point, but that is going to be a VERY rare occurrence and would require a very good marksman .. in the normal/abnormal scheme of things, a body shot is definitely the preferred method of stopping a violent assailant.
I'm pretty sure that normal procedure would to be aim for the biggest target (the torso) and hope that a very hot piece of metal hitting you very hard, very fast would stop most people. Lots of people point out the (relatively) small calibre of police weapons compared to some out there but I imagine even a 'weak' gun would hit pretty damn hard.
One can still detonate explosives even if you've taken several body shots.
Bit difficult with a 5.56 round in your head.
so you're saying that in extremis when confronting a proven suicide bomber, the order is to aim for the head ? .. I see your point, but that is going to be a VERY rare occurrence and would require a very good marksman .. in the normal/abnormal scheme of things, a body shot is definitely the preferred method of stopping a violent assailant.
I'm pretty sure that normal procedure would to be aim for the biggest target (the torso) and hope that a very hot piece of metal hitting you very hard, very fast would stop most people. Lots of people point out the (relatively) small calibre of police weapons compared to some out there but I imagine even a 'weak' gun would hit pretty damn hard.
Unless the individual was drugged up.
Which would explain the erratic behaviour; charging at the officer, taking shots to the arm and continuing etc
If the autopsy suggests that too then it looks pretty much open and closed to me.
Comments
The only person that knows why he turned is dead.
I do think that sometimes there can be a propensity to blame the white man for everything... The same way that many will mindlessly blame immigrants for everything, it means that you don't have to look at yourself for the reasons you have messed up. Almost every culture has "the other" that they like to blame for their problems.... And like in a lot of cases, there are no doubt reasons they could be seen as right, and reasons that they are most likely wrong, but people cling onto them regardless...
Imagine you were a black woman and didn't get a job that a white person got, you could be inclined to think that it was racism that led to that decision, whereas in reality, the other candidate was better... If you are white, you don't tend to have that problem (although with quotas these days, some people might feel that way) hence many people could actually believe a lot of racism exists where it simply does not... It's easy for me to say this as a white male, I know, but like I said, if Michael Brown had been white, I don't think we would have heard about this at all...
The witnesses who came forward initially said Brown was running away and shot in the back. Not surprisingly these were his friends. When informed that the autopsy showed that all the bullets hit him in the front, these 'reliable' witnesses then altered/manipulated/bullshitted their story to say that Brown was shot while holding his hands up.
Then, the ballistics report showed that he DIDNT have his hands up when he was shot. Which by this point had pretty much discredited these 'fantastic' witnesses.
But hey, it doesn't matter that these people clearly lied on multiple occasions and caused so much public uproar and devastation. Without their blatant lies we wouldn't even be discussing this here and now.
In addition to this, some of the INDEPENDENT witnesses (that's a very important word to consider when using witnesses, as it means they are impartial and not lying to get their mates off) corroborate exactly what the police officer stated. Even more so, some of these witnesses were BLACK (which kind of hinders any ridiculous conspiracy theory that the racist police killed the poor little black kid who did nothing wrong, and the White people all covered it up).
Further, how many people on here have actually been attacked by someone and had to deal with that situation? Its easy to claim you would know what to do, when hiding behind a keyboard. Try and put yourself in that position, having a split second to decide what to do to stop the man who has just grabbed your gun from shooting you.
And many people question why the officer then ran after Brown. It's his job to apprehend criminals, no matter what situation he has just been in.
The instructions are to stop the target.
Bit difficult with a 5.56 round in your head.
If I get mugged and the police turn up, and the officer gets punched in the face.. I would still expect him to carry on. He may ask for assistance but I don't expect him to say "Fuck that. He hit me!". In the UK I would expect his baton to be drawn and a verbal command requesting compliance: in the US replace baton with sidearm.
He asked for assistance, until that assistance came the situation was still his to deal with. He drew his weapon as a final resort and to gain some form of compliance. His attacker didn't comply and attempted a further assault. His attacker got shot.
Off the top of my head, the witnesses who claimed alternative versions were rejected by the court as they changed versions multiple times.
Whereas most of the witnesses accepted by court who stood by their initial statements and testaments gave a clear and common version of events.
One witness in particular was a convicted felon who mentioned his reluctance to talk to the police as he "had no love" for them. However he felt the police officer acted appropriately and he was increasingly concerned about the talks in Ferguson which were legitimising violence and looting by using a false version of events as a social issue.
Physical evidence also throws those accounts out. Consider this:
He raises his hands and turns around slowly; why were the initial shots to his arms then? The officer would've been under NO stress to make those initial shots under pressure, he could've aimed and been done with it in 1 or 2 shots. Instead he cocked it up and ended up shooting all over the place.
Blood in the car, on the gun and initial wounds to the hand provide proof that there was indeed a struggle for his weapon in the car.
Witness testimonies that didn't change under questioning or contradict physical evidence also suggest this. I think you may be surprised. The GC applies to armed forces in military conflicts only, as far as I know.
Ammunition that violates the GC is available for purchase and manufactured quite commonly. No need to resort to DIY and change its ballistic prooerties, and thus accuracy.
I'm fairly sure that the properties of such a round are desired for law enforcement anyway, if a round fragments it prevents over penetration and limits the risks to those around the target.
Engagements won't be that far, consider contacts in Afghanistan averaging 400 meters - accuracy matters, and it isn't a great problem if a ricochet occurs or theres over penetration. In contrast, law enforcement engagements are going to be a lot shorter.
Its a pretty grim topic, but the crux of it is that we're talking about metal objects aimed at killing someone.
Police are trained to aim for center mass, it puts someone on the floor and is easy to hit. Simple.
If someone has the ability to trigger a bomb on their person, or similar, the threat has changed and the response needs to accomodate that. The met consulted the Israelis regarding 7/7 and that's where the advice came from.
The threat against the officer in question wasn't quite that severe, however his initial rounds hit the arm and forearm before rising. There's a clear line on the court documents that suggest his initial shot hit the arm and he continued shooting until the threat stopped, during this time the recoil of his weapon meant his shots followed the arm up the body and ultimately led to the head.
It would appear his initial aim was lower and possibly center mass, his aim was off and he hit the arm. Recoil did the rest and he ended up hitting the head as a result.
Which would explain the erratic behaviour; charging at the officer, taking shots to the arm and continuing etc
If the autopsy suggests that too then it looks pretty much open and closed to me.