Discussion for article #226526
How many times was he shot in the back?
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Jesus. Is there evidence that the first inquest was incompetent, or worse?
Given the degree to which the local authorities have shown their incompetence in handling this case, a second autopsy is definitely called for.
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BAM. This is a horrible thing to even have to say, but I wonder how long the Ferguson coroner delays before releasing the body.
…and with bullets of of what caliber, from how many firearms? If he was shot with a rifle it looks even worse than if he was killed with pistol shots. And it already looks pretty damned bad.
Has the first autopsy damaged or destroyed evidence that make the second autopsy not reliable in certain critical aspects, like sequence of shots, entry vs. exit points … ?
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The first autopsy could indeed have muddied the waters significantly, ESPECIALLY if the examiner was, let’s say, unconcerned with preserving certain details.
And it is damned difficult for examiner 2 to say, “examiner 1 deliberately made a mess,” or even, “examiner 1 did something inadvertently which caused me to be unable to reach a conclusion.”
One can hope that examiner 1 was both competent and honest, but even then, a second autopsy can be iffy for the very reasons you mention. Extracting bullets CAN cause crucial evidence to be obscured, just in the normal course of business, even if the examiner is not clumsy or venal.
You’ll need a very, very experienced and smart federal ME/team of MEs to do this one.
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Doesn’t matter at this point, its about trust, the people do not trust the police department to do its job.
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Great answer. Autopsy conclusions are based not just on an examination of the body, but also what the crime scene reveals. The federal examiner won’t have the benefit of having surveyed the crime scene and blood trail with the body in place. We don’t even know if the St. Louis County MEs office was ever called to the crime scene, do we? We can hope that whatever authority surveyed and cataloged the crime scene did a competent job and did not attempt to obscure or cover up evidence.
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It’s TYRANNY by the CORRUPT Obama administration to cover up Michael Brown’s involvement in BENGHAZ!
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This must be the “expansion of government” that Rand Paul has been warning us about.
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Rand Paul is, as usual, a stopped clock extraordinaire; this is one of those two times a day where he’s pretty close to spot-on:
Of course, he only mentions race en passant. And race is at the very core of this matter.
But Paul’s points about police militarization are made better and more forcefully than by any other person currently serving at the governor/senator level.
On Ferguson, only Claire McCaskill has been as good, though the things she’s focused on have been different in emphasis (and appropriately so, since MO is her state).
I hope the St. Louis County DA sees this as a warning that the Justice Department may take over the entire investigation and prosecution.
I hope that the feds do. You have to crush some crackers if you want to eat soup.
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Incompetence by design is really malfeasance.
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“We can hope that whatever authority surveyed and cataloged the crime scene did a competent job and did not attempt to obscure or cover up evidence.”
You are joking, yes?
The death wasn’t even relayed to the dispatcher for two hours?
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Sorry. I read Rand Paul’s editorial, and then I read it again just to make sure I was reading it correctly.
I suppose based on the soft bigotry of low expectations it’s easy to give Paul credit for this. Otherwise, it’s just Paul ranting about a “big government” straw man in response to the sort of police brutality that has been going on way before program 1033 began.
I still have no idea what role the “expansion of government” played in the death of Michael Brown or in a predominantly white police force using excessive force against a predominately black group of protesters. To the contrary, I see how what Rand Paul calls “big government” has an important role in intervening in this particular situation and in similar situations going back to the early 20th-Century.
Paul’s points about police militarization are fine. It would be even better if he made a point about militarization in general, as it relates to private citizens and corporate paramilitary security forces.
Outside of an actual focus on the fundamentals of Ferguson or of police brutality in general, Paul is not a stopped clock. He’s an opportunistic red herring. He is only “spot on” if you completely ignore Ferguson or American history and use your place of privilege to instead have an abstract conversation about “expansion of government” that just so happens to support Rand Paul’s bottom line. Good for him?
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I see little to disagree with in what you’ve written, but Paul’s editorial says some things that almost no mainstream liberal (versus the less-mainstream left, which has been vocal and critical) has had the courage to say. His piece is really a riff on the genuinely superb work of another libertarian (it sticks in the throat to say that), Radley Balko, who has been absolutely superb on police militarization, police overreach, and the war on “drugs” which is, of course, a war on people.
I think we agree that Paul elides central and critical points. Which is hardly surprising. We are talking about Rand Paul, after all. I suspect the cowardice of the mainstream left on these issues stems from insecurities about being “soft on crime.”
I’m just dispirited at the state of mainstream political discourse, straight across the spectrum.
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Yup. Paul’s argument is essentially that local police departments (and private citizens and private security forces) should have the right to purchase and use whatever sort of military grade equipment they desire, but just as long as the federal government isn’t involved.
Armed drones for liquor store security guards? Sure! Just as long as “big government” isn’t part of the equation.
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That’s not the argument in the piece that I linked. I don’t enjoy giving Rand Paul credit for anything, but we should engage the arguments that he’s actually making. Usually that’s easy because Paul’s arguments are, usually, dumb. In this case, the arguments are not particularly dumb.
I would love to see a reporter ask Paul whether the protestors should be openly carrying firearms en masse. Hilarity would, I suspect, ensue.
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