Discussion for article #233961
Wow, what a skewed article. The DOJ made reference to all the complete inconsistency in witnesses who said Brown had his hands up, etc. They did not say they “couldn’t” prosecute, they said all evidence indicates they “shouldn’t” prosecute. That is not even in this mentioned in this article, unless the author decides to be a real journalist and update it.
The DOJ report on bias by the Ferguson police department is likely 100% accurate, and exposes an absolute disgrace that is practiced by most police departments nationwide. It’s good to see this all get exposed, and hopefully some major changes are made (like disbanding that department for starters, what they did should be classified as criminal).
So like I said from day one, there is NO doubt that big time racism is practiced by police, no doubt whatsoever. And it’s a huge problem. But using the Wilson-Brown thing as your rallying cry was a joke. There are very legit cases, like Garner and Rice. This was NOT one of them. All you had to do was read the transcripts, but nobody wants to do that. It’s easier to just listen to some talking head that cherry picks info.
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Its just very difficult to build a case of federal civil rights violations based upon one isolated act. Its much, much easier to do so against an entire department, particularly with the evidence they have.
They said they had enough evidence in the Brown case, and that evidence in no way warranted any kind of prosecution. They did not say there was not enough evidence. They said the witnesses who claimed Brown had his hands in the air surrendering either changed their stories at least once, or they actually finally admitted they never saw what happened. These people were shown on TV in what was a circus designed for ratings (create controversy). Meanwhile several black witnesses who were right there said Brown was charging at Wilson, the only difference in their testimony being the speed at which he was moving. Those people chose not to go on TV and become part of the media circus, although I am sure they also feared getting threats as well. The media hyped this whole thing for ratings, like they always do.
As to the PD, there was ample evidence of wrongdoing. So if there is a positive to come out of this whole thing, maybe it will be a nationwide movement to have police stop the racism that is practiced far too often, and hold police accountable when they act as such.
But that does not translate to “cop always wrong, black person always right”. Each case has specific circumstances. But it seems many extremists on the left or right just want to choose sides, and then cherry pick info that fits their agenda. Same thing conspiracy theorists do.
Please refrain from putting words in my mouth, I am quite capable of saying my own words…as I think I have proven quite often on this board.
And I certainly have never said cop always wrong, black person always right. Though I can see how you might be getting a bit defensive of your protection of police, given the number of high profile killings where the police are in the wrong.
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I was not referring to you at all, I was making a statement (just conversation) about extremists, which I have not at all found you to be, so sorry if I came off like that.
My main rebuttal to you personally was that DOJ felt they had ample evidence to evaluate in this specific case, and they felt no prosecution was warranted based on that ample evidence. You said in your initial comment it was hard to prosecute on an single isolated act, but there have been thousands of hate crime indictments for isolated acts over the years.
Hate crimes aren’t the same thing. Here they DOJ is looking into civil rights violations, which typically require a history of discrimination. Hate crime legislation is about determing the thoughts/motives for a a specific act. They can seem similar because to determine the thoughts behind an act, a prosecutor will usually want to show a history as well.