I live about 12 miles away from Ferguson. Our local radio station 95.5 has been pretty straight up.

@Carly The thing is how are we supposed to know which account is correct? Anyway, what are the facts according to 95.5?

The officer is white.
Last I heard it was 6 bullets. He could have survived the first 5, but the last one was in the head.

Is he the one who commited the robbery?

@flo Well, they’re locals interviewing locals, and very concerned with finding out the truth of what happened, unlike some media stations that are concerned with hyping up the facts for whatever reasons they have.

It’s just a station I trust compared to a station that’s reporting facts from other stations through the grapevine.

@Carly Okay, thanks. What are the facts?

Given the media interest, the amount of stuff speculated on the internet and the political nature of the incident I doubt its possible to get the facts anymore.

From what I’ve heard on the station, these are the “facts”:
1) He is the person in the surveillance video; however, the cop was not aware of the robbery beforehand. Also, the family of Mike Brown wasn’t notified to view the footage before it was released and that pissed a bunch of people off.
2) Darren Wilson is white, the main police captain, Ron Johnson, who is in charge of the case is black (maybe that’s where the misunderstanding is coming from?).
3) He was shot 6 times, one fatal shot in the head, the rest where non-fatal, mostly (or all) in his arm.

@Carly Thanks.

@Lightlyseared I would agree with you if we were talking about opinions but about just the bare facts?

I think the guy who was with him said he did the robery.

@Dutchess_III Yes I heard that too.

The robbery has nothing to do with Brown being killed.

There were two bullets in the head.

Ron Johnson is not in charge of the case, he took over security from the inept local police chief who was making things worse. Ron Johnson is a Missouri Highway Patrolman. He is black.

The discrepancy between news outlets is dependent on:

1. slant of the station.
2.the vast speculation.
3. The police taking forever to disclose anything, and then tainting it with unrelated issues.

Really.. Like John Oliver posited last night. Him robbing the store is about as relevant as me hating onions. He was not robbing the store when the cops shot him.

He was simply black.

The cop didn’t even know about the robbery when he shot him.

What a mess this is. We had a local cop (off duty recent grad) lose his head and shoot a couple of people. Someone with a 22 rifle put a stop to it. Cops are people too with their own problems and mental issues. We simply do not screen them well enough. The job should have the highest standards and only the best we can find should be accepted. It should also be much higher paying and should have higher education and training standards.

Instead we get this.

How can we possibly know “the actual facts” from any media source?

Where do you get the actual facts?

It’s beyond ‘actual facts’. You could jettison yourself 25 years into the future and see the historical review.

If he had committed a robbery and the officer that shot him had no knowledge of that, then it is also true that Brown had no way to know that the officer was not after him for that crime.

Perhaps Brown committed suicide by cop. Perhaps the cops made it look like he did. The waters are forever muddied, but I think the state troopers taking over the situation is the right thing.

I’m from Missouri and I have a high regard for Governor Jay Nixon, even if he is on the wrong side of conservatives. I’ve seen him step up to the bat time and time again.

This is a sensational case, and in the US, it has become the norm for news sources to report the latest rumors. They are covered by using words that don’t specifically state facts. “Allegedly”, “supposedly”, “likely”, are a few that have been used. We need to give the investigators a chance to do their job. Hopefully, they will do it properly.

@ARE_you_kidding_me Unless you know something that I don’t about screening potential police officers, that is an incorrect statement.

The Michael Brown incident is a catalyst which allows black Americans to express their anger at the authorities which arises more from a sense of alienation than from the particulars of the case. It has become a big ‘story’ the media are desperate to report on and to hell with the facts.

@Pied_Pfeffer
I have had a chance to stew on that a little. While I have personally known some folks who were officers that I thought should not be the vast majority are there for the right reasons. Because of a few people I don’t have a great deal of trust initially. If get to know them personally then usually I do. That trust simply does not exist for me out of the gate. I don’t think we can screen people well enough to prevent things like this from happening on occassion. It probably would be very hard to be a cop in areas like Fergusson. I think that it’s likely if the facts come out that the cop may have been in the wrong. It also seems like the folks in that town are eager to pick a fight and sensationalize this.

Last I read the kid had graduated HS and was getting ready to leave for college. Doesn’t sound like a suicide attempt to me.

Thing is, I have no doubt that Brown was acting like a belligerent asshole. Didn’t deserve to get shot though. Tazed, maybe. Plus, if reports are true, the first 5 shots would have disabled him without killing him. The last shot was to the head.

Someone above made the comment that the cop didn’t know about the robbery, but Brown didn’t know that he didn’t know, and reacted on the assumption that that’s why the cop was stopping him. However, if he DID commit the robbery, the last thing you’d think he would do would be to walk down the middle of the street a few minutes later, and draw attention to himself.
That doesn’t make any sense….

One day last week NPR had a discussion of the shooting that was locally produced in St. Louis and a former Chief of Police was featured. He’s black and now a university professor. He stated that a disproportionate number of young black males are stopped by police, and that a disproportionate amount of violent crime is caused by young black males. It was probably the most sensible discussion I have heard on the subject. I wish I could link.

The reddit live feed seems to have a good reporting of facts and events.

Anyway the authorities are not helping their cause by not arresting him.

@flo the authorities “don’t arrest” someone because the public thinks a crime occurred.

@Tropical_Willie The people who see that a crime has been committed are out to lunch?

@flo not what I said. The people that think the PoPo are the enemies are out to lunch.

The false assumption is that an “eyewitness” is without an agenda.

Does not mean that there isn’t a reason to arrest him only that evidence is required. Hate and distrust are not a reason for arrest.

@Tropical_Willie Speaking of evidence you just reminded me someone’s (I’Il post the link as soon as I can find it) question:
Paraphrasing:
Is there evidence that Bill Maher tries to get people to be druggies? How many people are dead and injusred because of him and his….” Why isn’t he arrested?

_Not just “tries” but successfuly sends to their grave or to criminals activities etc

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todd_Bertuzzi%E2%80%93Steve_Moore_incident
” ...Bertuzzi began following Moore around the ice, attempting to provoke him into another fight. With Moore ignoring him, Bertuzzi grabbed Moore’s jersey from behind and punched him in the jaw, then fell over on top of Moore as he went down. Bertuzzi, as well as several other players from both teams, landed atop Moore as he fell to the ice.[9] Canucks fans initially cheered at Bertuzzi’s actions, but as it became apparent Moore was seriously injured, the arena became silent.[8]”

Why wasn’t Bertuzzi arrsted?

@flo That question about Bill Maher was raised, but it was a wild supposition, and Maher doesn’t try to get people to be druggies. A well known person’s public behavior cannot be blamed for someone else’s private disaster.

That question is like me saying ”@flo’s questions make people so angry that households are splintered, why isn’t she arrested?”

And professional sports players are generally not held for criminal behavior in physical disputes on the playing field. Why would Bertuzzi or anyone else get arrested for a hockey fight?

[Mod Says] The post is in the General section, please stay on topic discussing the reliability of sources for news information, and confirmed facts in this case (ideally with links to your sources, please). Thanks!

It’s tough because there’s so much bias on both sides here, and this case has a major political divide. There were three separate autopsies conducted so far, with the first one being done by St. Louis County, the second one done privately by a guy chosen by the family and the third one was done by military examiners.

To be honest, due to bias, you’re not going to get completely unbiased information on this case. You are going to have to do your own investigating at this point, and I think that perhaps the best way to do this at this early point in time is to look at the various autopsy reports. Here’s the autopsy done privately by Dr. Baden. The other two reports appear to be similar.

The fact is it’s simply too early in the case to side with anyone here in my opinion. I’d prefer that both progressive and conservative types respect the Constitution a bit and let the justice system take its course. It appears that Missouri’s own government already has the officer convicted, as well as a large sector of the media.

It appears what we do know at this point from the autopsy reports is that at least six gunshot wounds were found on Brown, four of them being on the forearm, and the other two being to the head. Only three of the bullets were found thus far. The gunshots entered Brown’s body from the front, which indicates that Brown definitely was not running away from the officer when he was shot. It’s going to be difficult to determine whether the shots were from a struggle or not by this evidence alone. Things like gunpowder residue and DNA may tell us some things though. Marijuana was found in Brown’s system, but I don’t see how this is relevant. Fuck, I like (love) pot too, and it never made me violent. If there was PCP, alcohol or something more dangerous in Brown’s system then I’d be concerned here. On a side note: cannabinoids can make some people violent, but these usually are the types of people who shouldn’t be using any substance to begin with.

What I can’t understand is that many people whose minds have been obviously too contaminated by political correctness to think critically are making the most vile comments against those who simply want justice take its course, and bringing up things that have nothing to do with the case like the klan supporting Wilson (like Wilson can control that). racial oppression (has nothing to do with the facts in this case) and even making outright absurd claims (like Brown was shot running away from Wilson). Eyewitness testimony is not helping too much at this point, and some of it has been in conflict with the autopsy reports.

I take back what I posted (removed). That was not bright.

Did they test if the officer had anything in his system?

Regardless, doing any kind of drug in general, whether so and so does it or doesn’t do it . is a…. thing to do. Fill in the blank. The people who make money from it are going to claim what? The people who can’t be led by the nose say what? There are people who have lived to be 100 even though they did smoke cigaretttes for example. That doesn’t mean it is harmless.

….That was in response to the following by @Paradox25, not out of the blue.
“I like (love) pot too, and it never made me violent. If there was PCP, alcohol or something more dangerous in Brown’s system then I’d be concerned here. On a side note: cannabinoids can make some people violent, but these usually are the types of people who shouldn’t be using any substance to begin with.” i.e, don’t worry, it is harmless, go ahead do it take a chance,....Pro-police? Not.

Google search results for accidents related to marijuana use:
http://goo.gl/lSlvyE
one of the search results:
http://consumer.healthday.com/public-health-information-30/marijuana-news-759/fatal-car-crashes-involving-pot-use-have-tripled-in-u-s-study-684515.html

[Mod Says] Thread moved to Social at OP’s request.

@flo Your argument about cannabis however is not relevant to what I had written that’s related to the case. OK, I get it by now from our multiple exchanges that you obviously don’t like weed. There’s no reason to twist what I wrote about cannabis pertaining to this case though.

They can always take it to a civil suit for wrongful death. Like what happened with OJ Simpson.

@Paradox25 I did not twist, and it has nothing to do whether I like weed or not. The only argument the marijuana users and sellers present is that “alcohol is kills, and it does a lot of harm, or a lot more harm and it is legal” which is nowhere near an argument, that’s what I call twisted logic.

“Marijuana was found in Brown’s system, but I don’t see how this is relevant. Fuck, I like (love) pot too, and it never made me violent”
Without that statement your post is more than fine.