All-purpose news and politics thread: Two Steps Beyond!

[Lightsabretooth]

Digging this up because, to nobody's surprise, your assumptions were completely wrong about the case:

I made no assumptions. I was just going by what was reported.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/08/2...attorney-says/

Of course, this is just information based on a surveillance video. Yours were assumptions based on... what? That he was a black guy?

Again, I made no assumptions at all. If you want to point the finger at someone, point it at the media.

That's why I'm trying to wait for all the information to come out of the Ferguson situation before assuming to know what really happened.

[Vibranium]

if the Ferguson PD would release what information they have...going on 3 weeks now

that may be helpful

[worstblogever]

Joy Reid ran a piece about the ties between police and anti-government militia group "the Oathkeepers".

Its kind of scary that the lines between law enforcement have become so blurred... right around the time the White House changed hands.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Also in the "Arizona News" category today (which is apparently trying to rival Florida)...

A firearms range instructor was shot and killed because nobody thought it would be a bad idea to let a 9 year old girl fire her first Uzi. She lost control of the weapon, predictably, and he was hit by her stray fire.

I didn't laugh, but I shook my head at the bottomless stupidity of that situation.

[the4thpip]

I made no assumptions. I was just going by what was reported.



Again, I made no assumptions at all. If you want to point the finger at someone, point it at the media.

That's why I'm trying to wait for all the information to come out of the Ferguson situation before assuming to know what really happened.

Yet Carabas, who also watches the news, replied this to you that day:

He was holding a toy gun while standing in the toy gun section. Calling his mother on his phone apparantly.

We don't actually know if he was scaring people or pointing it at anybody. That's just hearsay at this point.

Odd, innit? How you paraphrase the situation in your way based on "what the media reports" and other people don't. And "other people" were completely right about the situation, based on the same information.
I wonder what causes that.

[Pinsir]

Joy Reid ran a piece about the ties between police and anti-government militia group "the Oathkeepers".

Its kind of scary that the lines between law enforcement have become so blurred... right around the time the White House changed hands.

This is why the claim that the US is preparing for civil war by militarizing the police is stupid. If a civil war breaks out these armoured vehicles will immediately come under the command of anti-government forces.

[Kasper Cole]

You assumed that the reported 'facts' were absolutely factual.

And even if they were factual, think about how many white men point real guns at citizens and authorities while threatening to kill them but somehow manage to walk away and in some cases not even be arrested.

[Lightsabretooth]

Did your report happen to be on something like Fox News, Breitbart, Drudge or The Blaze? That'd explain it. They're always at their most insane when the story involves black people.

No, it wasn't one of the usual suspects. I just read a story about a guy holding a toy gun in a Walmart store being shot to death, and it made sense to me that he had to have been doing something more than just playing with a toy gun. The guy who called it in reportedly said he was pointing it at people, and it was also reported that he didn't put it down when police told him to. That's what the report said, and that makes more sense to me than police just marching into a Walmart and shooting someone dead. So I gave the benefit of the doubt to the side that sounded the most reasonable. Surveillance shows that the opposite happened and the kid really did do nothing wrong and the cops actually did do the absolute wrong thing. It also sounds like the guy who called it in is probably somewhat responsible too for inciting these officers and putting them at such a high alert.

You assumed that the reported 'facts' were absolutely factual.

I did, because of all the information available, it made the most sense to me at the time. Now there are actual facts that have been presented to show the contrary.

[Lightsabretooth]

No, no. We were both going purely by Pinsir's link.

Whatever link it was, I didn't make it up that someone reported he was scaring people at gunpoint and then refused to put the gun down. In that scenario I don't think it's impossible to think you can get shot for that, especially if police are coming in assuming it's a real gun. But it turns out all that is BS, so it's a moot point. I try to give the benefit of the doubt to the story that sounds the most reasonable until I have reason to believe otherwise.

[worstblogever]

I mean, why would people think the police in Ferguson trying to antagonize its citizens into violence after the death of Michael Brown?

No idea.

As darkness fell on Canfield Drive on August 9, a makeshift memorial sprang up in the middle of the street where Michael Brown's body had been sprawled in plain view for more than four hours. Flowers and candles were scattered over the bloodstains on the pavement. Someone had affixed a stuffed animal to a streetlight pole a few yards away. Neighborhood residents and others were gathering, many of them upset and angry.

Soon, police vehicles reappeared, including from the St. Louis County Police Department, which had taken control of the investigation. Several officers emerged with dogs. What happened next, according to several sources, was emblematic of what has inflamed the city of Ferguson, Missouri, ever since the unarmed 18-year-old was gunned down: An officer on the street let the dog he was controlling urinate on the memorial site.

The incident was related to me separately by three state and local officials who worked with the community in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. One confirmed that he interviewed an eyewitness, a young woman, and pressed her on what exactly she saw. "She said that the officer just let the dog pee on it," that official told me. "She was very distraught about it." The identity of the officer who handled the dog and the agency he was with remain unclear.
Candles and flowers marking the spot where Brown died were soon run over by police vehicles.

The day brought other indignities for Brown's family, and the community. Missouri state Rep. Sharon Pace, whose district includes the neighborhood where the shooting occurred, told me she went to the scene that afternoon to comfort the parents, who were blocked by police from approaching their son's body. Pace purchased some tea lights for the family, and around 7 p.m. she joined Brown's mother, Lesley McSpadden, and others as they placed the candles and sprinkled flowers on the ground where Brown had died. "They spelled out his initials with rose petals over the bloodstains," Pace recalled.

By then, police had prohibited all vehicles from entering Canfield Drive except for their own. Soon the candles and flowers had been smashed, after police drove over them.

[Mecegirl]

Just some tweets about the racial climate in St. Louis.

http://tessfowler.tumblr.com/post/95950394679

[dupont2005]

I made no assumptions. I was just going by what was reported.



Again, I made no assumptions at all. If you want to point the finger at someone, point it at the media.

That's why I'm trying to wait for all the information to come out of the Ferguson situation before assuming to know what really happened.

And what lesson have you learned about reading, reposting, and believing anything Raw Story posts?

[Lightsabretooth]

I mean, why would people think the police in Ferguson trying to antagonize its citizens into violence after the death of Michael Brown?

No idea.

This is equally upsetting.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/08/2...parent-reason/

This is the aftermath of all kinds of bad things erupting into a giant mess created by several groups of people.

We still don't know details as to why this Mike Brown shooting happened, but this group of police is pretty ridiculous.

I've only been speaking specifically about the officer who shot Mike Brown. He is one of "them", but is he? Benefit of the doubt until there's a reason not to.

[worstblogever]

I have a followup about the 9 year old with an Uzi who accidentally killed her gun range instructor with it 2 days ago...

The NRA decided, most likely in response, to tweet out a link to an article telling moms how much fun kids can have at the shooting range.

[Lightsabretooth]

I have a followup about the 9 year old with an Uzi who accidentally killed her gun range instructor with it 2 days ago...

The NRA decided, most likely in response, to tweet out a link to an article telling moms how much fun kids can have at the shooting range.

They are trying to paint it as an anomaly. Because who could have thought a 9 year old 60 pound kid might not be able to handle an automatic uzi?