Michael Brown had no criminal background

[KeepItReal]

Source: KSDK.com (local TV news)

ST. LOUIS COUNTY – An 18-year-old shot and killed near a Ferguson apartment complex Saturday afternoon had no criminal record, according to the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney's office.

According to police, Brown pushed an officer into his car. Then, both struggled and at some point, Brown reached for the officer's weapon before a shot inside of the car followed by a number of other shots. Brown was not armed.

St. Louis County Prosecutor's office confirmed that Brown had no prior misdemeanors or felonies against him.

Read more: http://www.ksdk.com/story/news/local/2014/08/13/michael-brown-ferguson-shooting-no-criminal-background/14023731/

---

Just the average incoming college Freshman.

RIP Mr. Brown.

[arcane1]

1. So a thug, in other words.

[billhicks76]

24. Have To Be An Idiot To Believe Cops

They really messed up and instead of dealing with it professionally they are letting the one cop who committed a crime turn them all into criminals. There should be 70% Black cops if there is 70% Black residents. US towns can't be allowed to be run like prison camps.

[Jackpine Radical]

44. Sure--

When you can show that left-handed people are more likely to be shot down in the streets than righties.

[billhicks76]

58. Dumb Argument

We need to represent racial diversity for obvious reasons on the police force.

[onehandle]

2. Really? He never even walked down the street in a hoodie, with Skittles and iced tea in tow?

Gun culture calls bullshit on this.

[alcibiades_mystery]

3. Just an average teenager with zero priors who decides to try to steal a cop's gun off of him

by reaching into the cop's car.

Happens all the time, you know?



Here's my guess: Roid rage cop tries to open the door on the kid, but the door hits him and bounces back. The cop, enraged, grabs the kid by the throat, just as the witness said, and is going to pull his sidearm to scare the kid when the gun goes off in the car. The cop gets so freaked out and furious that he just goes after the kid, nutso. Shoots him once in the back. Then blasts him over and over again in a total rage.

This is a murder, pure and simple.

We've all heard "he reached for my gun" before. It was bullshit then and it's bullshit now.

[MurrayDelph]

28. That and "stop resisting"

are the two biggest lies cops use to justify their anarchy.

[dembotoz]

4. not to worry--fox will come up with one

and people will believe it

[BronxBoy]

15. Yep....

"He was a criminal, he just wasn't caught yet"

Coming soon to a TV set near you

[Clint0n]

19. prediction

PREDICTION: fox 'news' animation w/in 24 hours
got to let potential jurors know the 'facts' before trial.

[1StrongBlackMan]

20. Yep ...

the horrendous crime of posting something sketchy on facebook.

[christx30]

23. Or the unpardonable

and capital offense of failing World History II and failing to turn in his Chemistry homework 3 times.

[LoisB]

5. There is no way an 18 year-old Black kid pushed a white cop anywhere. He sure as

hell didn't reach for the officer's gun. I would posit that by the age of 6, most Black kids in this country know that even looking askance at a white cop can get you killed.

[KeepItReal]

7. If anything, he pulled away and tried to run away

I have to believe he knew of and was fearful of what happened the last time it was reported that a cop put his hands on a Black man's neck.

[abelenkpe]

42. ..

[Agschmid]

46. For real?

Sentence structure and grammar are barely a thing on here...

[cyberswede]

49. Just to stick it to the man, of course.

[myrna minx]

51. LOL.

[LoisB]

57. Works for me.

[myrna minx]

50. Oy.

[HangOnKids]

54. MIRT

No typo in that dude!

[TheKentuckian]

47. Scratch the white, applies to any cop. Black police are no better, often worse.

[Roland99]

55. One thing I read was the officer open the vehicle door and it bounced back off Brown

Officer probably thought Brown pushed or kicked the door back. Officer should have realized how close Brown was and what the door would have done.

Was just looking for an excuse to arrest/shoot/etc.

[Iggo]

6. I don't care if he was goddam Jack the fucking Ripper.

That cop murdered him.

[shaayecanaan]

8. Has any cop ever been sent to jail for something like this?

Cant remember it happening before.

[1monster]

25. The BART cop who shot Oscar Grant in the back as he was being held down by other cops

did one freakin' year.

sigh.

[Sherman A1]

9. This is good information

it means the investigation is moving along and information is being released to the public. I am in hopes that the investigation is thorough, complete and not rushed.

[VanGoghRocks]

10. Friends, there is some seriously dark stuff going on. Right before I read this

I saw in the New York Times (of all places) that the Ferguson Chief of Police, one Thomas Jackson, is now claiming that Brown scuffled with the unnamed shooter and that the shooter's face was so swollen from the scuffling that he had to go to the hospital. This sounds so similar to the Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman scenario, that I'm starting to think that Ferguson law enforcement is trying to "fix facts around the policy" (to quote the Downing Street Memo).

I hope the U.S. Attorney at least considers possible obstruction of justice charges against the Ferguson Police Chief.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/14/us/missouri-teenager-and-officer-scuffled-before-shooting-chief-says.html

[Judi Lynn]

11. Thanks for the update on the Chief's claims. Unbelievable.

He should be dealt with seriously for lying to the public.

Welcome to D.U.

[joanbarnes]

12. It really smells. Murder happened on Saturday, not 'til Wednesday did we hear of cop's 'injuries.'

[VanGoghRocks]

13. You just repeated almost verbatim what I said to my wife (with

a couple of heated expletives thrown in for good measure .

Shame on the NYTimes for not vetting its reporting more diligently (speaking of the Downing St. Memo era). This one stinks to high heaven.

[olddad56]

21. they had to wait until the alleged swelling would have gone away.

that way it would harder to disprove their bogus story. If the officer had incurred the facial swelling, wouldn't the police have taken photos of that?

[SunSeeker]

30. So the Chief won't release the cop's name but he releases this?!

[VanGoghRocks]

32. Yeah, something's rotten in the state of Missouri (with apologies

to the Bard).

[SunSeeker]

33. Aren't medical records' privacy protected by federal law, unlike cops' names?

Ironic that he is so free with the cop's medical info, while claiming the cop's name must be kept private.

[VanGoghRocks]

41. Laws and the Constitution, you see, are 'quaint and obsolete,' as far as

our latter-day Sherrif of Nottingham is concerned.

[Jackpine Radical]

45. If the cop tries to bring the injury issue into court in his defense,

he opens up his medical record. His WHOLE medical record.

[imthevicar]

14. This is not going well

For the Police Cover up they want.

[Jack Rabbit]

16. Hasn't Limbaugh called him a thug yet?

Hannity? Coulter? Larry Elder?

[blkmusclmachine]

17. An unarmed, innocent, dead, black, teenage boy. What's that in cop lingo???

[Moostache]

18. To the cops? That's par for the course...

For humanity, its a disgrace that must be stopped...

[SammyWinstonJack]

53. Unarmed! Get it?

[Sunlei]

40. police lingo, & what the cop said- "Get the F on the sidewalk".That officer "wanted" to escalate.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

22. Of course he had no criminal background. Why would people get that impression?

[Unvanguard]

26. Doesn't matter if he did or didn't, you don't gun down an unarmed teenager. n/t

[philosslayer]

43. "The Knockout Game"?

Really? Already proven to be largely a myth. Enjoy your stay.

[Unvanguard]

48. The "knockout game" is a mostly unsubstantiated media panic

Yes, you have the right to defend yourself against other people's imminent use of force, when the force you use to defend yourself is prorportionate and the minimum necessary for self-defense. But there is no reason whatsoever to think that the threat posed by Michael Brown in this instance rose to that level. And someone being unarmed obviously has a whole lot to do with this analysis--no, the police (let alone "law-abiding folks" broadly) are not simply entitled to shoot someone because, hey, they might possibly be holding a gun. Your sentiment that "If you start a confrontation with the police, expect to get shot" is both inapplicable here (it looks like the police started this confrontation) and completely baseless (the police are not entitled to shoot anyone who starts a confrontation with them, thank God).

[arcane1]

56. I thought we were supposed to "wait for the investigation" before making conclusions.

Yet here you are saying "If you start a confrontation with the police, expect to get shot."

Not following your own advice, are you?

[randys1]

27. Since when does a Black teen in America have to be a criminal to get murdered?

[SunSeeker]

29. Well we certainly know plenty about Michael Brown, but we don't even know the cop's NAME. nt

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

31. I suppose the issue of whether he had a criminal record or not

might affect one's belief in the likelihood that he fought with the officer in the car and went for his gun. But even if Michael Brown was a previously convicted felon and did in fact go for the gun as the police suggest, once Brown exited the vehicle and tried to run away, that police officer no longer had the justification of self defense. That officer shot a fleeing unarmed man in the back and then in the front as he was on the ground. That's murder. There is no escaping that conclusion. Michael Brown's body was 35 feet away from the patrol car when the final shots were pumped into him.

[Sunlei]

39. no excuse to have the body lay exposed in the street, like the teen was some roadkill :(

Early after it was only the local police standing near with a few people outside the tape. The simple dignity of a cover over the body and allow mom and family to stay near him would have shown a bit of respect!

I don't even want to post the picture of him laying in the street, here's a link where the pic is posted. http://dayandadream.com/2014/08/09/ferguson-teen-shot-dead-police/

[raging moderate]

52. Yes, Holmes 159, there was a reason for that. ME.

Last edited Sat Aug 16, 2014, 02:16 PM - Edit history (1)

And a lot of other white people like me, who are FED UP with being HUMILIATED by the poor attitudes and behavior of some of our distant white relatives. We truly feel AWFUL about what has happened and is continuing to happen to many of our distant Black relatives, and we are always GLAD to see Black people standing up for themselves. When we see them hurt in these horrific ways, suddenly they become our close Brothers and Sisters in our hearts. And if capitalizing the word "Black" helps to heal them a little more, then I say they should. They are still being oppressed. Maybe someday that won't be true. Maybe we will heed the warnings of history. Nobody ever talks about the tragic massacre and enslavement of the Roman aristocracy at the end of the Roman Empire, but it should serve as a warning to any white supremacists. When the Roman Empire was at its height, the pale northern Europeans were known to the CIVILIZED world of that time as the "northern savages," stupid superstitious ignoramuses who looked fearsome but were easily defeated in battle or outsmarted in trade. Roman aristocrats would have rolled in laughter if they could have learned of the later pretensions of superiority among the Confederate descendants of those northern savages. The Roman Empire increased in pride and brutality until finally their bubble burst, and then it was their turn to be crushed, amid a lot of chaos and mayhem for everyone. This time, I want things to turn out differently, and better for everyone. I want more equality and justice and brotherhood in the world because I care about my descendants, whatever color they may be.