I just want to state that I live literally about 10 minutes away from this, so I consider my comments more relevant than all of yours.
Shit, I lived a half mile from where he was shot. whatchugot m8.
I'm not sure if I buy the story about the police officer executing the guy in broad daylight, noon, on a Saturday, in the middle of the street.
I'm not sure if I buy the story that the police officer gave about him shooting hurriedly in self defense while being assaulted in his car, as the body was 35 feet from the patrol car.
My estimation is:
- There was a struggle, the officer felt threatened and shot through the door into Michael Brown's leg.
- Michael turned to get away and was shot in the back.
- The police officer kept firing from adrenaline.
- The police officer approached the body in the street with gun drawn and aimed.
- People who had just now come to their senses see the officer holding a gun over the body.
- Witnesses flip shit.
Remember that witnesses have a tendency to corroborate their stories.
I'm NOT saying the police officer was in the
right or wrong, however, we need to be careful here.
Hopefully the STL County PD and FBI will be able to judge this incident better than the Ferguson PD would (because we all know how that would turn out).
I can give a story about a robbery incident that happened to a neighbor in an apartment the room over around dusk (this was two years ago, Ferguson).
There was a whole shitload of yelling and I went over to the door, phone in hand, and looked through the peep hole to see what the hell was going on.
The door was ajar, two men ran out yelling. Everyone was yelling, cursing.
I dialed 911, gave the address and said there was a robbery in progress.
Everything calmed down (mostly) and I went out to check what was going on once the police arrived a few minutes later.
The neighbors
swore nothing had happened while I told the police what I'd saw and heard.
Police left and the neighbors were now pissed at me for getting the police involved when they were going to "solve" it themselves.
Next day their kids were throwing rocks at my car on the street.
Not even kidding.
TL;DR, a short summary: The people there have never gotten along with police, nor the government.
Ferguson is primarily black, the government and police are vastly white, and there's been complaints for years that no one in power gives a damn about their community.
I can't say if that's necessarily true -it very well may be- but the recent events have been the result of years' worth of steam in a fucked boiler.
A buddy of mine had his house burglarized the other night. People have been mugged, murdered, shot at, businesses and homes looted and torched.
There were drive-by's where people were wildly shooting into local businesses.
THE mall in Saint Louis, just the other day, had a massive brawl break out.
Shit's out of control, and frankly, the police have to control the situation before they can restore order, and shit's gonna get real with 300 people rioting and shooting for a week solid.
That's not to say I agree with everything the police are doing (I don't), but the city can't just bend over backwards because the police are scary and tear gas hurts my eyes.
It's out of control. It's disheartening.
It's awful to see these rioters, separate from the peaceful folks, taking advantage of Mike's death. It's awful to see the peaceful protesters getting lumped in with the bad.
It's awful to see the rioters giving more ammunition to the flagrant racists, and it's pathetic that there's still so many white people eating up the anti-black pseudoscience we were given 150 years ago.
It's shit that a few bad apples can give a terrible reputation to a mass of people - and that works for the protesters, anyone of any race, and the police force too.
Anyway, sorry for the rant, but I'd like for people to be as rational as possible, even when shit hits the fan.
It seems like all that does is piss everyone off even more, particularly on Twitter (Christ, the notifications kept coming till 5AM).
I'm just afraid to take sides, is all. Too early to do that.
Gov. Nixon has urged the police present to be more mindful of those who are peaceful, so hopefully there will be more discretion tonight and in the near future.
Crossing fingers.
Edit:Antonio French is a good guy, but I can see how he may have been difficult with the police presence.
For the past week, he's been "on the frontlines," per se, taking videos of everything going on.
He's an alderman for the... 27th ward? Saint Louis City, not Ferguson, but regardless.
I met him when I was running the outreach half of a Green Party aldermanic candidate a couple years ago.
He's a genuinely nice guy, and has been concerned for the people of Ferguson, and their government, for years now.
Ferguson is a hot topic in the local political scene there, first hand.
As for the reporters, I'm surprised.
So was the police chief though, and they were released within the hour as soon as the chief discovered they were press.
For the record, the McDonalds they were arrested at was a "staging area" for rioters each day for the past five days, and I believe (correct me if I'm wrong), a riot was taking place a block or two away when they were detained.
Still, surprising to say the least. My best guess is the officers were told to get everyone out of the building (potentially by the franchise owner), and the reporters didn't want to leave.
There's a video of one of the reporters, anyway, who had a video running when it happened at the McDonalds.
He said over and over to the officer that he was working and didn't want to leave but never once identified himself as press.
Tried to find the video again last night but it was buried in a livefeed.
Frankly, the whole situation is insane. So much shit flying everywhere and I can't keep up with it.
