No, I was responding to your hypothetical - not creating my own. If the Grand Jury had gone differently, I would have accepted their decision.

Of course it is a matter of convenience. When I don't have the time or interest in a subject, I defer to people who make it their livelihood. The other path is one to conspiracy theories and misinformation.

You gave no information. You said "Google it". Challenge accepted. I went out looking for evidence that police brutality is increasing. I found this:

an estimated 1.4% had force used or threatened against them during their most recent contact, which was not statistically different from the percentages in 2002 (1.5%) and 2005 (1.6%).

It's a short period (2002-2008), but there was no increase. I was unable to find longer-term studies. They either do not exist or my Google-fu is weak. I would love to know where you saw numbers indicating that there has been an increase.

Lethal data is much harder to come by. There seems to be a single guy trying to remedy this, but I'm going to lump this into "government does not want these to exist" like proper gun violence reporting.

I was referring to the rioting and the "trial by mob" of the officer.

I've actually done this. I needed to arrange a call between Verizon and CallCentric. I called Verizon first and told them what I intended to do, and they gave me a direct line to call in order to set the call up. I probably should have kept that number :)

Huh? No. I just think it is clear what I meant from context and don't see the point of you picking it out other than being pedantic.

I'll grant you that I _COULD_ go out and educate myself enough not to sound like a wannabe on topics such as grand jury investigations, forensics, and autopsies. I have not done so, and do not intend to do so for the purpose of a Slashdot discussion. My "state of mind" is called "humility". It's the same reason I don't levy half-assed criticism a bunch of people who have spent their entire lives creating climate models.

I was referring specifically to your claim that "Police violence against civilians has escalated, not the other way around."

That does not accurately describe my postilion. Action is important, but it has to be the right kind of action. Anarchy in particular is the wrong kind of action.

You have it backwards. A grand jury, with evidence collected jointly by the local authorities and the federal Justice Department, found nothing to indict the officer for. It is you who are inventing something... some non-specific charge that you believe they missed.

I'm not a lawyer so to me the difference between "charge" and "indict" is not very significant to our discussion. If you want a pedantic discussion then you are probably engaged with the wrong guy.

It most certainly is! You suggested that even though he didn't actually commit a crime, it is still worth putting him through the trial process so that things can escalate to some "next level". You are suggesting that it is "worth it" to screw up this guy's life for a while just to further some greater cause. That is not justice, that is calculated political strategy.

I don't think cops should be chasing down suspects on their own. I don't think beat cops should be carrying handguns, thus guaranteeing that a non-lethal struggle becomes a lethal struggle since the weapon is always in play. However, the rules being what they are, I can't say whether or not the officer in this particular case was justified or not - I wasn't there and I wasn't on the grand jury. Having watched the Justice Department presentation, I must say that they seem to have made the right decision given the facts that they had.

Where did you see those numbers?

Yes, I think we agree on the ends but not the means.

You overlook the possibility that it might be perfectly legal to run down a suspect and shoot them if they become aggressive. In other words, you might find that the officer was 100% at fault here, but still acted completely lawfully.

No. I'm arguing that if you can't even get the grand jury to charge the man, you have absolutely no hope of convicting him in a criminal court. The grand jury has a really low threshold and no unanimous decision is necessary. Criminal court was not an ethical option here.

I still don't think it is worth throwing the officer under the bus to achieve the systemic change. Unfortunately everything about this event makes it hard to attack the institution. "Hands up, don't shoot" is a stupid slogan that emphasizes a scenario that never happened and an individual who will never elicit much sympathy from the people you need to have engaged. It also encourages people to chose between the officer and the victim, so now you've alienated anyone who views police officers positively or who just decides to believe the cop rather than the kid who just robbed a store.

Maybe people need someone or some singular event to rally around. That's a shame, but maybe it can't be helped. Mike Brown is not going to give anyone the "Rosa Parks" moment they are looking for. There is a reason that you know about Rosa Parks - a light-skinned, married, and employed model citizen - and not any of the previous people who violated segregation laws.

History also shows that we are moving in a general direction towards better rights for minorities. Maybe it won't be this event - the rioting and unsympathetic victim makes it hard for Obama to find political cover. But I'm optimistic that eventually police departments will be reformed.

I live in an old suburb where they ran the wires behind the houses. Trees are still a problem, since they like to grow in the no mans land between properties.

To be fair, when the utility company trims trees the residents raise holy hell.

The real shame of it is that he had access to a taser, but did not carry it because it was bulky. That is not an acceptable department policy, IMHO; emphasis should be on the non-lethal weapon.

I'm not a lawyer, so you are getting way beyond me. I think focusing on the individuals in this case misses the point completely.

On one side you have supporters of a guy who represents everything that is wrong with the police, and on the other you have supporters of a kid who just robbed a store and then punched a cop. Neither side will accomplish any kind of progress by lining up behind these two individuals. I find that incredibly frustrating, because there are real issues that can only be addressed at a much higher level. Grand juries, riots, fires... these all act to distract attention from any attempt to reform the institutions which are failing the disenfranchised.

I can only speculate, but suspect that the Justice Department is not done with the Ferguson Police Department just yet.

What charges?

Agreed. I want my son to be able to walk down the street without harassment. This won't happen by occasionally charging an officer who shoots and kills a kid. Change in this case needs to be top-down: the cops need to be valued by the community or they are not doing their jobs. They are public servants and it would be best that they remember this.

I do agree with you. I'm just not seeing how making this guy a scapegoat would change anything. The blame lies with the department, and not with the poor bastard that they train to be like this and then throw out onto the street. There are 100 other guys on the force who would do the same damn thing, because that is the way the system is set up.

You either know, or are pretending to know, about forensics. I am not trained in this field, and so have to go with the best source of data that I have available to me. If you want me to accept your version of the events, you would need to explain why it conflicts with the Justice Department's, and why I should use your information instead of theirs.

Correct. If we don't like how he behaved in this situation, and he behaved according to his training, then the training needs to change.

I'm merely reiterating the events as established by the grand jury investigation. That is the best resource that I have available to me. Your version of events does not seem as credible to me.

It's never excessive to defend yourself, and it asks too much from someone who is actively defending themselves to think completely clearly. When the rush of adrenaline kicks in, the best you can hope for is that they follow their rote training. So discussing the actual killing is missing the point entirely. The question shouldn't be about the actions of this individual officer, but the way that the entire police department conducts itself and its training. Why does the black community react so violently when a kid who just robbed a store gets shot after attacking a cop? That indicates a severe disenfranchisement. Cops should be embraced as vital to the community. If that isn't the case, then they are "doing it wrong".

I'd add that I'd personally like to see us get to a point where cops no longer need to carry a handgun. This would require getting to a point where crooks with handguns are rare, but there you go. This latest episode would most likely have been non-fatal.

From what I heard of the Justice Department synopsis, the prosecutor had nothing that he could have taken to trial. Most of the prosecution eyewitnesses would have been discredited immediately, and that left only defense eyewitnesses. All of the forensics and the autopsy supported the defense.

According to the grand jury findings, he ceased firing once the victim stopped moving toward him.

That might very well be the most reasonable action to take going forward, and maybe that should be incorporated into police training. As long as the officer's actions were in line with currently established procedures, that does not make his actions criminal.

There is clearly a huge racial problem in our police departments, and that may have even led to this particular tragedy. Of course, robbing a store and then fighting with the responding officer also led to this tragedy. I think it is a shame that people have hung so much weight on this particular case - Brown is not the easiest person to feel sympathy for. To me, the shocking response of the police to the initial protests was far more indicative of a systemic problem than the shooting of Brown.