Ferguson, Missouri Grand Jury Decision Update: No Indictmen of Officer Who Shot Michael Brown

[Grapefruits]

Who cares how big he was?

Does that mean it's okay to use deadly on an unarmed person?

If the officer couldn't handle him, he should have called for backup. They are trained to take down guys that big. Either through the use of non lethal weapons, or take down techniques.

If you're not stronger than an 18 year old at 28 then maybe you shouldn't be in law enforcement.

Hard to call for back up when the kid is attacking you with the intent to harm you.

[jdatb]

He was 18 years old. Give me a break. That's a kid.

Well at what point is he not a kid anymore? 20? 30? When he gets married? At some point, people need to take responsibility for their actions. He obviously didn't, and it ultimately cost him his life. And as others have said, he was near 300 lb and well over 6 feet tall. He had just been attempting to rob a store earlier too.

Sadly your posts are typical of an uninformed outsider who receives their information solely from the media. You should try to keep an open mind and think for yourselves, instead of swallowing the juicy bait the news outlets throw out for you.

[DeNiro]

You should learn the difference between the evidence required to indict someone vs. evidence in a criminal trial.

I just laid it out and you just completely whiffed on it.

This is what happens when you jump on a bandwagon of emotion and dramatics.

Nope, not emotional or dramatic.

Please stop pretending like you're an expert on the justice system. You clearly learned all you know from fox news.

If you don't understand that cops get prosecuted differently, then I pity you. Please climb back into your safe comfortable box, and believe everything you're told.

[Grapefruits]

First cop car torched in...

[Blue90]

I know Adrian Peterson was indicted. He's black. Only black people get indicted

[Mr. Ambien]

Nope, not emotional or dramatic.

Please stop pretending like you're an expert on the justice system. You clearly learned all you know from fox news.

If you don't understand that cops get prosecuted differently, then I pity you. Please climb back into your safe comfortable box, and believe everything you're told.

It's funny you're making this passive "sheep" reference all while you followed along with the media's trumped up police and race bait theme unquestioningly.

Forgive me if I side with a grand jury, who does know. It must make me an expert to side with the people who actually have more evidence than random people on the internet. It was also shown through the autopsy that most eye witness testimony claiming that he was on the ground shot in the back by an officer standing above him, and that he was shot in the back while running away, was fabricated. The media relayed all these so-called "eye witnesses" relying on social media, which was clearly in the wrong. But this is all objective discussion. Enjoy your discussion of emotion and just making baseless statements.

[DeNiro]

Well at what point is he not a kid anymore? 20? 30? When he gets married? At some point, people need to take responsibility for their actions. He obviously didn't, and it ultimately cost him his life. And as others have said, he was near 300 lb and well over 6 feet tall. He had just been attempting to rob a store earlier too.

Sadly your posts are typical of an uninformed outsider who receives their information solely from the media. You should try to keep an open mind and think for yourselves, instead of swallowing the juicy bait the news outlets throw out for you.

18 is a teenager. He's just out of highschool. You're telling me you didn't make mistakes at that age.

Should those mistakes cost you your life? That's a pretty sad statement. If you think that, please move to Texas or Florida. You'd fit in better there.

And where do you get your information from, inside you're own biased uninformed mind? Trust me I know how to question the media. This has nothing to do with that. It has to do with cops not being held accountable for THEIr, whether the person they kill are white or black. It happens too often.

[Mr. Ambien]

18 is a teenager. He's just out of highschool. You're telling me you didn't make mistakes at that age.

Should those mistakes cost you your life? That's a pretty sad statement. If you think that, please move to Texas or Florida. You'd fit in better there.

And where do you get your information from, inside you're own biased uninformed mind? Trust me I know how to question the media. This has nothing to do with that. It has to do with cops not being held accountable for THEIr, whether the person they kill are white or black. It happens too often.

I think you need to explain where you get your information. What do you know that the jury didn't? Why should a cop be accountable for not committing a crime? Just because you personally see it as justice doesn't mean anything about laws.

[DeNiro]

It's funny you're making this passive "sheep" reference all while you followed along with the media's trumped up police and race bait theme unquestioningly.

Forgive me if I side with a grand jury, who does know. It must make me an expert to side with the people who actually have more evidence than random people on the internet. It was also shown through the autopsy that most eye witness testimony claiming that he was on the ground shot in the back by an officer standing above him, and that he was shot in the back while running away, was fabricated. But this is all objective discussion. Enjoy your discussion of emotion and just making baseless statements.

Every opinion you have is based on going against the media for the sake of it. So you can proudly say that you're not a follower. And that you know better than everyone else. I find it more sheepish to just accept a verdict as fact as if the law could never be wrong.

I think you should do some research of how prosecuters have tried police officers in the past. When the cops are the ones gathering evidence, who do you think they're going to side with? It's a problem in society whether you want to accept it or not. Cops protect cops, and so does the system.

[-Vintage Canuck-]

Police cars destroyed, gun shots heard, bottles and rocks being thrown, glass being broken, tear gas deployed, fire, looting.

It's happening.

[Warhippy]

I sit here listening to Obama on CBC stating that violence is not an answer and that cooler heads need to prevail...

And in the split screen I see cops firing tear gas at anything that moves in the middle of a road, helicopter over head showing peyote standing in a circle peacefully holding hands....tear gas coming from everywhere.

Good Bless 'Murica

[Blueberries]

I wonder what's more entertaining the guys arguing in this topic or the riot?

[Mr. Ambien]

Every opinion you have is based on going against the media for the sake of it. So you can proudly say that you're not a follower. And that you know better than everyone else. I find it more sheepish to just accept a verdict as fact as if the law could never be wrong.

I think you should do some research of how prosecuters have tried police officers in the past. When the cops are the ones gathering evidence, who do you think they're going to side with? It's a problem in society whether you want to accept it or not. Cops protect cops, and so does the system.

So the grand jury are cops and are in on this conspiracy to protect them? You have nothing but generalities, you know nothing about this case, despite attempts to denigrate others.

[DeNiro]

I think you need to explain where you get your information. What do you know that the jury didn't? Why should a cop be accountable for not committing a crime? Just because you personally see it as justice doesn't mean anything about laws.

Killing someone who was not immediately endangering your life is not a crime?

That's news to me.

You can't go in and confront someone, and then shoot them when they get the better of you. That's not self defense.

If he couldn't cuff him on his own, he should have waited for backup.

[jdatb]

18 is a teenager. He's just out of highschool. You're telling me you didn't make mistakes at that age.

Should those mistakes cost you your life? That's a pretty sad statement. If you think that, please move to Texas or Florida. You'd fit in better there.

And where do you get your information from, inside you're own biased uninformed mind? Trust me I know how to question the media. This has nothing to do with that. It has to do with cops not being held accountable for THEIr, whether the person they kill are white or black. It happens too often.

You didn't answer my question. When should someone take responsibility for their actions? And yes, everyone makes mistakes at all stages of life. However, most people don't make mistakes like robbing a store and attacking a police officer. And I never said that it should cost him his life, I just said it did(regretfully). Don't put words in my mouth.

I get my information from as many sources as possible. I try to avoid the more biased sites like Fox News since they can easily twist the facts to suit their views. And I am just making an educated guess that I would be more in the loop than you, since I'm living in the States and not too far away from the tragedy.

[The Bookie]

Murder or not, it still sounds like excessive force to me. Will be interested to see the evidence release.

Police shootings do seem to be the exception in grand juries indicting:

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/ferguson-michael-brown-indictment-darren-wilson/

Former New York state Chief Judge Sol Wachtler famously remarked that a prosecutor could persuade a grand jury to “indict a ham sandwich.” The data suggests he was barely exaggerating: According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. attorneys prosecuted 162,000 federal cases in 2010, the most recent year for which we have data. Grand juries declined to return an indictment in 11 of them.

Cases involving police shootings, however, appear to be an exception. As my colleague Reuben Fischer-Baum has written, we don’t have good data on officer-involved killings. But newspaperaccounts suggest, grand juries frequently decline to indict law-enforcement officials. A recent Houston Chronicle investigationfound that “police have been nearly immune from criminal charges in shootings” in Houston and other large cities in recent years. In Harris County, Texas, for example, grand juries haven’t indicted a Houston police officer since 2004; in Dallas, grand juries reviewed 81 shootings between 2008 and 2012 and returned just one indictment.Separate research by Bowling Green State University criminologist Philip Stinson has found that officers are rarely charged in on-duty killings, although it didn’t look at grand jury indictments specifically.

[DeNiro]

So the grand jury are cops and are in on this conspiracy to protect them? You have nothing but generalities, you know nothing about this case, despite attempts to denigrate others.

No the prosecuters provide evidence that cops have gathered. How hard is that to understand?

They also work for the same system that the cops do, and tend to sympathize with cops.

[Grapefruits]

Police cars destroyed, gun shots heard, bottles and rocks being thrown, glass being broken, tear gas deployed, fire, looting.

It's happening.

[Dazzle]

Every opinion you have is based on going against the media for the sake of it. So you can proudly say that you're not a follower. And that you know better than everyone else. I find it more sheepish to just accept a verdict as fact as if the law could never be wrong.

I think you should do some research of how prosecuters have tried police officers in the past. When the cops are the ones gathering evidence, who do you think they're going to side with? It's a problem in society whether you want to accept it or not. Cops protect cops, and so does the system.

Actually, whether he is a police officer or not, they are tried the same way. It's not that he's a cop that he's given some extra 9 lives before court. Forget what you see from TV.

While he may be cleared of wrongdoing in a public court, that doesn't mean that there aren't repercussions for the police officer from the department itself, if necessary.

There is significantly more responsibility as a police officer than a regular citizen, as you know. Every move, every decision that you make MUST BE justifiable in the eyes of the law. If you have witnesses that argue against you, you're pretty screwed, cop or not.

[jdatb]

I sit here listening to Obama on CBC stating that violence is not an answer and that cooler heads need to prevail...

And in the split screen I see cops firing tear gas at anything that moves in the middle of a road, helicopter over head showing peyote standing in a circle peacefully holding hands....tear gas coming from everywhere.

Good Bless 'Murica

Not to be a jerk, but do you even know what tear gas is? The cops aren't firing that, lol. Its smoke.