it's kind of sad how dead this thread is/how little posts there are?? everyone should be talking about this. the fact that darren wilson has walked free is abhorrent. white cops are killing unarmed black kids, and people are supporting it. god bless america indeed

It's sad but again, not surprising. : / This really is something that should be receiving more outrage, but I have the sinking feeling that the majority of white people will keep quiet or side with Darren Wilson. I'm also guessing that a lot of people will be following major news stories and outlets versus stories, comments, and updates by the protesters, themselves. Subeta in particular, from my own observations and experiences, can be incredibly close-minded, egocentric, and ignorant where race issues come into play.... I don't even care that I might be opening a can of worms.

o.0

Point being, this is nothing new at all.

More general- If you (royal you) wanna change stuff people, get out there and vote. Nothing else but the power of an en-force voting block will change a dang thing. Be the force of change in your community, your state and your nation. Apathy is killing us.

you're right. i joined a couple days ago so i couldn't say, but i heard it was a pretty open community but apparently not when it comes to racism lmao. major media always manages to twist facts to make it look like white people are the innocent ones (-: just looking at facebook comments on mainstream news posts makes me want to throw up, people are actually saying darren wilson did nothing wrong lmao dear lord......

Not being indicted doesn't prove his innocence. Not at all. It has never crossed my mind that Wilson was innocent, because there was an unarmed young man dead in the street because of his use of force. He is a murderer, plain and simple. If you can't see that then you are being wilfully ignorant.

I sincerely hope more people wake up in the aftermath of all this.

All of my well-worded responses to the topic have left me, because I've been reading the facebook comments of my local news and I now want to be shot.

The fact that this did involve a fucking cop is the point.

The fact that there was a Grand Jury involved here is the point.

The fact that this Grand Jury did something that less than one percent of grand juries ever do (i.e. only .01% of all grand juries fail to indict) is the fucking point.

This isn't "just" some psycho slobbering neckbeard killing a kid and getting away with it. With the failure of the grand jury to indict, this has become the state-sanctioned murder of an unarmed black teenager, by an armed white uniformed police officer. And if you think, for even one second, that this doesn't make this case different and more frightening in its implications than the rest, you are wrong.

(Also? Michael Brown didn't steal anything. The fucking store owner of all people even came out and said that - the "ZOMG HE STOLE SOMETHING!" story was a bunch of hot air blown by a bunch of racist windbag cops trying to cover the ass of their racist scumbag comrade.)

If it's about police brutality and shooting unarmed teenagers, why are we not protesting the shooting of the unarmed white teenager by the black cop? I think police are becoming too heavy handed in their tactics, no matter what their skin color is.

They didn't indict him guys, its all over.

P.S. PEACE PROTEST MY ASS/Booty if its censored!

There's just so much to this story that I feel like if we weren't actually there, we can't say who is right or wrong. Both sides of the media have made it so confusing. I feel bad for the people of Ferguson though. Their community is being destroyed. Looks like we never really left the racial divide behind. Sad day for the U.S.

It's sickening, I'm even angrier than i was over the Zimmerman case.

Huh i didn't realize a simple crime such as the alleged shop robbery and scuffle (instigated by a cop) by an 18 year old is supposed to be solved by 6 gun shots, oh wait.

18 year old versus armed, adult police officer, I don't feel a bit of fucking sympathy for him. All he got was a bruise from some kid he described as a "demon". He's on paid leave and recently got married anyway. Not to mention the thousands of donations he's received.

Also we're talking a majority of unarmed protestors versus police in RIOT GEAR, which as gone on for MONTHS before the results came out.

Who is the one with the riot gear? Who is the one with the guns shooting rubber bullets? Who is the one with the tear gas?

Who is the one that's dead?

Not all protestors are rioters. Not all rioters are protestors. But from what we've been shown over the last few months and tonight, the PD will treat both groups with the same amount of uncalled for ferocity.

It would make a lot of people happy we all just stopped talking about this, sat down, forgot Brown's parents and their dead child, and just sat down like good little citizens because 'gosh we're making such a big deal about such a small thing'.

A young adult is dead. He was unarmed, he was shot 6 times, he was immediately painted as a thug or a robber because of racial profiling. The guy who shot him is free. I want justice.

I've been following news outlets and protestor streams/interviews since August and all I see is both sides acting like goddamn fools. People chant FUCK THE POLICE, FUCK THE PIGS, ALL THESE RACIST-ASS COPS WE DON'T NEED 'EM, then get doubly pissed if the police don't swoop in to halt the looting and property destruction quickly enough. Cops give confusing instructions and throw tear gas canisters around like parade candy. Unorganized protestors wander aimlessly, more concerned about engaging in petty dick-waving contests with police lines than actually accomplishing anything meaningful. They "peacefully protest" with taunts, curses, and threats, occasionally even throwing rocks or bottles, then act outraged when they're lumped in with the burning/looting/shooting rioters and handled as such instead of what they claim to be.

And the media, of course, is smack in the thick of things stirring shit on all sides.

I am not pro-Wilson, pro-Brown, or pro- any specific side. I am pro- waiting for facts and examining them as objectively and independently of emotion as possible. Brown absolutely did not deserve to die, and while I personally wanted an indictment, I can also understand why it didn't happen. Half the witness testimonies were recanted and/or directly contradicted the other half. Multiple autopsies were performed, and those can only give so much information in the first place. There's no video or audio evidence. Innocence is assumed until guilt is proven and this whole thing's been a fuzzy shitshow.

The only good I can see coming from everything at this point is a push towards mandatory cop cams and minimization of current violence.

lol I love when people tell me I'm close-minded or no worse than they are when I don't want to speak to bigots.

Is it rude? Yeah. Does that really matter? Nope. I hear enough bullshit from people I can't casually press a button to mute, thanks.

You DO realize that this 18 year old was 6'3" and almost 300 lbs., right? And that the cop was considerable smaller? Again, what would make you happy? For cops to just stand by and let themselves be killed without trying to defend themselves? Or maybe cops should just totally withdraw from certain areas, to avoid ANY risk of interaction with blacks. Yeah, that works for me. "Robbery in progress, oh wait. We can't go there. They'll have to handle it themselves."

You do know you can engage an aggressive subject without shooting him six times? Even if he did have a knife, as some accounts say, GUN vs KNIFE, the gun generally wins.

Also, this isn't a bar fight, it's a guy against an armed police man. Not equal. Even if Brown was huge, that's hardly justification for killing him over a scuffle, which only gained the cop a bruise. No knife wounds, no internal punctures, no broken bones, just a bruise and no other notable injuries, as seen in his post-incident medical check.

Cops aren't supposed to shoot to kill unless ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY. Shot in the head, neck. Those are clearly lethal shots.

Also, kill? Didn't realize that a majority of regular citizens were equipped to fight against cops in riot armor, let alone kill them.

Just because they're angry protesters, or just because they're angry BLACK protestors (because boo hoo scary minorities), doesn't mean they have to means to leave a dent in the police department.

A majority of the protests have attempted to be peaceful. Ferguson has not been burning since Brown was shot, but after months of aggression and the bullshit trial.

Leaving the rest of the community to burn is NOT what the police is supposed to do. They're supposed to watch over the safety of civilians, not their own hides. That's what they signed up for, that responsibility comes with the badge, comes with the gun.

A barricade would work. Leaving the peaceful protests done earlier in this incident besides pointing guns at them would've worked. Stomping around in riot armor, hoarding the protestors like animals while pointing guns at them hasn't worked.

Really hard to be worried about the fully armed police.

but that is the point, in all of these cases. It has happened for a long, long, long time. Cops have gotten away with this sort of thing countless times, this is no different. (There are good cops out there before folk start getting all upset at me, but no one can deny that when it comes to the bad ones, the blue wall is nearly impenetrable. All he has to say is "I was afraid for my life" and just about everything is considered justified). I'm with you in your anger on this, I am on a personal sort of level, but I think it would be good to recognize that these incidents are not isolated, that it reflects an on going problem, and to funnel all the anger people are feeling into productive proactive avenues is all.

Truth is; Darren Wilson was the one pulling the trigger on Michael Brown. He could have been small, tall, lanky, big, Wilson still had an hold on his life.

Who is Darren Wilson to decide that killing is a solution. Shoot now, question later.

Never Forget

Oh and if someone disagree, you are entitled to your opinion. However, don't ping me in hopes to shove your idea down my throat, I am not interested.

I don't understand why Wilson did not use alternative means of incapacitating Brown.

Tasers. Pepper Spray. These two are effective means of temporarily stopping a person, long enough for police to get handcuffs on'em. Why did he immediately go for the gun?

If he has had the training of self-defense, he should have been plenty capable of disarming Brown (if he was armed) without having to use deadly force.

This is what infuriates me. It goes back to how cops are trained, and it sickens me that the only solution to a threat is to shoot it. That's not self-defense. That's cowardice. A cop serves knowing full well they may die in the line of duty. Wilson is no cop, he's a coward.

You can still kill someone with a taser, that's one thing that makes them so dangerous.

The heart is basically, for want of a better term, electric and if someone who has a heart condition is shot with a taser or you simply catch them between heartbeats, you can stop their heart or send them into atrial/ventricular fibrillation.

The block list grows.... smh. The fact that anyone can sit around "waiting for the facts" as if these media outlets will be giving you the truth is astounding. The fact that people can twist this as anything but a race issue is astounding. THIS ISN'T MERELY AN ISSUE OF "CORRUPT COPS". IT'S COPS SHOOTING BLACK PEOPLE AND GETTING AWAY WITH IT WITH BULLSHIT, SHODDY EXCUSES. In this very case, he not only got away with it, BUT HE GOT OVER 400K FOR DOING IT, TOO, from fundraising. I can't believe people can't look further into the issue beyond what the media wants to tell you and even then, still try to make excuses for the situation or spin it like "wow stop being mean to white people". Please, go fuck yourself if you see black people commenting and getting mad and saying things like that. The very fact that so many black people literally are fearing for their lives > your feelings right now.

Even on the lowest setting, huh? Hmm...still, an officer should be taught how to disarm any type of weapon an attacker may have. And that boils down to re-examining how officers are trained across the United States, and essentially revamping the system. We need to find a way to train officers to recognize what strategy to use in certain situations. Disarming is easily the best means of defense with up-close and personal attackers; if at a distance or if the attacker has an automatic-firing weapon, deadly force should then be used.

I understand, though, in a high tense situation where you have to make a quick decision on how to react, sometimes that training goes out the window and we go for the "shoot now, deal with later" choice. But I believe if someone is trained frequently to recognize the appropriate measure to use in a training session, they will be more likely to use that solution when the situation actually does occur. Practice makes perfect.

Overall, there's just a lot that needs to be done to try and make sure a tragedy like this never happens again. Or rather, doesn't reach this level of intensity.