St Louis police murder scandal (PLUS: riots, idiotic press conferences, etc.)

[Paul Kemp]

No words.

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"I didn't want to hit my wife but she just kept on provoking me!"

[Paul Kemp]

Lief and JR's pictures made me sick, but I can't say I'm surprised at all.

Also, IceSpear, was it really necessary to use the n-word in that post?

Thanks, but I don't need you to get offended for me. Have you heard of this thing called context?

This is a bit presumptuous.

[Paul Kemp]

I don't really know what VOX is but this is a decent piece, nothing earth shattering, that I came across on Twitter in response to this weekend's NYT article:

Michael Brown didn't do anything as a teen that I didn't — but only one of us got killed

[Paul Kemp]

I don't really know what VOX is but this is a decent piece, nothing earth shattering, that I came across on Twitter in response to this weekend's NYT article:

Michael Brown didn't do anything as a teen that I didn't — but only one of us got killed

Vox is Ezra Klein's new internet journalism outfit.  Kinda similar to the new 538, except better.  

I saw that article as well (they're one of my main sources for news these days TBH), and yeah it's pretty obviously correct.

Matthew Yglesias robbed a store and assaulted the owner? Changes my opinion of him, if he did. He also neglected to mention this in his article.

I think the point is that doing sh**tty things while being a sh**tty teen doesn't mean that you should be shot by a police officer.

[Paul Kemp]

I don't really know what VOX is but this is a decent piece, nothing earth shattering, that I came across on Twitter in response to this weekend's NYT article:

Michael Brown didn't do anything as a teen that I didn't — but only one of us got killed

Vox is Ezra Klein's new internet journalism outfit.  Kinda similar to the new 538, except better.  

I saw that article as well (they're one of my main sources for news these days TBH), and yeah it's pretty obviously correct.

Matthew Yglesias robbed a store and assaulted the owner? Changes my opinion of him, if he did. He also neglected to mention this in his article.

I think the point is that doing sh**tty things while being a sh**tty teen doesn't mean that you should be shot by a police officer.

Again, that's an oversimplification of what some are claiming happened.  Do you know that Brown didn't assault the police officer?  If not, why are you acting like it's established fact that the kid was shot for stealing cigars?

I'm not but the implication of even bringing up the cigar stealing incident, which has been confirmed to have been unrelated to the incident in the street, is that this is a bad, violent criminal and therefore shooting him could be justified.

[Paul Kemp]

In case it isn't clear, I do not assume or have any reason to believe that Darren Wilson is a cold-blooded killer who set out to kill someone.

Then you're in the minority here.  Welcome.

Who makes up this supposed majority?

[Paul Kemp]

In case it isn't clear, I do not assume or have any reason to believe that Darren Wilson is a cold-blooded killer who set out to kill someone.

Then you're in the minority here.  Welcome.

Who makes up this supposed majority?

Seriously?

Seriously. Perhaps some believe that but a majority? I don't think that's an accurate representation. I hate using the term but it seems a bit "strawman" to be honest.

It's rather bold to believe that he "set out to kill someone." It seems obvious at this point that there was some form of conflict between the two but the question is to what level?

Furthermore, really the entire crux of this story, to me at least, is the idea of reasonable force, whether it was with Brown himself or in response to the protests afterwards, and to what degree the relationship between minority communities and law enforcement plays into such a situation - especially in a community where the numbers are so skewed between the two groups.  

I think Gravis Marketing's post nails it pretty well, and is what I interpret the consensus to be, although I admittedly may be misreading it. You curiously left out the second part of his post, which is as important of as the first and really is where the issue is here:

You don't have to believe that of a police office to envision scenarios where the police kills someone without justification and without real risk to themselves, especially in a community like Ferguson.