Teenager's Death Causes Chaos in Ferguson, Missouri

And we have updates: Four arrests in New York, but so far, as far as I can tell, all of the protests are peaceful.

 

New York? I thought this was in Ferguson, Missouri.

 

Yes, but there have been protests going on all over the country tonight.

 

Pretty much this.

As a young black man living in America, Canada is looking reeeeaaalll nice right now.

Peaceful protest is fine, but the looting and riots aren't really helping the cause.

 

Agreed. Unfortunately, some people use incidents like these as an excuse go nuts (e.g., burning down gas stations).

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An update from today if anyone is interested: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/15/darren-wilson-michael-brown_n_5681340.html

@Zazu, @Misty, @Cloud3514, @Plums, @TheWorldThatNeverWas, @Patman, @libregkd, @Ami Mizuno, @Chad Thundercucc

 

Eyewitnesses say he wasn't involved in any kind of robbery.

 

Unfortunately, all evidence points to yes, he was in fact involved in robbing the Quik Trip. However, the shooter was allegedly not aware of this and, even if he was, it's called "innocent until proven guilty" for this exact reason.

If the shooter was unaware of Brown's involvement in the robbery, it is completely and totally irrelevant to the shooting. Or at least, it should be. The fact that the county police pointed out his involvement in the robbery when the shooter was allegedly unaware that Brown was the suspect is proof that the state police need to come in and take over the investigation. The investigation should NEVER bring up facts that are irrelevant to the investigation and doing otherwise is further proof that all they're trying to do is defend a racist cop who killed an unarmed man/teenager (confirmation on age, please?) for no real reason.

On the flip side, if the shooter did know about the robbery, then this is exactly why our justice system is ostensibly based on the concept of "innocent until proven guilty." Killing a suspect for a crime they have yet to be tried for is murder. It's also vigilantism, which is also illegal. Regardless, if the shooter's motivation was to punish him for the crime, it's flat-out murder.

This should be an open/close case, but as this is "post-racism" America, I can only hope that the shooter is actually punished for his crime.

 

Yeah came back to correct what I had posted, I hadn't heard the latest. The police themselves I believe have said the officer who killed Brown was not pursuing him or stopping him regarding the robbery. Even if he was, though, it was still an excessive use of brutal force, to a suspect who they did not even have means to arrest.

 

But you know the whole looting thing. Yeah, the citizens are now stopping the looting and guarding the outsides of businesses in the town from further looting. I can put some pictures up if anyone wants to see.

 

There was only one night of looting and, as with the vast majority of cases of riot-based looting, the looters were not likely involved in the protest, but were simply taking advantage of the chaos. Furthermore, no one is making any excuses for Sunday night's riot or the looting, but Thursday night is proof that, had the police not shown up in SWAT gear and actually did their job of making sure the protests didn't get out of hand, the situation wouldn't have exploded, but then, that's expecting the police in a town with years of racial tension to actually treat the largely black group of protesters as people. What a world of difference there is when the police actually do treat them like people.

EDIT: Please note that I wrote this post before work, before I could check the news and see that, yes, Friday night saw more looting.

 

I'd love to see some photos.

 

Spoiler

A lot of the pictures are really big so imma post this link here

 

Of course there was more looting. It's almost like the county police tried to derail things and paint the victim as a villain, which, SURPRISE, only pissed people off more and added to the chaos. Luckily, however, we are seeing protesters doing what they can to stop the looters (note that in the VAST majority of cases, looters aren't interested in any protest and are simply trying to take advantage of the chaos). Hopefully last night will be the last night of looting.

And yes, I am in disagreement with the curfew. Notice that Thursday night saw ZERO chaos. What happened last night was just another case of the county police handling the situation like idiots. The state or the FBI need to come and start the investigation over from scratch because I doubt we can trust a hell of a lot of the county's investigation.

EDIT: http://www.vox.com/2014/8/16/602453...0-fbi-agents-arrive-in-ferguson-michael-brown

The FBI is in fact investigating the shooting. GOOD. We can't trust the county to handle the investigation properly.

 

I guess you're saying that, generally, state police are better than local police? In some cases, at least, because a lot of local police are fine.

 

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Robbery video released: