Rasmussen:57%ofblacksthinkWilsonshouldbe

Rasmussen: 57% of blacks think Wilson should be found guilty of murdering Michael Brown

posted at 4:01 pm on August 19, 2014 by Allahpundit

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Via Mediaite, when protesters in Ferguson are asked what needs to happen for the demonstrations to end, usually they answer “Arrest Officer Wilson.” Just arrest? Seems that a lot of people have already tried this case and reached a verdict.

54% say the media would have offered less coverage of the story if a black policeman shot a white teenager. Fourteen percent (14%) think the story would have gotten more coverage under those circumstances, while 23% think the level of coverage would have been about the same.

Even 43% of black adults believe the story would have gotten less attention if the victim was white, but that compares to 55% of whites and 53% of other minority adults who feel that way…

While the investigation continues, most black Americans (57%) are already convinced that the police officer should be found guilty of murder, a view shared by just 17% of whites and 24% of other minority adults.

Wilson will be charged for something. It’s unimaginable at this point, given the backlash, that prosecutors would let him walk on a self-defense claim without putting him in front of a jury. But what will they charge him with? If they go for a home run on murder when there might not be enough evidence to support it, they risk making the same mistake Florida prosecutors did with Zimmerman. If they play it safer by charging him with manslaughter or some variation of negligent homicide, they risk angering the people who want to see Wilson punished severely. What’s a DA to do?

And where do they try this case? Wilson will move for a change of venue on grounds that he can’t get a fair trial in Ferguson, which may well be true. If the trial is moved to a city that’s majority white, though, instead of majority black as Ferguson is, critics will claim that prosecutors are stacking the deck for his acquittal. The jury in California’s trial of the LAPD officers who beat Rodney King famously had no blacks on it; Wilson’s jury will, I assume, have at least six black members to avoid perceptions of a structural bias in favor of letting him go free.

One more variable: Will the DOJ bring civil-rights charges against Wilson before his state trial or wait for the state verdict before doing so? If they wait, they risk riots if Wilson is acquitted. If they file charges beforehand, it might keep a lid on things if Wilson’s found not guilty in state court since protesters will know they have a second bite at the apple for justice.

While you’re busy noodling that, St. Louis police killed a man a few hours ago who reportedly came at them with a knife, yelling, “Shoot me, kill me now.” When he got within two or three feet of two officers, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, they dropped him. Chris Hayes, who’s in Ferguson, went to the scene and said the mood is bad. What that means for tonight’s protests in Ferguson remains to be seen.

Police say 23 yo acting erratically, and charged police with a knife and define orders. Neighborhood now congregating, angry.

— Christopher Hayes (@chrislhayes) August 19, 2014

Neighborhood people saying he was mentally challenged. Saying "Hands up! don't shoot!" Tense bad scene here.

— Christopher Hayes (@chrislhayes) August 19, 2014

Everyone yelling: why not use the taser.

— Christopher Hayes (@chrislhayes) August 19, 2014

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Tags: darren wilson, ferguson, michael brown, Missouri, rasmussen, sunil dutta

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Twoshot,31arrestedovernightinFerguson

Two shot, 31 arrested overnight in Ferguson

posted at 8:01 am on August 19, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

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The removal of the curfew by Gov. Jay Nixon and the arrival of the National Guard didn’t improve matters in Ferguson overnight. Police deployed teargas and arrested 31 people as protestors filled the streets, while two people were shot — although not by police. According to Captain Ron Johnson, who has been in command on the ground, police never fired a shot, even though they were under “heavy fire” during the night:

“What had begun as a calm evening and a standoff between cops and some demonstrators … turned in a flash, and smoke bombs and tear gas were thrown at the crowds to disperse the crowd,” she said. “The crowd started rushing back. I happened to see the smoke bombs or tear gas being thrown in both directions because some of the demonstrators actually picked up what was thrown at them and threw them back at police.”

Capt. Ron Johnson of the Missouri Highway Patrol, who is in charge of security in Ferguson, said officers didn’t fire a single bullet “despite coming under heavy attack.” He said four St. Louis County police officers were hit by rocks and bottles and sustained injury. He said “criminals” in the crowd fired shots and threw Molotov cocktails at officers.

“These criminal acts came from a tiny minority of lawbreakers,” Johnson said. “But anyone who has been at these protests understands that there is a dangerous dynamic in the night. It allows a small number of violent agitators to hide in the crowd and then attempt to create chaos.”

As of 2 a.m. Tuesday, 31 people had been arrested, some of whom came as far away as new York and California, Johnson said. Police also said two people were shot, but police officers weren’t involved in those incidents, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

The Post-Dispatch also reported on the weapons confiscated by police during the night, which included a couple of handguns and a Molotov cocktail. Johnson asked Ferguson residents to restrict their protests to daylight hours so that police could deal with the “violent agitators” from outside the community who are exploiting the situation:

Johnson said the weapons were confiscated from “violent agitators” who were using other peaceful protests as “cover” to cause conflicts with police.

“This nation is watching each and every one of us,” said Johnson, who was visibly angry and emotional during the news conference. “I am not going to let the criminals that have come here from across this country, or live in this neighborhood, define this community.”

He had a few words for reporters, too, who had a few words in return:

Johnson also lectured reporters at the scene, telling them they were interfering with police and putting themselves in danger by failing to immediately clear areas when asked to by officers. He also implored reporters to “not glamorize the acts of criminals.”

Some reporters at the news conference pushed back, saying he was infringing on their ability to do their jobs by asking them to stay separate from protesters.

The National Guard troops that arrived in Ferguson yesterday did not take part in the police effort last night. The Washington Post’s Emily Badger wonders whether they’ve become obsolete in the era of a more militarized police presence:

When the National Guard arrived in Oxford, in Little Rock, in Detroit, Los Angeles and New Orleans, its presence and the message that traveled with it was instantly clear.

“Whether it was the Vietnam riots, the Civil Rights era, it made an impression when the National Guard showed up,” says Michael D. Doubler, a historian and retired Army officer who has written a definitive history of the National Guard. “They were different. They had different capabilities. They looked different.”

Today, as the Missouri National Guard deploys to the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, where protesters and police have clashed nightly since the shooting last week of an unarmed black teen by a white officer, the distinctions are less apparent. This assignment, requested early Monday by Missouri Governor Jay Nixon (D), sits squarely within the traditional mission of the National Guard., even as the public has come to better recognize this part-time force for its full-time roles in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The domestic environment that the Guard enters in Ferguson, though, has changed. The local police now look an awful lot more like the military. And the situation on the ground already resembles a conflict in the late stages of law enforcement escalation. If the National Guard is supposed to bring the power, equipment and gravity of the military, it looks as if it’s already there.

“When the National Guard shows up in this domestic role, it is a sign to people in the local community that a higher authority is exerting its power here, whether it be the governor or the president, and hopefully now we’re going to get all this sorted out. That’s a very important thing,” Doubler says. “I hope we haven’t lost that.”

The difference is the authority level more than the heightened capabilities. The National Guard’s thunder may have been partially stolen by the previous arrival of the Missouri Highway Patrol, which also operates under the authority of the governor. The issue in both cases was to assert a higher authority than the city and county levels, which had lost the confidence of local residents. There is still plenty of value in that escalation, but only insofar as local residents have confidence in the governor to restore order and justice in all directions.

Unfortunately,that doesn’t appear to be the case so far, perhaps in no small part because it may not be locals who are causing the problems. Until they can end the magnet that’s attracting agitators from around the country to exploit the situation and perpetuate it for their own ends, the actual people of Ferguson will be in for a long nightmare, and the longer it goes the less confidence they will have in law enforcement at any level.

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Anothereyewitness:Womancomesforwardwithfootagetaken

Another eyewitness: Woman comes forward with footage taken immediately after the Michael Brown shooting

posted at 6:41 pm on August 18, 2014 by Allahpundit

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Via Mediaite, maybe there’s more out there but this is just the second clip I’ve seen of the crime scene and the first that (allegedly) includes footage of Darren Wilson, the cop who fired the shots that killed Brown. That’s him on the right in the clip below according to the eyewitness, Piaget Crenshaw.

Crenshaw’s account of what happened starts at around 3:00. She’s right in line with the other three eyewitnesses on Brown’s general movements: He ran from Wilson initially, Wilson fired at him, then Brown turned back to face him. Crenshaw thinks the shots fired at Brown while he was running away either missed him entirely or grazed him, which corroborates the autopsy report showing no entry wounds from the back. The truly interesting part here is what she says she saw when Wilson first pulled up alongside Brown and Dorian Johnson. Johnson has claimed that Wilson grabbed Brown from inside the vehicle — specifically, he says, he grabbed Brown’s neck, which would seem hard to do to a man who’s 6’4″ from a sitting position. Crenshaw says she too saw Wilson grab Brown, although she doesn’t say where specifically. Wilson then seemed to get “upset,” says Crenshaw, Brown took off, and Wilson took off after him.

Turns out this isn’t the first interview Crenshaw gave about the shooting, though. The first one happened right after Brown was killed; it’s the second clip below. She seems vaguer in the earlier video about what happened in the first few moments between Brown and Wilson. At around 0:30, she says they had some kind of “interaction” but says she didn’t see any sort of chokehold, as another witness had claimed, because she was getting ready for work. On the other hand, she’s quite clear that she saw Brown with his hands up while he was facing Wilson, after the bullets started flying. She thinks Brown raised his hands before the final two shots, which would mean per the autopsy report that he’d already been hit four times by then. Hmmm.

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Tags: CNN, crenshaw, darren wilson, ferguson, michael brown, Missouri, piaget, shooting

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Openthread:Semi-retiredpresidentforcedtosay

Open thread: Semi-retired president forced to say something about Ferguson again

posted at 3:55 pm on August 18, 2014 by Allahpundit

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He’s scheduled to speak at 4 p.m. ET, just as this post is going live. The poor guy: All he wants to talk about is amnesty, impeachment, and corporate “inversions,” and those darned looters keep throwing him off-message.

A clever take on the national mood:

legendary comma use RT @CBSNews: JUST IN: President Obama to deliver remarks at 4pm ET on the situation in Ferguson, Iraq

— Rembert Browne (@rembert) August 18, 2014

He’s actually not on vacation today but back at the White House for a previously scheduled briefing on Iraq and a hastily scheduled briefing by Holder on the Michael Brown case. I doubt there’ll be much news here: He’ll cast a vote of confidence in Holder’s decision to conduct a DOJ autopsy on Brown’s body and he’ll say something vague but positive-sounding about Jay Nixon’s decision to call out the National Guard, even though that sort of undercuts the anti-militarization point made by police critics lately. And there’ll be the usual on-the-one-hand demand for protesters to act peacefully with the on-the-other-hand demand for the police to use no excessive force. This is still worth watching, though, as the longer the Ferguson drama goes on, the farther Obama will need to stretch to satisfy disparate constituencies. Some black commentators, like Michael Eric “Holder is the new Moses” Dyson, are starting to grumble that O’s been too quiet about how the police treat black men. Other people, media figures among them, are getting fidgety that looting’s still happening more than a week after Brown was killed. Good luck on the tightrope, champ. Don’t look down!

He’ll also say a few words about airstrikes against ISIS, of which there have already been 68 and counting. The next time someone tells you that Republicans reflexively oppose everything O does, show them this poll from Pew. Democrats support the airstrikes 54/35; Republicans support them 71/14. While we wait, for those who haven’t heard it yet, here’s the audio of Dana Loesch’s chat on Friday with “Josie,” a woman purporting to be a friend of the cop who shot and killed Michael Brown and relaying his account of what happened. People are sending me links to Don Lemon talking about this on air today, as if somehow we’re first hearing of “Josie” only now and CNN had discovered her. Not so. Loesch had this posted three days ago. If you don’t have time for the clip, here’s a quickie transcript.

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Tags: darren wilson, ferguson, holder, michael brown, Missouri, national guard, obama

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TwoeyewitnessaccountsoftheMichaelBrownshooting

Two eyewitness accounts of the Michael Brown shooting

posted at 12:01 pm on August 18, 2014 by Allahpundit

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Some of you saw these elsewhere over the weekend but I want to put them together for those who didn’t, especially given the interest in the new autopsy report. Here’s how the attorney for Dorian Johnson, Brown’s companion and the only identified eyewitness to the shooting, described what happened:

The officer put his cruiser in reverse, Bosley said, and pulled up so close that when he opened the door, it bumped Johnson and Brown. “Through the window of his cruiser, he grabs Big Mike by the throat,” Bosley said. “Big Mike tries to move away. The officer grabs his shirt.”

Johnson, who was a student at Lincoln University, saw the officer pull out a gun. “He shoots Big Mike somewhere in the chest or arm,” Bosley said. “Dorian sees blood coming from the chest.”

Johnson took off running and hid behind the first car he saw, Bosley said. “Big Mike runs by him. He says to Dorian, ‘Keep running,’ ” Bosley said. “The officer chases Big Mike. He fires a shot and hits Big Mike in the back. Big Mike turns around. [Brown] puts his hands up. The officer shoots him five or six more times.”

Per the autopsy report, the detail about Brown being hit in the back is flat wrong and the detail about him having his hands up seems quite possibly wrong. What do other eyewitnesses say, though? Were there other eyewitnesses? Well, this guy whose profile claims he’s from St. Louis seemed to have live-tweeted the shooting on August 9th. The key bits:

@DomoTheTruth dude was running and the cops just shot.him. i saw him die bruh

— Bruh. (@TheePharoah) August 9, 2014

@SLIKK_DARKO yeah man. 7 times i think

— Bruh. (@TheePharoah) August 9, 2014

@SLIKK_DARKO the first two was, the next 5 werent, he turned around

— Bruh. (@TheePharoah) August 9, 2014

The first two was clear, then it was a barage of them shits

— Bruh. (@TheePharoah) August 9, 2014

His full tweet-stream that day is here. Note the third one above, though: A friend asks if Darren Wilson fired at Brown’s back and the tweeter says yes, twice. Obviously he missed but you can understand now why Johnson might have thought Brown had been hit from behind. If he was running too, glimpsed Brown running out of the corner of his eye, heard the shots, and then turned only after Brown had already turned and been hit from the front, he might have assumed (wrongly) that Brown was in the process of running when he was first hit. Either way, though, “ThreePhraroah” is going to end up on the witness stand for the prosecution testifying that Officer Wilson fired at Brown’s back more than once.

The other eyewitness account comes via Conservative Treehouse, which noticed a material snippet of conversation towards the end of the now widely-viewed cellphone video of the crime scene embedded below. (Brown’s body is visible so here’s your content warning.) The relevant part starts at around 6:25. Here’s how Conservative Treehouse transcribes the conversation:

#1 How’d he get from there to there?

#2 Because he ran, the police was still in the truck – cause he was like over the truck

{crosstalk}

#2 But him and the police was both in the truck, then he ran – the police got out and ran after him

{crosstalk}

#2 Then the next thing I know he coming back toward him cus – the police had his gun drawn already on him –

#1. Oh, the police got his gun

#2 The police kept dumpin on him, and I’m thinking the police kept missing – he like – be like – but he kept coming toward him

{crosstalk}

#2 Police fired shots – the next thing I know – the police was missing

I’m having trouble making out some of the beginning and the end of the audio well enough to track the transcript; I actually don’t hear the second boldfaced part and I don’t hear the part where the guy allegedly says Brown and the police was “both in the truck.” That would be new information, if true; what he says about Brown being “over the truck,” i.e. standing next to it when Wilson stopped them, fits with what he know. Either way, though, the middle part is clear. The eyewitness does seem to say “he coming back toward him,” apparently meaning Brown turned after initially running away from Wilson and came back towards him. Whether that means Brown was “bumrushing” him, as an alleged friend of Wilson’s claimed, or was just walking back is unclear. It’s also unclear from this when Wilson fired his first shot. Was it when Brown was running away, with his back to him, or was it when he had already turned and was coming towards Wilson?

Don’t these cops have tasers, by the way? The one fact that’s not in dispute as far as I know is that Brown was unarmed and yet Wilson emptied at least six shots into him, per the autopsy report, and may well have missed hitting him in the back once or twice before that. A squad equipped with a Bearcat and M4s should also have room in its inventory for non-lethal means to bring down even a big man like Brown. As Mark Steyn said, “[W]hether or not the fatal shooting of Mr Brown is a crime, it’s certainly a mistake. When an unarmed shoplifter* in T-shirt and shorts with a five-buck cigar box in one hand has to be shot dead, you’re doing it wrong.”

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WhiteHouseblindsidedonNationalGuardcallout?

White House blindsided on National Guard callout?

posted at 11:21 am on August 18, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

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What we have here is a failure to communicate. The unrest in Ferguson has continued for more than a week, including several nights of rioting, looting, and accusations in both directions of violence between police and locals (and outsiders especially). Missouri has tried at least two different police forces in attempting to restore order to the St. Louis suburb to no avail, so Gov. Jay Nixon’s call to the National Guard could not have come to anyone’s surprise today, unless they’ve spent the last couple of weeks on vacation.

Well ….

“Folks didn’t know,” an administration official told BuzzFeed Monday. “The White House did not know they were sending it in.”

Nixon gave “no heads up,” the official said.

Nixon didn’t give Barack Obama a heads-up? The deuce you say! Gee, what might have been the problem — that Obama has spent most of the last week golfing, or the Department of Justice second-guessing Missourians over the last few days? Nixon had no particular requirement to notify the White House, either; the call to the National Guard is not a federal issue but completely within state authority.

Not only that, but the move appears to have won support from the local NAACP, too:

The St. Louis County Chapter of the NAACP says it supports Nixon’s decision to call in the National Guard in Ferguson, Missouri, where tensions remain high more than a week after a police officer killed 18-year-old Michael Brown.

The NAACP wants an apology from the Ferguson police department to the Brown family, presumably for releasing the videotape of the strong-arm robbery that preceded the shooting. Ferguson police chief Tom Jackson claimed on Friday that he had little choice in the matter.  The media demanded access to the video via a FOIA request, and the police complied with the public-records request. That was prompted by the release by Ferguson PD of the police report on the robbery, though, instead of the report on the shooting itself, along with stills of the video — which certainly whet the curiosity of the reporters who got the handout at the briefing. Jackson’s explanation seems too cute by half, even if it did end up providing a clearer context of what led to the confrontation. The police certainly didn’t mind the release of the video, even if the DoJ wanted it kept quiet for its own purposes.

Obama returned to the White House for a brief break from his vacation to deal with the crises in Iraq and Ferguson, the AP reported earlier today:

Taking a two-day break from summer vacation, President Barack Obama returned to work at the White House Monday, replacing images of him bicycling and golfing on an island resort with those of him at the White House huddling over current crises with top advisers.

Obama interrupted his family getaway on Martha’s Vineyard, during which airstrikes in Iraq and violent clashes in a St. Louis suburb intruded on his golf and beach plans.

The exact reason for Obama’s return shortly after midnight remained unclear, though it appeared aimed in part at countering criticism that Obama was spending two weeks on the Massachusetts island in the midst of multiple crises.

After a week of photos depicting the president golfing or riding his bike with his family, the White House was making sure that press photographers would get pictures Monday of Obama in meetings with national security aides discussing Iraq and with Attorney General Eric Holder for an update on the federal response to protests in Ferguson, Missouri, over the police shooting of an unarmed 18-year-old.

Still, Obama’s brief return to Washington was planned even before the U.S. military began striking targets in Iraq and before the standoff between police and protesters in Ferguson, Missouri. The president was scheduled to return to Martha’s Vineyard Tuesday night.

Obama does have an option to federalize the National Guard in Missouri in order to take control of the situation there from Washington DC. That option is fraught with political risk, though, and not just from accusations of abusing his power. So far all of the political damage is being absorbed by Nixon. If Obama takes control by federalizing the National Guard troops in Ferguson, then he’s responsible for everything that follows from that point forward. And if Obama does seize jurisdiction through that mechanism, he’d better command those troops from the Oval Office rather than the fourteenth fairway.

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Fergusoncurfewendsafteronlyonenight(new

Ferguson curfew ends after only one night (new video added)

posted at 9:31 am on August 17, 2014 by Jazz Shaw

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The overnight news out of Ferguson leaves the viewer with some hard work to find a positive spin on it. Yesterday, Governor Jay Nixon announced that there would be a curfew in place from midnight until 5 in the morning until peace was restored to the town. Well, that lasted exactly one night and the curfew is no more. While the order may have kept those inclined toward law and order indoors, others took to the streets resulting in seven arrests and (the last thing we needed to hear at this point) a shooting.

A person is fighting for his life in Ferguson, Missouri, just hours after a curfew was imposed in order to bring calm to a city that’s seen a week of protests and sporadic looting.

Police say one male was shot and seven people were arrested in the city where the police shooting of an unarmed black teenager has sparked days of unrest…

Police have no information on the shooter, Johnson said, but added that there was a person in the street with a handgun and a police car was shot at.

There don’t seem to be any solid estimates of how many people were out in the streets in violation of the curfew, but the interaction with law enforcement apparently didn’t look much different. Of course, given how Capt. Ron Johnson described the official policy toward enforcement, that may not come as much of a surprise.

Earlier, Johnson said law enforcement would not be heavy-handed in enforcing the curfew.

“We won’t enforce it with trucks, we won’t enforce it with tear gas,” he said.

In the end, though, the cops wound up using both smoke canisters and tear gas after the shooting took place. The media already had the Governor on the ropes in terms of trying to balance the First Amendment rights of the protesters against the need to protect persons and property from hoodlums, as well as defending the decision to impose the curfew.

“If there was an easy way to separate those who hurt from those who helped, we would. But it’s hard,” Gov. Jay Nixon said. “And sometimes, especially at night, we can’t.”

“This is not to silence the people of Ferguson or this region or others, but to contain those who are drowning out the voice of the people with their actions,” Nixon said. “We will not allow a handful of looters to endanger the rest of this community.”

His decision stirred instant indignation among many gathered at the community meeting where he announced it. Some screamed out that authorities’ priority should be to provide justice to Brown’s family, not to clamp down on those calling for it.

One interesting side note which may provide a bit more background to the violence and protests comes from a video that CNN’s Victor Blackwell uncovered. It’s taken from somebody’s cell phone who was watching the police activity in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. And as a warning, the language is very coarse and the body of Michael Brown is still laying in the street for the entire thing, so you may want to skip clicking play.

If, as they suggest, this video has been making the rounds locally over social media, it may indeed have been fueling some of the anger. The introductory frames in the video have the bystander with his cell phone (who we’ll call Man 1) speaking with someone else who has arrived on the scene (Man 2) and is asking him questions.

Man 1: They say he had his hands up and everything.

Man 2: They trying to get at him?

Man 1: I don’t know. I wasn’t out here.

This part seems to establish that the owner of the video was not a witness to the shooting. He arrived after the fact, attracted by the sound of gunfire, and is getting his information second hand. But if this video has been making the rounds of the local residents, they probably paid a lot more attention to the next section of film. In the first sentence, it’s pretty clear that the owner of the video is talking about the police when he says “they” but then both of them refer to other persons (also “they”) who have apparently been giving details of what happened before the speaker arrived.

Man 1: They some lousy m***** f*****. They some dirty m***** f*****.

Man 2:They say they stood over him?

Man 1: Yeah. And shot him some more. When he was on the ground. That’s what they said. Shot him some more while he was on the ground.

Man 2:Police killed the dude.

Man 1: Yeah, police killed him. Said he had his hands up and everything. They still shot him. He fell on the ground, they stood over him and shot him some more. They’ve just got him laying in the street, dead as a m***** f*****. They just got him laying here.

Since we’ve yet to hear the officer’s account of what transpired in his own words, and since Michael Brown clearly can’t offer any testimony, we seem to be left with only one eye witness. And that witness winds up being the same person seen in a video helping Brown rob a store a few minutes before the fatal encounter, so you have to assign whatever level of credibility you wish to that testimony. But either way, having this sort of first person “reporting” making the rounds on everyone’s cell phones has no doubt been fueling a lot of the anger and speculation.

On the positive side, the numbers of people out there causing problems at least appears to be decreasing for now, so perhaps some semblance of normalcy will return to the area. The investigation continues.

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Waitasec:Fergusonpolicechiefsaysinitial

Wait a sec: Ferguson police chief says initial contact with Brown wasn’t connected to robbery; Update: Cop figured it out during stop?

posted at 4:41 pm on August 15, 2014 by Allahpundit

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Why’d they release the surveillance footage then? The point, I thought, was to show that Darren Wilson wasn’t hassling Michael Brown and Dorian Johnson because they were black but because he knew they were suspects in a felony. But he didn’t know.

Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson told reporters Friday that “the initial contact between” Michael Brown and the police officer who fatally shot him was not related to the alleged convenience store robbery committed nearby a short time earlier.

The officer approached Brown not because of the robbery, but “because they were walking down the middle of the street blocking traffic,” Jackson said.

In case there’s any ambiguity:

Police chief repeats multiple times: Officer who shot Michael Brown was not aware of robbery when he made initial contact

— Wesley Lowery (@WesleyLowery) August 15, 2014

Johnson acknowledged in interviews that they were walking in the middle of the street but says no drivers were honking or yelling at them about blocking traffic. And he claims that when Wilson drove up, his first words were, “Get the f*** on the sidewalk.” Assuming that’s true, evidently it wasn’t the sound of a cop nervous that he’d just stumbled across two suspects in a convenience store robbery, it was the sound of a cop who was pissed off that a couple of jaywalkers weren’t moving fast enough. If Wilson ends up being tried, much will be made of just how pissed off he was when he pulled his gun. Also, Sean Davis smartly points out that this may have implications for Wilson’s defense under the Missouri statute governing police use of deadly force. A cop’s allowed to shoot a suspect who’s attempting to escape from custody if he reasonably believes (a) that deadly force is needed to make the arrest and (b) that the suspect committed a felony. He can’t use the convenience store robbery for the second part of that now. And purely as a PR matter, it’s obviously harder for Wilson and the PD to defend a lethal encounter that began with a stop for jaywalking than one that began with a stop for robbery. The public may not want to admit it but they’re willing to let cops play rougher with suspects accused of more dangerous crimes. Blocking traffic is annoying but it shouldn’t lead to a man lying dead on the asphalt.

So why’d they release the footage? Seems like they did it not to suggest something about Wilson’s state of mind in arresting Brown but something about Brown’s state of mind in being arrested by Wilson. It was always hard to believe that someone detained for blocking traffic would turn desperate enough to grab at a cop’s gun. It’s not as hard to believe that someone who thought he was being hauled in on a felony charge might have panicked. One thing I’m still unclear on, though, is when Wilson finally learned that Brown was a suspect in the robbery. He didn’t know it when he first stopped him; did he find out during the encounter? Watch this clip of the Ferguson police chief from earlier this morning describing the timeline. A description of the suspects in the robbery was allegedly sent out over police radio before Wilson encountered Brown. Maybe Wilson wasn’t paying attention to his radio or had it off or whatever. What if he turned it on while Brown was in the squad car, though, and suddenly realized who he had? What if Brown heard the radio broadcast too and panicked? I’m spitballing but who knew what and when will matter when a jury has to decide whose version of the shooting it believes.

Update: Sorry, bad facts in the last paragraph about Brown being inside the squad car. Here’s how the NYT describes what police say happened:

The police on Sunday said they were still trying to sort out the exact details, but they released what they said was the fullest account of the shooting that they could provide. Just after noon on Saturday, the police said, an officer in a patrol car approached Mr. Brown and another man. As the officer began to leave his vehicle, one of the men pushed the officer back into the car and “physically assaulted” him, according to the police department’s account.

A struggle occurred “over the officer’s weapon,” and at least one shot was fired inside the car, Chief Belmar said. The two left the car, and the officer shot Mr. Brown about 35 feet away from the vehicle, the police reported. Several shots were fired from the officer’s weapon.

Assuming Brown was the one who allegedly pushed Wilson, he may have been inside the car but he wasn’t sitting there listening to the police radio. Then again, if Wilson had the window down, the police radio may have been audible to both men while they were talking. If a description of Brown as the robbery suspect came across at the wrong time, it might have set both of them off.

Update: Verrrry strange that the Ferguson police chief wasn’t clearer during his presser about what Wilson did and didn’t know, but here you go. He told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch later that Darren Wilson appeared to have pieced together Brown’s involvement in the convenience store robbery while he was talking to him:

Jackson said the officer was aware cigars had been taken in the robbery of a store nearby, but did not know when he encountered Brown and Dorian Johnson that they might be suspects. He stopped them because they were walking in the street, Jackson said.

But Jackson told the Post-Dispatch that the officer, Darren Wilson, saw cigars in Brown’s hand and realized he might be the robber.

Did Wilson tell Brown that he suspected him of the robbery because of the cigars?

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Tags: darren wilson, ferguson, kill, michael brown, Missouri, robbery, shoot, traffic

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Waitasec:Fergusonpolicechiefsaysinitial

Wait a sec: Ferguson police chief says initial contact with Brown wasn’t connected to robbery

posted at 4:41 pm on August 15, 2014 by Allahpundit

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Why’d they release the surveillance footage then? The point, I thought, was to show that Darren Wilson wasn’t hassling Michael Brown and Dorian Johnson because they were black but because he knew they were suspects in a felony. But he didn’t know.

Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson told reporters Friday that “the initial contact between” Michael Brown and the police officer who fatally shot him was not related to the alleged convenience store robbery committed nearby a short time earlier.

The officer approached Brown not because of the robbery, but “because they were walking down the middle of the street blocking traffic,” Jackson said.

In case there’s any ambiguity:

Police chief repeats multiple times: Officer who shot Michael Brown was not aware of robbery when he made initial contact

— Wesley Lowery (@WesleyLowery) August 15, 2014

Johnson acknowledged in interviews that they were walking in the middle of the street but says no drivers were honking or yelling at them about blocking traffic. And he claims that when Wilson drove up, his first words were, “Get the f*** on the sidewalk.” Assuming that’s true, evidently it wasn’t the sound of a cop nervous that he’d just stumbled across two suspects in a convenience store robbery, it was the sound of a cop who was pissed off that a couple of jaywalkers weren’t moving fast enough. If Wilson ends up being tried, much will be made of just how pissed off he was when he pulled his gun. Also, Sean Davis smartly points out that this may have implications for Wilson’s defense under the Missouri statute governing police use of deadly force. A cop’s allowed to shoot a suspect who’s attempting to escape from custody if he reasonably believes (a) that deadly force is needed to make the arrest and (b) that the suspect committed a felony. He can’t use the convenience store robbery for the second part of that now. And purely as a PR matter, it’s obviously harder for Wilson and the PD to defend a lethal encounter that began with a stop for jaywalking than one that began with a stop for robbery. The public may not want to admit it but they’re willing to let cops play rougher with suspects accused of more dangerous crimes. Blocking traffic is annoying but it shouldn’t lead to a man lying dead on the asphalt.

So why’d they release the footage? Seems like they did it not to suggest something about Wilson’s state of mind in arresting Brown but something about Brown’s state of mind in being arrested by Wilson. It was always hard to believe that someone detained for blocking traffic would turn desperate enough to grab at a cop’s gun. It’s not as hard to believe that someone who thought he was being hauled in on a felony charge might have panicked. One thing I’m still unclear on, though, is when Wilson finally learned that Brown was a suspect in the robbery. He didn’t know it when he first stopped him; did he find out during the encounter? Watch this clip of the Ferguson police chief from earlier this morning describing the timeline. A description of the suspects in the robbery was allegedly sent out over police radio before Wilson encountered Brown. Maybe Wilson wasn’t paying attention to his radio or had it off or whatever. What if he turned it on while Brown was in the squad car, though, and suddenly realized who he had? What if Brown heard the radio broadcast too and panicked? I’m spitballing but who knew what and when will matter when a jury has to decide whose version of the shooting it believes.

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FergusonresidentsonCNN:That’snotMichaelBrown

Ferguson residents on CNN: That’s not Michael Brown in the surveillance video

posted at 3:21 pm on August 15, 2014 by Allahpundit

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Via Mediaite, a reminder that no modern tragedy can escape Truther-ization. One woman in the clip, speculating on why the cops waited to release the surveillance footage, says, “It took so long for them to do that because they Photoshopped him.” That’s how cognitive dissonance works in the digital age. In fact, the basic argument made to Don Lemon here seems to be, “It wasn’t him, and even if it was, you’re smearing him, and even if you aren’t, he deserved a jury trial, not summary execution by cop.” The shooting must have been unjustified; take whatever logical path you need to in order to arrive at that conclusion. And needless to say, there are people on the other side following the opposite “logic.”

The woman in the hat is more interesting because she claims the man in the surveillance video was wearing different clothes than Michael Brown was when he was shot. Don Lemon doesn’t ask her how she knows that but I’ve seen that same point made on Twitter today — supposedly, the guy in the clip is wearing shorts and sandals whereas the photo of Michael Brown lying dead on the ground shows him wearing khaki pants and sneakers. I’m not going to link that photo but I’ve seen it and it’s pretty clearly the same clothes. Brown’s shorts were long (as you can see in the surveillance video) and appear to have slipped down a bit sometime before he died; the angle of the photo makes it look as though they run almost to his ankle. That’s probably where the “pants” idea is coming from. The sneakers/sandals confusion is likely due to how his sneakers look in some of the stills from the surveillance video. If you only saw the two images on the right-hand side here, the shadows and cross-wise bands might make you think Brown was wearing something with straps and no heel. The actual footage makes clear that they’re sneakers. And although there’s no Cardinals cap on Brown in the death photo, as there is on the man in the video, there was a Cardinals cap on the ground at the crime scene. There’s a photo of it in the gallery here. But needless to say, none of this will convince anyone who’s invested in a conspiracy theory.

There is one good point made here, though. Ed made it himself in a post this morning. Why’d it take the cops days to accuse Brown of a robbery and to release the footage? The narrative from the beginning was that a rogue cop decided to hassle two black teens who were minding their own business for no reason, then shot one of them in cold blood. If you accepted the first part of that narrative, the second part was easier to swallow. Go figure that a man looking for a fight might be quick to anger with deadly force. But Wilson apparently wasn’t looking for a fight and the PD knew it. He was looking for a robbery suspect. Why didn’t the PD emphasize that sooner?

Update: Hooooold the phone.

BREAKING: Police chief: Officer who shot Michael Brown did not know he was a robbery suspect at the time.

— The Associated Press (@AP) August 15, 2014

So Wilson wasn’t looking for a robbery suspect? Why’d he stop Brown and Johnson, then? More coming in a new post.

Update: Apparently Dorian Johnson has ‘fessed up to the convenience store robbery.

The friend who was with Michael Brown when he was shot and killed by a police officer near St. Louis over the weekend is reportedly confirming that he and Brown had taken part in the theft of cigars from a convenience store that day.

That word comes from the attorney for Dorian Johnson, speaking to MSNBC. Police in Ferguson had earlier announced that Brown was suspected of taking cigars from the convenience store in what was described as a “strong-arm robbery.”

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Tags: clothes, ferguson, footage, michael brown, Missouri, photoshop, surveillance

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