(Untitled)

[novapsyche]

Anonymous tweets the name of the officer in Ferguson who shot unarmed teenFour days of protests probably could have been shortened or even avoided if the city had reacted the way New York did after Eric Gardner's death at the hands of the police. Trying to hide the identity of the officer only inflamed an already incendiary situation

Comments

[gwendally]

Ferguson denies that is the officer, says Anonymous got it wrong.

CNN wrote an article saying Anonymous published it, but it cannot be confirmed (and has, in fact, been denied) so they won't publish it.

The reason it's not being published is because the officer's life is in peril. They'll publish it if they charge him.

Flip this around. If you killed someone in self-defense would you want the family of the person you killed to know this before it comes out that it was self-defense?

At this point we don't know if it was self-defense. Apparently the cop went to the hospital after it. We don't KNOW. Releasing the name for vigilant justice is unjust.

[novapsyche]

Fine, I'll redact the name. Still, it stands that the police have done themselves no favors by refusing to release the name.

I don't know of any other police shooting where the officer isn't identified. I don't know of any other case where the National Bar Association submitted a formal request for such information & indicated that the organization would petition a judge if necessary. The lack of transparency is unprecedented.

If the officer is being threatened, then the FBI should investigate those threats. We have a system for such incidents.

What we don't have is justification for how the police force has reacted in the wake of this killing. They are firing into peaceful protests & imposing unofficial curfews in a place where martial law has not been invoked. They are attacking & jailing journalists. They have brought dogs, sound cannons, tear gas & rubber bullets. I don't think the US has seen anything like this since the civil rights era.

The reason it's not being published is because the officer's life is in peril.

[gwendally]

Do any of the emerging circumstances affect your outrage any? If it's true that "Big Mike" had just committed a robbery and attacked the officer and tussled over his gun, would that affect anything in your opinion?

http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/14/us/ferguson-michael-brown-shooting-5-things/index.html

From this it appears that the officer shot in self-defense AT FIRST (similar to that 80 year old attacked in his home) and then, similar to the 80 year old man we talked about before, went beyond reasonable when he kept shooting until the 6' tall 200 pound aggressive man was dead. It looks like a bad shooting, but not quite the "unarmed kid with his hands up" that we heard about at first.

Meanwhile, on the same day, a 20 year old unarmed WHITE man was shot to death by police, too. No rioting.http://www.sltrib.com/

[novapsyche]

It is still up in the air whether A) if Mike Brown is the same person on that tape or B) if so, whether he & his friend left the merchandise in the store. Apparently it looks that way on the tape.

But even if it is true, it's immaterial, because even the police chief admitted that Darren Wilson was unaware that Brown was a suspect in that incident.

Immaterial.

All eyewitness testimony goes against what the police has put out. All of it.

It's sad that you are coming to me with the same "aggravating circumstances" that you did with regard to Trayvon Martin. I don't know if you recognize a pattern here.

As for the last item, I actually had no idea of that, so if it got by my radar, damn. It just did. I'll check it out. At the same time, I have to ask right out of the gate: Did the police let the body lie in the street for four hours? In broad daylight? Because, if anything, that was what fueled the fire for the first round of protests in Ferguson.

[fizzyland]

Where's the Sovereign Citizen types who flooded the Bundy ranch with their weapons?

[novapsyche]

Probably whistling Dixie.

Edit: Apparently DailyKos is reporting that a contingent has been dispatched to Ferguson: "From their 'leader' Aaron Penerbathy: 'If peaceful protesters get fired upon, it is my duty to uphold the constitution'.

Which of course will only escalate the situation.

[fizzyland]

I hope not but you're probably right.

[gwendally]

Also, Anonymous got the dispatch tape wrong, too. They're calling it Ferguson's dispatch tape (and ranting that it never even mentions the shooting) but it was actually neighboring St. Louis's, who were JUST called to assist in crowd control (so that's all that is discussed on the tape.)

[novapsyche]

Fine. I'm not saying that I'm a big fan of Anonymous. That doesn't negate the fact that the officer's superiors knew nothing about the shooting until it was announced on television.

Again, it's amazing how far you will go to seemingly excuse the killers of young black males. At least that's the pattern so far. (It's even more problematic here because you are basically giving the police, who already have immunity, a complete pass. That's dangerous for everybody.)