Ferguson, Missouri

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LenexatoKCMO
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Re: Ferguson, Missouri

Post by LenexatoKCMO »

aknowledgeableperson wrote:
And for some of us there is a valid question whether it is ever legitimate for an officer to unload six rounds into an unarmed citizen, no matter how menacing he may be.
There has been one question that I have yet seen an answer to - why did the officer shoot? Was he just pissed off at Brown, did he have a fear for his own safety, or what? During the elections earlier this month I talked to a Cass County Sheriff's Deputy. I asked him about his equipment belt. He pointed out this and that. One item was a taser. Did the Ferguson officer have this non-lethal option? If so why wasn't that used. If not then the only option would be a gun for defense.

Why 6 rounds? Don't know how they can tell but according to the released autopsy results the initial wounds were to the arm area, wounds that wouldn't incapacitate Mr Brown. So, if Brown kept on rushing to the officer then he would keep firing until Mr Brown stopped.

Who started the fight? Depends on which side you want to believe. Mr Brown's friend said the officer started it. But the friend also stated that Mr Brown was shot in the back, something the autopsy shows isn't true so what else in his statement is inaccurate? Another witness also stated she saw Brown shot in the back and his body jerked. So if she says Mr Brown was shot in the back how much of her statement is accurate?

How many times did the officer fire his gun? 6 wounds but the audio that recently surfaced has the sound of 10 shots. Of course the audio has not been verified nor has it been released how many times the officer fired his gun.
Your missing the simpler point. We had 408 people shot to death by police last year. The next highest in the developed world was Germany at 8. Japan and the UK each had zero. Are Americans really so much more inherently dangerous that we need to be shot so much more than the rest of civilization or is there perhaps an indication that there is a problem with how our police use force. How is it that cops in other countries manage to do the job entirely unarmed, yet even in quiet corners of rural america cops go out on the job with both a handgun and a shotgun and an expectation that they just might have to take someone down that day? When did it get to be a legitimate expectation that cops should be able to entirely avoid physical confrontation with suspects and be entitled to unload their whole magazine at any sign of noncompliance?
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Re: Ferguson, Missouri

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aknowledgeableperson wrote:
And for some of us there is a valid question whether it is ever legitimate for an officer to unload six rounds into an unarmed citizen, no matter how menacing he may be.
There has been one question that I have yet seen an answer to - why did the officer shoot? Was he just pissed off at Brown, did he have a fear for his own safety, or what? During the elections earlier this month I talked to a Cass County Sheriff's Deputy. I asked him about his equipment belt. He pointed out this and that. One item was a taser. Did the Ferguson officer have this non-lethal option? If so why wasn't that used. If not then the only option would be a gun for defense.

Why 6 rounds? Don't know how they can tell but according to the released autopsy results the initial wounds were to the arm area, wounds that wouldn't incapacitate Mr Brown. So, if Brown kept on rushing to the officer then he would keep firing until Mr Brown stopped.

Who started the fight? Depends on which side you want to believe. Mr Brown's friend said the officer started it. But the friend also stated that Mr Brown was shot in the back, something the autopsy shows isn't true so what else in his statement is inaccurate? Another witness also stated she saw Brown shot in the back and his body jerked. So if she says Mr Brown was shot in the back how much of her statement is accurate?

How many times did the officer fire his gun? 6 wounds but the audio that recently surfaced has the sound of 10 shots. Of course the audio has not been verified nor has it been released how many times the officer fired his gun.
The way you are asking these questions indicates that you have the preconceived notion about who was right. On "who started the fight", we have one witness who was there and one possible second or third hand account that may or may not have come from someone who has a stake in staying out of jail. We don't know the answer and probably never will, but why would you give them equal credence, not to mention giving the possible second or third hand account more than that of the guy who was actually there? Especially when other witnesses (who were actually there and actually saw what unfolded) corroborated his account? But the bigger issue with that question is, what does it matter? After the tussle, Brown got a away. At that point, shooting him (without provocation) would be murder.

Was he shot in the back? The autopsy shows that one bullet may have grazed his arm from behind. If so, that would appear to witnesses as him having been shot in the back. If it didn't, if the officer was shooting while he was running, then he abruptly turned around, whereupon he was shot several times, it could very well appear to any witness (yes, white ones from the suburbs too) that he had been shot in the back. That does not in any way invalidate any of the other things that they saw.
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Re: Ferguson, Missouri

Post by aknowledgeableperson »

Your missing the simpler point. We had 408 people shot to death by police last year.
I am not missing that point. My comments are only concerning this shooting in Ferguson. What you wish to engage in is a whole different topic. But since you brought it up what were the circumstances of those 408 cases? Out of that number how many citizens were the aggressors?
The way you are asking these questions indicates that you have the preconceived notion about who was right.
False. I don't know who did what. With regards to what witness saw this and what witness saw that I would assume that will be the job of the FBI to sort out and determine within reason what actually happened. I will not do the job of the FBI and prejudge any person's guilt or innocence.

BTW, I would assume by your comments you do have a preconceived notion that the officer is guilty of murder.
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Re: Ferguson, Missouri

Post by LenexatoKCMO »

[quote="aknowledgeableperson"][quote]Your missing the simpler point. We had 408 people shot to death by police last year. [/quote]

I am not missing that point. My comments are only concerning this shooting in Ferguson. What you wish to engage in is a whole different topic. But since you brought it up what were the circumstances of those 408 cases? Out of that number how many citizens were the aggressors?

[quote]The way you are asking these questions indicates that you have the preconceived notion about who was right.[/quote]

False. I don't know who did what. With regards to what witness saw this and what witness saw that I would assume that will be the job of the FBI to sort out and determine within reason what actually happened. I will not do the job of the FBI and prejudge any person's guilt or innocence.

BTW, I would assume by your comments you do have a preconceived notion that the officer is guilty of murder.[/quote][/quote]
WTF does it matter who the "aggressor" was? When did confronting or fighting with a cop become a de facto capital crime? The only thing that made that situation a serious risk to the officer's life was the gun that the officer brought into the situation. If both parties are unarmed and a fight ensues, the kid is charged with assault and battery. But since the officer had a gun on him the civilian has to die. Should the bulk of our police forces be equipped to deal with the shoot out at the OK corral at all times or might it be better to leave the apprehension of dangerous armed suspects to specialized units - as is done in other developed countries?
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Re: Ferguson, Missouri

Post by aknowledgeableperson »

Just think of how many times an officer is shot on what appears to be a routine traffic stop. Is it only because the officer has a gun or does the shooter have other issues with the law? A simple domestic dispute call can result in an officer being in a position to defend him or her self.

Yes, I believe a majority of officers never have to shoot their gun in the line of duty but with the quantity of guns in our society an officer never knows when he/she will have to use their gun.
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Re: Ferguson, Missouri

Post by LenexatoKCMO »

aknowledgeableperson wrote:Just think of how many times an officer is shot on what appears to be a routine traffic stop. Is it only because the officer has a gun or does the shooter have other issues with the law? A simple domestic dispute call can result in an officer being in a position to defend him or her self.
If the officer doesn't have a gun, why would the driver shoot him? Why would he not just drive away and everyone lives another day - the driver hopefully apprehended at a later date by a trained team. If the driver really is a cold blooded sociopath murderer who doesn't care about the outcome, he is liable to shoot that cop regardless of whether the cop is armed.

The cops being so universally and heavily armed needlessly escalates the level of danger on our streets. How is it that cops in other countries manage to deal with domestic violence calls without bringing guns? Oh yes because they are trained in how to do other things besides bully everyone they come in contact with.
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Re: Ferguson, Missouri

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LenexatoKCMO wrote:But since the officer had a gun on him the civilian has to die.
Nobody "has to die" simply because an officer has a gun. I see tons of armed officers everyday and I'm still alive to tell about. We don't know exactly what happened in the altercation in this case. One account of the story is that Brown tried to get the cop's gun. We don't know if that's true, but if it is, then Michael Brown is at least partly responsible for his own death. Does that mean he deserved to die? Absolutely not! But even if he did nothing wrong doing the altercation, if you're already breaking the law by shop lifting and smoking marijuana (both are against Missouri law), the chances of something bad and undeserving happening are much, much greater than if he had been obeying the law the whole time.

It's like someone who chooses to drink over the legal limit then "chooses" to drive home in their drunken state. The chances of something bad happening are much greater than if they had obeyed the law the whole time. But if something bad does happen, I wouldn't blame the car. Likewise, I wouldn't blame the gun in this case. Michael Brown was killed due to either his actions, the officer's actions or both.
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Re: Ferguson, Missouri

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aknowledgeableperson wrote:
And for some of us there is a valid question whether it is ever legitimate for an officer to unload six rounds into an unarmed citizen, no matter how menacing he may be.
There has been one question that I have yet seen an answer to - why did the officer shoot? Was he just pissed off at Brown, did he have a fear for his own safety, or what? During the elections earlier this month I talked to a Cass County Sheriff's Deputy. I asked him about his equipment belt. He pointed out this and that. One item was a taser. Did the Ferguson officer have this non-lethal option? If so why wasn't that used. If not then the only option would be a gun for defense.

Why 6 rounds? Don't know how they can tell but according to the released autopsy results the initial wounds were to the arm area, wounds that wouldn't incapacitate Mr Brown. So, if Brown kept on rushing to the officer then he would keep firing until Mr Brown stopped.

Who started the fight? Depends on which side you want to believe. Mr Brown's friend said the officer started it. But the friend also stated that Mr Brown was shot in the back, something the autopsy shows isn't true so what else in his statement is inaccurate? Another witness also stated she saw Brown shot in the back and his body jerked. So if she says Mr Brown was shot in the back how much of her statement is accurate?

How many times did the officer fire his gun? 6 wounds but the audio that recently surfaced has the sound of 10 shots. Of course the audio has not been verified nor has it been released how many times the officer fired his gun.
"Kept on rushing the officer," give me a break. A bunch of identified eyewitnesses agree that this didn't happen, and one anonymous call claiming to be a friend of Wilson's relaying his story claims it did.

"Who started the fight?" Who cares? If Brown had broken off from the fight and tried to escape by the time he was killed (the fight occurred at the car, he fell 35 feet away), the fight is no longer germane. A private citizen would absolutely not be entitled to use lethal force because of a fight that was already over. Law enforcement admittedly has wider latitude to use force to effect an arrest, but MO's law enforcement use of force statute is unconstitutional. Luckily, the Supreme Court has told us what a constitutional statute would look like: "[Deadly] force may not be used unless it is necessary to prevent the escape and the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others." Will be very difficult to argue that an unarmed person on open terrain, not in close proximity to the officer or to anybody else, poses a "significant threat of death or physical injury" to anybody.

Re: witnesses saying he was shot in the back: believe the friend, Johnson, stated straight out that Brown was shot in the back, but the other witnesses inferred that he was shot in the back based on the fact that he jerked before he turned around. Not sure that any witness stated unequivocally "he was shot in the back." Given that they were all at some distance away, it's reasonable that they could have misconstrued something like whether Brown was actually shot or merely startled by the gunshots (there's also the issue of the injury on his arm, which indicates that he may have been grazed by a bullet as he was running away -- this could have caused the jerk and prompted him to stop and turn around). Whether or not Brown was shot in the back is something a witness is much more likely to misinterpret than whether or not he was charging at Wilson when he was dropped. Seizing onto an ultimately minor mistake does not cast into doubt the credibility of the entire statement, especially when multiple witnesses have made consistent statements.
Just think of how many times an officer is shot on what appears to be a routine traffic stop. Is it only because the officer has a gun or does the shooter have other issues with the law? A simple domestic dispute call can result in an officer being in a position to defend him or her self.
How many times is an officer shot on what appears to be a routine traffic stop? We hear these sorts of horror stories, but statistically speaking, police are slightly less likely to die on the job of any cause (and more likely to be killed in traffic accidents than homicides) than the general population is to be murdered.

In any case, when police officers face actual mortal danger, they, like anybody else, should be entitled to protect themselves. When they don't, they shouldn't. Policeman keep coming out, saying "officer safety is our top priority." This is fucked up. The top priority of the police is supposed to be public safety. When we hold up cops (or firefighters, or soldiers, etc) as heroes, it is because they are supposed to selflessly face dangerous situations so that we don't have to. We all want police to get home to their families at the end of the day, but their top priority cannot be to get home to their families at the end of the day if this means that they're going to shoot first and ask questions later. This affirmatively endangers public safety -- the safety of wrongful suspects, of random passersby, and even of actual criminals themselves who, no matter how heinous their crime, are entitled to due process.
Nobody "has to die" simply because an officer has a gun. I see tons of armed officers everyday and I'm still alive to tell about. We don't know exactly what happened in the altercation in this case. One account of the story is that Brown tried to get the cop's gun. We don't know if that's true, but if it is, then Michael Brown is at least partly responsible for his own death. Does that mean he deserved to die? Absolutely not! But even if he did nothing wrong doing the altercation, if you're already breaking the law by shop lifting and smoking marijuana (both are against Missouri law), the chances of something bad and undeserving happening are much, much greater than if he had been obeying the law the whole time.

It's like someone who chooses to drink over the legal limit then "chooses" to drive home in their drunken state. The chances of something bad happening are much greater than if they had obeyed the law the whole time. But if something bad does happen, I wouldn't blame the car. Likewise, I wouldn't blame the gun in this case. Michael Brown was killed due to either his actions, the officer's actions or both.
Whether Brown went for the gun or not is irrelevant, because he wasn't killed during the struggle for the gun. The only one responsible for Brown's death is the man who killed him. The alleged robbery, the marijuana, etc are all distractions and character assassination.
Last edited by phuqueue on Wed Aug 27, 2014 6:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Ferguson, Missouri

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phuqueue wrote:The alleged robbery, the marijuana, etc are all distractions and character assassination.
Video evidence and marijuana found in his system during the autopsy are great lengths to go for character assassination.
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Re: Ferguson, Missouri

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AllThingsKC wrote:
phuqueue wrote:The alleged robbery, the marijuana, etc are all distractions and character assassination.
Video evidence and marijuana found in his system during the autopsy are great lengths to go for character assassination.
"Character assassination" doesn't mean anything with respect to veracity. The point is that they aren't relevant and only serve to turn people against Brown as a person. They are, as some have put it, "dog whistles."
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Re: Ferguson, Missouri

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aknowledgeableperson wrote:
Your missing the simpler point. We had 408 people shot to death by police last year.
False. I don't know who did what. With regards to what witness saw this and what witness saw that I would assume that will be the job of the FBI to sort out and determine within reason what actually happened. I will not do the job of the FBI and prejudge any person's guilt or innocence.

BTW, I would assume by your comments you do have a preconceived notion that the officer is guilty of murder.
If you claim that you do not know who did what then why do you want to give more (when you shouldn't give equal) credence to an anonymous caller to a radio talk show than you do to multiple eyewitnesses? Why do you pretend as if a mistake (if it was one) that anyone would make due to perception of events would invalidate everything else they have to say? I will believe that you do not have a preconceived notion of what happened when you are willing to put the evidence in a proper perspective.

By my comments it would be safe to assume that I have a notion that the officer is guilty that is informed by the fact that the preponderance of evidence suggests that he is guilty. I am willing to accept that he is not guilty if more evidence comes to light,
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Re: Ferguson, Missouri

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phuqueue wrote: The point is that they aren't relevant and only serve to turn people against Brown as a person.
Can't the same be said of the "eye-witnesses" in that they only serve to turn people against Wilson as a person?
phxcat wrote:I am willing to accept that he is not guilty if more evidence comes to light,
He will always be guilty of killing Michael Brown, unless new evidence shows that Michael Brown somehow shot himself. The main question is why.
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Re: Ferguson, Missouri

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If you claim that you do not know who did what then why do you want to give more (when you shouldn't give equal) credence to an anonymous caller to a radio talk show than you do to multiple eyewitnesses? Why do you pretend as if a mistake (if it was one) that anyone would make due to perception of events would invalidate everything else they have to say? I will believe that you do not have a preconceived notion of what happened when you are willing to put the evidence in a proper perspective.
I am not giving more credence to one or the other. Just pointing out the weaknesses of the statements given by witnesses. Notice I still haven't given any leeway to the officer since I still do not know why he shot.
There has been one question that I have yet seen an answer to - why did the officer shoot? Was he just pissed off at Brown, did he have a fear for his own safety, or what?
If I was an FBI agent questioning the witness or someone on the grand jury that would be one item to consider - how much of the statement is accurate given part of it is inaccurate. Plus I would consider how the various statements agree and disagree. How much of the statement is actually what the witness saw and heard as opposed to hearing other stories and how it affects one's memory. Was the inaccuracy in the statement a mistake in recollection or a deliberate act to mislead others?

Evidence? What evidence? Right now there are conflicting stories about what happened and one autopsy discussed in a press conference that only tells a small part of the story. I am willing to wait until the investigations are over and the results made public before I am rushing to judgment.
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Re: Ferguson, Missouri

Post by LenexatoKCMO »

AllThingsKC wrote:
LenexatoKCMO wrote:But since the officer had a gun on him the civilian has to die.
But even if he did nothing wrong doing the altercation, if you're already breaking the law by shop lifting and smoking marijuana (both are against Missouri law), the chances of something bad and undeserving happening are much, much greater than if he had been obeying the law.
So why do perpetrators of such misdemeanors in the rest of the First World not face such mortal danger? How is it that law enforcement in so many other counties manage to do their job professionally and interact with angry stoned people all the time without using ten rounds of ammunition? Also, are there no mentally ill people in Europe? or have the police there just used some sort of voodoo magic to talk with them without killing them?
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Re: Ferguson, Missouri

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aknowledgeableperson wrote:
I am not giving more credence to one or the other. Just pointing out the weaknesses of the statements given by witnesses. Notice I still haven't given any leeway to the officer since I still do not know why he shot.
aknowledgeableperson wrote: Evidence? What evidence? Right now there are conflicting stories about what happened and one autopsy discussed in a press conference that only tells a small part of the story. I am willing to wait until the investigations are over and the results made public before I am rushing to judgment.
Giving any credence to an anonymous call to a radio talk show and using that to question multiple eyewitness accounts, and to further claim that the perception that he was shot in the back may have been incorrect casts doubt on the rest of their stories is giving more credence to one story over the other. In this very post you refer to those as conflicting stories. By making that statement, you are saying that that anonymous phone call is equal to multiple eyewitness statements. Unless someone were to call into the radio and claim that aliens did it, and you were to add that to your conflicting stories, you have already taken a side. Al Franken used to have a segment called something like "truth, lie or weasel". Weasel was when someone made a statement that was factually true, but was in essence a lie. You said before that the initially stories were shown to be false, misleading, or inaccurate. The only piece of evidence that would possibly fall into that category was the "shot from behind". That is the definition of a weasel statement. Everything that you have said here has been designed to make it appear as if you are just the advocate for truth, but it has all been about casting doubt on the claims of Johnson. If you were so concerned for the truth and had not already made up your mind, where are your posts about that lack of credibility of the call? Where a re your posts about the lie of the orbital blowout?

Evidence: multiple eyewitness statements whose statements match up. Body found lying a significant distance from the police car. Wounds that indicate he may have been nicked from behind, that his arms were up, and that he had then dropped his head. Thaat is basically what we have, it isn't much, but it is indicative of the great possibility that it was murder.

The evidence is multiple eyewitness
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Re: Ferguson, Missouri

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AllThingsKC wrote:
phuqueue wrote: The point is that they aren't relevant and only serve to turn people against Brown as a person.
Can't the same be said of the "eye-witnesses" in that they only serve to turn people against Wilson as a person?
No.
AllThingsKC wrote:
phxcat wrote:I am willing to accept that he is not guilty if more evidence comes to light,
He will always be guilty of killing Michael Brown, unless new evidence shows that Michael Brown somehow shot himself. The main question is why.
Thank you, Captain Obvious! I was not aware of that fact until you made it known.
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Re: Ferguson, Missouri

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How is it that cops in other countries manage to do the job entirely unarmed, yet even in quiet corners of rural america cops go out on the job with both a handgun and a shotgun and an expectation that they just might have to take someone down that day?
From a little research it seems that England is just about the only European country where the officers do not carry guns. Some articles say there are others but do not identify them. Maybe one reason gun violence is lower in Europe is that guns are not as prevalent as they are in the US.

In the beginning FBI agents did not carry firearms. Guess after the Union Station Massacre changed that policy. From the Old West through Prohibition and into today gun violence in the US is far greater than in Europe and I guess that is because the ownership, legal and illegal, is quite common in the US. Get rid of the guns and you would see a change in the attitudes of the police. In the meantime cameras in police cars and officers wearing body cams might work to reduce some of the violence done by the police on the population and by the population on the police.
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Re: Ferguson, Missouri

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phxcat wrote:No.
Yeah, I guess witnesses outweigh video evidence. It's not like witnesses can lie or withhold information. Not that I'm trying to discredit any witnesses. They're going to be pretty powerful in this case. But it's easier to lie than to edit a video and autopsy results for the sole purpose of character assassination.
phxcat wrote:Thank you, Captain Obvious! I was not aware of that fact until you made it known.
Sorry, didn't mean to be Captain Obvious. But you can trust me because I'm an eye-witness.
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Re: Ferguson, Missouri

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AllThingsKC wrote:
phxcat wrote:No.
Yeah, I guess witnesses outweigh video evidence. It's not like witnesses can lie or withhold information.
video of the actual shooting, yes. Video of an unrelated event, no.
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Re: Ferguson, Missouri

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phxcat wrote:video of the actual shooting, yes. Video of an unrelated event, no.
Oh, but could be related. If you had just shoplifted and were high and a cop approaches you, you would probably think it had something to do with the shoplifting or being high. So, it wouldn't be illogical to think Brown's actions with the cop (whatever they were) could have been impacted by his actions 10 minutes earlier. Maybe he would have reacted differently if he hadn't just shoplifted or been high. If Wilson goes to trial, I'm willing to bet the defense would make that argument. It's not a strong argument, but not necessarily unrelated either.

It goes back to my point that when someone is involved in questionable activity, the chances of something bad and unfair happening are much higher than if they had obeyed the law the whole time. It's unfair and unfortunate, but that's life sometimes.
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