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If you're not following Alderman Antonio French's twitter, you should do so (@AntonioFrench). He's posting tons of vines of whatever's going on in Ferguson right now. Lots of chanting "hands up, don't shoot" and "no justice, no peace" right now. Edit: Police deploying to face demonstrators now. It's all on his twitter timeline right now in progressing 6 second increments.
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Aug 13, 2014 00:45
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 Pretty powerful cartoon about oppressive, over-militarized police and their relationship with citizen journalists, I must say.  It's actually a cartoon about Fallujah from 2004.
Rhesus Pieces fucked around with this message at 20:56 on Aug 13, 2014 |
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Aug 13, 2014 17:50
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 Someone explain to me how carefully aiming a rifle at a crowd of peaceful protesters as if you're a combat sniper is in any way necessary or justified. It's almost like the police don't see themselves as public servants but as combatants in a war where the people are the enemy. Like they're itching for a fight. 
Rhesus Pieces fucked around with this message at 20:56 on Aug 13, 2014 |
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Aug 13, 2014 20:48
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Pretty sure that's an LRAD device on the right in this image:  This is all pure intimidation, but it doesn't seem to be working. Didn't the Ferguson police mention that they wanted protests to end before dark? Is that an actual curfew being issued, or is it just a suggestion/veiled threat that they will gently caress them up if they aren't home by the time the streetlights come on?
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Aug 14, 2014 00:11
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Seriously, what the gently caress is this. There's absolutely no need for this. The protesters AREN'T EVEN IN THE STREET, they're on the loving sidewalk in broad daylight. The cops are causing ten times the disruption the protesters are at this point.   They're indistinguishable from national guardsmen or soldiers deployed somewhere in the middle east. The only difference is they have POLICE written on their flak jackets.
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Aug 14, 2014 00:29
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Jamelle Bouie @jbouie 4m Police loudspeaker: "Your right to assembly is not being denied." lmfao Did they do the jedi hand-wave when they said this? "You can peaceably assemble, just not in any public places or your own front yard. Now disperse before I shoot you with the rifle I have pointed at your face."
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Aug 14, 2014 00:45
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Antonio French, the alderman who's been providing the best coverage of this situation by far, is in jail. Here is his last tweet from a few hours ago, with the police line advancing on his car. Edit: whoops 2 pages late Rhesus Pieces fucked around with this message at 05:19 on Aug 14, 2014 |
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Aug 14, 2014 05:17
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 Can we start calling this a police riot? Because that's what it is. Pretty much all injuries and property damage over the past two nights have been caused by the police, not the protesters. They've been deliberately instigating and sustaining conflict with their ridiculously heavy-handed presence, and have been caught on tape verbally egging on the crowd hoping for a fight. Whether they get the fight they're looking for or not, every night this week has ended with tear gas and rubber bullets in civilians' backyards anyway. And tonight they're detaining journalists and arresting city aldermen.
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Aug 14, 2014 06:18
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Sunset posted:Trying to facilitate the understanding that goes through an officer's mind when they decide it's a good idea to flush out a news/press group with a direct hit of tear gas. There are only two scenarios that make sense to me. One is just sheer incompetence. After one night of looting and civil unrest, dumbass yahoos in the St. Louis county PD finally had an excuse to bust out their Call of Duty gear and did so with wild abandon. Due to department-wide idiocy there are few ill-applied rules of engagement, and the cops felt free to lob tear gas and rubber bullets at anything that moved until the streets were clear. The other is the scary possibility that the department isn't incompetent, and they carried out their "civil unrest" procedures by-the-book. Meaning that systemic and organized intimidation of protesters and journalists is the way peaceful demonstrations are going to be dealt with going forward.
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Aug 14, 2014 20:37
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Neo Duckberg posted:Shitload of state troopers rolling up to staging area now. MRAPs pulled up too. You've got to be making GBS threads me. If the state troopers start busting out helmets and flak jackets then they haven't learned a loving thing.
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Aug 14, 2014 22:18
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bassguitarhero posted:Actual veterans responding to photos of the police decked out in armor has been amazing. One of them was pointing out the armored officer sitting on top of the MRAP with the sniper rifle and the veteran says, "You don't sit people on top of an armored vehicle if you think you could get shot at." The police there knew the protestors weren't going to fight back and still set up to make war with them. It's obvious by now that all the military gear had no tactical purpose and was brought out purely to intimidate the crowd. Tonight's protests prove that when cops wear their regular uniforms and deal with protesters like human beings rather than enemy combatants, you get a calmer and more cooperative crowd that you don't have to shoot and/or gas. The past two days have been a "community relations 101" case study that proves militarized policing is completely counterproductive for anything outside of armed standoffs and hostage situations. Rhesus Pieces fucked around with this message at 01:30 on Aug 15, 2014 |
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Aug 15, 2014 01:25
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zen death robot posted:
This guy should be keeping his head down and mouth shut out of sheer embarrassment, and instead he's pouting because the governor took away his army men and told him to sit in a corner.
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Aug 15, 2014 03:18
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Hahaha eat it you corrupt motherfuckers. I voted against most of you fucks anyway!
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Aug 15, 2014 22:32
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What came first last night, the return of the riot cops or the looting? And what the gently caress was the County SWAT goon squad doing there anyway, weren't they ordered by the Governor to stay the gently caress out of there and let the state troopers handle it? Regardless, it seems like they did nothing but stir up the crowd with their intimidating posture while they just stood there and watched the looting take place. From what I saw the demonstrators and other well-meaning civilians did most of the legwork in chasing out troublemakers and guarding the stores, and the cops were worse than useless. What the civilians did last night was commendable, but it's pretty clear by now that the relationship between them and the local/county PD has been utterly destroyed. If the police actually did their job and moved on the looters last night it likely would have caused a full-blown riot, and a city can't function properly if the population views its police force as a hostile, occupying army. edit: Not only that, but it feels like there's bad blood between local/county PD and the governor/highway patrol. The local cops explicitly disobeyed orders from Captain Johnson in releasing the store footage and making the press conference about Mike Brown instead of Darren Wilson. The local poobahs are circling the wagons and are only interested in protecting themselves at this point, no matter how it affects the rest of the community Rhesus Pieces fucked around with this message at 20:19 on Aug 16, 2014 |
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Aug 16, 2014 20:10
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ayn rand hand job posted:Attach it as a condition for taking federal aid. Otherwise it starts heading into bill of attainder territory. Or at least as a condition for accepting free surplus military gear. If your police department out in bumfuck nowhere (population 5000) thinks it needs grenade launchers and APCs, there's a good chance it actually needs some oversight and accountability instead. Rhesus Pieces fucked around with this message at 17:23 on Aug 17, 2014 |
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Aug 17, 2014 17:19
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fknlo posted:Opponents would just spin it to being something that would RAISE YOUR TAXES AND PROBABLY HELP MINORITIES and it would be a complete non-starter. Congress is so dysfunctional right now that a reasonable "free milsurp gear is now contingent on deploying dash/body cameras" bill wouldn't even come to a vote unless it had a puppy-kicking rider and "Obama delenda est" in the footnotes somewhere.
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Aug 17, 2014 17:48
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FactsAreUseless posted:I honestly don't think it would pass at the best of times. Republicans aren't going to go for anything that is seen as anti-police or as federal interference in local affairs, and there's a lot of Democrats who aren't going to do that either. Failing to be tough on crime or not supporting local police is a quick way to lose a seat. A sane country would realize that we aren't in the late 1980s/early 1990s crack wars anymore, crime is at multi-decade lows, and recent cases of police militarization, brutality against protesters and minorities, and the gradual erosion of our 1st and 4th amendment rights means that we're now allowed to swing the pendulum away from "tough on crime" and toward reining in abusive and unnecessarily heavily armed police forces. In a sane country, we'd be reaching the point where "tough on crime" is more of a negative than a positive. But we don't live in a sane country, and unfortunately we know what many people believe "tough on crime" actually means.
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Aug 17, 2014 19:43
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How the gently caress do the cops expect anyone to understand their orders when they're yelling them through gas masks and have the LRAD blaring at whoever they're trying to talk to? Or is this like kettleing where they make their orders impossible on purpose?
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Aug 18, 2014 03:55
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The autopsy showed two head shots, one on the top of his skull.
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Aug 18, 2014 04:29
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So there's no curfew tonight, but protesters can't step foot into the street or peacefully assemble. And judging by my twitter feed they're going out of their way to gently caress with journalists and photographers right now. Did Nixon just flat out suspend the 1st amendment for the time being or what? I honestly don't get what the purpose of this is except to purposefully instigate another lovely night. Edit: They're even catching poo poo for staying on the sidewalk. 
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Aug 18, 2014 23:55
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Watching the I Am Mike Brown stream... Jesus, if this isn't a perfect example of the cops intentionally stirring poo poo up I don't know what is. The march stopped, some idiot threw a water bottle, and cops in full battle rattle showed up. The crowd started to calm down and turn around, and as soon as they did so the cops started barking orders through the bullhorn to disperse, which of course pissed off the crowd. And then they fired up that goddamn LRAD, which is still going.
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Aug 19, 2014 03:58
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Difference between the community leaders and the cops on the megaphones is night and day. The community leaders are trying to calm the crowd down, telling them to go home, backing them up, getting them on the sidewalk. Generally treating them like human beings. Meanwhile the cops are barking orders aggressively in the most hostile language possible. It's 100% obvious that the cops want a fight. They don't have their gas masks on for nothing.
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Aug 19, 2014 04:21
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> The Michael Brown Shooting: I WAS PINNED DOWN "The curfew has been lifted", but you can't be outside after dark without risking arrest 
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Aug 19, 2014 06:09
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D Lambent posted:And no one will do anything about it, no one will care, no one will be prosecuted, none of the cops are wearing identification or can be identified by anyone. Yeah, that's something I haven't seen brought up much or explained. No cops were wearing ID or even their badges. That's sketchy as gently caress, and seems like something an officer would do if they intended to do something illegal and get away with it.
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Aug 19, 2014 09:10
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RPZip posted:I didn't see this posted yet, although I only read through the thread for the past few hours. Right wingers in this country have gotten less and less capable of holding their tongues, and are becoming quite open about what assholes they really are. Here's hoping they keep it up and lose all self awareness.
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Aug 19, 2014 09:16
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Seems much calmer, more like a party atmosphere from what I see on the Vice/I am Mike Brown streams. Apparently when cops don't act overtly confrontational you get much less trouble. Who would have thought?
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Aug 20, 2014 04:57
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KernelSlanders posted:Well, the cops are being very confrontational. They are not allowing any large groups to form and they're not allowing any groups to stand still. Still not as confrontational as last night. 24 hours ago the police were lined up in the middle of the street in phalanx formation, blasting the LRAD at protesters and media and were begging for a fight. I don't see that tonight, at least on the streams I'm watching. Edit: hope I didn't speak too soon. Rhesus Pieces fucked around with this message at 05:10 on Aug 20, 2014 |
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Aug 20, 2014 05:08
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for gently caress's sake
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Aug 20, 2014 06:00
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On Terra Firma posted:I don't know why it wasn't mentioned more often, but someone said something a few pages back about brown being in flip flops, while wearing socks (so they aren't the thong style that slip between your toes.) No matter what's on your feet, why would you ever charge someone that's over 20 feet away and pointing a gun at you? Also, there's video of yesterday's officer-involved shooting in STL from beginning to end.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-P54MZVxMU
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Aug 21, 2014 01:07
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Untagged posted:Why do so many folks seem assume all cops carry tasers or have them immediately available? Many don't. It can be pretty hard to effectively judge a situation in light of not knowing what may or may not have been available to an officer at the time of an incident. Based on poo poo like this they really ought to do whatever's necessary to outfit every squad car with some sort of non- or less than-lethal weapon like a taser, stun gun or bean-bag rounds for the shotgun in the trunk. They certainly don't have a shortage of that poo poo in the local armory. Aren't situations like in the video exactly what these sorts of weapons were designed for? When someone wants to commit suicide by cop, you're not supposed to oblige them without a second thought. You're supposed to preserve life whenever possible, at least that's what I've been led to understand. Neo Duckberg posted:There is an electronic sign that says "approved assembly area" really far from everything haha gently caress me. "You can practice your first amendment right to free speech and assembly, just as long as you do it where we tell you to, in this out-of-the-way location where nobody will see you."
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Aug 21, 2014 02:10
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Wiggles Von Huggins posted:Did you guys discuss the released Kajieme Powell video yet? I only went back to 5-6 pages, but I may have missed it what with all this fantastic, interesting, on-topic discussion. It was posted yesterday and it was talked about extensively. I really don't want to start another derail about it, but FWIW I've seen a few new points discussed about it today: 1. The police screwed up by pulling up too close to Powell in the beginning. If they were aware that he was acting erratically and was armed with a knife, they should have approached from much farther away to give them more distance and possibly more options for disarming him. 2. Before he was shot, Powell was positioned between the police and 3 bystanders. Since he knew this was going to end in a hail of bullets, he looked around, noticed the bystanders, then moved so he was between the police and a building instead. In a way, the suicidal man showed more concern for human life than the police did. 3. It appears that one of the backup officers that arrived a minute later did have a taser on him. On topic, Nixon has declined to appoint a special prosecutor, and according to Antonio French the relationship between the community and the police is in such shambles that people are encouraging others to never call the police for any reason, because as they see it it just risks getting someone else killed. I know it's pretty much an impossible task, but in order to have a functional police department that anybody in town trusts it has to be completely torn down and rebuilt from scratch at this point. On top of the trigger-happy brutality exhibited by the officers and the insane use of force against the protesters, research has shown that last year there were more warrants issued than people in town to issue them to, and that a large chunk of Ferguson's police revenue comes from traffic tickets and fines for minor offenses levied against the black community through constant harassment.
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Aug 22, 2014 01:02
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JehovahsWetness posted:Ferguson PD and SLC PD both released their shooting reports. They're very thorough. Here's the Ferguson PD's report of the "strong-arm robbery": http://www.scribd.com/doc/236905827/Ferguson-Incident-Report SIXTEEN loving PAGES of painstaking detail about a petty theft, no details at all about a homicide.
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Aug 22, 2014 20:48
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http://www.thenation.com/blog/181357/exclusive-video-how-police-treated-residents-apartment-complex-where-michael-brown-was-kThe Nation posted:Images of police officers using tear gas and rubber bullets on protesters this month have shocked the world, raising awareness of America’s increasingly militarized police forces, many of which are subsidized by the federal government. Post-racial America, everybody!
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Aug 26, 2014 23:24
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Even functioning dashcams are useless in the hands of the police if they are corrupt criminals themselves: http://7online.com/archive/9440401/ quote:BLOOMFIELD, NJ -- The tale of the police dashcam video has now helped clear a Bloomfield, New Jersey man who faced a multitude of criminal charges, including eluding police and assault. This guy had his hands up as the officer repeatedly punched him in the face and yelled "stop going for my loving gun!" 
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Aug 27, 2014 05:33
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Strudel Man posted:Isn't this exactly an example of dashcams being massively useful in clearing a man and indicting the corrupt cops? It proves that dashcams are massively useful in clearing an innocent man's name only as long as corrupt cops don't falsify police reports or sit on incriminating footage. It's also worth pointing out that even two dashcams running at once didn't alter the cops' behavior one bit in this case.
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Aug 27, 2014 06:49
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How the gently caress are you supposed to deal with a police force that shows utterly naked contempt toward the people they're supposed to serve?quote:As darkness fell on Canfield Drive on August 9, a makeshift memorial sprang up in the middle of the street where Michael Brown's body had been sprawled in plain view for more than four hours. Flowers and candles were scattered over the bloodstains on the pavement. Someone had affixed a stuffed animal to a streetlight pole a few yards away. Neighborhood residents and others were gathering, many of them upset and angry. The Ferguson PD have made it abundantly clear that they are not friends of the local civilian population. They aren't there to serve and protect, but to fine and control.
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Aug 27, 2014 17:43
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Anyone want to see a black man get arrested and tased for sitting in front of a store waiting to pick his kids up from school? Well you're in luck!quote:A video showing the arrest of a black St. Paul man for allegedly sitting in a public space and refusing to give up his name surfaced yesterday, Aug. 26 — only weeks after the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager in Missouri re-sparked the national debate on race and police profiling. Does anyone here think the clerk would have called the cops over a white guy sitting in front of his store waiting for his kids? Or that the police would have treated a white guy like they treated this man?
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Aug 28, 2014 22:56
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Oh my loving god why the hell is this thread still obsessing over Europe and leg shots? We already ran that argument into the ground a hundred pages ago. I don't give a poo poo how much better Finnish cops are at picking people off without killing them, and I don't want notoriously trigger-happy American cops to be allowed any more justification for using their firearms then they already have. In actually relevant news, it looks like the Feds are widening their investigation from the Michael Brown shooting to the whole Ferguson/SLC police force: quote:Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. will launch this week a broad civil rights investigation into the Ferguson, Mo., Police Department, according to two federal law enforcement officials. This poo poo is absolutely loving disgusting and goes well beyond nit-picking over when cops are allowed to pull their guns out.
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Sep 4, 2014 01:47
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Meanwhile, right-wing racists scrambling to posthumously smear a murdered teenager continue to make up theories about how Brown really deserved to die, only to have those theories slip through their fingers like sand. Earlier today Charles C. Johnson's pet theory that Brown was convicted of 2nd degree murder as a juvenile blew up in his face. Now there's another myth starting to make the rounds on social media that this is a picture of a hospitalized Darren Wilson, when it's actually a picture of motocross rider Jim McNeil (who died in 2011) after an accident suffered in 2006. They're barely trying anymore, as that looks almost nothing like Darren Wilson.
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Sep 4, 2014 02:36
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pathetic little tramp posted:So has anyone shared the video with the 911 synced with the security footage? It looks like he's actually placing the BB gun down. Was he shot before or after that? I guess it doesn't really matter. If it was before, it means the police were grossly incompetent and went in guns blazing without even attempting any verbal orders. If it was after, they just flat-out murdered a kid for absolutely no reason. Meanwhile people that look like this:  can purposefully carry real and fully-loaded rifles into a bunch of stores purely to stir poo poo up and cause a scene and none of them are ever gunned down or even mildly inconvenienced by police officers.
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Sep 25, 2014 03:01
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