tvc184

  Anyone can investigate it. It is concurrent jurisdiction. For example let's say there is an accusation of a crime happened in a city in Jefferson County and it had a possible federal violation also (all laws are not federal for example DWI). The city has jurisdiction, the county has jurisdiction, the state has jurisdiction and the federal government has jurisdiction. Any of those four could investigate a crime independently or work with any or all of the others in a joint investigation.   Under most circumstances crimes are investigated at the local level. In some high profile cases or under their jurisdiction, the federal government with its dozens of investigative law enforcement agencies might get involved such as this case. Rob a7-11 at gunpoint and you will have the local cops after you. Rob the local bank and you will likely see the FBI breathing down your neck as it is both a state law crime and a federal law crime.    I have no clue how they are investigating the shooting in Ferguson but the Ferguson PD, St. Louis County PD, the MO State Police (Highway Patrol) and the FBI could all look into it. I "think" right now at the state level it has been turned over to the MO Highway Patrol and probably the FBI at the federal level. 

Does who called 911 matter? These tweets are nothing but a smokescreen. There appears to be plenty of evidence that the officer made a lawful stop. That is of no consequence because what happened after the stop is what matters. Did the officer have a legal authority to use deadly force in what he did or was it unjustified? The rest is just fluff.

Let's play what if. What if the video is what the police were going out to when broadcasting a description? Looking at the video, there was only one suspect they push the clerk so all he wants us back in the robbery. Simply being with the person does not mean you're involved. If that was true a passenger could get a ticket for speeding when he is in the car.

  On a similar case, we had an officer's patrol vehicle shot one night in the windshield. I went to that area and was blocking a road and had stopped a vehicle for something entirely different. Other officers were at the scene a block or so away.    There was some radio traffic but I wasn't paying attention to it as I was dealing with three or four guys that I had detained. Then I saw police units heading my way and heard my badge number on the radio and an officer saying something like, "TVC has them stopped".   That is why the units were screaming in my direction. I had inadvertently stopped the suspects in an officer almost being shot. What if I had been in a shootout right there with suspects that may have fired at officers? I did not stop them for that reason. 

  Are both answers plausible? What if Brown was stopped for jaywalking and during that lawful detention, it turned into a robbery suspect that went out over the radio?    I stopped a guy one night for a headlight out and ended up arresting him for murder. I had no clue that he was a murder suspect but if you read the report, he was initially stopped for a minor traffic charge but ended up in jail for two counts of murder.    Therein lies the problem with speculation in such cases. What appears to be an outright falsification might actually be entirely correct. Everyone assumes that they know the answer when they know nothing. 

Or as some in the business say...   Definition of Chaos = Chief Has Arrived On Scene. 

  If the chief lied, he is stupid, period.    I understand refusing to give out information as much of it is legally protected and may do more harm than good. Giving false statements are a ticket to disaster and can rarely be hidden. It is just too easy to prove some things as a lie.    Which makes me wonder if the chief is lying, he is telling the truth and other people are spinning things to fit their agenda or he is a bumbling idiot. 

  That is not a typical photo however. I have lots of guns and a bit of cash. I have never been inclined to take such a photo and I doubt that many people reading this forum have done so either.    It means nothing by itself but it tends to show a bit less of the choir boy image that is being portrayed by some of Brown. In some ways it is the reverse of what is being done to the officer involved and to the police in general. It is taking something that in itself means nothing but one side or the other is using it as proof of guilt. 

Most of the tweets are gibberish from people that have no clue or are speculating.    I have addressed a couple above and could do so on many of them. I understand the questions but they are put forth as rhetorical statements of guilt on the part of the police and that does not always square with the law or procedure.    Merely saying someone was a suspect in a robbery that may have just happened means that he fits the general description. I have seen many people stopped and released on scene (and have done so myself) or at times arrested for something else other than the original intent of the stop. When a radio broadcast goes out that a small white car similar to a Honda or Toyota just left the scene, every small white car will likely be stopped in the immediate area. It doesn't mean that they are all guilty, it means they appear to be a possible suspect.    Michael Brown might have fit the description without being the person the police sought, if they were actually looking for someone. By saying that someone talked to a store clerk and having him say that Brown was not the person means almost nothing except that he wasn't the person. It does not negate Brown looking like a description given or the police having lawful justification to detain him.    None of that means that the police actually broadcast a description or if Brown generally fit that description but it is lawful for such a scenario to exist. The police should still release the tapes of the 911 call of the robbery, the radio broadcasts given to officers, etc. In fact the outside agencies looking into this incident probably already have it but it doesn't have to be immediately be released to the public. Not releasing it is seen by some as an admission of guilt which is incorrect. 

  That is almost never handed out and is privileged information and I believe in most states and under federal law, protected. 

    Actually it is the opposite unless there is some specific statute in MO that says otherwise. Strong Arm is a fast description of an unarmed robbery other than "strong arms".    The MO Penal Code defines it as "forcibly steals".    Gee.... you mean false information is put out to the public? 

  So do I.

I see the MO state police are taking over. I have a friend that is a homicide investigator with that agency. I wonder if he will be involved in any respect.    I think he just left on vacation this week so he may be spared. 

  Participation and views are not the problem.    Look at the title of this forum now, The Silly One Up Thread.    When there are several threads a day which should be titled.... "Look At This Web Page Where I Found On A Slanted Political Site That Says Your Opinion Is Wrong".    Or perhaps..... "Hey (any name), How Would You Respond To THIS Political Website That Has An Opposing View From Yours"     That is not needed or wanted in this forum. There is no freedom of speech in a privately owned website. The public doesn't get to make the rules. There are hundreds of websites out there for such speech and people should feel free to use them.    There is nothing wrong with not talking football or baseball all the time and a diversion is okay but when it becomes (like the current forum title) nothing but a sniping match, it is time to move on. Whether I or anyone else agrees, the owner and administration sets the rules.    :)

  ESO already hit it.    A family that is making $25,000 a year for a family of four is living paycheck to paycheck. Heck, many families making $75,000 a year are living paycheck to paycheck. The only difference is the size of the home, the number of vehicles and the quality of food. They are still spending almost every dollar on expenses whether it is bologna or steak.    So if we take a family making $25K and remove all taxes except what they spend, they will be taxed on 100% of their income as they are literally spending every dollar that they make. Even if you exempt some things as non taxable, they are still spending every dollar.   Now let's move up to that millionaire and every area has plenty of them. Let's say a family is making $1M a year. How much of that is being spend on goods (or services if that is taxed) and how much is being put in stocks, the bank and other such ventures where goods are not purchased? They might be spending $200K on actual goods so they are only taxed on 20% of their income. Instead of our current progressive tax where the more you make, the higher your tax rate, we would have a regressive tax where the more you make the less percentage you pay as it is not being spent on goods or services as the "fair tax" proponents want.    Of course in our fantasy world we could start taxing savings accounts, 401Ks, IRAs, etc. I am not talking about your interest income from those which is taxable but merely deposits. That is the only way you are going to get those millionaires to pay their "fair share". But who will it hurt? So when that family making $25K a year finally saves $500 and decides to start putting some away..... oops!, they are hit with a 10% tax at the time of deposit so that $500 is not only $450. See how long it will take at 1% interest from banks to make up that loss from merely making a deposit.    Simply put, there is no way that we can tax goods and/or services only and have it hurt the rich guy and not destroy the less fortunate. The very rich might make millions or even billions a year but you can bet they aren't spending that money. The poor family on the other hand is spending every cent. 

  There is no such thing as treason or desertion for police officers. They are not the military and have no sworn duty to serve for a specified term like the military. A cop can legally walk away while in the middle of a call. If I am working a traffic accident or a family disturbance and half way through I say, "I have had enough of this nonsense, I quit", there is nothing that can be done to me criminally. I can and will be fired like any other employee that walks off the job but there is no charge of treason, being AWOL, etc.    Just like my previous post, do people really know what they are talking about? 

  And what is that dangerous path?    I see so much about "where we are headed" in many forums and we are "continually losing our rights". Like many topics, many (or most) of the comments are out of ignorance.    Examples are like a SCOTUS ruling giving some restrictions on police searches of vehicles and we are "losing our rights". I take "losing" as a present day situation and not something that happened generations ago. Yet when we take a look at it, is it true?    I was reading another sports forum (hunting) about a SCOTUS ruling (Gant 2009) and the standard complaints came out. What they don't know if that the police have had almost unrestricted searches of vehicles under exigency that goes back to 1925 in Carroll v. US not long after cars first hit the streets. Move on to Belton v. NY in 1981 that gave officers unlimited wingspan searches of vehicles where the driver was arrested and the vehicle impounded. Almost two generations ago that case said that police could arrest you for not using your turn signal and could search your car. In Gant the SCOTUS stopped that practice and said that the police can only search if there is a reasonable belief that there is evidence in the crime committed so unless the cops can find evidence of not using your blinker under the seat or in the glove box, they cannot search. To make it brief, Gant in 2009 took away police authority that was previously allowed and yet people say that we are "losing our rights". It looks to me like many times the people are having their right reaffirmed, not taken away yet it is easy to say, "we are losing our rights" when the person saying it has no knowledge at all of what is being claimed.   That is but a single example but I can name more but that would be for a different thread.   So exactly what is this dangerous path? 

  Yep. It is great when a warning thread turns into a shining example. 

For the people that complained of the police response in the missing person case and the claim that this was all racial, the cops didn't care and it was the police that killed him and covered it up, they should read the federal indictment that gives details of the entire incident from beginning to end.   I have been involved in many missing person cases and many times it only involves the taking of a police report and putting the person in a national law enforcement database depending on the information gathered that gives leads.     The indictment was submitted by the US Attorney Office, not the local police, sheriff or even the Texas Rangers.    Wright had sent Hadnot many text messages buying drugs. When confronted by that fact that can be proven after a subpoena of the records, Hadnot admitted to selling Wright drugs daily. Wright's wife said that nothing appeared wrong with him but a short time later recanted that story and said that he was acting strange. She then stated that he was "on something". That was confirmed by a patient and his wife right before he went missing when they gave statements that he appeared disoriented.    After the wife said that he was okay but then changed her story to him being on something, the family denied the police several requests to search the truck or personal laptop. So this innocent man that has nothing to hide has his wife lie to the police about drug use and the family denies the police access to something early in the investigation that might lead to his location. The next morning the deputy at the scene left to get a court order to search for the cell phone location (pinging) and when he left, the family took the personal and business laptops. Of course it is their right to do so and it was upheld and the police did not force the issue but talk about things that make you go hmmmm......   By the next morning a family reported finding the pieces of clothing. This might have been 12 hours after Wright had been reported missing. The police (sheriff department) then began a search of that area as they now had a location to concentrate on. The police then called in state tracking dogs to the scene and tracked the scent to a bayou and found more clothes in the field. They made repeated requests for aircraft but none could be found. That flies in the face of some claims that the police didn't do anything. Of course they such people are speaking out of ignorance but many people see these claims and take them as fact. That search continued for three more days and was led by the US Forest Service which shows federal agencies were involved from the beginning. The Texas Rangers joined in the investigation during that time frame.    When Wright's body was found, the Rangers had that crime scene and stayed with the body until it was recovered by several agencies including the pathologist.    The people that say the autopsy was botched by our local pathologist, the Wright family hired their own to look it over. But that was not enough. The samples were sent to a lab in Pennsylvania and it was they that came back with drugs from tissue and hair samples. If I counted correctly, a total of five "additional" pathologists and experts were used in addition to the local pathologists. Those include the director of human identification from the University of North Texas, the Texas DPS crime lab, the director of forensics services in Montgomery County and a board certified pathologist from Sam Houston University (and the Wright's personally hired pathologist). Guess what they all concluded? There was no signs of trauma, his decomposed body was consistent for a person being dead for a good while (not for less than a day as I saw on a KBMT FB page) and his death was due to drug overdose.     I suppose the FBI, US Attorney, Texas Rangers, many pathologists and crime labs (including out of state) all got together to cover up a crooked local cop.    Anyway, for all the false claims that come up on places like FaceBook news station pages, read the link below of the entire indictment signed by the US Attorney Office for the Eastern District of Texas. Then determine if Hadnot was just a scapegoat....... after he admitted to selling drugs to Wright that appears to have killed him.      [Hidden Content]

  ;)

    That would be a very good question. It takes a large force and there aren't many police agencies that are large enough in that area. They would have to strip the state police to get enough officers in there.    Of course the protesters and rioters could simply go away but that is not as likely to happen. Maybe a majority of them will get the idea that they have had their 3-4 days of rioting, looting and protesting and will move on. 

  1. The police unfortunately are tied up with other things at this point in time.   2. Did this guy come forward and try to be interviewed by the police or did he seek out the media instead?   3. Do the police even know that he exists? I can tell from the many investigations that I have been involved with including murders, when you ask who has seen something, everyone was in the bathroom.    4. Who determined that this was a "key witness"..... the witness or Chris Hayes?

  A PM might be the quickest way. 

  AggiesAreWe

It's like the Hotel California..... You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.