Jump to content
  • Welcome Guest

    For an ad free experience on Online Baptist, Please login or register for free

The Grand Jury


ThePilgrim

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 43
  • Created
  • Last Reply
  • Members

Not much new there. It was already known the department was in a state of confusion for some reason and it was taking longer than it should have for the crime scene investigators and others to get into the field and begin processing the scene. That's why Brown's body lay in the street so long and that's why it took so long before his body was covered.

 

These are typical irregularities which occur often, and not only in law enforcement. That's not to excuse the irregularities but simply to point out they occur often enough in many fields that they are sometimes closer to routine than irregular.

 

Even with this lack of following proper post-officer involved shooting procedure, there is nothing to indicate the incident at hand was any other than what the Grand Jury determined after viewing all the evidence and questioning all the witnesses.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Was the questioning of officer Wilson by the prosecutor, who used leading questions, really a search for the truth or a device to a prevent officer Wilson from giving any answers that might possibly change the  predetermined story line desired?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Was the questioning of officer Wilson by the prosecutor, who used leading questions, really a search for the truth or a device to a prevent officer Wilson from giving any answers that might possibly change the  predetermined story line desired?

Each member of the Grand Jury asked whatever questions they wanted to. That's how the Grand Jury system works. It's not just the prosecution which asks questions. The Grand Jury is able to ask questions of all who are put on the stand.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Administrators

All of the witnesses corrOBorated Wilson's story - and they were all black, so it wasn't the racial thing the MSM and POTUS and Holder have tried to make it.  Even the original one who made claims of MB's hands up recanted that - before it ever even went to the Grand Jury.

 

Those rioting in the streets were not simply from Ferguson. They were brought in to riot.  And they did. MB's step-dad encouraged people to burn the place down...which they did, destroying businesses owned by minorities.  Justice. Yeah, right.

 

I just wonder why folks aren't questioning about the black officer who killed a white 20-year-old in UT on Aug. 11.  Isn't his life important?  Sure, he might have been a thug, too (don't really know that much about it, because it's not making news anywhere - left or right wing).  However, MB had a criminal record. In the case of a Grand Jury, records are unsealed. He was a bad boy, with tragedy in his future.  

 

As John said, were it my son, my heart would be broken. But I'm honest enough to say that, if my son were the criminal that MB was as a juvenile, I would tend to believe what the police officer and so many witnesses said.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Administrators

Here's an article from a right-leaning news group, not the MSM.

 

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/ferguson-shooting-13-facts/2014/11/25/id/609483/

 

 

 

According to protesters who erupted in violence after a grand jury declined to indict Officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., this was the case of a white policeman shooting an unarmed black teenager with his hands in the air in a community plagued by racial tension.

That's an account promoted by many in the mainstream media as well. But here are several facts about the case that are harder to find:

 

1. Surveillance video showed that shortly before the confrontation, 18-year-old Brown stole cigarillos from a convenience store and shoved a clerk who tried to stop him.

2. The autopsy report showed that Brown had marijuana in his system when he died.

3. Officer Wilson, driving to the call of a medical emergency, first encountered Brown walking in the middle of a street and told Brown and his friend to walk on the sidewalk. Brown responded with an expletive.

4. Wilson chose to confront Brown only after he saw the cigarillos in his hand and recalled the radio report of a rOBbery at the convenience store.

5. Wilson said when he tried to open his car door, Brown slammed it back shut, then punched Wilson in the face.

6. Fearing another punch could knock him out, Wilson drew his gun, he told the grand jury, and Brown grabbed the gun, saying "you are too much of a pussy to shoot me."

7. An African-American witness confirmed that Brown and Wilson appeared to be "arm-wrestling" by the car.

8. Another witness saw Brown leaning through the car's window and said "some sort of confrontation was taking place."

 

 

9. After Wilson fired a shot that struck Brown's hand, Brown fled and Wilson gave chase. Brown suddenly stopped. An unidentified witness told the grand jury that 6-foot-4, 292-pound Brown charged at Wilson with his head down. Wilson said Brown put his hand under the waistband of his pants as he continued toward Wilson. That's when Wilson fired.

10. A witness testified that Brown never raised his hands.

11. Gunpowder found on the wound on Brown's hand indicated his hand was close to the gun when it fired. According to a report, the hand wound showed foreign matter "consistent with products that are discharged from the barrel of a firearm."

12. Judy Melinek, a forensic pathologist who reviewed the autopsy for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, said the gunpowder "supports the fact that this guy is reaching for the gun, if he has particulate matter in the wound."

13. Wilson said Brown was physically uncontrollable and "for lack of a better word, crazy." He said that during the confrontation, he was thinking: "He's gonna kill me. How do I survive?" Legal experts say police officers typically have wide latitude to use deadly force when they feel their safety is threatened.

 
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

For the life of me I do not understand why every answer to my posts is in connection to the guilt or innocence of Brown.  I have never said as far as I recall that I believe that Brown did or did not do the things he is said to have done.  To me that is not what this is about.  This is about the government and the courts making certain that a police officer who shoots another human is held accountable for his actions.  That does not mean that we hang them all, nor does it mean that we just automatically take their word for it.  

 

The grand jury process is done in a certain way to acheive a certain purpose . . . . to see that justice has been done.  

 

I assume, with all the danger that entails, that noone read the portions of the transcript I posted about the way Wilson was treated (hardly like others are treated before a grand jury).  Here is that portion.

Despite Wilson’s un­or­tho­dox practices, transcripts appear to show that prosecutors treated him with greater deference than they showed some other grand jury witnesses.

Prosecutors, who led the inquiry, regularly grilled witnesses, testing their memories and going to great lengths to discredit some.

But in questioning Wilson, prosecutors were far more gentle and at times seemed to be guiding his answers.

At one point, a prosecutor asks Wilson: “So you got out of the car, you are running, you are telling [brown] to stop; is that right?

“Correct,’’ Wilson responds.

“And he’s not listening?’’ the prosecutor asks.

“No,’’ Wilson says.

At another point, a prosecutor tells Wilson that she doesn’t want to “put words in your mouth” even while asking that, as Brown was allegedly striking the officer in the face as he sat in his police car, “it was your opinion that you needed to pull out your weapon?’’

“I felt another one of those punches in my face could knock me out or worse,’’ Wilson testified. “I mean, it was, he’s OBviously bigger than I was and stronger and I’ve already taken two to the face and . . . the third one could be fatal if it hit me right.’’

He was lead in what to say.  He was questioned in such a way as to get the proper answers.   Whether this shooting was what the police call a "righteous shooting" or not I don't know.  All I police shootings are thoroughly investigated (each and every one) unecessary shootings will continue to occur in a never ending spiral.  And again just to be clear, I don't know whether this shooting was a righteous shooting or not.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Administrators

I think the guilt or innocence of MB or even one's opinion of such is directly linked to one's reaction to the grand jury ruling and to how one thinks proceedings were conducted. Hence my previous posts.

There are bad cops out there for sure. But there are good ones, too. And sometimes they need to defend themselves against thugs, even if it means shooting them. Til dead at times, sadly. Investigate, yes. Certainly. That was done here. Regardless of how we think proceedings went - surely the defense would have OBjected had the prosecution been leading - the grand jury saw no reason to indict.

Even so, DW will have to live with the fact that he took the life of an 18 year old - even though a thug and criminal and it was self-defense.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I think the guilt or innocence of MB or even one's opinion of such is directly linked to one's reaction to the grand jury ruling and to how one thinks proceedings were conducted. Hence my previous posts.

There are bad cops out there for sure. But there are good ones, too. And sometimes they need to defend themselves against thugs, even if it means shooting them. Til dead at times, sadly. Investigate, yes. Certainly. That was done here. Regardless of how we think proceedings went - surely the defense would have OBjected had the prosecution been leading - the grand jury saw no reason to indict.

Even so, DW will have to live with the fact that he took the life of an 18 year old - even though a thug and criminal and it was self-defense.

In the state of Missouri there is no defense attorney allowed in a grand jury proceeding.  If there defense in this case was given by the prosecuting attorney, which by the way they never do this for an ordinary citizen.

Officer was like I said a special case.  I I ever get into trouble in Missouri, I hope McCulloch defends me while he prosecutes me. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

A Grand Jury is simply to determine if there is enough evidence to believe a crime may possibly have been committed or not. That's it.

 

There is no defense in a Grand Jury. A Grand Jury simply looks at the evidence at hand to determine if a crime may have been committed. They are not there to determine whether one is actually guilty or innocent, only to determine if the evidence suggests a possible crime was committed and therefore charges should be brought against them, or not.

 

That's the Grand Jury system. If some don't like it there are peaceful and legal means to try and change it. However, this has been the long held, standard practice and use of the Grand Jury system. The only time one hears complaints about Grand Juries is when a case is made into an emotionally involved or politically involved case (or racial, but that fits into the emotional category because that's never looked at OBjectively).

 

The actions of Brown are at the very heart of this case. If Brown had actually stood still with his hands in the air, as the MSM said as if fact over and over again, and the officer shot him, the Grand Jury would have indicted the officer on one of the five charges. However, the fact the evidence showed Brown not only didn't stand still with hands raised, but actually attacked the officer, then tried to flee the scene of a crime while refusing orders to halt, but he turned and charged the officer placing the officer in danger of great bodily harm or death, made it clear to the Grand Jury the officer fired his gun in self-defense in full accord with the law. That's why the Grand Jury didn't indict the officer.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

You are absolutely right on all of what you said John.  I just wish the prosecutor believed in that old saw, "equal justice for all".  If he plays both prosecutor and defence attorney for a police officer, he should do the same for any other defendent.  But this is Amerika not America.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

You are absolutely right on all of what you said John.  I just wish the prosecutor believed in that old saw, "equal justice for all".  If he plays both prosecutor and defence attorney for a police officer, he should do the same for any other defendent.  But this is Amerika not America.

I don't know that this prosecutor did that but we do live in a sin ravaged world cursed from the Fall so there never will be "equal justice for all" in any system.

 

The best way to confront the evil in the world is to remember what Scripture says:

 

"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." Ephesians 6:12

 

We must confront the real enemy, and it's not flesh and blood. Scripture goes on to tell us how to deal with the real Enemy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.



×
×
  • Create New...