Looting and Rioting in St. Louis (Merged)

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

The guy in that video was armed. Brown, from all accounts, was not. Apples and oranges.

You made a short, simplistic and definitive statement, and one which I have seen posted by others in the past. I took it as an opportunity to make a teaching point, both to yourself (albeit sometimes you qualify your position) and others that such a simplistic position is wrong and also that things are not always what initial assessments show. Even if there is video footage showing it, which the Brown incident does not seem to have available to us.

Sand wrote: »

I think its been said that Police forces in the US are under budgetary pressure, and the US Dept of Defence basically offers them military grade hardware for free - so long as they maintain it. Plus there seems to be an odd "use it or lose it" clause in the deals which seems ill-advised. It wouldn't surprise me that the US military have thousands of MRAPs that they do not require in the immediate future given their departure from IED strew countries like Iraq and Afghanistan.

It does look OTT, but if the military are handing out free gear, the the police are likely to take it.

Actually, ignorant article is ignorant (and I'd argue deliberately deceptive). I didn't pick it up the first time.

The Lenco Bearcat is not a front-line vehicle. In fact, the reason it's popular with police forces from Australia to Holland is that it's primarily designed as an police vehicle: The one used by Stockton PD to respond to that bank raid demonstrates a case in point: the thing'll go 90mph if chasing someone, which is a tad higher than an Army MRAP will get up to. As a result, if given a choice between a near-free ex-Army MRAP and a factory-new at-cost Bearcat, police departments will often go for the Bearcat.... -if- they can afford it. If they can't, they're all jumping on the MRAP bandwagon: The Army doesn't want the things (arguably never wanted them), and for the first time since the 1970s they're releasing wheeled armoured vehicles to police forces. The US Army didn't believe much in wheeled armour for most of the last century.

The Tactical Support Vehicle is an unarmoured truck.

Calling the MD500 a helicopter 'popular with the Korean Air Force' is the same as saying that half the European police and air ambulance forces are using helicopters "popular with the US Army": The UH-72 Lakota is basically a Eurocopter 145 painted green with US "US Army" slapped on the side. Even today, many US news, police and ambulance services use Bell Jet Rangers, also known as "OH-58 Kiowas" in the US Army. The 500s were developed as civilian helicopters, just the cheap reliability saw them getting ample military service as well.

Egginacup wrote: »

Under what circumstances is shooting someone in the back justified? Other than the victim stating categorically that he's going to strangle or rape someone and is making for them, I can't think of any. And even then it's questionable since a police officer should be trained, and more importantly, be in shape, to give chase.

Witness earlier video last page

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pSQRMGmDzkM

Above is another justified case of "man shot in back while apparently surrendering". Not so much for the Brown case, but just another case showing why even video evidence needs careful analysis.

Egginacup wrote: »

Who conducted the original autopsy and what would cause them to want a second opinion?

State ME conducted the first. FBI are doing the second. Family is paying for a third.

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Once again you show an example of an armed person being shot in the back. Entirely different situation to what we're dealing with here. Brown was unarmed.

I know, but shot in the back none-the-less. Look back over the thread at how many times posters have said that being shot in the back is a bad thing just for being shot in the back.

In any case, the third-party autopsy has been released, and he was shot in the front. The apparent last of the six rounds fired (Top of the head) was likely the one which stopped him and killed him.

Cellphone video from shortly after the shooting catches a witness describing what he saw, that Brown reversed course and came back at the cop.

(Start at about 6:25)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdL9dqkyjhM

In the meantime, the Guard are coming out. Presumably the first wave will be military police, mainly to give local law enforcement a break. If necessary, the MOARNG has two infantry battalions, but the catch with using infantry is that they don't have sidearms. It's rifles or sticks. In any case, expect the security services to start to get aggressive: Calling out the Guard is expensive, and they won't want to have these guys on orders any longer than they have to. Chances are the Guard won't want to either, many of them get paid a lot more by their civilian employers than the military, and would like to get back to their day jobs. But, of course, they'll take their orders from the State Troopers.