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This goes to my point from a few posts back. People seem to be interpreting data to meet their own preconceived notions, both in support of the officer and in support of the family. And this even includes people who are sticklers for evidence and have themselves argued how unreliable eye witness accounts are. All we have so far are conflicting eyewitness accounts and hearsay, and the results of a second autopsy which is hindered in its accuracy by the fact that the first autopsy would have made the second autopsy less accurate. Yet in your post you made assertions about what happened that you are unable to support. According to the Newsweek article Wilson seems to claim Brown was responsible for the shot going off in the car. I didn't see any claim that first shot came from Wilson. According to the officer and an audio that was captured as someone was filming the aftermath, Brown charged at the officer. Not according to the officer. At this time we only know what the second autopsy told us, which is that there were probably six shots that hit Brown, and none from behind. We don't yet know how many shots were even fired. What happens if we find that only six shots were fired? What if there were no shell casing in or near the car, indicating that possibly no shouts were fired from in the car? I guess I should just have asked why you thought that was significant. We know the body laid there for hours, as it could not be moved until the scene was processed. If Brown was dead then why did they need a medic? This is the first I've ever heard that an officer's mission includes doing no harm. Given that police are authorized to use deadly force and carry various levels of harmful weapons, that seems like a statement that may be influenced by your strong feelings surrounding this event rather than on the evidence. I'll grant that whatever their mission statement is that they are likely not achieving it, but we should not hold them to standards that we have not set for them or that they have not set for themselves. But then again you were not there and you have not seen the results of the local, state or Federal investigations. You do not know what non-lethal options he had available to him or if he had time to use them. You do not know whether or not he was impaired by a blow to the head. We simply do not yet know enough about what happened to make very many definitive statements.

Citation? Citation? Citation? Are you suggesting that they deprived a dead man of medical treatment?

Just for clarity we are mixing the two shootings in this thread. Officer Wilson and Michael Brown (the first shooting and the reason for the protests) and the second shooting that you linked the video to. My most recent comment was in response to Airbrush's comment about the first shooting. But to your question, I really don't have any idea. I also found the video quite disturbing and I've seen no response from the police regarding the video. It is unsettling watching a couple of shots fired after the man is lying on the ground, and deserves a serious investigation in my opinion. Something else that bothers me is the fact that so many seem ready to condemn the officers involved in the shootings before an investigation can be done. The fact that a suspect can be shot six times, or shot even after hitting the ground certainly seems excessive to me. But I've read enough about the psychology of being in these situations, and have no personal experience at all, so that I don't feel that I can make an accurate judgement on whether these types of shootings can be justified or not. When I first started playing golf I would go to the driving range and whack the ball quite well. But as soon as I got on the course and had a couple of people looking at me I could barely hit the ball at all. And that is under almost no pressure. The point of that story being that I think it is important to be careful when making judgements on a shooting from the comfort of my living room. Another story from St. Louis a few years back involved a couple of undercover cops chasing a drug suspect. A cop entered a narrow gangway between two buildings and saw a guy with a gun at the other end, about 25' away. Both guys opened fire, shooting a total of about 20 rounds. Turns out the guy at the other end was another cop, and neither was hit by any of the shots.

Yeah I wasn't suggesting one way was better than the other, I was just relaying what I heard about their training. I certainly haven't studied how they came to the determination that officers should not aim for legs. Do you have any information regarding the decision to aim for center mass over thighs, or were you basing your comment on what you felt was best for the shooting victim? And if so, did you also take into consideration what was best for the officer? And just out of curiosity, how close was officer Wilson to Michael and how do you know? I haven't seen any sort of details yet. I am also curious how you could know that Wilson could have "EASILY" hit Michael in the legs. Do you know anything about his proficiency with the weapon he was using, how far away Michael was, if Michael was moving, or if Wilson was impaired in any way (I have heard he may have been hit in the eye during a scuffle)?

From what I've been reading it seems like the problem is often more related to police tactics and training than to individual officers making poor decisions. When police shoot they are often trained to aim for center mass and shoot until the threat is gone. No shooting for arms or legs as you may miss and the bullet may hit someone in the background. Since you cannot know if one bullet will stop the threat, fire multiple times. You don't attempt to stop deadly force (for example a knife wielding suspect) with non-lethal force (for example a taser). Tasers may fail. As the St. Louis chief of police put it, "our officers have the right to be able to go home at the end of their shift". I also read an article (couldn't find it) that talked about what an officer is experiencing during a shooting. As might be expected they are scared, adrenaline is pumping, and they often cannot really remember exactly what happened. In one case they asked the officer how many times he fired and he thought he fired twice. As it turned out he had actually emptied the magazine in his gun. If we don't want a person's biology to take over his conscious decision making, they may need tactics that allow the officers to stay out of harm's way as much as possible.

One of the problems is that there is so much grey area and so little that is black and white in these situations. I think that most will agree that police should not visit violence on peaceful protesters, and that protesters should not loot stores or throw Molotov cocktails. But what happens in the grey areas? Peaceful protesters may not feel it is justified to be asked to disperse just because half a block away a couple of hot headed teens started to get rowdy with the police. But if the police are afraid things might be getting too tense, they may feel perfectly justified, even obligated, in deciding that to maintain order the crowd should go away. Both sides often feel a show of force is justified. Protesters scream and shake fists because they want to be heard and seen. If everyone had been quietly sitting in a park for a prayer service, their grievances would not have received the attention they did with the rowdy protests. An individual police officer may feel that pointing his gun at someone who he thinks is getting out of control may cause that person to have second thoughts about what he is doing, and possibly defuse the situation. Similarly, we've seen the US military move ships between China and Taiwan in the hopes of calming, rather than escalating tensions. This is a very difficult situation for both sides and I don't envy either. Every action is being scrutinized by the world, and the world cannot possibly understand what is going on in the minds of the people at the scene. What appears to be a volatile situation in one spot may appear calm to someone else who is only 20 feet away. We need people to better understand their adversaries. Until you've been in their shoes it is very hard to truly understand why you should be more supportive of them and less confrontational.

Of course it is. That is almost the only thing it is. I agree with everything you just said. But this is not a court of law. The family and demonstrators are demanding information from the police. It is unreasonable to tell the police that they should only release information which makes the families claims seem valid and to not release any information that might undercut the claims of the family and demonstrators. If the officer involved in the shooting had just walked out of a bar I am sure the family would have wanted to know that. I suspect that if the police begin to judge for themselves what should and shouldn't be released they will be criticized more than they are now. Releasing raw data with no judgements should be expected of the police. Not just the data that one group or another wants to see. Another shooting this afternoon... http://news.yahoo.com/ferguson-protests-live-updates-day-10-130710733.html

I don't know which FOIA they were responding to. According to the police chief: http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/michael-brown-shooting/chief-defends-release-robbery-surveillance-video-n181786 But they did clear that up a few hours later. I also find it ironic that in the same released statement that the family of Michael Brown can "...denounce the police for smearing the teens name.." and follow that up with by describing Brown's death as a "brutal assassination. Fair is fair. If it is acceptable for the family to call the police officer a 'brutal assassin' and their son a 'gentle giant' before any evidence is in, it should be acceptable for the police to release a factual tape of a crime committed by the dead teen just prior to the shooting. I understand that the shooting was unrelated to the robbery, but there were two violent incidents this teen was involved in within an hour of each other. Showing a tape of what this teen did can hardly be considered smearing of the teen's name.

Full disclosure: I live about 30 minutes from Ferguson and work about 10 minutes from Ferguson. At this time there is very little that is known by the public regarding this shooting. I suspect that whether or not the shooting is deemed justified, half the population will suspect a miscarriage of justice. The segregation in St. Louis is by choice; generally speaking blacks like to live near blacks and whites like to live near whites. While racial prejudice is much less pronounced in St. Louis than it was when I was young it is still very common. The segregation feeds on itself. When you don't mix you have doubts about the others. When you have doubts about the others you don't mix. Endless loop. The riots here, while certainly a concern, are not nearly as bad as they appear in the press. Clouds of smoke and people running make for great copy, but they also give the impression that if you showed up in the neighborhood that is all you could expect to see. I am white, Ferguson is majority black, and I would feel perfectly safe amongst the citizens and police of Ferguson. I would only be concerned there at night when tempers are high. I found the John Oliver skit to be representative of much of the reporting on this issue. People cherry pick which items to discuss and present their own interpretation of events. Take the first item in the video. The police said that the victim was shot at least twice but not many more than that. John Oliver decided the police were trying to minimize the situation. Someone else could just as easily say that the police were not going to speak in specifics until the autopsy was complete. In the second item in the video John Oliver complains that the video of the victim robbing a store was an attempt by the police to distract. What he left out was that the police were required to release the video due a Freedom of Information Act request. Too much of what the media does is determined by television ratings. There is an underlying racism here that I am sure I will never understand simply because I am white. I don't know what it feels like to know that every time you walk in a store you get special scrutiny just because of the color of your skin. And growing up in a depressed environment where you have few role models does not help. Blacks are as capable as whites of succeeding here, but they must work harder to do it, and they often don't have the skills or the help to know how to succeed. To me the activities in Ferguson are rife with mistakes on everyone's part. The police were too quick to be heavy handed, and they followed up to the criticism by not even attempting to stop looting. The citizens expect the police to arrest the shooter before anyone could reasonably expect them to have investigated enough to make that call. And some have suggested that looting of wine and tennis shoes from a neighborhood store is a valid response. This is being investigated at the local, state, and Federal level and so a cover up is unlikely. I think it would be in everyone's best interest to just calm the hell down and let this play out.

Since 'politically correct' is a pejorative, you seem to be deriding the fact that you are discouraged from posting racist, sexist and homophobic views. Did I read your post correctly?

Have you considered the possibility that this site is not a miraculous collection of lemmings who readily give up their moral founding to some anonymous evil moderators ? But that perhaps it is you who simply cannot grasp the meaning behind interactions on a science forum? What do you think the chances are that out of all the people on this site, YOU are the only one who 'gets it'?

I think you are confusing 'morals' and 'rules'.

Straw man. I never said that is 'proof that religion is good'. I said it was evidence that your statement claiming "Religion doesn't help society at all" is false. You've been making these types of statements throughout this thread. What exactly does "creation was taken from real life" mean, and how did you come to that conclusion? It certainly implies that there was 'life' before 'creation'.

In addition to being a deist you also seem to have a bigoted attitude toward religion. I can't imagine that you can support that statement. Following is an example of what I think shows religion helping society. Cardinal Glennon Children's Medical Center Our MissionThrough our exceptional health care services, we reveal the healing presence of God. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_Glennon_Children%27s_Hospital

Do scientists do that? I haven't seen them doing that in this thread except in those instances where that belief in things happening before the BB includes wisdom or imagination.

Can you please explain how it is healthier? I would assume that the cost of mined salt versus the cost of sea salt has something to do with the cost of extraction, and not just its health benefits.

Maybe, but it is used that way because there are so many gods out there. Here is a list of only the Native American gods. You can follow the link to see the rest of those identified. Also keep in mind that 'god' is in the eye of the beholder. Ask any 10 Christians to describe 'god' and you will probably get 10 different answers. http://www.rationalresponders.com/a_big_list_of_gods_but_nowhere_near_all_of_them

I was trying to make a distinction between the metric expansion of space inherent in the Big Bang theory, which accounts for the expansion of space, and Dark Energy, which accounts for the acceleration of the expansion of space. Space would be stretching without Dark Energy.

Dark energy is what is responsible for the acceleration of the expansion of the universe.

I think we are simply misunderstanding how each of us is using the word 'purpose'. What you describe as the purpose of gravity as 'to hold things in place', I would have called a description of its behavior. To me, purpose implies some sort of design or conscious effort that affected how something like gravity would behave. Such as the purpose of a bridge is to allow the easy movement of traffic across a river, and someone designed and built it for that very reason.

What is the purpose of gravity? Or rocks? Or erosion?

You really don't know or are you trying to make a joke? And that is why I didn't say you were a theist.

Of course it is. In fact, 'wisdom behind creation' sounds suspiciously like 'intelligent design'. We are not going to get anywhere if you insist on redefining commonly used terms.

I wasn't trying to 'imply' anything. I was trying to 'say' that you are a deist, and that the way you use the term 'god' is somewhat different than the way most people use the term 'god', hence leading to your inability to fully engage everyone in the direction you wish this discussion to proceed. Can you please explain what that means? Right. You believe in 'wisdom behind creation'. Which in case you haven't noticed is exactly what deists and theists believe in.

@s1eep -- After reading your posts I have to conclude that you are essentially a deist as the term is commonly used. The only difference is that you use the phrase 'purpose-driven consciousness' where everyone else uses the term 'god'. Deists don't believe in supernatural events, worship, or prophets. They do however believe they can understand the origin of the universe through rationalism. You can call yourself an 'atheist' all you want, but I don't think you'll convince many people as long as you claim there was 'wisdom' behind the genesis of the universe.