Missouri Goddamn

6 Comments

1. 

   The Voice In The Wilderness on November 25, 2014 at 10:10 am

   Hey! Missouri isn’t all of America.

2. 

   shaun on November 25, 2014 at 10:23 am

   At the risk of stepping on the knee-jerk liberal feefees of Brendan and others here, the Ferguson verdict actual requires some thought.

   Here’s mine:

   It was pretty much a foregone conclusion that the decision would be deeply divisive.

   Sorry, fellow liberals, but I happen to think, based on what I have read and a cursory examination of the grand jury transcripts, that the officer acted within the confines of the Missouri deadly-force law.

   But this does not and should not erase or make irrelevant decades of police thuggery toward civilians, notably minorities, when there is clear-cut evidence that the officer overstepped his bounds. That is the grim legacy — and present-day reality time and time again — that must be set against the Ferguson decision.

   • 

     Brendan Skwire on November 25, 2014 at 12:08 pm

     You don’t have to cop an attitude. Of course that’s easy from behind a keyboard, isn’t it? Anyway, Officer Darren Wilson’s story is unbelievable. Literally.

     So Brown is punching inside the car. Wilson is scrambling to deflect the blows, to protect his face, to regain control of the situation. And then Brown stops, turns to his left, says to his friend, “Here, hold these,” and hands him the cigarillos stolen from Ferguson Market. Then he turns back to Wilson and, with his left hand now freed from holding the contraband goods, throws a haymaker at Wilson.

     Every bullshit detector in me went off when I read that passage. Which doesn’t mean that it didn’t happen exactly the way Wilson describes. But it is, again, hard to imagine. Brown, an 18-year-old kid holding stolen goods, decides to attack a cop and, while attacking him, stops, hands his stolen goods to his friend, and then returns to the beatdown. It reads less like something a human would do and more like a moment meant to connect Brown to the robbery.

     • 

       shaun on November 25, 2014 at 4:05 pm

       Sigh.

       • 

         Brendan Skwire on November 25, 2014 at 5:48 pm

         Couch your statement in snotty remarks, get a snotty response.

   • 

     n1cholas on November 25, 2014 at 9:17 pm

     We’re all very excited about your opinion.

     Keep on supporting soldiers pretending to be cops who shoot first.