“There will be clear evidence at the scene, complete with forensics, GSR, blood, spent casing and on and on...This will be pretty difficult to twist unless the evidence had somehow been manipulated...
Based on the physical evidence alone and conducting a fair investigation independent of the local PD, it should be pretty easy to figure out what occurred and determine if inconsistent statements were made etc...”
First, the claim was that there was a struggle over the gun. It is going to be hard to prove such a claim is false. That is the reason cops invented the “He reached for his waist band” excuses. It is very hard to disprove. They know the words to say, and teach each other what to say. It isn’t a myth that cops taught each other long ago to have a throw down weapon, just in case.
Second, you are assuming that anyone investigating is doing a serious investigation, looking for inconsistencies in a story and physical evidence. I’ve had numerous talks with a cop I know at another site. One thing is clear, he is never critical of a cop’s version of events. Not nearly as critical as he would be with you or I.
LE is not interested in honest investigations of cops, least they one day find themselves under investigation. Cops have every incentive to whitewash these events. That makes for a poor investigator.
These investigations need replaced with Citizen based investigative agencies, with out stacking the board with retired cops and family members of cops. It needs to be a real, critical investigation. And with the power to charge. A couple of review boards had members resign, because their findings were just ignored. Others, stacked with ex-cops, defeating the purpose of such a board.
But trusting cops, even from another department, to investigate such events is dubious at best. And Internal Investigation? An oxymoron.
We’ve seen far too many investigations producing ridiculous conclusions. As I’ve said, the cops in the Dorner hunt were not punished for their actions, and the cop who shot a kid holding a wii walked. Nor are those two isolated.
I understand your concerns...
The real big problem with law enforcement/government now is the escalating widespread distrust of most everything they do or say...The spread of distrust is into most of middle America now too.
The cracks in the foundation continue to spread rapidly...
It’s all been boiling up for a long time.
It’s all very disturbing.
First, I depend on my own skill at following a case from the beginning to form my opinions. The ‘evidence’ it yet to come in this case, so maybe the cop was overreacting, maybe he wasn’t. Maybe the cops have had to yell at the ‘teens’ to get out of the frickin’ street every time they show up. Maybe the ‘teens’ were trying to see how far they could push the cops. Who knows ?
You speak of the tendency of the cops to lie, to cover up and I agree with you. BUT,,, can you just flat make the assumption that they(the police) are lying in this case?
Are you assuming that the ‘residents’ are just bastions of ‘truth’ ?
Remember the Trayvon Martin case where the only evidence that ‘blacks’ needed was that Trayvon was black.
It really seems like both parties to this incident are to blame, and is unfortunate Mr. Brown got killed. Life has taught me not to dick around in front of a police car. Maybe that’s why I’m alive and Mr. Brown is dead.
We all have our opinions of what happened, so now I guess we must await the evidence (and the cell phone videos the cops have) before we can confirm or change our ‘view’.
I wonder how an officer can let someone even get close to his/her weapon within the police car. Within the car, a suspect and the officer should not be sitting in the same space. Therefore, this statement is a little suspicious to me.