Posted on 08/31/2014 1:28:09 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
So much has been written about the incident at Ferguson, Missouri, that it’s remarkable none of it is of any use. So let’s try something new.
My idea is to look at the shooting as a shooting, not as an avatar of social malaise, a tragedy or an inevitability. Instead, let’s determine what can be learned from the few facts known and considered incontrovertible. I am no expert but I do know a little about this stuff.
The four shots that hit Michael Brown in the right arm, according to autopsy drawing provided by Dr. Michael Baden at the insistence of Brown’s own parents, penetrated the outside, leading edge of that limb, just inside the bone. Thus it seems unlikely that those shots, assuming they came directly from in front, could have penetrated the arm at those locations while maintaining a front-to-rear angle.
Try this simple test. Raise your arms. In that position, examine which surface of your arm is vulnerable to frontally incoming gunshots. Clearly, it is the inside, unless you torque your arms inward in order to make the outsides vulnerable to incoming shots, an inconceivable notion. As I see it, Brown’s arms were not up when he was shot, at least four of the six times.
Or let me put it this way. Stand naturally. Place your left forefinger on a spot you determine to equate to one of the wounds. You’ll see that it faces the front. Now, keeping the finger in place, raise the arm. NOW the spot faces the rear and the bullet direction is clearly front to rear.
Next examine the pattern of the four shots. Beginning at the thumb, they are spaced a few inches apart, in a rising line on a rightward bias, essentially climbing the arm. I see this pattern on the handgun range all the time, as do most shooters. It is a consequence of shooting quickly without aiming, a sure signature of a shooter in a panic mode (as when being charged by a much larger assailant) or someone preparing for just such a moment.
This is what happens: the gun, no matter if gripped properly in two hands or improperly in one, rises in recoil in each shot and the shooter brings it back down as he resets the trigger and fires again. But the reset is faster than the full return, so the subsequent shot is fired from a higher location; thus the bullet strikes higher. It is typical of anyone except perhaps a Special Forces professional or a full-time professional competition shooter to produce this pattern on a target when shooting fast and without aim, relying on crude instinctive reflexes instead of technique.
When I look at the shot placement in the Baden sketch, I infer the officer is firing as fast as he can pull the trigger without aiming, but merely pointing; he’s not looking at his sights (crucial to aiming) but at the man oncoming. Thus he sees he’s striking to the left margin of the target (the arm) and makes a gross correction, though he continues to place his shots more highly. His fifth shot hits the eye, the young man drops immediately and is tumbling forward when the sixth shot hits him in the top of the head. The officer was locked into the fast-fire scenario and even if he observed the effect of the fifth shot, he was unable to command his trigger finger to halt before firing the sixth.
Finally, I note that much has been made of the fact that Brown was shot six times, as if that’s somehow relevant. A man shooting in defense of his life, police officer, soldier, or citizen, will shoot until his adversary is down. Many–but not Officer Wilson–will then shoot him a couple of more times on the ground, to make certain. People who think six is “a lot” are not familiar with the speed at which a reasonably trained shooter can fire six times with a semi-automatic pistol. The answer is less than two seconds. I bet I could do it in less than one.
Thus any insistence that Michael Brown was shot with his hands up or an inordinate number of times is simply unsupportable by the known facts. It should not be assumed or repeated in any journalism that considers itself informed and unbiased. One of the saddest aspects of contemporary journalism–I worked on great newspapers for 38 years–is that almost no one on staff knows a single fact about things that go bang in the night. Some can’t tell an earplug from a rubber bullet or a semi-automatic from a full-automatic. Thus reportage on shooting incidents is always woefully flawed by ignorance and the public is ill-served, as in this disgraceful case.
As far as I’m concern, the issue of race in America is frikken dead.””””
Along with my bucket of sympathy being totally empty & full of holes, so I cannot refill it.
Same for my container of “compassion”.
No refills anymore.
Watch a football game sometime and observe a rusher getting to the quarterback. The rushers arms are down as he moves through the offensive line, but when he reaches the QB he extends them for the tackle at the same time leaning forward to “spear” the QB.....
This exactly fits the scenario of the Brown shooting.....
What gets me is why the right feels compelled to correct the lefts Horst Wessel characterization of these incidents which are designed to stoke the racial divide without pointing out that was the intent to do so.
Or are they that naive and actually believe that it they aren’t deliberately misrepresented so that the democrats keep the blacks on their plantation ?
To a man I ‘ve seen posting after posting including the dozens 2nd Div vet has already posted here in FR’s of various publications with a conservative bent. All offer various explanations on these so called racial incidents and that includes the “talkies”. But none have yet to come forward and tell their readers and listeners. “ Hey if your an “Afro-American” your being used ! These so called racial incidents are being conjured up and used to keep US and our races divided”.
In this piece Powerline’s Steven Hunter uses 10 paragraphs that sorta, kinda, hints that may be the case but can’t really say it.
If these so called “pundits” are unable to do this why should we expect conservative politicians to do it? But don’t wonder why this will continue and perhaps get worse.
the only reference (with picture) to that I've seen was at Conservative Treehouse.
The hole is about 30 degrees to the right of where Brown was when Wilson fired on him
Tough love was always the answer...always is.
BTTT
I grew up in a town that was too small to have "the other side of the tracks".
We all went to one school together - blacks, whites, immigrants and DP's from WWII..
We played sandlot ball together, palled around together, fought with each other, swam in the same creek.
Some black kids I got along with, some I didn't - same for Polish, German, Irish and Italian kids.
We made friends and enemies based on the individual - not skin color or where their parents were born.
There was no "white privilege" - everyone was clawing their way up from the same level.
Later, in the service, we trained together, worked together, suffered together and slept side by side in the same barracks.
But since liberals began using race as a way to keep us separated and at each others throats the attitude of blacks in general has changed and that has changed me.
I have come to feel exactly as you do about blacks and the race issue - we are overloaded with racial whining.
I have become suspicious of blacks and now assume they are anti-white racists until they prove differently to me.
It is a sad turn of events but blacks have brought it on themselves.
Not really. The arms are up to block the pass. You can hit much harder with your arms low and then moving them up as you explode into the QB. They would never be over your head. You clearly never played football.
My mother started the Head Start program in my home town because she wanted to make a difference...and had to go to Tuskegee Institute for sensitivity training for six months IIRC.
She was locked in her room at night...it was like a prison and they treated her like a prisoner. She was forced to take all her meals alone in her room and was allowed no connection with others of any color. She was told that she would be in grave danger if she were to leave her room (though her door was locked from the outside.
She just wanted to make a difference.
As I said, I will not discriminate against anyone because of race. But my racial sympathy has been used up.
Imagine a 300 pound NFL lineman coming at you with a sack on his mind. Now replay the shots.
AFIK, cops are taught to fire at center of mass (roughly an 18”x18” area) that encloses a human’s most vulnerable areas. Also, cops are taught to keep firing until the perp goes down. Brown may have been going down from repeated hits, but his inertia was carrying him towards officer Wilson. Once he was hit the fifth and six times, he was dead. Again, the shot placement is indicative of an officer that is pointing his weapon and not aiming it because the threat is closing on him. He was defending himself in a life or death situation and Brown lost. Brown is dead because he was stupid. Wilson had no choice but to drop him.
The author assumes a similar stance at all times while the shots were fired. In theory, the arm wounds could have happened, then Saint Mike the Gentle could have stopped, raised his hands - and been shot twice more. You cannot assume the wounds to the arms occurred and then were followed immediately by the other 2 wounds.
“He may have recorded the second and later hits (until the fatal shot), but his pain mechanism was nonfunctional.”
Maybe and maybe not. It might happen sometimes, but it is not a universal reaction.
I read this article with a critical, subject matter expert eye.
I find no obvious flaws. It fits what I surmised from what I have read. What we are not sure of, is exactly how many shots were fired. We are fairly certain that six of them hit; to hit with all shots is much above average. There may be some misses that have yet to be found.
I wonder if Officer Wilson is right or left handed. Right handed shooters tend to pull to the right, left handed to the left, but it is far from 100 percent. Much depends on how the trigger is placed.
My guess would be that Officer Wilson is left handed.
A very good article with some helpful information if one is discussing the incident with someone who is of the “why did the cop need to shoot him SIX times?” school of thought.
There are no known and incontrovertible facts because none of the official reports have been released. We don't know if Baden's picture is accurate, how many times Brown was hit, or anything else for sure. All we have are stories from Brown's supporters which are contradicted by supporters from Wilson supporters.
You got that right. The narrative in the black community on the Martin-Zimmerman incident is that the "white" Hispanic Zimmeramn saw a black kid walking down the sidewalk, ran up to him and shot him down in cold blood.
The Ferguson narrative is about the same. A racist, white policeman saw a black kid walking innocently down the street and decided to shoot him down in cold blood despite numerous black witnesses around and in broad daylight.
Just like the Martin-Zimmerman case, the facts about the Ferguson incident won't mean a thing to people intent on stirring up trouble.
I think that was the shot fired in the car during the struggle for the gun.
I think DW is right-handed as his holster in on his right side in his award ceremony video.
The act of running brings the arms and shoulder up and down. Throw in the narrative that Mr. Brown was rushing the cop and the ability to hit such a moving target in a similar fashion under extreme stress denotes a cop that would make tgo proud.
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