Prosecutor Lays The Blame For The Ferguson Debacle At The Feet Of 'Social Media'
from the social-media-now-killing-more-unarmed-citizens-than-ever-before! dept
When prosecutor Robert McCulloch began his announcement of the grand jury's decision in Officer Darren Wilson's shooting of an unarmed Ferguson resident, he expressed his displeasure with a very familiar scapegoat:On August 9th Michael Brown was shot and killed by police officer Darren Wilson. Within minutes, various accounts of the incident began appearing on social media, accounts filled with speculation and little, if any, solid, accurate information...One would have thought the most significant challenge would have been the investgation itself, rather than the words of multiple uninvolved parties. Government officials blaming outside entities for their own struggles and failures is nothing new. The normal, non-social media has taken numerous turns as the scapegoat du jour. But now it's more fashionable to blame the general public and their social outlets. When not blaming the public for talking about stuff, government officials blame the services themselves, villainizing them for providing platforms that criminals, terrorists and other malcontents might use.
The most significant challenge encountered in this investigation has been the 24-hour news cycle and its insatiable appetite for something, for anything, to talk about, following closely behind with the nonstop rumors on social media.
Not included in the blame-shifting was the Ferguson police department's severe mismanagement of the "investigation," the decision to turn Ferguson into a lower-Midwest Afghanistan, the combativeness of the city's FOIA departments or the no-fly zone erected solely for the purpose of keeping the media out. No. As McCulloch saw it, the Twitter, Facebook, et al (but mostly Twitter) obstructed justice.
It's little surprise McCulloch has no affection for social media, especially when it's being used to highlight his inaccuracies.
"Darren Wilson never stood over Mike Brown's body" - Bob McCullough pic.twitter.com/TAe2gYGLoR
— Jay (@JayChillinBro) November 25, 2014
Wil Wheaton referenced a classic board game.
It was social media, on the internet, with the smart phone.
— Wil Wheaton (@wilw) November 25, 2014
It was social media, on the internet, with the smart phone.Lowering the Bar's Kevin Underhill stopped presses, shouted "Here's your headline, boys!"
FERGUSON PROSECUTOR ANNOUNCES GRAND JURY HAS INDICTED SOCIAL MEDIA
— Kevin Underhill (@loweringthebar) November 25, 2014
FERGUSON PROSECUTOR ANNOUNCES GRAND JURY HAS INDICTED SOCIAL MEDIAGod Himself:
Apparently Mike Brown was shot and killed by social media.
— God (@TheTweetOfGod) November 25, 2014
Apparently Mike Brown was shot and killed by social mediaMcCulloch's "extended whine" (according to CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin) has to be seen to be
McCulloch didn't discuss his decision to take a (wholly fake) "impartial" stance during the grand jury deliberations rather than act as a prosecutor and drive for an indictment. His disingenuous nod towards "jury independence" was just a weak cover for his unwillingness to prosecute Darren Wilson. He also didn't discuss his family ties to law enforcement or his previous reluctance to pursue prosecution of police officers.
By the end of the press conference (which has been described as "bizarre" and "rambling"), McCulloch had made his views perfectly clear: the only person blameless in this incident is the officer who shot an unarmed man.
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Filed Under: blame, ferguson, media, missouri, robert mcculloch, social media
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Fuck Robert McCulloch.
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I saw the story as it unfolded, a few days before it became national news, and what happened was very deliberate: It was Trayvon Martin all over again. What should have been a very simple, local case of a thug attacking a guy with a gun and then the inevitable tragic consequences befalling him got spun into a national media circus by people who want to incite another Rodney King-style race riot to call attention to their cause celebré.
Yes, the heavy-handed police response was bad, but considering the riots already breaking out, it was certainly the lesser of two evils. (If you don't believe me, look up the statistics on the death tolls and property damage in the Rodney King riots!) They made the least bad choice they could have in a bad situation. Let's hope this finally gets put to rest now, at least until the next overly aggressive thug gets himself killed in a stupid way while happening to be black.
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Way to go champ! It's like saying getting caught is the problem with crime instead of committing the damn crime in the first place.
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Are you saying it's not?
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Yeah, they sure made sure "a riot with immense costs to both property and life [did] not break out..."
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It about the fact that the price tag associated with preventing such a riot is far more costly than the loss it will prevent.
Sir, I can personally guarantee the safety of your daughters... all you need but do is send them my way without an cloths and I will see to their safety.
You ignorantly do not understand what you have to trade in to achieve what you are wanting.
You deserve neither liberty or security!
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Not to the police, it isn't.
Bear in mind, it was the Ferguson police doing this. Not Feds, not even the State of Missouri, not outsiders. The rabble-rousers have been trying to paint this as some sort of "us vs. them" scenario, but these police who did this are part of the "us"! They're people who live there, whose families and friends live there, and they would all be in danger if rioting broke out.
If it was your judgment call to make, given the same understanding of those simple facts, can you honestly say you'd have made it differently?
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I think having the extra manpower on hand was a wise decision, but at this point its clear that the behavior of the Police force in response has only fomented unnecessary anger from the protestors, which would only lead to increasing the risk of a longer and deadlier protest! It's like law enforcement is just pushing it till things boil over so they can shoot people and throw their authority around.
And to be clear... it will always be an "us vs them" it has never EVER been anything other. Governments throughout history has visited far more death and destruction upon their peoples than any and ALL wars ever fought on this mud-ball.
The state will always and ever be the greatest threat to mankind. This is the primary principle our founding fathers of the United States built our system of government on. Our police are being militarized... as proven by the picture show of the police in Ferguson. Full Assault body armor and weapons! They are literally dressed for WAR!
They DAMN SURE see YOU as the enemy! No matter how much they lie telling you otherwise!
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You lose all credibility when you pull out a line like that.
Yes, the Founding Fathers established a highly minimalist state. Do you remember what happened then? It failed miserably, very quickly, because they were too clever for their own good and ended up creating a government that was incapable of governing. It was called the Articles of Confederation, and it ended up being nothing more than a footnote in history.
So they went back to the drawing board and greatly increased the power of the state for their second version. That one, American Government v2.0, was the Constitution, and it ended up as perhaps the single greatest success in the history of governance.
History tells us that there is a far worse threat to mankind than the state, and that is the absence of the state. It seems I have to keep repeating this because people who can't see past one degree of cause and effect keep making the same mistakes, so here I go again:
Power Exists. Period. Power is derived from resources, including people, money, natural resources, military might, and social influence, but in the end, it's all different forms of power, and it exists one way or another.
Power always ends up getting concentrated in the hands of a few people at the top. Whether we're talking about a nation, a social club, a business, a family, or a church, there are decision makers at the top, and people below them. Beyond a certain level of size, intermediate levels of decision makers get added, and the whole thing replicates itself on a smaller scale. It's the fundamental social pattern of human nature, as inviolable as the laws of physics.
When that doesn't happen, the organization falls apart. Perhaps the most notable example in recent memory is the Occupy movement, which is remarkable for having so much in the way of resources available to them, and yet utterly failing to accomplish anything of significance. A good deal of the blame for that lies in their conscious attempt to buck the fundamental pattern of human nature and be a "leaderless organization". That doesn't work, never has, never will.
And when that doesn't happen on a large scale (city to nation size) and whoever was in power is no longer in power, that power doesn't simply vanish into happy sparkles, rainbows and more liberty for everyone, no matter what idealistic nonsense the libertarians fill your head with. What you get in the real world is a power vacuum, and if you think that makes for a better society than you'd get under even the very worst of tyrants, I invite you to spend some time in Somalia.
Only two types of people claim otherwise: those who don't understand this principle, and those who do, and want to create one. It's hard to say which is a greater threat.
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The State is indeed necessary for people that cannot self govern, which sadly, is the majority of humanity. For people like you and most others, the state is indeed necessary, but it still does not mean it is not your greatest threat. History is standing proof of what I say.
American is no longer anything of what it was, we will fall, because people like you now comprise the majority of this nation now and love the state more than your own liberty.
On the Occupy movement... not sure what bearing that has here or why you brought it up, so I am disregarding that.
Yes, the Constitution... indeed a great document and did make a great Nation out of the United States. Yet there is not a single one of the original 10 amendments sparred from assault. Who is responsible for that assault? The State? The People?
And one final point? Where did I say the state was to be abolished? I recognize the need for a state with plenty of people like you around... I cannot and would not want to deal with all of you cry babies... What I am saying, is that you put the state together then you recognize it for what it is... your greatest threat and ensure that you control it properly and not allow it to become corrupt as it has now.
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I don't know if it's the case with Ferguson, but when I worked for a law enforcement agency, a lot of the white cops in dominantly black communities lived outside of the community they patrolled.
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All of you are saying only segregation works, whites police whites, black police blacks, I disagree. I read this between the lines, 1. I believe because of modern budget constraints, the cop was right, otherwise the cop would have been dead. 2. The prosecuted laid the blame on social media, he is wrong, he/his department should have been on social media to spread the word of what really was going on, they should use all social media to promote public safety. 3. They should be using all availabe resources to stop the " burn this place down" people, that not a builder, but a plant, a social worm, getting others to do his hate.
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"these police who did this are part of the 'us'"-- Are you sure?
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/most-police-dont-live-in-the-cities-they-serve/
Certainly , Darren Wilson doesn't. He lives about a half hour away, in Crestwood, a segregated white suburb of St Louis.
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Re: "these police who did this are part of the 'us'"-- Are you sure?
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Re: Re: "these police who did this are part of the 'us'"-- Are you sure?
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Re: Re: "these police who did this are part of the 'us'"-- Are you sure?
Everyone who has read history, i.e., contemporary journalism, knows this. I know it because I was there.
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Wait, the Ferguson police are so fully integrated into the community that they are "us"? That puts them head-and-shoulders above the police forces in literally every city I've ever lived in!
"If it was your judgment call to make, given the same understanding of those simple facts, can you honestly say you'd have made it differently"
I can honestly say that I would have made the call differently, yes.
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As I keep saying in posts on here, you have to think beyond a single degree of cause and effect.
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thus proving you are inhuman and inhumane and have fallen victim to the propaganda which values profit uber alles: you have lost your soul to mammon...
another capitalist pig who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing...
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I am an honest business owner
My business is burnt to the ground
I cannot get food, I am forced to become homeless because my insurance doesn't cover it all
I die.
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Property damage = damage to someone's life, their lively hood, their place of living.
While the human life ranks above all property, disregarding material possession basically gives everyone a pass at destroying what others spent the blood and time earning. It's dehumanizing to say that they don't matter unless they get physically injured or die.
This is not to say people are the things they own, but to just have empathy and understand how the world works please.
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-My business is burnt to the ground
-I cannot get food, I am forced to become homeless because my insurance doesn't cover it all
-I die
A bit exaggerated, but I think I see where you're going with this.
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Seriously? Have you read anything at all that I've posted on here on that particular subject?!?
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So, with that as a given, how do you propose social media be censored in order to quell the masses? Bonus points for the most egregious, painful and insulting way possible, as I'm sure there are those out there who would really get off on that shit.
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At best, Ferguson seems a situation where neither side wants peace at all. If anyone over there still loves their fellow man, they should escape immediately.
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We are in the unfortunate position that there will be no justice even attempted for the dead man in question. Certainly there is no justice attempted for the living man in question - he is just blanket considered innocent even though he has actually killed another.
The end result is that no justice will be delivered to anyone. Not to the dead, not to the living, not even to the respective families.
The family of the police officer will now face ridicule, hatred and abuse from those who believe that the police officer is guilty of murder, even if he is not. The family of the dead man will face ridicule from those who believe their son was a thief and thug, even if he is not.
All this does is creates a us and them mindset. it will not surprise me to see this police officer and anyone associated with him killed in the months ahead. It will also not surprise me to see more killing of citizens in the months ahead.
Yet, how do you explain that an outside law enforcement group managed to calm the trouble (even if only briefly) without the use of heavy-handed response?
If the police cannot calm things down by their simple presence then that is a very serious indicator that there is no evident respect for them and since respect and trust are earned we can only surmise that the police have only themselves to blame for this lack of respect.
What you americans (of the USA variety) quite often forget is that you have an extremely valuable basis for your nation in your Constitution (and associated documents) but you actually don't value it. You are so prideful that, in effect, you still live in the lawless wild west of your past. You could have been a leading light but for well over a hundred years now you have been an arrogant blight. All pride and no humility as a nation.
Instead of becoming great, you simple grate. Your law enforcement and your justice system are simply two examples where you as a nation have failed so badly.
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Everything will go from bad to worse, freedoms will disappear and society will degenerate to the lowest common denominator. When that superstar of a politician/statesman turns up to fix it all, the world will rejoice and really go bad.
So one should stay calm in the face on the ongoing troubles. It is better to lose one's head to Madame Guillotine than to lose one's head to uncontrolled emotion and rage.
We need to go mow our lawns, weed our gardens and see to the lessons therein.
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People tend to riot when they witness injustice in their communities and face the constant threat of violence if they don't give up their right to assemble or have their grievances addressed, or when their favorite team wins/loses the Super Bowl. By the way, why is it a "race riot" when a minority group petitions for justice, but it's just a "wild party" when a bunch of drunk frat boys get violent and destroy property after a football game?
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Where, oh, where is Michael Bloomberg when we need him most?
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More BS
The Media (Social or Not) would not have had anything to show if the police were not corrupt and easily caught on camera pulling their BS.
People need to calm down and stop the looting and protest peacefully around the Police Department, not destroying the community! It makes the entire protest a show of animal ignorance and brutality!
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Re: More BS
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You'd have to be imagining a "therefore" instead of a period to read his sentences as indicating that taunting is equivalent to brutality.
If you like, turn the period into an "and."
"I saw the cops taunting protesters and I have seen police brutality."
The two, separate sentences indicate that based on the AC's experience of witnessing verbal and physical abuses by police officers, the AC concludes that the police are to blame for the bad media attention they get.
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Oh and it is the fault of media for allowing dissemination of those slanderous videos.
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FTFY
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WOW
There are too many cases where people are warned not to interact with police but to calmly stand and let them talk don't argue or talk back or try to use your rights to go on your way.
It was only recently that a college in the US gave a 3 day course on how to interact with cops in NYC when stopped and searched for no reason, and it was only recently that police got away with murder with a slap on the hand and a transfer or paid leave.
All these cases prove one thing , police in general are not to be trusted and now nobody or very few people belive anything a cop says.
the only way to resolved this is to have real investigations and court cases with a jury for every instance where a cop kills someone that is unarmed and to have every cop wear a camera that is on all day or all time they are in uniform, even if they are in a police station and those videos saved to a site they have no access to. Then if they shoot someone and they have turned their camera off they can be fired and have to defend themselves in court.
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Exponential Communication
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Hypothetical
Now--and bear with me here--in a purely hypothetical situation, if the cop tweeted/facebooked/emailed/social media'd at any time after the shooting, would he then be looking at charges?
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He just misses
All these damn people with their instant videos of police pulling women from their cars and beating them, of police threatening and confiscating (and accidentally deleting evidence), of "theft at badgepoint"... well, this just has to stop. The people are just out of control.
Well, not exactly. They are out of YOUR control Mr McCulloch - the world has changed. Get Over It. As real reporters used to say - "The Truth will out". Just happens instantly now.
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This isn't the first time...
I grew up next to Ferguson. I'VE SEEN WHAT POLICE DO. I get to do that with impunity because I'm white and middle-aged and innocuous, so I get a pass. I can drive through without being stopped, harassed and written a ticket for some bullshit. I can walk with my hands in my pockets without worrying that some trigger-happy cop will think I have a gun and shoot me. I can have a conversation with cops without being belittled, insulted, called "boy", or being subject to veiled accusations. I can do all that and more because I happen not to be black.
But it's not that way for most Ferguson residents. Police have behaved like an occupying military force suppressing an enemy population. Every day -- mostly in smaller ways that don't make national headlines -- they use the implied threat of violence: obey or get shot. obey or get maced. obey or get clubbed. obey, obey, obey.
This is long overdue. Mike Brown's murder is just the catalyst and unless the systemic problems (including institutionalized racism) are fixed, there will be another catalyst one day and this will repeat. Ferguson isn't the only place where this exists -- this is a national problem and it'll require a national solution.
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No one is talking about just this right here!
Ferguson is nothing more than the straw the broke the camels back, and the officers comments with "George Stephanopoulos" is only going to piss even more people off.
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Re: This isn't the first time...
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Re: This isn't the first time...
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Brown might have survived the other wounds -- again, see the autopsy report. But this one was immediately fatal. It was a killshot designed to silence him forever, to ensure that his side of the story would never be heard, to (once again) show that whining cowardly weakling police officer lives mean everything and that citizens' lives -- especially black citizens' lives -- mean nothing.
Just another day in America -- another day where police equipped with heavy arms and armor and torture weapons can claim that they "feared for their lives" and execute anyone they want without the slightest worry that they'll face justice. "Help! Police!" has a very different meaning to people of color in this country.
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In related news...
We'll miss you, Baghdad Bob. Ferguson Bob (McCullough) has stepped into your shoes, but he just doesn't have your charm.
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That will of course never happen. Unfortunately it is better to put a few extra innocent people in jail than having a few extra criminals go free.
The things I have seen on the subject of public perception on punishment, points to average people reviewing specific cases are far softer than judges while at the same time they are thundering for higher penalties in general.
Perception is formed by perspective. In most cases the perspective of the average man lacks the mitigating circumstances when judging a case and thus always favour increasing punishment unconditionally. Therefore "tough on crime" will win against reason any day of the week when the carreer of a prosecutor is on vote for DA and therefore the system is fundamentally flawed.
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I don't buy that argument for one moment. Professional law enforcement officers are trained to use non-lethal means to subdue a suspect. Furthermore, they receive special training that puts them at an advantage against the average unarmed citizen, training very similar to what the members of the military undergo. An officer's firearm is a weapon of LAST RESORT. "Officer" Wilson could have used a baton or tazer to subdue Michael Brown if he was truly posing a threat to him. Instead, he played the typical part of a racist cop on a power trip and murdered Michael because he could get away with it. "Officer" Wilson belongs behind bars as an example to other dirty cops.
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Your honor
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BULLSHIT
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No shit, Sherlok!
Well, I'll be damned! That was absolutely honest, (although he obviously meant "followed" and not "following"...)
Rare indeed is the occurrence of honesty among the fascist control enforcement gangs and their high paid mouth pieces!
Obviously the statement was not vetted by the Feds' propagandist specialists before release....
Of course the most significant challenge facing Law Enforcement in this case has been journalism and social media. Until they get control of the internet it will always be the most significant obstacle facing any official cover up.
Its easy to cover up wrong doing when there is nobody spewing out facts to the public 24/7. But trying to keep the few functional reporters and the internet quiet long enough to inseminate the public memory with an acceptable official "story" is extremely expensive and time consuming.
I mean hell, the actual investigation of the incident would have taken, what - thirty minutes - for a real investigator to ascertain what happened and why and who was responsible for what. But this was a "shock test" and there was no need for a real investigation since the fascists already had their "official" scenario cooked and ready to serve.
All the effort spend by "officials" in this case has been to obfuscate and cover up the facts and you can bet that is a tough job when the public has a voice and a place to speak.
And I'll bet you're still wondering why they have to kill internet anonymity and end net neutrality, right.
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Exactly the same as the newspapers and TV, albeit these only produce officially manufactured bullshit.
But unlike the newspapers and TV, you can surf about and gather all the real information necessary to disclose the lie and post the data collected to point out the fallacy of the lie to others.
"...no accountability or consequences."
Ever heard of the Streisand Effect? It is only relevant to the internet and thus social media.
It does not matter what the media is, or its means of dissemination - it is always your responsibility to prove the information valid before acceptance. If you shirk this responsibility, their is none but yourself to blame.
At least the web, better than any other media to date, allows and promotes this process.
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