then spontaneous demonstrations of upset at how governance has failed are no threat

As long as there isn't property damage.

Might want to watch for the supposedly turned off surveillance cell trackers & suppressors to suddenly "mistakenly" turn on.

By "accident"

is this why there were NINE homeland security officers with assault rifles outside the federal building loading dock on western this morning?

So, in short, the police are treating this like May Day because the usual gaggle of Seattle's Permanent Revolution Radicals are treating this like May Day?

Right down to the attempted appropriation of events organized around ethnic minority issues. Good job there, comrades, great way to make people sympathetic to your politics.

"regardless of the verdict," indeed.

whoops.

let's try that link again:

http://www.pugetsoundanarchists.org/node…

"regardless of the verdict."

Give Darren Wilson a fair trial before a jury of peers in open court. If he has a valid defense, he can raise it there.

@10

...provided there's evidence sufficient to bring him to trial, right?

Or are you in favor of putting people on trial at the prosecutor's whim, without looking at evidence first?

derp, @9 of course. Not my day for comments, it seems.

at what point did Mike Brown's death mean that it is OK to be a stupid fucking cracker bigot in public again?

to paraphrase Bobby Zimmerman: it may be true he's got a sentence to serve, but SHOT DOWN IN THE STREET FOR RESISTING ARREST he just don't deserve.

did John T Williams deserve to get killed for being a drunk with a carving knife?

the tide of police militarization has to turn. Ferguson is as good a place as any to turn it.

Exhibit A:
http://fortressamerica.gawker.com/fergus…

@12

So it's cracker bigotry to notice the fact that a lot of white leftist radicals are trying to appropriate black outrage over Mike Brown's death to justify their police-elimination agenda?

Anarchists with a website. Hilarious.

I filed PRA requests for:

- Emergency Operations Center action plan: https://www.muckrock.com/foi/seattle-69/…
- EOC director e-mail since November 11: https://www.muckrock.com/foi/seattle-69/…
- Seattle Police Dept incident action plan: https://www.muckrock.com/foi/seattle-69/…

@10: I favor jurors evaluating evidence in open court.

@17

As is everyone else, but how do you propose we decide when to put someone into that open court?

Are you saying you are in favor of doing evidence discovery on a suspect, and making all of that subpoenaed evidence public regardless of whether or not the case goes to trial?

Or have you simply not thought through the implications of your facile demand?

Yeah, I don't think "spontaneous demonstrations" is quite the right phrase here...

@18: I don't have a general rule to propose. When someone kills someone else, multiple eye witnesses say the victim was attempting to flee, and the shooter is a known perjurer, it seems like a good time for a trial.

@21

OK then, you're saying we should get together a group of ordinary people and let them decide whether or not a person should be put on trial, just going on whatever public information they can dig up on the internet, and without bothering to ask the suspect if there's any other evidence they ought to consider?

Or if we do ask that group to please consider the suspect's evidence, we make all of that evidence public, even if it would otherwise be private, personal information,* regardless of whether the group decides to send the suspect to trial?

I'm not terribly surprised to see you ducking the question here, Phil. But I do tend to think better of people who are willing to admit they haven't thought through the consequences of their demands, instead of dodging, stonewalling, or grandstanding.

 

* keep in mind that this might even be other people's private, personal information, that the suspect has had legitimate access to at some point.

@22, Robotslave wrote, "you're saying we should get together a group of ordinary people and let them decide whether or not a person should be put on trial."

No, I didn't state or imply anything like that. I think Darren Wilson should receive a fair and speedy trial before a jury of peers, just like you or I would if we were in a similar position. There would be no grand jury evaluating evidence presented by a corrupt prosecutor if multiple witnesses saw us shoot someone dead in the manner reportedly described by witnesses to the Brown homicide. We would stand trial.

Phil M- I appreciate the work you do. Please keep it up!

@4,5,6: rot in Hell, you bigots.As for #9? Did the coppig who double-tapped Brown give him a fair one-"man" trial? -- http://www.copwatch.com & http://www.therealnews.com .

@23

I do understand that you've ducked the questions of who decides a person ought to be put on trial, and how that decision should be made, and what sort of protections a suspect should have in the process. I accept the fact that you simply refuse to even think about any of these problems.

But don't expect the rest of us to bury our heads in the sand next to yours, believing The Justice Fairy will magically teleport Darren Wilson and a jury into a courtroom for us.

all of this shallow, bandwagon activism does nothing but contribute to the health of the state. So the results are basically: more cops, more laws, more centralization of power leading to unaccountability and corruption. everyone is hacking at branches.

@28: I don't know what you're driving at. If there is evidence that someone committed homicide, we should present the evidence in court and let a jury decide if the person is guilty or innocent. How prosecutors filter out cases for which there is insufficient evidence of guilt is not something with which I am familiar. Six eyewitnesses whose testimony matches and is in direct opposition to the position of the suspect, who is a known liar--perjurer, even--seems like plenty with which to go to trial. If Wilson has an affirmative defense to the crime, open court seems like the right place to raise that and let a jury evaluate its merit.

@31

See what I mean about grandstanding?

You know perfectly well that you're ducking the question of how we, as a society, should decide who to try in court, and for what.

A detective does not begin an investigation in a courtroom. There is a point at which we decide whether or not to turn an investigation into a trial. We do not haul a person before a judge and jury every time another person accuses him or her of committing a crime. That would be impractical, yes, but more importantly, it would be immoral.

You are of course perfectly familiar with the parts of our justice system that deal with the question of whether or not a suspect should be forced to stand trial. You are especially familiar with one such component dedicated to addressing the problem— the grand jury system. You are no longer arguing in good faith.

@31

...also, we do not and should not have a justice system in which citizens are forced to stand trial at the whim of the District Attorney.

Mr. Slave: I know you hate professional troublemakers who square off with cops as a matter of principle, in this case I fear you are doing what the cops are doing: lumping entire subset of our population together into the 'anarchist' category so that the 'lawman' category can hold a proper game of capture the flag. Just put down Occam's Razor for a moment and look at what is happening here: economic inequality is placing entire sections of our population into the 'do not use' section, an ever increasing legal apparatus is needed to contain them, our system of constitutional republic is disintegrating in an attempt to maintain this travesty of civilized society. Ya sure, the messengers are dirty and foul mouthed, don't shoot them.