WHen i lived in St. Paul, i was stumbling into a bar. The cop outside the door also worked out at lifetime fitness that I did. I stopped and mumbled something ridiculous and said something like "i have to ask, what is it with parking tickets around here?? i mean seriously"

He laughed. He said "Those cops have no chance of being real cops if they dont write enough tickets"

And they've got the nerve to hunt down my ass, and treat me like a criminal.

anecdotal evidence is the worst.

Have we confirmed yet that Brian Dennehy is the town sheriff?

There's a video indicating that NYC has defacto quotas (the supervisor in a review strongly indicates that more arrests and summons would be beneficial to the affected officer's career). Really, it's not suprising in a data driven world. What metrics do we gauge police by other than arrests, citations, and summons? Some localities are dependent on police to raise revenue, either through citations or civil asset forfeiture. What do you think happens to the deputies that don't raise revenue? It may not be universal, but at least some localities have quotas, if not in name.

but sheriffs dont have real cop duties in the sense that they dont investigate crimes and no real powers of arrest, at least not here where i live. we have a fairly corrupt sheriffs department here and there are huge accusations thrown at them because of all the political messes that are ensuing because of it

unconfirmed but we're hearing that this darren wilson guy might be black as well

Accussing MIchael Brown of robbery.

according to Cnn.om


Diversity
Ferguson's police department has been criticized for a lack of ethnic diversity. The St. Louis suburb's population is two-thirds African-American. Of the police force's 53 officers, only six are African-American.
An eyewitness has said that the officer who shot Brown was Caucasian.

yeah everyone has been calling the cop white, we just started hearing from people starting to investigate once the name was released, but their could be another cop named darren wilson.

i don't think it's true, by the way, no one can confirm it

From that page:

"Bring it you Fucking animals" -- cops
http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video ... s.cnn.html

I haven't read through this whole thread carefully, but this stat right here sums up to me the core of the problem. A law enforcement agency that isn't representative of the people it oversees is going to run a higher risk of having problems like this arise.

Does it make Michael Brown any less dead or the long suffering community of Ferguson any less oppressed?

IF it holds out to be true AND what the witness is saying (they were minding their own beeswax) i would still say it was excessive force. if it was armed robbery then i can see but the were accused of strong arm robbery which i assume means taking by force with no threat of a weapon

im a bit shocked its taken a week for them to allege a crime is involved. either they are making shit up or are having some severe communication breakdowns in the department

Also, the robbery happened hours earlier, right?

The other kid who was with Brown told MSNBC that the two of them did in fact steal cigars.

Did they find weapons on them?

Man. The many times I stole packs of baseball cards as a kid....

lol

im not sure. at this point i dont know if i would believe the official time line or not. how could it take almost a week to say, they were stopped as part of an investigation