So there's this riot going on right now

[yovargas]

Possibly. Though I think that it's probably more that it's just harder to make and harder to sell.

[Primula Baggins]

And, people have no idea that they're not already getting the whole story.

[yovargas]

This article highlights the difference between what I mean by "news" vs "info":

http://gawker.com/what-ive-learned-from ... 1625472836

Essentially, real info is extremely hard to get so we get lots of awful news instead.

[axordil]

This article highlights the difference between what I mean by "news" vs "info":

http://gawker.com/what-ive-learned-from ... 1625472836

Essentially, real info is extremely hard to get so we get lots of awful news instead.

I wish that project well, and I may donate to it. I'm glad (as one can be in the midst of such awfulness) that the collusion between the press and and the authorities is brought up.

What statistics there are, suggest young black males get shot and killed by police at a rate 22 times greater than that of young white males. There's no possible combination of factors that can justify that kind of discrepancy. But it's not just the police, it's the population they're drawn from, which has mythologized black men as dangerous monsters since the days of slavery. The fear that myth generated used to result in lynchings. Methods change, but the results remain the same.

[axordil]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/12/0 ... ns-learned

Tom Tomorrow does such a great job crystallizing outrage in graphic form.

[yovargas]

What statistics there are, suggest young black males get shot and killed by police at a rate 22 times greater than that of young white males.

Do you have a source for that stat? I've seen it referenced a couple places but can't figure out where it's coming from. Considering the apparent lack of solid data and the unfortunate tendency for even good data to be presented in a skewed way to serve whoever's purpose I'm not trusting this one at face value.

[axordil]

http://www.propublica.org/article/deadl ... -and-white

[yovargas]

That report is....weird. It gives the ratio but not the plain numbers - are we talking 50 black teens or 500? And it only gives that ratio for a very specific age range and ignores all others - even though it states the average person killed is 30. And only chooses to state the ratio for a 3-year range (why 3 years?) even though it states their data starts in 1980. It frankly feels like they're being very selective in what they state in order to get most inflammatory number their report could find which immediately makes me skeptical of their analysis.

[axordil]

The raw data is in the footnotes. One suspects they picked the most recent years for which anything resembling decent data is available because that would be the most relevant to current conditions, but data for past year ranges are in the footnotes too.

As far as ignoring the other age ranges goes, what would it mean if the discrepancy dropped with age, other than we're disposed to view black youth as either older than they are or more dangerous at a younger age?

[yovargas]

I tried pulling up the stuff at the bottom but the only racial table that pulls up is the "14 and younger" one. Are you able to pull anything else up?

[yovargas]

That site said their source was simply the FBI's DB so I've been poking and poking around on their website and I can't figure out what data they're looking at. The only thing I can find on the matter is this "Justifiable Homicide by Law Enforcement" which contains no racial data:

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/cr ... 8-2012.xls

I also just googled around a bunch and followed links around to see if anybody else somehow had this data broken down by race and nobody seems to. The only thing anybody seems to know is that the data we have is woefully inadequate and probably shouldn't be used to make much of any conclusions. This politifact article calling out Bill O'Reilly's claims on race culd just as easily be about the propublica numbers:

http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/st ... t-shootin/

[yovargas]

Here's another politifact article worth noting on the claims being made that "deaths from police shootings the highest in 20 years". The data on this is so extremely incomplete that:

"It’s entirely possible that the reason the number went up from 2012 to 2013 is simply because more police agencies reported their officer-involved shootings than in previous years. Even less definitive conclusions can be drawn from comparing 2013 results to 1994. And there’s no way to extrapolate the FBI figures because there is no benchmark that indicates by how much the information is underreported. We couldn’t even tell if more or fewer police departments were reporting the numbers over the years.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter ... -20-years/

[axordil]

Here's another politifact article worth noting on the claims being made that "deaths from police shootings the highest in 20 years". The data on this is so extremely incomplete that:

"It’s entirely possible that the reason the number went up from 2012 to 2013 is simply because more police agencies reported their officer-involved shootings than in previous years. Even less definitive conclusions can be drawn from comparing 2013 results to 1994. And there’s no way to extrapolate the FBI figures because there is no benchmark that indicates by how much the information is underreported. We couldn’t even tell if more or fewer police departments were reporting the numbers over the years.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter ... -20-years/

I share your skepticism on that particular item, as does the ProPublica article, which calls the absolute numbers "problematic." I agree that it's weird the latter only apparently links directly to the under-14 data, though it clearly has access to more.

[Frelga]

It may have to do with what is actually available. There were numerous complaints about the lack of statistics on deaths caused by police.

[narya]

http://m.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/why ... on=1063824
Another side of the story - police unions.

[River]

Regarding the Ferguson grand jury proceedings, the prosecutor knew some witnesses were lying to the grand jury.

Here's where my brain divides by zero:

“Early on, I decided that anyone who claimed to have witnessed anything was gonna be presented to the grand jury,” McCulloch said, noting that “And I knew that no matter how I handled this, there would be criticism of it. So if I didn’t put those witnesses on, then we’d be discussing now why I didn’t put those witnesses on, even though their statements were not accurate.”

And then I started questioning whether I'd fallen into a dystopian novel:

Nonetheless, McCulloch told KTRS host McGraw Milhaven that he will not pursue perjury charges. He said he thought it was more important for the grand jury to “hear everything” and assess each witnesses’ credibility on their own.

“But in the situation — again, because of the manner in which we did it — we’re not going to file perjury charges against anyone. There were people who came in and yes, absolutely lied under oath. Some lied to the FBI — even though they’re not under oath, that’s another potential offense, a federal offense.”

Can someone with actual legal training help me out here? I do not understand why a prosecutor would first deliberately present witnesses bearing false witness and then decline to prosecute these people for lying under oath. Maybe because they could turn around and claim entrapment, though, of course, no one actually required them to lie once they were on the stand.

[Inanna]

Do we know which specific witnesses these were? What they said?


---------------
Please bear with my typos & grammar mistakes. Sent from my iPhone - Palantirs make mistakes too.

[Frelga]

There was a woman who claimed to have witnessed the shooting but actually just learned the story from the news.

And he knew it.

And if it makes me want to throw things, I can't imagine how Brown's family, friends, and neighbours feel.

[Inanna]

WTF? And how can they NOT be prosecuted for perjury?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

It is very rare that people get prosecuted for perjury (or its closely related cousin, obstruction of justice), despite the fact that it is very common that witnesses get caught lying under oath. Generally speaking, it only happens if the prosecutor has an axe to grind against the witness, which certainly is not the case (quite the opposite, I would say).

This is, of course, completely wrong, but it is the way things are.