{"id":48546,"date":"2014-11-26T10:55:22","date_gmt":"2014-11-26T17:55:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/26\/history-is-written-by-the-survivors.html"},"modified":"2014-11-26T10:55:22","modified_gmt":"2014-11-26T17:55:22","slug":"history-is-written-by-the-survivors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/26\/history-is-written-by-the-survivors.html","title":{"rendered":"History is written by the survivors"},"content":{"rendered":"

[Kicks self because the original version of this post got lost.]<\/p>\n

Yes, it's worth noting that, in the end, only Darren Wilson got to testify in the case of the shooting of Michael Brown. Brown did not, and, of course, never will.<\/p>\n

I haven't written much about my thoughts on the #Ferguson<\/a> thang, especially the most recent developments. These pictures are pretty interesting, though, in a variety of ways.<\/p>\n

First off, this was not some major thoroughfare or gritty urban street that Brown and his companion were walking down. It was what looks like a nice, normal, surburban avenue, fairly small. <\/p>\n

Second, clearly there was a struggle in Wilson's vehicle. And there were gunshots inside of the vehicle. That, right there, was enough (under current jurisprudence) to get Wilson off the hook, rightly or wrongly, for anything that happened thereafter.<\/p>\n

(I find Wilson's description, as now being recounted, to be overly-rehearsed, self-serving, and fully of elements that strain credulity. But the core issue of whether there was some initial struggle seems to be true. What happened after that is much more of a question.)<\/p>\n

Third, despite "leaked" rumors immediately after the incident, Wilson (a strapping 6'4" cop) was not seriously or significantly injured in whatever struggle occurred. Yes, shots fired, but this was not a guy being outmatched and beaten to a pulp by a thug firing his gun as a last final resort.<\/p>\n

Fourth, Michael Brown was over 150 feet, 50 yards, away from Wilson's vehicle at the time he was shot. <\/p>\n

What has turned a dubious case (there have been far clearer cases of untenable but unprosecuted police violence) into such a major brouhaha has been less what actually happened between Wilson and Brown and more how the authorities in and around Ferguson (abetted by those elements in the community to turned violent) completely botched (from a PR and constituent-service standpoint) their handling of this. The visuals of how law enforcement handled things showed their end of the problem. The transparent fashion in which county prosecutor McCullough derailed any prospect of a grand jury indictment (and thus any public, adversarial discussion of the evidence) is the public face of perceived injustice in Ferguson.<\/p>\n

The problem is not so much that Darren Wilson killed Michael Brown. The problem is that there's no sign there was any question that he'd get away with it, no matter whether he was in the right or the wrong.<\/p>\n

Originally shared by +George Wiman<\/a>:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

In traffic accidents between semi trucks and automobiles, the auto driver is often found to be at fault. Who is telling the story? The semi driver, because the auto driver is dead. This commonplace may have some relevance to the #FergusonDecision<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n
\n
\n<\/a>
\n16 interesting photos from the Ferguson grand jury files<\/a><\/span>
\nA first look at official images of Darren Wilson’s killing of Michael Brown.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

View on Google+<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Kicks self because the original version of this post got lost.] Yes, it's worth noting that, in the end, only Darren Wilson got to testify in the case of the shooting of Michael Brown. Brown did not, and, of course, never will. I haven't written much about my thoughts on the #Ferguson thang, especially the … Continue reading “History is written by the survivors”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106],"tags":[762,761],"class_list":["post-48546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts","tag-ferguson","tag-fergusondecision"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":49849,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/03\/16\/taking-the-ferguson-doj-report-seriously.html","url_meta":{"origin":48546,"position":0},"title":"Taking the Ferguson DoJ report seriously","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 16-Mar-15 8:16am","format":false,"excerpt":"This is welcome news. The tribalistic political Us vs Them has, in this case, blinded conservatives to what should be red meat for them: abuse of government power and infringement on civil liberties. If the FBI were accused of committing half the crap that the Ferguson PD is (based on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":48610,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/01\/cops-have-first-amendment-rights-too.html","url_meta":{"origin":48546,"position":1},"title":""Cops have first amendment rights too"","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 1-Dec-14 6:55am","format":false,"excerpt":"Yes, they do, and I don't think anyone has denied that. Nonetheless, the St Louis Police Officers Association is unhappy because some members of the St Louis Rams have also made a public expression of their opinions, coming out onto the playing field protesting police violence against the African-American community.The\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":49773,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/03\/07\/so-maybe-there-was-a-reason-for-the-rioting-in-ferguson.html","url_meta":{"origin":48546,"position":2},"title":"So maybe there was a reason for the rioting in Ferguson","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 7-Mar-15 5:00am","format":false,"excerpt":"The infamous Michael Brown shooting -- right, wrong, or indifferent -- was just one in a long series of incidents where the police not only engaged in racist behavior, but treated the population largely as a revenue-generating body, the more fines and citations the better (and the closer to meeting\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":48530,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/25\/a-small-thing-to-give-to-the-ferguson-community.html","url_meta":{"origin":48546,"position":3},"title":"A small thing to give to the Ferguson community","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 25-Nov-14 4:52pm","format":false,"excerpt":"But still a thing. Originally shared by +Doyce Testerman: In case anyone else is staring at the news in impotent horror and shame: Ferguson Public Library has a donate button.http:\/\/www.ferguson.lib.mo.us Ferguson Public Library - Home Ferguson Municipal Public Libary is located in Ferguson, Missouri. The mission of the Ferguson Municipal\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":44661,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/08\/27\/yeah-i-cant-see-a-reason-why-people-were-upset.html","url_meta":{"origin":48546,"position":4},"title":"Yeah, I can't see a reason why people were upset","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 27-Aug-14 2:55pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Community policing at its not-so-finest.'As darkness fell on Canfield Drive on August 9, a makeshift memorial sprang up in the middle of the street where Michael Brown's body had been sprawled in plain view for more than four hours. Flowers and candles were scattered over the bloodstains on the pavement.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":48533,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/25\/rt-stonekettle-just-to-sum-upconservatives-tell-black-america-to-shut-up-and-accept-ferguson-decision.html","url_meta":{"origin":48546,"position":5},"title":"RT @Stonekettle Just to sum up:\n\nConservatives tell black America to shut up and accept Ferguson decision","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 25-Nov-14 7:26am","format":false,"excerpt":"RT @Stonekettle Just to sum up: Conservatives tell black America to shut up and accept Ferguson decision And begin 9th investigation into Benghazi. View on Twitter","rel":"","context":"In "~Tweets"","block_context":{"text":"~Tweets","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/tweets"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48546\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}