Originally Posted By Dabob2 "She was discredited IN FRONT OF the Grand Jury, so I assume they gave her evidence no weight. " I dont think that's true. I think the revelations about her came out only after the GJ gave its verdict. And I'm 95% sure the "persecutor" never pressed her to reveal her unreliability. He just let her spill her bs unchallenged in the name of "getting it all out there." Only NOW is he saying she obviously wasn't there. I'm pretty sure he NEVER said that to the GJ. "But both the autopsy report and physical evidence supported Wilson's version of events." Some of it does but not all of it by any means. And because Wilson was allowed to wipe away DNA evidence and handle his own gun, much was compromised from the very beginning.
Originally Posted By skinnerbox <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/12/19/1353052/-Under-pressure-St-Louis-prosecutor-Bob-McCulloch-admits-he-called-witnesses-who-were-lying">http://www.dailykos.com/story/...re-lying</a> <> Under increasing pressure and scrutiny as the public learns that St. Louis prosecutor Bob McCulloch knowingly called a witness to testify on behalf of Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson who was actually never even at the scene of the shooting, McCulloch came forward today to speak publicly for the very first time since a decision was announced not to indict Darren Wilson. His full interview with St. Louis radio station AM 550, and a breakdown of that interview, are below. <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRYeRofVo8Q">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...eRofVo8Q</a> Since releasing an additional batch of documents from the grand jury proceedings, the public has learned that one witness in particular, Sandra McElroy, also popularly known as witness #40, was thoroughly discredited in her interrogation by the FBI a month before she ever appeared on two separate occasions before the grand jury. In this interrogation, the FBI proved that McElroy, whose testimony would eventually mirror Wilson's better than any other witness, was never actually at the scene of the shooting and had concocted an elaborate and preposterous hoax of a narrative on why she was there, how she drove in, how she mysteriously drove off the scene, how she saw the entire incident from close range, how nobody could confirm her being there, how she had a deep and ugly racist history, and so much more. By the time she finished her interview with the FBI, McElroy had perjured herself not one or two times, but well over 100 times. Her story, insulting, demeaning, and fundamentally outrageous was completely debunked by the FBI over and over again, yet Bob McCulloch, fully aware of this, called her not once, but twice as a witness. Before his interview today, McCulloch had only two options on what he could say about allowing McElroy to testify. 1. McCulloch could've said that he was completely and totally unaware of how thoroughly discredited McElroy was as a witness and that he didn't learn until after she testified that she had a history as a compulsive liar and had even injected herself into a high-profile criminal case in St Louis decades earlier. This would seem far-fetched, since her interrogation by the FBI was included in the grand jury documents and her own sordid history was as easy to find as a few quick Google search. or 2. McCulloch could admit he was fully and completely aware that McElroy actually concocted her entire story from scratch, that she was never on the scene the day Wilson killed Mike Brown, that he knew she was a racist hack and Wilson supporter who meant the case harm, that she had perjured herself extensively before the FBI, and, if called before the grand jury would also perjure herself over and over and over again. This would seem to be the more likely of the two options, but it'd be hard to imagine McCulloch ever actually admitting such a thing. Today, however, in the brazen and flippant manner in which he has done nearly everything regarding this case, he did just that. McCulloch fully admitted that witness #40 "clearly wasn't present" at the scene of the shooting and that "she recounted her story right out of the newspaper." Actually hearing him admit this is shocking because it's an almost indefensible strategy to call a witness before a grand jury when that witness has already been thoroughly discredited as a destructive liar who willfully perjured herself. The point is this—Sandy McElroy was not a witness. To call her to testify as such, not once, but twice, makes no legal, moral, or ethical sense whatsoever. In his radio interview, McCulloch said he "determined early on" that he would allow witnesses to testify even if "their statements were not accurate." However, McElroy was not an inaccurate eyewitness who struggled to recount the facts of a traumatic event she actually witnessed, but is in a different category altogether. She wasn't inaccurate. She was delusional and destructive and nowhere near Canfield Drive on Aug. 9. To group her in with residents who were actually there, but gave wildly varying accounts, which is typical of eyewitnesses, is insincere at best. McElroy was not only dozens of miles away, she only came forward with the express intent of boosting Wilson's narrative. To this end, she was wildly successful and her testimony has now been quoted by Sean Hannity and Fox News hundreds of times as a form of evidence that Mike Brown "charged at Darren Wilson like a football player." Calling McElroy forward as a material witness to a shooting, knowing that she was not a witness at all, may actually be a federal crime. There is no doubt that McElroy committed perjury over and over again. She was told explicitly that if she testified that she witnessed this shooting when she was not anywhere near the scene, she would be committing a crime. But she doubled down repeatedly and was even allowed to present to the grand jury a fake journal she said she kept from the day of the shooting as a form of evidence proving that she was indeed a witness. The prosecutors are on record in the grand jury proceedings actually asking her to bring the journal with her when she returns to testify. Again, why go through these motions for someone who has been thoroughly discredited as a complete and total sham? As McElroy clearly committed perjury, the question now arises about whether Bob McCulloch suborned perjury. Here's the legal definition of the crime: It is a criminal offense to induce someone to commit perjury. In a majority of states, the offense is defined by statute. Under federal Criminal Law (18 U.S.C.A. § 1622), five elements must be proved to convict a person of subornation of perjury. It first must be shown that the defendant made an agreement with a person to testify falsely. There must be proof that perjury has in fact been committed and that the statements of the perjurer were material. The prosecutor must also provide evidence that the perjurer made such statements willfully with knowledge of their falsity. Finally, there must be proof that the procurer had knowledge that the perjurer's statements were false. It appears that all five elements of this crime were actually committed by Bob McCulloch in the case of Sandy McElroy. The following four elements of this crime are obvious and verifiable. On their own this is enormously troubling. 1. There must be proof that perjury was committed. CHECK. 2. The statements of the perjurer must be material. CHECK. 3. The perjurer has to have made such statements with willful knowledge of their falsity. CHECK. 4. There must be proof that the procurer (Bob McCulloch) had knowledge that the perjurer's statements were false. CHECK. The final element required is proof that the defendant made an agreement to testify falsely. A very strong case can be made that when the prosecution, fully and completely aware that McElroy did not witness the crime, asked her to bring in and present her journal from the day of the shooting, which was presented as evidence, that it was done so with the full knowledge that whatever was in it was completelyd false. In fact, the record shows that the prosecution knew that what was in the journal was false before they allowed it to be presented as evidence, but that they, in agreement with the witness, not only allowed her to perjure herself, but also fully encouraged the entire charade. In their questioning of McElroy, members of the grand jury are actually recorded as telling her that they do not believe her to be a liar even though the prosecution has now admitted that everything McElroy said that day was a lie. In essence, a perjurer was given a full platform, for hours and hours, over the course of two days, to poison the well. In his radio interview, McCulloch makes mention of the rarely used "investigative power" of grand juries, but witness #40, Sandra McElroy, had already been thoroughly investigated by trained professionals and found to lack all credibility. Amateur investigators were not needed in this case. Equally troubling is McCulloch's statement that he has no intention of bringing charges of perjury against McElroy. Why tell her before she testified that "perjury is a crime" if when she commits perjury, in the most flagrant way possible, in the most important case in the modern history of St. Louis, if no true intention existed to hold them to this? How does the threat of a perjury charge hold any weight at all if it's threatened, but not used in such an obvious case? Now that we know the facts of how McCulloch managed this case, a special prosecutor must be called and a new grand jury convened. <> McCulloch knew she wasn't present in Ferguson the day that Brown was shot. Yet the prosecutor put her in front of the GJ anyway. That one fact alone should bring him up on charges and institute a new GJ for this case. And shame on the Feds if they don't follow through with this action.
Originally Posted By skinnerbox <<... the accidental strangling death of a man resisting arrest...>> I'm sick and tired of reading this from you, Josh, and others who continue to push this fallacy regarding Garner's struggle for adequate oxygen. Do you have any idea, Josh, what your body would involutarily do if we reduced the flow of oxygen to your lungs? Do you know why people being executed in gas chambers shake violently during the process? They're being suffocated to death. Eric Garner was being suffocated by the cop. He wasn't able to get adequate oxygen. When people can't breathe they typically start thrashing around in an effort to get decent breaths. That's why prisoners are strapped in the gas chamber chair. And it's not a pretty sight. What Eric Garner did was exactly what you would have done had your oxygen flow been restricted as severely as his was. And forget the argument "He should have obeyed the officer and STOPPED MOVING as he was instructed to do!" nonsense. The officer violated his department's own directive to NOT use the choke hold. Eric Garner couldn't breathe properly, as evidenced by the fact that HE DIED. Eric Garner was NOT "resisting arrest." Eric Garner was trying to get the very oxygen he needed to stay alive that the officer was denying him with the choke hold. So please stop perpetuating this myth about him "resisting arrest." That's what the hate mongers at Fox News do. You should be above that crap.
Originally Posted By utahjosh <Eric Garner was NOT "resisting arrest."> Then why did the cop try to restrain him with a not-illegal (but against protocol) hold? Sure, thrashing when you can't breathe is totally understandable.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip Whether or not McCulloch knew she was lying or not is largely irrelevant to the outcome of the case. It is quite clear that her story fell apart in front of the Grand Jury. <<The grand jury broke for the afternoon halfway through McElroy’s testimony. When she returned a few weeks later, she offered up — for the first time — the obviously concocted, after-the-fact “journal” page. In this same return testimony, she admitted that the story about visiting a friend was a falsehood. Her account of seeing the beginning of the encounter between Wilson and Brown at the police car was also not true. Other big chunks of her story were things she probably learned on the Internet. So, everything she said to the FBI and to the grand jury under oath was invented. After that, the prosecutors followed the lead of the grand jurors, who lit into McElroy for her bigotry, and asked her a series of tough questions. We can’t know whether any grand jurors relied on McElroy’s testimony when making their decision, but certainly some in the media have pointed to her account when justifying the decision not to indict.>> Cited from: Witness 40 is a racist liar. Why did the Ferguson prosecutors have her testify? <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://nakedlaw.avvo.com/lisa-bloom/witness-40-racist-liar-why-ferguson-prosecutors-had-her-testify.html#ixzz3Ml6d3BBj">http://nakedlaw.avvo.com/lisa-...Ml6d3BBj</a>
Originally Posted By RoadTrip Both Garner and Brown were resisting arrest. Now you can question the tactics used in an attempt to control them and put them under arrest, but the fact remains that if they had submitted to arrest both men would be alive today. It takes a special kind of stupid to think you can resist arrest without suffering some type of negative consequences.
Originally Posted By utahjosh And before anyone replies, RoadTrip is NOT saying they deserved to die. He's not saying the officers did everything right.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 It still amounts to blaming the victim, IMO. And there are certainly cases where there was no resisting and the guy still gets shot. Like the 12 year old who was shot within literally 2 seconds of the cops pulling up. I'll repeat that. 12 years old. Two seconds. Now maybe in the Brown and Garner cases, a jury would have exonerated. But we'll never know, because the DA's in both cases failed to even get an indictment. Because they didn't want to. Those families never even got a shot at a fair trial. "It is quite clear that her story fell apart in front of the Grand Jury." That's not clear at all. As your own link said, we can't know if anyone was swayed by her. Some probably weren't, but if doesn't take many dissenters to fail to indict. And the "prosecutor" should clearly never have let her testify to begin with. IMO, there's a case for disbarment here.
Originally Posted By ecdc >>Then why did the cop try to restrain him with a not-illegal (but against protocol) hold?<< That's a great question, and it speaks volumes that you seem to assume the cops would only use force *if* someone is resisting. Have you seen the testimony of dozens of arrested people this past year in the protests talking about this? They all say the same thing: They were not doing anything, and after the cops decided to arrested them, the cops *in almost every case* said "Stop resisting." The cops say, "Stop resisting," because they can always file a report that the person they arrested was resisting. It justifies them using almost any amount of force and protects them from repercussions later. This is pretty much the worst-kept secret in this country: cops say "Stop resisting," as justification, not because people are always actually resisting.
Originally Posted By ecdc Wesley Lowery, a reporter for the Washington Post, talked about this extensively when he was arrested covering the protests in Ferguson. Lowery talked about how that was the most terrifying part of his encounter and arrest with police. He was doing *exactly* what they told him to do, then they still decided to arrest him, and as he stood there perfectly still, with his hands behind his back, the cops said, "Stop resisting." It was in that moment that he realized it was his word against the cops, and no one in the criminal justice system would believe him if the cops said he was resisting and used force against him, even if he wasn't doing anything wrong. (Aside: If the arrests of reporters in Ferguson doesn't outrage all you Constitution-loving conservatives, then kindly never, ever complain about how Obama doesn't respect the Constitution ever again.)
Originally Posted By ecdc So let me make sure I understand: It's totally a coincidence that multiple unarmed black men have been gunned down and/or killed by cops, while white militia members can point high-powered rifles at federal agents without consequence? This definitely, absolutely, positively has nothing to do with racism in our culture? It's really all just because Eric Garner "resisted" arrest, Michael Brown walked down the middle of the street, Trayvon Martin bothered to possibly defend himself against a psychopath, Tamir Rice took the orange plastic off his toy gun, and John Crawford had no business shopping for an air rifle in a Wal-Mart...because...you know...it might upset people? But a lone nut who also shot his girlfriend murders two cops in an extremely rare (though no less tragic) occurrence and it's all because of protesters demanding better policing from public officials? Yeah, that makes perfect sense!
Originally Posted By RoadTrip <<But a lone nut who also shot his girlfriend murders two cops in an extremely rare (though no less tragic) occurrence and it's all because of protesters demanding better policing from public officials?>> I never said that. I don't like Shaprton much. I think he is an opportunist feeding on other's misery, and in it for no one but himself. That said, I don't blame him for the shooting. The shooter was mentally ill and had a criminal background. He shot his former girlfriend first and that obviously had nothing to do with Sharpton. He did not make his threatening Instagram until after he shot his ex. Personally, I doubt he ever thought about killing cops before he shot her, but following that action hatched a plot to go out in a "blaze of glory".
Originally Posted By ecdc The problem remains: the treatment of racism as some sort of other thing that just sort of flares up in only horrible individuals from time to time instead of something that is fundamentally woven into the fabric of our society. If only Michael Brown had done X, he'd still be alive. If only Eric Garner had done X, he'd still be alive. It is blaming the victim--and yes, they *are* victims. It is putting the burden and onus on black men to behave in a very specific way otherwise they somehow had it more coming. Know it sounds an awful lot like? Hey, if she hadn't been dressed like that, she wouldn't have been raped.
Originally Posted By ecdc You guys know that Rosa Parks wasn't the first test case the NAACP looked at, right? There were other black women who were arrested for refusing to give up their bus seats, But the NAACP reviewed their situations and, because the young women weren't perfect in every conceivable way, they decided not to use their situation. Claudette Colvin was an unmarried pregnant teenager, IIRC. They had to wait until they found the most impeccable, flawless black woman imaginable because they knew, way back in 1955, that otherwise the culture would vilify her instead of looking at the real problem: racism. Some things never change.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip Sorry, but when you are dealing with an armed cop you do EXACTLY what they say, period. Whether you are Black or white. I had a cop pull a gun on me when I was a teen. I was driving and had done absolutely nothing. After being pulled over the cop approached the car with his gun drawn and demanded that I get out of the car. He spread-eagled me on the side of the car... I had no idea what was going on and was scared to death. His partner took my license and registration and went back to the squad. Apparently he took the information and called it in. A few minutes later he came back and apologized, saying a car matching mine had been reported stolen in the area where I was driving...that is why I was stopped. Somehow I tend to think that if I had gotten all mouthy or acted in a threatening way towards the cops, it wouldn't have ended so well. It takes a special kind of stupid to argue or fight with an armed cop.
Originally Posted By CuriousConstance It sounds like even if you do everything that you're supposed to and do nothing wrong, depending on the cop you're dealing with, you might still be up the creek, especially if your skin isn't snow white.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 Of course it's wiser not to mouth off to a cop. However, some people don't always take the wisest course of action. Especially – big shock – teenagers. And mouthing off to a cop isn't supposed to be a capital, I. E. killable offense. And when a cop makes it one, where should the criticism be directed first? Should we be saying the kid shouldn't have mouthed off? Or that the cop shouldn't have shot him for that? Sure, we can say both. But to me, it's the latter we should be saying in big capital letters, and the former we should be saying almost as an aside.
Originally Posted By Yookeroo "The problem remains: the treatment of racism as some sort of other thing that just sort of flares up in only horrible individuals from time to time instead of something that is fundamentally woven into the fabric of our society." Yes. And when you deal with systemic racism like this, it's pretty easy to understand why you might not want to leap whenever someone with deadly authority asks you to jump. Sure, not the smartest move, but pretty darn understandable given human nature. "Oh, but the cops told him to get out of the streets" really sounds like blaming the victim. It's pretty disgusting actually. But hey, let's try to lawyer away each instance of law enforcement racism instead of addressing the problem. Shoot, it's almost impossible to get some people to even acknowledge the problem. "However, some people don't always take the wisest course of action. Especially – big shock – teenagers." Teenagers who are pretty clearly aware of the issues tat cops have with young black men. The actions are stupid, but the anger sure is understandable.
Originally Posted By barboy4 ///Sorry, when you are dealing with an armed cop you do EXACTLY what they say, period/// I'm not sure what to do with that above??? Is that your way of saying: "if you want to stay alive then out of self preservation obey all police directives/ commands.." or "You have a duty to follow all police directives/commands and if you don't then you deserve to be killed" Or both? Or neither?
Originally Posted By RoadTrip Obviously, the first. I was a white kid living in an almost totally white suburb 50 years ago, but my father was a lawyer and told me how I needed to behave around cops to avoid trouble. He was a consistent Republican but did not like guns at all. We were never even allowed to have toy guns as kids. But he made sure we knew what they could do, and that you never wanted to give a cop an excuse to use his.
