Not a lot. It can happen in a fall or being jerked around in an auto or being hit by a struggling individual. I know one lady that had one from waking her husband from a nightmare.

um, there is videotape of him some minutes earlier pushing a store clerk into a wall...

noooo. he'd have to do something first...but what if he insulted me? I might snap

No Shrug, I'm anti killing of unarmed citizens by cops. There are just way too many instances of such happening that are just wrong and there doesn't appear to be any repercussions for police. And in the vast majority of those cases that I've followed, the police start out by saying that the cop was justified, then a previously unknown phone or cruiser video surfaces that shows exactly the opposite. Then maybe I only follow those that turn out wrong-who knows.

We just don't know yet who escalated to physical combat or who was being defensive. I doubt that we'll ever know or that if the cop was the escalator, that he suffers any repercussions. I don't think continuing to be a cop in Ferguson is in his future and his next activity will be to file for PTSD disability.

it happened minutes before...not days, not weeks...

well, he had just committed a crime and there are several eyewitness accounts that he attacked the officer at his vehicle, resulting in a serious head injury...?

Defending your life is NOT "murder". Barney Fife? Really, Zen? Are you anti gun and anti self defense?

As I understand it, it wouldn't be admissible in court, unless Brown took the stand and then it could only be used to discredit Brown's direct testimony, or as evidence of a continuing crime spree or such. It's a 'prior bad act'. That's pretty much why the police released the tape.

kh; Give me a little more of what you're looking for as a scenario. Bill of rights, what else could have happened with Brown, why I wouldn't necessarily and automatically believe the cop over the citizen??

Didn't think it was you.

I haven't mentioned any of the supposed 'evidence' at all. We know only three pertinent 'facts' at this point--the two boys/teens/men/criminals/what-evers were walking in the street, the officer decided to 'contact' them, and one of the boys is dead. Everything else is 'leaks', self or agenda serving statements, and supposition.

Sorry about the 'hatchet man', it should have said hatchet guy.

How much force does it take to break an eye socket?

...and reaching into HIS car window to do it?

well, I mostly agree. I am prejudiced by the known theft moments earlier. But, I can imagine myself fighting and scratching and kicking an officer. sorry, just can

zen, can you take us through a scenario? interesting part of the discussion. let's have it.

oh-I did not remove a point, I gave you one for the discussion

hatchet man? I must have missed that comment. not the same. I did not make that comparison. I do think force of size is a weapon of sorts. If you weigh a third or more than me and you push my body against a car and you take your fist and slam my head against a hard surface, why is that less than the threat of a firearm? in all of your comments, you have not mentioned the police officer's head wound once. why?

Yeah, and the little asian store manager probably didn’t imagine telling Brown to give back the item he pocketed would lead into him being shoved into the racks. Brown already had demonstrated he would rather seriously escalate a situation then do what is right.

We will know what led to the wrestling over the gun if we feel we can trust the word of an officer who has never had any prior experience with police brutality or racism over the word of a friend of a guy who just assaulted a store manager over a stupid misdemeanor robbery. I do believe the officer’s account. Brown could have chose to run from the store manager as well, but he didn’t, did he?
I’m sorry, but if you knock me in my head, scratch my face repeatedly, and fight for my gun, then take off running when the gun fires, I am not going to trust if you if you start heading back towards me, hands up or not. It could have been a rouse to get close enough to go for the gun again. Michael should have froze.

So we don't need The Bill of Rights anymore?

We will never know what led to that wrestling or grabbing for the gun. Did the officer grab Brown's shirt through the car window? Was Brown trying to keep the officer from drawing his gun? We'll never know.

But equating to hatchet man get's is nowhere.

Khalling: Asking why requires more than a one or two sentence reply. I'm not ignoring evidence or eye witness accounts in this matter, I haven't seen any yet that's been uncontested or proven from either side--I'm ignoring published news accounts of individuals' and groups' statements of those who are seeking publicity and propagandizing their own viewpoints and agendas, including citizens, communities, and government. Those news accounts are selected and aired, from those offering them, that are judged to provide the most entertainment value and the best ratings for the news agency, not necessarily the most accurate or complete.

My interest in this discussion is that of the individual rights of a citizen of whatever color and of whatever activity history in the non-voluntary interaction with government and government employees--particularly those employees trained and armed to inflict death.

In an objectivist society, we agree that we need government to provide retributive (not pro-active) force to correct and enforce violations of our individual and natural rights. We supposedly select and train people in those positions to handle those necessary interactions in manners and with means appropriate to the situation and information available at that point in time and in such a manner as to provide for and protect the individual rights of the citizen.

We go so far as to provide and require training and education in verbal and psychological techniques for such inter-actions; personal combat and restraint training designed to be appropriate for the situation such as judo and joint locks and physical conditioning; non-lethal weapons and training in their use such as batons, pepper sprays, tasers, and even everyday items as flashlights, keys, clipboards, etc. We lay out in training and education that the least must be accomplished before the worst. We fully intend that such inter-actions not be escalated to a point inappropriate to the supposed infraction or reaction of the citizen. The onus in such inter-actions and the results supposedly rests on the government actor--not the citizen. That's the reasoning behind the Bill of Rights and the requirement of 'Proof Beyond Reasonable Doubt' and 'Better That 10 Guilty Men Go Free Than One Innocent Man Be Punished'.

I could go on like this for pages and then begin listing those inter-actions that have gone so terribly bad for citizens ad infinitum, in just the last 10 years. To what point, if even those self proclaimed believers in the primacy of individual and natural rights excuse the result that a teenage boy whose only acknowledged infraction for police inter-action to that policemen's knowledge was walking in the street, winds up dead. None of us know what happened that night that led to the final result, or the intervening acts of either party, and I seriously doubt that we ever will.

But I'll proffer that in any such interaction between a citizen and a government actor that results in even the slightest violation, or even hint of such, of an individual or natural right of the citizen, that the government actor, at a minimum be removed from that job and prosecuted to the maximum extent possible. Until we as a society place such extreme limits on government and government employees, we will all cringe and feel nervous or even afraid when we receive a letter from the IRS, see a cop at our door, or the blue lights come on behind us. That is not what I define as a land of liberty. That is tyranny and pure luck that we haven't met in such an encounter, YET.

agreed. now watch that not be admissible in court...