At several points in the video of Bland's arrest, posted Tuesday to the department's YouTube channel, video of a person walking or a car driving by are cut or repeat themselves as the audio continues uninterrupted....So the editors of the clip -- whoops! alleged editors -- got caught. Who cares? Think about Ferguson: As Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs pointed out repeatedly, Gateway Pundit's Jim Hoft (a St. Louis resident) spent months floating a story favorable to Officer Darren Wilson -- that he suffered an “orbital blowout fracture of the eye socket” in his encounter with Michael Brown. Never mind the fact that the story was quickly discredited; never mind the fact that Johnson caught Hoft implying that an image from an online medical site was an X-ray of Wilson's injury; and never mind the fact that Wilson's own grand jury testimony debunked the claim. It was out there, it planted seeds in people's minds (especially after Ann Coulter ID'd the stock image as Wilson's X-ray), and so it helped shape public opinion, as it was intended to do.
In one section of the video, a tow truck driver can be seen walking toward Texas State Trooper Brian Encinia's cruiser before walking out of the frame. Fifteen seconds later, the same driver reappears and completes the same walk out of the frame as audio of Encinia speaking plays uninterrupted....
At another point in the video, a white car drives into the camera's view but then immediately disappears. Seconds later, the same car reappears and makes a left-hand turn.
The same goes for the lying "Witness 40," who was allowed to testify before the grand jury considering the case despite her massive credibility problems. The Smoking Gun put it best:
... the woman concocted a story that is now baked into the narrative of the Ferguson grand jury, a panel before which she had no business appearing.The video edit of the Bland arrest clip isn't as dramatic, but even if we find out what we didn't see in the clip and what we subsequently learn is damning, this original clip will simply be accepted as fact by those who want to believe in what law enforcement did in this case. The point is to steer the case so that cop supporters can choose their own facts; this clip, regrettably, will help get that job done.
... “Witness 40”’s testimony about seeing Brown batter Wilson and then rush the cop like a defensive end has repeatedly been pointed to by Wilson supporters as directly corroborative of the officer’s version of the August 9 confrontation. The “Witness 40” testimony, as Fox News sees it, is proof that the 18-year-old Brown’s killing was justified, and that the Ferguson grand jury got it right.
7 comments:
I just read the article about the doctored video at the NBC link and the comments are a fascist/racist cesspool. Proving your point.
yes. and yes. the enforcement is able to create reasonable doubts and it proves that it has been their routine for sure
The thing that stands out to me is the number of right wingers effectively saying this poor woman deserved to be arrested and jailed, because she was not sufficiently respectful to a police officer.
Now these are the same people who furiously demand the right to own as many guns as they like, to use against a tyrannical state if its oppression goes too far. It's obvious however that they worship authority figures. If the police were ever to come to round them up, they'd be all "Yes sir, right away sir, which cattle car would you like me to enter sir?"
Seldom has the empty freedom-loving windbaggery of self-labelled conservatism been so obvious.
Even the doctored video is disturbing; the cop is clearly out of control and power-tripping over her refusal to grovel the way he wants. How much worse could the unedited version be?
And now we're seeing news reports that she'd allegedly told intake personnel she'd tried to commit suicide after losing a (presumably unwed!!!) pregnancy a year ago. Yeh, like that isn't targeted to smearing her further.
Just saw a news report that a new version of the dash cam video has been released to fix "glitches" in the original version. Yeh, right.
It's so beside the point to blame these police victims for how they act or react to authority. Lets all just assume (short of armed resistance) the worst attitude from any police victim. Rudeness, noncompliance, disrespect, all that. Assume that any encounter with police is going to catch the object of that encounter when they are not at their best for whatever reason. Of course she probably would be alive today if she had kissed his ass during the stop. She didn't. It was the professional in charge of the encounter at that point to use their training and experience to keep things cool. He failed utterly. As far as I can see, police all over this country are being trained to escalate tension rather than the other way around. Their training should emphasize the opposite. They want to be appreciated as heros. Cutting a citizen some slack, even if they piss you off a little can be heroic.
I truly believe that these kind of police killings are the post lynching era version of lynching. There are reliable national statistics on lynching from 1905 to 1968 or so. Not so, with police killing of unarmed black people. That has to change now.
In the LEO community "Witness 40" would be referred to as 96. But, as you note the key is too get these lies into the right-wing internet fart buuble where it can be absorbed and regurgitated amongst conservatives.
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