Black newspaper was offered facts of Mike Brown shooting a month ago

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Black newspaper was offered facts of Mike Brown shooting a month ago… but refused to print the facts because the editor was worried about alienating his newspaper’s audience.

J.P. Travis: Born and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1976 graduate of University of Michigan, father, grandfather, husband, founder and CEO of Travelyn Publishing (http://www.travelynpublishing.com/), and passionate anti-government believer in individual liberty.

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  • I think that this is a very clear cut case.

    The young man was a thug and his "karma" was swift.

    He wanted to be hard grilled and "street" and he paid the ultimate consequences of that.

    All he had to do was not walk on the road as that is what normal people don't do. Be cool and let the cop go by as it is possible the cop didn't even know jack about the store robbery that JUST happened before the cop came along.

    But nooooo.... He had to be hood and he had to be street and therefore he didn't act cool when the cop came along, ESCALATED a situation that didn't need to be escalated and then assaulted the cop, possibly went for his gun, ran when he should have stayed put, possibly ran back to prove he was hood and the cop's aimed finally came on point.

    It is what it is. He could be white and I still say the same thing: Don't be hood nor street nor hard grilled nor escalate situations that don't need to be escalated with the cops. It is common sense... ESPECIALLY if you JUST committed a crime and the cop may not know about it.

    He may not have deserved to die at several points of that situation, but by escalating he escalated his chances of unnecessary and shameful death (shameful for his family and community).

    There is NO EVIDENCE that the cop was on the street looking for Black people to shoot. If that was so he could have killed Brown and his companion during those times in the situation where Brown did not deserved to be shot.

    This situation is very clear cut and the WRONG person to use for "racial justice".

    The situation with Martin is vastly different: Even if Martin was a thug... 1. He did not steal from anyone that night that he was shot 2. He was not part of any illegal activity that night, and no evidence was present to suggest that he was part of any illegal activity recently 3. He was not dealing with a cop so he didn't have to obey Zimmerman nor answer his questions 4. He escalated perhaps because he wanted to be hood and because he was young, however, Zimmerman had no right to pursue someone with a loaded weapon based on his personal biases nor opinions, as a private citizen with no training nor certification as a cop, and once he was told to stop pursuit. 5. Martin should have never touched Zimmerman, but Zimmerman should have never pursued.

    They both initiated and they both escalated and they both acted wrongly. To be completely just either both should have died or both should have lived even with blows and injuries on each other. It was a wrongful death situation in that case and Zimmerman got off easy. Regardless of Martin's personal behavior before meeting with Zimmerman, Martin did not deserve to die up to the point he put his hands on Zimmerman that was his only mistake that night. His ONLY mistake. He paid for his life for that. Had he turned the tables on Zimmerman: called the cops on Zimmerman, Martin could have had a life now. Brown and Martin are two completely different cases. Brown made several mistakes up to the point of his death. He caused his death on several points during that evening. It was escalation and then more escalation. The only just result would have been for him to die or to be severely handicapped for he DID assault the officer and that is a no no. Had he killed the officer he would have NO LIFE whatsoever of any kind either in jail for the rest of his life or dead. He sealed his life over many times. He is not a perfect example of a rather innocent person minding his own business.

  • Actually, there's a very simple and pragmatic reason why the St Louis American didn't publish this information. If you had taken the time to read their eloquent editorial, King outlines below:

    "In each case, the reporter claimed to get the testimony from an unnamed person who allegedly heard it from an unnamed official who allegedly heard the testimony from Wilson. In plain terms, if questioned how they know what they are telling us to be true, the reporter’s answer would be, “Wilson told somebody who told somebody who told me.” In our view, this chain of testimony is far too weak for this information to be published or taken seriously – we need to hear from Wilson, not a reporter who listened to somebody who listened to somebody who listened to Wilson. "

    Moreover, one of the key "independent" sources in the Post-Dispatch's story yesterday, Dr. Judy Melinek, has already been thoroughly discredited just within the past 24 hours.

    • Newspapers have printed less solid information without disclaimers (such as the ENTIRE Mike Brown supporter side of things!). If they wanted to appear even SLIGHTLY unbiased, they would have printed these new reports with disclaimers. But they don't care about being unbiased. All they care about is printing "facts" that support the narrative that this was a racially-based "execution" perpetrated by an institutionally racist police system. The fact is no one on St Swisher has used the word "allegedly" when talking of Darren Wilson is telling of how they want this to play out.

      • First, StrinaM, I think you and I can find common ground in that there is a grotesque problem with all American media (of course, you only think the problem is the "liberal" media, while I think the problem is with ALL media--left, right, and everything in-between).

        Having said this, don't feel sorry for Darren Wilson. He's alive with $500K of free money waiting for him on the other end of this. Brown is dead, apparently, to believe you guys, deserving of death for "punching a cop" and jaywalking.

        As far as the institutional racism stuff, I don't want to waste my breath on that one. It's over your guys' heads. As the saying goes, "You can't fight city hall," along those same lines, "You can't fight Bill O'Reilly."

        • "Brown is dead, apparently, to believe you guys, deserving of death for “punching a cop” and jaywalking"

          It is this kind of divorce from reality why arguing with people like you is pointless. Your rhetorical device - to purposely misstate what has been said here and what we already know to be true - erecting straw men takes the debate nowhere. I have yet to see where you actually have a legitimate point of view on this topic. I see trolling only.

          This is a simple case. Just as Duke lacrosse was. If the race baiters and others choose to dismiss the evidence and cling to the social justice element, that's fine but perpetuating the victim mentality serves no one except the race baiters.

          • Conflicting testimony=probable cause

            Not only is that "legitimate," it happens to be the law. No "race-baiting" (though I do find the excuse-making for when a 19 year white female assaults a cop somewhat interesting), no "victim-mentality", or whatever else Tom Sowell, Clarence Thomas, and Ben Carson teach you guys, just plain ol' red-white-and-blue American law. As of yet, no one has rebutted that point.

          • Hey professor I saw your website, How come you didn't come clean as a professional leftwing troll?

          • Guys, I'll say this once simply because I don't want you to harass the poor guy in question. I am not who you think I am. If we have the same moniker, it's a coincidence. Whether you choose to believe me or not is up to you.

          • When I was reading his stuff it was almost too prepared, too perfect like scripted. I bet some of our comments make it on his site. We will be red neck/ hillbilly conservatives and he will write how brilliant he was in debating us...

            So poked around a little bit and whoomp there is was....A liberal blogger, but he doesn't really get a lot of visits..maybe this is a way to drum up hits on his site to sell adds for Wendy Davis adult toys, and Hillary T-shirts and such...For being a lefty looks like he sure likes the almighty dollar...

          • Conflicting testimony equals probable cause? That is the dumbest thing you've written so far. The two bear no relationship. Show me the law you claim exists. The 19 yo is a deflection that has nothing to do with MB and Wilson, does it?

          • Alright, guys. No need for the hyperbole. "Yuck, yuck, huh, huh,....'the dumbest thing you've written so far'...huh, huh."

            Let's elevate this back to where we were before.

            The "conflicting testimony=probable cause" aphorism was an attempt to dumb things down for you guys. But, I'll make it more esoteric since that's apparently what you prefer.

            What's getting lost is that the grand jury process is not a trial in a court of law which seats a petit jury to decide the verdict of a case. It's a mechanism that is controlled by the prosecutor (not a judge) that is only meant to evaluate whether there is 'probable cause' to bring a bill of indictment. In other words 'beyond reasonable doubt' is not a necessary threshold to meet in a grand jury.

            To meet the 'probable cause' threshold all you need is for some people to say that a crime happened and some people say that a crime didn't happen--conflicting accounts of events. 'Probable cause' is not a very high standard. If you have conflicting accounts of an event, believe it or not, that's enough, as a matter of common law, to bring forth a bill of indictment.

            Now, let's bring this back to MB and DW. We have at least a half dozen eye witnesses that corroborate that MB was in a surrender position when he was killed. Let's put aside their credibility (I know you guys don't believe them, and I'll deal with that at another time) for the moment. Bottom line, this is what they say they saw. On the DW side, you have his testimony and the 'claim' that they have testimony from at least half dozen other black witnesses supporting his account (I'm skeptical, but I'll deal with that issue another time). Bottom line, if you have some people saying they saw the event one way and some people saying they saw it another way (i.e. conflicting accounts in my equation) , as a matter of law, that meets the 'probable cause' standard (i.e. probable cause in my equation).

            By the way, a grand jury was not necessary, as a matter of law. DAs have very, very broad discretion. As a matter of law, it was within McCulloch's power to indict immediately.

          • Hey professor I say your website, How come you didn't come clean as a professional leftwing troll?

          • Doing the same search, I saw someone else being called a left wing capitalist. George Soros. I guess the term means never coming by any money honestly.

    • Here's where I found the story, which links to the original in the LATimes, not exactly a right-wing biased source, and the LATimes makes mention of corroborating info from the Washington Post and the official autopsy obtained by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

      http://theconservativetreehouse.com/2014/10/22/wow-accidental-expose-feds-offered-mike-brown-evidence-to-editor-of-black-audience-newspaper-who-refused-information-because-of-backlash-fear-from-audience/

      Here's what the LATimes had to say:

      "Chris King, managing editor of the St. Louis American, a newspaper for black audiences, said law enforcement officials had offered him the leaks, saying “they had been briefed on the evidence and it didn't look good for Michael Brown supporters,” but he declined and decried “third-party hearsay” in an editorial for the paper."

      So you can plainly see that information was offered to the editor by government officials - he admits that - and he refused to print it. Mr. King can talk all he wants about the "chain of testimony" but one of the things he was offered was the video from the party story, showing Mike Brown robbing the place and acting like a bully/thug. To refuse such information is irresponsible for a newspaperman, especially given how much violence the mythical Brown-as-victim meme has caused. IMO, Mr. King should be held responsible in civil court for some of the property damage in Ferguson. Being a coward and worrying about your business is not an adequate excuse for burying the truth.

      • Travis, you're mixing apples with oranges. The discussion was about why King refused to accept the latest testimony in the grand jury relating to Wilson's version of events, not about the convenience store video. The convenience store video was released at a press conference by Chief Jackson two months ago. King did not need that video from government officials. Moreover, the video is irrelevant to the case. It's just character assassination and it only gives haters (i.e. you guys) a talking point to hang your hat on. Chief Jackson stated at a televised press conference that I KNOW we've all seen that Wilson knew nothing of the convenience store incident when he confronted Brown and Johnson.

        • If it's character assassination to show the guy robbing a party store then I maintain this was a character that deserved assassination.

          And no, the quote in my comment is not about the video, it's about the evidence in the shooting. My God, man, that's King's own words and it clearly is NOT about the video: "they had been briefed on the evidence and it didn't look good for Michael Brown supporters." How is that about the video?

          • Travis, thrice hearsay is a lower standard than what's in the National Enquirer. I know that you know that. But, I'll let you continue to flex your muscles in front of everybody. ;)

          • "Travis, thrice hearsay is a lower standard than what’s in the National Enquirer."

            And yet, as it turns out, completely accurate. Here's the thing about anonymous sources and third party hearsay in journalism: if the info they give you turns out to be incorrect, all deals about anonymity are out the window and the sources can expect to see their names in print for all the world to see. That's the protection the newspaper holds over their head. Remember when Drudge outed Monica Lewsinksy? That was hearsay too, but the story was correct, wasn't it?

          • Cape, we've already covered the "orbital socket" ground. That so-called photo of a guy with a fractured orbital socket was a photo of the long-deceased motocross racer Jim McNeil. It was a hoax that melted away within 24 hours of its release.

          • I guess you replied to the wrong comment, but let's talk about the orbital fracture rumor. Every story I saw that mentioned that the rumor was false also mentioned that the officer was taken to the hospital with a swollen face. I would love to hear your explanation of how, while he was executing an innocent man in the street, the officer's face was injured badly enough to be so swollen he needed a trip to the hospital.

            I await your explanation but I won't hold my breath.

          • Travis, your, "What a crock of shit!" commentary plus the "no verdict" and "no sentence" comments validate my point. As I said, very dismissive.

            Thanks.

          • Drb, there is evidence---eye witness testimony. A COURT OF LAW is where the truthfulness of that testimony is supposed to be examined.

          • When all else fails, they always resort to the race card...

            Unfortunately for Mr. Leftwing, that ain't gonna work on me.

          • "Even if we accept your facts, Brown, an American, should have been entitled to the very same due process that you are demanding Wilson receive. Instead, the cop issues his own “sentence” to Brown right there on Canfield Avenue."

            What a crock of shit! He defended himself because Michael Brown acted like a thug and it has nothing to do with the nomenclature used in a courtroom. There was no "verdict" and there was no "sentence" except in your twisted mind. The fact that Brown died is tragic but it's nobody's fault but his own. Number one, he robbed a party store; and number two, on the way home from robbing the party store he attacked a cop who asked him to get out of the middle of the road. I want to feel sorry for Brown. My Christian upbringing tells me I should feel sorry for him. But knowing what we know about his activities that day? I can't feel sorry for him. He was a thug, a bully, and a detriment to society who very likely would never have been anything but a drain on his fellow citizens for the rest of his life.

          • conflicting testimony=probable cause.

            No it doesn’t.There is almost always confilcting testimony as there is usually someone trying to hide his/her own wrongdoing. (you believe that’s Wilson, most here believe it’s Johnson) You have to have some evidence to support the testomony before you can invoke probable cause. And so far the edidence supports Wilson’s version of the events.

          • On the contrary, Travis, it is not sophomoric. It's squarely on point. Your wording is eerily supportive of my argument, as well. You stated that it "wasn't a judge issuing a sentence." That's the problem!

            Even if we accept your facts, Brown, an American, should have been entitled to the very same due process that you are demanding Wilson receive. Instead, the cop issues his own "sentence" to Brown right there on Canfield Avenue.

            It seems to me, what's really going on within my discussions with all of you, is that Brown is really only "3/5" worthy of the very same due process that you are demanding for Wilson. Travis, I'm not going to come right out and say that you have an unconscious racial bias. I happen to think you're a well-intentioned guy. But, I am troubled by how such a fundamental part of what it means to be an American, to have basic and fundamental rights under our constitution, seems to fly so effortlessly over your head when it comes to Mike Brown.

          • "Moreover, assuming the officer was punched in the face, that does not warrant the death penalty."

            What a sophomoric attempt to obfuscate the issue. This wasn't a court with a judge and jury issuing a sentence, and you damn well know it. This was a cop, a cop you now admit was attacked, who fired his gun to protect himself. Simple as that. It's always been as simple as that. The only thing complicating matters is leftwing race mongers like Al Sharpton, who by the way has never been correct on an issue in his life, and newspapers like the St. Louis American who are too cowardly to print the truth when it's offered to them on a silver platter.

          • Travis, I'll do you one better. I will assume that the "facial swelling" account is accurate for the sake of argument. Even assuming this account, can you point me to one report that says Wilson was attempting to effect an arrest? He's had two months to craft his story around the evidence (this, in and of itself is unheard of, by the way), and even NOW he's made no such claim. Moreover, assuming the officer was punched in the face, that does not warrant the death penalty.

            You're correct that I responded to the wrong post. But, I'll say it anyway:

            conflicting testimony=probable cause

            Let's indict and take it to court.

          • Why are you so wedded to the narrative that Wilson (in your words) executed Brown? I've seen or heard nothing from a legitimate source that supports your view. The forensics don't support it, eye witnesses don't support it. and Holder and the other race baiters weren't there despite the irresponsible comments they have made. So on what exactly are hanging your hat?

            As I've said before, this is Duke lacrosse all over again.

          • Isn't it funny how the story changed as subsequent witnesses came forward?

            Fox News....you're so funny with your feeble attempts to pigeon hole me or anyone else. You are a self-parody with your shithouse lawyer posts.

          • Cape, let's compare sources: Mine's YouTube; yours is Breitbart/Conservative Tribune. Uhhmm....ok.

            By the way, "Coming toward him" is not a "bull-rush." Also, by Wilson's own account (which I am skeptical of), Brown was 35 feet away. If a wounded, unarmed man 35 feet away poses a lethal threat to a presumably trained cop, then Wilson is not cut out for police work.

          • How about this:

            http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/10/us/ferguson-michael-brown-shooting-witnesses/

            http://www.buzzfeed.com/jimdalrympleii/new-witnesses-video-offer-details-on-michael-browns-shooting

            http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/09/11/1328977/-New-witnesses-to-Michael-Brown-killing-say-he-had-his-hands-up

            http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/13/michael-brown-shooting-video_n_5815072.html

            There is your video on four left leaning news sites, right? Therefore, by your logic, that makes them less accurate to your argument because they have a political slant right?

            When I get home from work I can take a search for the video I posted on youtube. That will increase its value right?

          • First off, the video itself is what I am linking and that could come from anywhere including youtube. The content of the video is harder to dispute since there is no opinion involved (as there would be from a Breitbart article). If your video is valid, then how is mine not? You do not know the profile of the person that posted your video and therefore cannot identify their political leaning. Therefore your source point is moot as the content of the video is what was being expressed, not the source from an opinion site (which youtube also falls into).

            Beyond that, the officer, if his account is to be believed (and the medical evidence that was released is to be believed) he had a fractured orbital socket which would greatly increase his adrenaline and impair his vision. Brown may have appeared much closer than he was, and had already proved himself to be a threat.

            Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you have been beaten to a point of having bones break and then feeling that that person was no longer a threat?

        • Funny when you mix apples and oranges and bullshit it's always OK. Also funny is when you're irrelevant it's OK. Another liberal hypocrite. Surprise!

      • This is what he's talking about:

        http://www.argusnewsnow.com/story/2014/10/31/news/statements-on-leak-discredited-in-interview-with-forensic-expert/125.html

        Brown defenders dug up a counter to Melinek - some guy in Louisiana - who said gunpowder residue on Brown's hand doesn't necessarily mean he was going for the officer's gun - it could mean he was merely "attempting to deflect the weapon if it was being pointed at him..." which is just about the dumbest thing I've ever heard. It's word play, nothing more. If you reach for an officer's gun it doesn't matter one iota whether you're trying to TAKE the gun or just swat it away from pointing at you: the officer is still going to shoot you. Everybody in the world with a two-digit IQ knows that.

        • Actually, Travis, her discrediting is even more damning, as it was her words and it was on television. She admitted:

          1) Her quotes were taken out of context by the St Louis Post Dispatch relating to whether Brown went for Wilson's gun.

          2) She admitted that at some point during the interaction that Brown's hands could have been raised in surrender.

          3) The 5 or 6 shots that missed Brown could have occurred either when he was running away and/or when he was in a surrender position.

          Again, these were all her admissions and it was televised. So, we don't have to rely on 'shady' anonymous sourcing in newspapers. These were HER words on TV.

    • However that has been happening since the beginning of politics... this is neither surprising nor shocking... NYT does it all the time as well as other publications across the world. The media is doing disservice to the world, but again not surprising nor shocking.

    • And when a newspaper is scared of it's intended audience, so their editorial policy is "Don't print anything that will get us burned to the ground".

  • It's a business and part of the media...It's more important to sell papers and keep money coming in than to tell the truth....

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