Even the Washington Post is reporting this (we posted earlier via Lew Rockwell)
When Ferguson, Mo., police officer Darren Wilson left the scene of the shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown, the officer returned to the police station unescorted, washed blood off his hands and placed his recently fired pistol into an evidence bag himself.
Such seemingly unorthodox forensic practices emerged from the voluminous testimony released in the aftermath of a grand jury decision Monday night not to indict Wilson.
The transcript showed that local officers who interviewed Wilson immediately after the shooting did not tape the conversations and sometimes conducted them with other police personnel present. An investigator with the St. Louis County Medical Examiner’s office testified that he opted not to take measurements at the crime scene.
“I got there, it was self-explanatory what happened,” said the investigator, whose name was not released, in his grand jury testimony. “Somebody shot somebody. There was no question as to any distances or anything of that nature at the time I was there.”
The investigator, described as a 25-year veteran, did not take his own photographs at the scene of the shooting because his camera battery was dead, he said. Instead, he relied on photographs shot by the St. Louis County Police Department.
Read Darren Wilson’s full grand jury testimony
The medical examiner and Ferguson Police Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
When Wilson returned to the police department after the shooting, he was permitted to drive by himself. No one photographed his bloodied hands before he washed up at the station because “there was no photographer available.”
Later, injuries to Wilson’s head caused by punches he said were thrown by Brown were photographed by a local detective at the Fraternal Order of Police building, not at police headquarters.
An FBI agent interviewed by the grand jury said he did tape his interview with Wilson. The agent, who was not identified, said Wilson washed up immediately after the shooting because he was worried about the danger presented by some one else’s blood, not about preserving evidence.
“His concern was not of evidence, but as a biohazard or what possible blood hazards it might attract,” said the agent, who like other witnesses was not identified by name.
At the crime scene, the medical examiner did not see stippling, the residue of gunpowder on clothing that can indicate shots fired at close range. Eventually an autopsy found evidence of stippling.
In the extended interviews, prosecutors do not come across as particularly aggressive or curious. But they do question police procedures on a couple of occasions, including the failure by Ferguson and St. Louis County investigators to tape their interviews with the officer after the shooting.
Prosecutors released a flood of documents and evidence Monday related to the August shooting of Michael Brown by Ferguson officer Darren Wilson. (AP)
Why not tape these answers? a detective with St. Louis County was asked. “It is just common practice that we do not,” the detective said.
Prosecutors also asked why Wilson was permitted to handle evidence in the case himself. “He had informed me that after he responded to the police station, he had packaged his weapon and then he directed my attention to an evidence envelope,’’ said the St. Louis County detective. Is it customary for the person who was involved in such an incident “to handle and package their own gun as evidence?” the detective was asked.
Not according to the rules of the St. Louis County Police Department, the detective said. But Ferguson may have had its own rules, the detective said. He was not aware of “any policies or procedures they have in place” on the topic.
“Darren Wilson had told me that he had packaged the weapon and it was currently in that evidence bag,” the detective told the grand jury. “Now, at that point in time I never checked to verify that; it was done later,” the detective said.
The accounts occasionally revealed inconsistencies. For example, two investigators who interviewed Wilson immediately after the incident said Wilson told them only one shot was fired by Wilson from inside the Chevy Tahoe police cruiser.
But in his testimony, Wilson said two shots were fired inside the car, among several misfires.
The shots and misfires preceded the fatal shooting of Brown on the street a few moments later. The shots were fired from the car after Wilson said Brown had reached in to the vehicle, swinging at the officer and grabbing for his pistol.
Wilson described Brown as having the intimidating size of “Hulk Hogan.” At one point, he said, Brown pushed his pistol down toward the floor, eventually forcing the firearm into the officer’s thigh. Wilson said Brown appeared to be trying to squeeze the trigger. Eventually, Wilson described getting free of Brown’s grip and raising his weapon toward his attacker. The first attempts by Wilson to get off a round at his attacker failed, he said, as the gun only clicked without firing a bullet.
Wilson ultimately said he fired two shots inside the vehicle. After one shot fired he noticed shattered glass and saw blood on his hand, an indication, he said, that Brown had been hit.
However, a Ferguson police officer and a detective with the St. Louis County Police said that Wilson told them only one shot was fired inside the car. The two officers — one a 38-year veteran of the Ferguson police force and the other a county detective — were among the first to talk with Wilson after the fatal shooting. Wilson and the other officers said the weapon failed to fire multiple times inside the vehicle.
ALSO SEE:
Ferguson – What Did You Expect? A Real Jury Decision? The System is Not Designed That Way
By Martin Armstrong
Armstrong Economics
November 26, 2014
Unfortunately, this is as expected as the Missouri grand jury decided not to indict a white police officer over the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager in August. I have explained that this need not even be racist because the grand jury system has become a joke. The government only needs to present whatever evidence they want. There is no obligation to present all the evidence because the Supreme Court has ruled that the Grand Jury is NOT entitled to all the evidence, since the trial jury will correct any deficiencies. The problem – indictments are not rendered against government people and handed out like candy for their enemies.
Angry crowds took to the streets around the Ferguson police department after the grand jury determined there was no probable cause to charge officer Darren Wilson with any crime for the shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown. This stupid decision is very serious. There should have been an indictment and then let the PUBLIC see all the evidence. Hiding this incident in such a manner will NEVER satisfy not merely the black community, but the entire world. This was a very stupid decision and this decision will only now feed into the war cycle on the civil unrest side. Ferguson is a spark that ignites a new trend that will be national. To save one officer, they will set in motion the deaths of so many others. This should have gone to trial and let the people decide.
The worst of the worst is that the Grand Jury proceedings are secret. No judge is present at the proceedings which are led by a prosecutor who is routinely pro-government. The target “defendant” has no right to even be present his case or to be informed of the proceedings secretly being conducted behind the scenes. There is no right to a lawyer in the Grand Jury. Among the legal community, Grand Jury indictments are considered a JOKE and the typical phase one hears among lawyers concern the rules are so one sided, the government could indict a “ham sandwich”.
The argument for such secrecy was unanimously upheld by the Supreme Court in Douglas Oil Co. of Cal. v. Petrol Stops Northwest, 441 US 211 (1979). The dissenting opinion was joined by Justices Burger and Stewart still concurred with the Court’s opinion as to the importance and rationale of grand jury secrecy. The gist of that secrecy was people would be afraid to appear and rat out others the government wanted to indict if they were not protected. That was the same reasoning behind the Venetian Mouth of Truth and the other side is that fake evidence enters because there is no check and balance against witnesses who can then say anything to sway the Grand Jury to whatever direction the government desires. Very, very bad decision. There is no accountability whatsoever.
The history of the grand jury is rooted in the common and civil law, extending back to Athens, pre-Norman England, and the Assize of Clarendon promulgated by Henry II. The right seems to have been first mentioned in the colonies in the Charter of Liberties and Privileges of 1683, which was passed by the first assembly permitted to be elected in the colony of New York. Included from the first in Madison’s introduced draft of the Bill of Rights, the provision elicited no recorded debate and no opposition. “The grand jury is an English institution, brought to this country by the early colonists and incorporated in the Constitution by the Founders. There is every reason to believe that our constitutional grand jury was intended to operate substantially like its English progenitor.
The basic purpose of the English grand jury was to provide a fair method for instituting criminal proceedings against persons believed to have committed crimes. Grand jurors were selected from the body of the people and their work was not hampered by rigid procedural or evidential rules. In fact, grand jurors could act on their own knowledge and were free to make their presentments or indictments on such information as they deemed satisfactory. Despite its broad power to institute criminal proceedings the grand jury grew in popular favor with the years. It acquired an independence in England free from control by the Crown or judges. Its adoption in our Constitution as the sole method for preferring charges in serious criminal cases shows the high place it held as an instrument of justice. And in the USA as in England of old the grand jury has convened as a body of laymen, free from technical rules, acting in secret, pledged to indict no one because of prejudice and to free no one because of special favor.
The idea that only the people can indict is very nice. But as Stalin said about elections, it does not matter how people vote, it is those who count the votes who decide elections. Well this is the same nonsense. The rules have been inverted so ONLY the government has a right to indict anyone and they ALWAYS protect their own. This type of corruption should be expected. The Grand Jury is a joke when there is secret proceedings and no right to present both sides so the Grand Jury can be deaf, dumb, and blind. The Grand Jury was originally the people standing between the people and the government. To protect government, they simply changed the rule to ensure the government need not tell the Grand Jury the truth. What Stalin said about elections applies to Grand Juries. The Government can indeed indict a ham sandwich. They mean nothing if not even less.
Here comes the civil unrest because indeed we need major political reform in virtually every branch of government. Sorry – but he should have been indicted and he should have been given a full and fair PUBLIC TRIAL to show the world what is the truth. Now there will always be a debate as to the evidence submitted in secret.
Reprinted from Armstrong Economics.
