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While virtually all of the media attention over the last ten days or so has been directed toward protests, riots and the family of Michael Brown, supporters of Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson have put up a GoFundMe site to raise money to help him in his efforts to cover what are sure to be astronomical legal expenses. As nbcnews.com reports, the crowdfunding effort has racked up more than $230,000 in donations in the 4+ days since it went live. As Ralph points out, given the fact that Officer Wilson is facing the possibility of state and federal criminal charges as well as the virtual certainty of a civil suit, he’s going to need the best legal help money can buy.

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64 COMMENTS

  1. Wow, almost a quarter mil. $ donated in only 4 days…that’s impressive. The power of the internet for ya.

    • Not much of that will matter in the face of Holder and a Federal case. Unless he gets some very, very serious legal representation at that point, he will end up the proverbial lamb, guilty or innocent. He has been pre-judged and the natives want blood.

      • There are defense lawyers out there who make a living kicking the Justice Department’s @ss. I could give Wilson a long list.

      • The Huckster-in-Chief and the Agitator General wanted Zimmerman’s blood, too, but he walked on state charges and never even faced federal charges. Sooo…..

        One of the positive outcrops of the Internet and cameras everywhere’s transformation of our society’s landscape, is that it’s getting harder (not impossible) to railroad people these days.

  2. So far, if the trickle of information is correct, the evidence points to him having made the correct decision, but with a Governor, Attorney General, and President having already convicted him, his life and the life of his family is on the road to ruin. Many years ago, you had to be an honorable man to be a Governor, Attorney General, or President. How times have changed.

    • I agree with the first half of your statement, he has already been convicted. However, to my knowledge, honor has never been a prerequisite for political office. I would even go so far as to say that throughout human history, honor and politics have been mostly mutually exclusive.

      • Maybe now with the 24 hour 364/5 news cycles, and everyone with a cellphone camera or some method of recording events, that less can be hidden, and what is hidden cannot be hidden as long…at least I hope that is it. Few things aggravate me as much as having a politician line his pockets, or take bribes or kick backs, and be discovered twenty years after he is dead.

        • If someone came forward with a video TODAY showing that Brown did attack Wilson, then charged him, do you believe it would change the narrative of the black community?

          We already have those who don’t care at all if that was the case, only that a LE shot an unarmed black man. With the media and quasi media stirring up things with questions about ‘why was he shot six times’, ‘why couldn’t he just have been tasered’, etc., etc. They just want the narrative to continue. “Proof” and “logic” have no place in that mindset.

          Much like the anti-gun crowd who get crushed each time a new shooting happens and it wasn’t a “tea-party, white, radial, militant separatist with a fully-automatic assault cannon AR15 explosive rifle..thing”. They just pull back a bit, make noise, create bullshit legislation and wait to pounce on the ‘next’ opportunity.

  3. And the media will shout out that all of those 6000 donators were either Klansmen or Tea Party racists or corrupt cops or werewolves or something.

  4. He would be dead even if he was white. It isn’t racism, it is a low tolerance for criminal jackassery in all skin colors. White people don’t think that its ok to shoot random brown skinned people, its that people in general don’t sympathize with fools and criminals.

    • When was the last time whites had a riot when either or black or white officer shot a white man? The race agitators and media have made it what it is today.

    • “…White people don’t think that its ok to shoot random brown skinned people…”

      And there in is the problem. What you ‘know’ and what they believe are two different things. No amount of discussion will change that.

      • A white kid about the same age as the talented Mr. Brown was shot dead by Sheriff’s deputies not five miles from my home a day or two after this Ferguson business. It made the local paper the next day, but that was it.

        • and lots of blacks were shot by blacks, but that’s not newsworthy either.

          there is something about white cop shooting a black that get people’s attention the way a bright shiny object fascinates a monkey. Perhaps it is the (relative) scarcity of the event.

  6. I hope you all realize you money is lost. The Attorney General of the United State of America has focused his attention on this case and that white cop will face a jury of Michael Brown’s peers.

  7. Wow. That’s pretty good! Maybe the people fighting Bloombergs background check ballot initiative in Washington state (NO on i594. YES on i591) should do one?

  9. It’s a good start, but if there’s a state trial the defense could cost a couple of million balloons.

    • Easily, especially since this case will entail lots of expensive, expert witnesses if it goes to trial.

      Although, some lawyers will take on such a case just to raise their professional profiles. If they can fund the case themselves, they may be able to make it all back and much more in higher fees to subsequent clients with actual money, plus book and movie deals for the sensational case.

  10. Pffft…….his defense (if unlikely charged) will either be paid by the state or the LEO goonion which both end up coming from taxpayer dollars. Even if he did loose a court battle that just means one less LEO that can mistakenly kick my door down.

      • /sarcasm off

        The country would be wonderful without any police at all!

        I corrected the order for you.
        Cops prevent less crime than they cause, especially when we consider that the gang violence and most burglaries, robberies, and thefts (including related assaults) are a result of the war on drugs.
        There was no concept of a police force in the first century of this country’s history. And the founders spoke out, and wrote against, such institutions as a step towards tyranny.

      • I think the country would be better off without LEO’s like Wilson because I’m running with the assumption that the cop acted like a di@k when he drove up on the two guys in the middle of the road. What evidence do I have of that?….well he’s a cop working in 2014.

    • Pffft…….his defense (if unlikely charged) will either be paid by the state or the LEO goonion which both end up coming from taxpayer dollars.

      Not a civil suit, which is what the Scheme Team is after. And not a federal civil rights suit, which is what Just-Us Holder is after.

      Even if he did loose a court battle that just means one less LEO that can mistakenly kick my door down.

      …because Wilson had ever actually, you know, done that.

      The bigotry in some of these comments is… illuminating. There are some people who disagree with the militarization of civilian law enforcement (me included). But there are clearly some here who simply hate all law enforcement, under any and all circumstances.

      • I despise the existence of professional law enforcement bodies, as they are anathema to liberty.
        However, I don’t think that would justify punishing this man for what could very well be a justifiable shooting.
        Now if he’s done anything wrong as a cop, then I’d say prosecute him for that…but that’s never going to happen.

      • But there are clearly some here who simply hate all law enforcement, under any and all circumstances.

        I’m a very conservative middle age guy that thought the police could do no wrong for 40+ years. In other words, a member of one of their long time core support base. Last 10 years saw me do a 180 degree and it wasn’t due to my actions, but rather the actions of a significant portion of cops coupled with the acquiescence of the remaining cops. The ball is in their court to change their actions to get me back on their side, in the meantime , I’ll do everything to diminish their influence and power.

        Step #1…wage an effort to force local cops to fund bodycams and dashcams before any other new SWATzie gear.

        • Cops were doing stupid things forty years ago, and I had no patience then with people who were convinced cops could do no wrong.

          Cops are doing stupid things now, and now I have no patience with people who are convinced most cops are evil.

          Going from one extreme to the other is not really progress. What was needed then, and what is needed now, is people who hold individual cops accountable when they do something stupid, and people who challenge city/county/whatever policies that are damaging. I was not enthused about the police response to Rodney King, but the fact remains that they were doing what they had been trained to do, and that if anyone should have been accountable, it was the people who established that policy, not the individual cops.

  11. And we also need to support Wilson just not because we feel he was right, But it will go a very long way in stopping crime in your town if it is showed that CRIME does NOT PAY. and that WE THE PEOPLE will not stand for soap box government… KEEP this in mind election day ……….SUPPORT 2A FIRST………make them hurt as NEVER BEFORE>>>>>>>>>>!

  13. Lol. All of this sh*t.

    I’m trying to figure out why in the hell everyone gets soooo up in arms about any of this.

    If the officer got his face busted, he wasn’t thinking clearly/disoriented/the like and shot the kid to oblivion. Which is wrong. Sorry, guys. But it is.

    Then the black community is rallying strong for this kid. He was no big teddy bear. People screaming out how the kid deserved to live, et cetera. The kid was well on his way to a prison cell, IMHO.

    I don’t give a good God da*m if “Officer Wilson” gets thrown in the sh*tbox for life. There’s a lot of cops out there who give lip and don’t mind putting someone down with a squeeze of that trigger.

    There’s also a lot of cops out there who are good, good folks.

    Plus there’s all of those lady cops out there. I seen a damned sexy one today. Me likey. Yup, I knew I should have ran that red light.

    I won’t stand up for Michael Brown. Nor will I give Officer What’s His Face a red cent.

    All of this is old news.

    But give all of your money to the cause!!! Which ever it maybe!

    I’ll stand here in the middle and watch everyone else but heads since everyone gets so emotional about it.

    • I don’t give a good God da*m if “Officer Wilson” gets thrown in the sh*tbox for life. There’s a lot of cops out there who give lip and don’t mind putting someone down with a squeeze of that trigger.

      Yeah, who cares if he’s innocent, right? What do the facts matter? Send him to prison for life, because other officers are trigger-happy.

      • Ah-ha! There’s the problem, Chip.

        How do you know he’s innocent?

        Are you in the Grand Jury?

        Again, I don’t give a dam either way. I don’t sit around thinking about this all day. Some of us have things to do.

        Let’s wait until the facts come out, since you know, they aren’t being exposed. Which is suspect in and of itself.

        I’m not saying this is some political witch hunt, or conspiracy, or people are being shady. I’m just saying, until the facts- the ACTUAL INFORMATION- comes out, is it anything to get up in arms about? Really?

        Let the justice system work. We’re going to see the results.

        • How do you know he’s innocent?

          Are you in the Grand Jury?

          Your statement was that you don’t care if he is imprisoned, which implies that you don’t care if he is imprisoned even if he’s innocent. It is a logical fallacy to claim that, because I do care if he is imprisoned even if he is innocent, that I assume or believe that he is, in fact innocent.

    • I suspect some people are giving less because they’re convinced that Wilson is innocent, and more because they’re sick of people being railroaded by the media and politicians.

  14. I won’t, Sir, start joining any sides before I get any of the facts.

    I’d hate to have to bite my tongue later.

    But hey, go crazy.

  15. There are many lessons to be learned here. Do you think the chief of the Ferguson PD wishes he would have spent money on dash and body cams instead of MRAPs and M16s?

    The police let the professional grievance mongers tell their story first. Poor Brown, honor student, Boy Scout, loves his granny, never said a bad word, rescues kittens, was executed point blank on his knees with his hands up by a hooded cop screaming racial slurs.

    What would have been wrong with releasing a statement right away that Mr. Brown, a 6’4″, 240 lb man who was wanted for a strong arm robbery assaulted officer Wilson resulting in severe facial injuries, and there appears to have been a struggle for officer Wilson’s gun. Regrettably Mr Brown was killed in the scuffle. The incident is being investigated and Officer Wilson has been suspended.

    I was ready to believe this was a wrongful shooting. I assumed the cop puffed up his chest and was harassing a couple kids and then shot a fleeing felon in the back. Heck if I lived in ferguson I may have protested that first night. (I would have resisted attending the 100% off sales at local businesses.) Cops need to get better at getting the facts out before the lies get out.

    As for MRAPs, grenade launchers, and fat cops with M4s screaming that they’re going to f&cking kill someone? That’s were my problem with law enforcement comes in.

  16. I wish officer Wilson luck. Yeah I know he gets $ from his union. I don’t have a dime to send him but this endless BS pisses me off way more than Trayvon/Zimmerman.

  17. So, ideally the truth will out. If Wilson deserves to go free, he should. But next time this happens, if the shooting was righteous the department should get the facts out ASAP and aggressively. hidebound police bureaucracies need to move faster in the era of twitter and cell phones,

    and if the shooting was wrong the cops should indict their own (fat chance on the last one).

  18. These gun sites really show me the truth about the white middle class that Paul Craig Roberts wrote about in his last column.

    http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/08/paul-craig-roberts/5000-americans-killed-by-cops-since-911/
    “The trouble with purely racial explanations of police using excessive force is that cops don’t limit their excesses to racial minorities. White people suffer them also. Remember the recent case of Cecily McMillan, an Occupy protester who was brutalized by a white good thug with a record of using excessive force. McMillan is a young white woman. Her breasts were seized from behind, and when she swung around her elbow reflexively and instinctively came up and hit the goon thug. She was arrested for assaulting a police officer and sentenced by a jury to a term in jail. The prosecutor and judge made certain that no evidence could be presented in her defense. Medical evidence of the bruises on her breast and the police officer’s record of police brutality were not allowed as evidence in her show trial, the purpose of which was to intimidate Occupy protesters.

    In America white jurors are usually sheep who do whatever the prosecutor wants. As Cecily McMillan, a white woman, could not get justice, it is even less likely that the black family of Michael Brown will. Those who are awaiting a jury’s verdict to decide Michael Brown’s case are awaiting a cover-up and the complicity of the US criminal justice (sic) system in murder.

    If there is a federal indictment of the police officer, and the trial is held in a distant jurisdiction, there is a better chance that a jury would consider the facts. But even these precautions would not eliminate the racist element in white jurors’ decisions.

    The situation in Ferguson was so badly handled it almost seems like the police state, in responding to the shooting, intended to provoke violence so that the American public could become accustomed to military force being applied to unarmed civilian protests.”

      • A lynching, by definition, involves a mob killing someone who has been denied the right of trial in a court of law. So, no, the killing of Michael Brown was not a lynching.

        The killing of Michael Brown may or may not have been murder. Policemen are legally authorized to use force, including deadly force, to deal with a threat to community or self; the question is whether the cop had reason to see Micheal Brown as enough of a threat to shoot him. Answering that question as “no” based on rumor and innuendo is unjust. I don’t know if Darren Wilson is innocent or guilty, but I do know he has a right to a fair trial, and that the media is doing all they can to deny him that right.

  20. Most of people who support Mr. Darren Wilson are white and racists pigs- you do not put value on life anyone who is not white- especially poor black kids!! As a police officer, you fucking have a duty to protect life and property of your citizen- that is what he gets paid for. And when he took the job as police officer he should have know all risks involved, and protecting oneself does not justify executing people. Nothing this kid did to deserve to be executed – I mean Nothing. They treated this kid worse than they treat their own dogs and it is truly disgusting!!

    • Wrong. Have you heard of Micheal Bell? Michael Bell was belligerent with a cop who pulled him over, and the situation escalated. He resisted arrest and, as more cops showed up, the fighting got bad enough to break part of a mirror on a car. He was tasered more than once. Then, when three cops were trying to hold him down, one of the cops caught his belt on the broken mirror and shouted, “He’s got my gun!” Another cop put his gun to Michael Bell’s head and squeezed the trigger, twice.

      It’s been a decade or so since that happened, and Michael Bell’s father is furious that the cop who shot is son is still working as a cop. What Michael Bell’s dad does not seem to get is that the cop who is most responsible for his son’s death is NOT the cop who shot his son. The cop who shot his son was following standard procedure; if someone resisting arrest grabs a cop’s gun, police at the scene have good reason to believe the non-cop is planning to shoot a cop, and therefore good reason to use deadly force. It was the cop who wrongly shouted “he’s got my gun!” who is responsible for Micheal Brown’s dead. And that cop is no longer working as a policeman, because he has committed suicide.

      Micheal Bell’s death was a tragic mistake, but the guy who shot him is not the one who was responsible. Michael Bell’s father has gotten the law changed in Wisconsin so that police shootings are investigated by an outside investigation, which I think is a great way to bring good out of his son’s tragic death. But I am not convinced that this would have changed the end result if that law had been in place when Michael Bell was shot. If the story I have just presented is true, then the policeman who shot the gun was in the right, and should have been able to go back to work. It’s people who believe that who are supporting the man who shot Micheal Brown. They want justice for cops, too.

      Micheal Bell was white.

      Most people who support Darren Wilson are not racist (which is not to deny there may be racists who support him). The disagreement over what the events in Ferguson mean is much more a disagreement about whether people have a responsibility not to escalate the situation when the police are involved, and when the police have the right to use deadly force, than it is about one race trying to put another down.

  21. This officer should have signed up for U.S. Law Shield’s LEO program. Could’ve had his civil and criminal lawyer expenses paid. If you carry a gun, you need a post-incident plan.

    • Cop and department violated the law by not even detialing the incident in their report.
      To this you all rally to give him money and claim he is being rail roaded or that he needs a incident plan.
      Are you kidding me?

      • Wrong. Incident reports are always bare bones and pretty general, and the investigation is supposed to fill in the details. Furthermore, it would be a violation of the law for the police to release much information before the primary investigation, at minimum, has been concluded, especially in a highly covered case like this, in order to verify witnesses (because they know stuff that isn’t in the news) and in order to not compromise the jury pool should it go to trial.

        One thing Ferguson has brought home to me is how little most people know about how the law really works. I’m starting to wonder if schools teach civics at all anymore. My school didn’t have a civics class, back in the day, but we had a mandatory one on government that ended up doing much the same job (while also covering other forms of government across the world). And I could swear that, when I was a kid, news sources would often explain the law when discussing what the police or the courts were up to. At the very least, news papers recognized the law — “So and so demands thus and such, but the police have not released that information, and likely will not, while is an ongoing investigation” kind of stuff. Now, I often get the reporters don’t even know the law regarding stuff they’re reporting on — which, if it’s their regular beat, they ought to.

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