Many men in the saga of Mike Brown's killing have committed the sin of crying wolf. When a cop, or an officer of the court lies about their work, it is like a woman lying about being raped. It tarnishes her own credibility and taints everyone who may need to make the same claims. Every time a woman lies about being raped, it makes it that much harder for real rape victims to come forward. They fear they won't be believed. When one cop acts like he is entitled to lie with impunity, he tarnishes the word of all other cops.
This lack of credibility of those in power is at the heart of the Ferguson tragedy. Those in power cannot be trusted to hold themselves accountable. So who all has cried wolf?
Darren Wilson: Until now, there has been no public statements from him on this killing. I hope we see his deposition. I am concerned that he couldn't even be bothered to fill out the required use of force form. We do know from a viral video, he lied about an encounter with someone filming him. Note, they detest being filmed because it keeps them from being able to lie with impunity. Oh, and there were people lying in the name of Darren Wilson. Fake photos of injured person not DW. Fake Xray of him borrowed from a text book. I don't pin these lies on DW, but he din't shoot them down either.
Police Chief Thomas Jackson: First they were going to release the name on time, then not. It HAD to be later for reasons of safety. When he did release Wilson's name, it was accompanied by a smear of Mike Brown. The police chief claimed he had to release the robbery info and he had been trying to avoid that, but the mean old media FORCED him to. Did you see all of that twitching? His tells were amazingly strong. Then there was all the back-tracking of important details such as did Wilson know about the robbery?
Capt. Ron Johnson: The highway patrol captain put in charge was asked by a journalist why they tear gassed the crowd. He responded that it was just smoke and not tear gas. The journalist called bullshit on him and then he admitted, yeah, OK, it was tear gas. Seriously Johnson, do you not understand THAT is the problem? That none of you can be trusted to deal honestly with the public? Even if you don't have control over your men, do you have to lie about it?
DA McCulloch: We won't know the extent of his lying in this case until the documents are thoroughly reviewed. We do know he lied about another grand jury case. The "Jack-in-the-Box" case involved two officers who shot and killed 2 unarmed black men they claimed were driving towards them. McCullock claimed that all witnesses agreed they saw the car move but several police witnesses claimed it didn't move. These weren't just witnesses deemed unreliable, they were cops!
New Jersey Cops: Orlando Trinidad and Sean Courter pulled over a man who wouldn't get out of his car, but surrendered with his hands up. One officer broke into the car and started yelling at him to stop grabbing for his gun. This happened to be video'd by another police car that showed up on the scene facing the front of the victim's car. This view clearly showed the man with his hands up and an "oh shit, am I going to die" look on his face. The most terrifying aspect was how naturally this BS line came to the cop. It's the equivalent of carte blanche- get out of jail free card. One wonders how often he has used that line and how many others use it regularly as well. It is the goto excuse for any use of force.