michaelbell.info billboards???

[GTSLOW]

Anyone seen one of these yet? I noticed two of them on the way down from milwaukee today. Whats the scoop? Im sure the website may be biased.

[DirtyMax]

Looks like a family trying to exploit a police investigation that was not solved to their satisfaction.

http://www.michaelbell.info/

[Crawlin]

definitely raises some questions. but who knows what the truth is, although the evidence presented is pretty damning

[PureSound15]

So, I'm assuming the family won money in the suit and are now using it to exploit the case.

I'm not sure I have a problem with that, better than a family suing just to have money - this seems to be more of a "to prove the point" kind of action.

[Yooformula]

looks more like the cops covered up a fuck up! having won the suit would imply the cops were wrong in something.

[DirtyMax]

Just do a little research because there are two sides to every story. I'm sure the PD could make a similar website and show the bits and pieces that are favorable to their side of the story. The city more or less voted to settle before it cost the taxpayers any more $$ in legal fees.

A few other facts not mentioned on this website:

-Bell was found to be well more than legally intoxicated
-Bell was out on bond for another crime and conditions of his bond for other crimes (felony posession, resisting, disorderly, bail jumping) prohibited him from consuming alcohol.
-Bell initially fled initial attempts by the PD to pull him over
-Bell was un-cooperative with the officers from the initial moment or interaction, as seen in the dash cam video. This is even more evident in the clips of the video not featured on the family's funded website.
-Bell resisted arrest, got free, and fled on foot to his house

I'm not taking sides here but knowing of one of the LEO's who was directly involved and repeatedly named all over that website makes one at least dig deeper with an open mind. This person was not exactly the model citizen that the website props him up to be.

Feel free to read some of the civilian banter on the subject. This one is a coin flip in the public eye..

http://www.kenoshanews.com/scripts/edoris/edoris.dll?app=server&com=sqlxml&tem=kn_d_discuss4.tpl&documentid=7475704

[Yooformula]

that may well be but to shot him point blank in the head? how does that not scream excessive to you? IMO a few tazer shots would have been more than sufficient but a barrel to the head?

I havent read the entire thing but was he in handcuffs when they shot him in the head?!?!?!?!?

[DirtyMax]

IIRC, they tazed the shit out of him and it barely phased him. I think he was cuffed and going for an officers weapon. It sounds as though the guy was just wild. Again, there are two sides to every story and I don't pretend to be an expert on either.

[SSLEVO]

Three guys can't control one so they shoot him in the head, while being handcuffed? I'm sure there is two sides to the story but DAMN.

[DirtyMax]

Whose to say the officer wasn't pulling their weapon to gain control of the situation, the perp reared back and caused an impact with the officer which then caused the weapon to be discharged. Anyone who can get tazed and keep on going, after getting away from 2 officers is one crazy mf'er in my book. It all happened so quickly I'm sure.

I have no idea here... merely playing devil's advocate.

[Crawlin]

It will definitely be harder to take a story like this when you know a person involved directly in this.

However, both the things you said could have been avoided by proper training of the officer.

If you are properly cuffed, you can barely scratch your own ass let alone efficiently go after someone's weapon.

If he was pulling their weapon to gain control and he reared back, it shouldn't have gone off if the officer didn't have his finger on the trigger like EVERYONE that's handled a firearm is trained to follow(don't put your finger in the guard unless you are ready to fire in a safe manner). There is a DNA test that was done on the holster that showed no evidence of this kid. Sweat, blood, skin, SOMETHING should have been on there if he did get to it.

And let's say it was an accidental discharge and he didn't have his finger on the trigger, then THAT should have been what the testimony is.

And then WHY have a video of the event or "re-enactment" of it, and give a story, that like is stated on the site, the other officer would have had blood on him or even had the bullet hit him.

Yeah, the kid has all sorts of things he did wrong. So that means it's ok that he's dead? It's ok for the police to LIE about what happened? Their story doesn't match any of the physical evidence that is there. It's not like this family just wrote down stuff on the site. They posted the ACTUAL findings of the people involved and posted the actual letters, not just a copy/paste of the words.

[DirtyMax]

First off, I should say that I do not know the officer on any type of personal level. It's one of those deals where we have a mutual friend and have been at the same functions together but aside from saying hi and such, have never held a meaningful conversation about this or anything else for that matter. And furthermore, the one I know of was not the one who fired the shot either, so no bias because of that. I only found out that I knew one of the involved when I began reading up on this incident. That out of the way....

Having a big interest in the legal system, stuff like this intrigues me. I am merely playing devil's advocate here. I'm sure I could have taken the stance as Bell's family and discussed this from that angle as well. But there comes times when you are challenged to look at things from another perspective and that's what I am doing. I have no personal interest in this whatsoever other than when I began reading up on this, I decided I would try to de-bunk the website.

The analogy I would like to offer is that one could probably easily create a fancy website telling why you should do loads and loads of drugs and that they would do great things for you. And not knowing the other side of the story and what they really do to you, you could begin to buy in.

Maybe Bell never got to the holster. But does that mean he wasn't going for it? Any guy who is unruly from the get-go, can sustain being tased multiple times, resisted, and fled, sounds like a loose cannon to me. Does that mean he deserved to be shot? Hell no. But it also lays some groundwork for what the officers were dealing with. Have I ever met a crazy son of a bitch who could take on 4 guys at one time, maybe even with his hands restrained? Bet your ass I have. I don't think both hands were cuffed behind his back either. One account says just the right hand was in a cuff and being held behind his back. Another says both hands were cuffed. The eyewitnesses can not seem to agree on this fact from what I have read.

$1.75 mil is a good sum of $$ but in today's world, that's chump change for a legal settlement. If the man's parents really thought there was that much of a case here, they probably could have gotten 10x that amount, especially in federal court. Rodney King got like $4 million 20 years ago and he lived. Don't you think if there was truly enough evidence to reach a federal civil rights violation judgment, the family would have pressed on after being offered a responsible (by today's standards) $1.75m? I'm pretty sure their lawyers would not have let them settle. And if Kenosha had something big to hide, do you think they would have let this settle without a confidentiality clause in place, at any cost?

The residents of Kenosha have obviously been exposed to this more than many of us. They are the ones who have probably been privy to both sides of the story as well. If this father was such a Perry Mason and all of this stuff adds up, why has he since lost a mayoral election in Kenosha? Or maybe this just goes to show that
Tom Barrett's approach, which has some similarities in some respect, isn't fool-proof. But I digress...

KPD did not go out and create a website outlining the fact that the 2 eye witnesses, who happened to be the mother and sister of Bell I do believe, had several variations of their account of the events by the time it was all said and done. If they had brought this and other facts to light, which obviously a jurisdiction wouldn't do, there may be more for us to ponder.

Chris, Yoo etc.. I truly respect your thoughts on this. In the real world though, someone somewhere along the line was tasked with trying to defend this case and that was the side of the fence I decided to play on. If I was a lawyer, and I had to try and defend the case Bell's family had put together, I believe these are a few things that I would start with. But I'm not a lawyer so who knows....

[Yooformula]

according to the forensic evidence the barrel of the gun was PRESSED against his head. That doesnt sound like accidental discharge as the gun shouldnt have been against his head to begin with. sounds like he was cuffed after acting like a tool bag then was probably wrestling around and a cop drew his gun to perhaps scare him into staying still and maybe either fired out of adrenaline or poor training. either way, a gun pressed to the head of a subdued/partially subdued perp is excessive imo. either way, WE here wont ever know the truth so its pointless to bicker about it but IMO I feel it was excessive and the cop that pulled the trigger should have been fired and charged with murder for executing that kid.

[DirtyMax]

either way, WE here wont ever know the truth so its pointless to bicker about it

I think many many people agree on this, hence why it never actually went to trial on any level.

[GTSLOW]

according to the forensic evidence the barrel of the gun was PRESSED against his head. That doesnt sound like accidental discharge as the gun shouldnt have been against his head to begin with. sounds like he was cuffed after acting like a tool bag then was probably wrestling around and a cop drew his gun to perhaps scare him into staying still and maybe either fired out of adrenaline or poor training. either way, a gun pressed to the head of a subdued/partially subdued perp is excessive imo. either way, WE here wont ever know the truth so its pointless to bicker about it but IMO I feel it was excessive and the cop that pulled the trigger should have been fired and charged with murder for executing that kid.

I gotta agree 100% on that. No one has a right to act the way he did especially when the kid was 100% in the wrong. But the pressing a gun against the head really has no excuse.

[DirtyMax]

Again I have to play devil's advocate. Where is proof that this officer was pressing the weapon against his head for any length of time? While I will not argue that gun and head were indeed touching one another at point of fire, it could very well have been then and only then that the head and weapon first touched. I doubt the officer, no matter what the story, was just sitting there burying his sidearm into this dude's skull. Even the eye witnesses don't report that.

[Yooformula]

forensics showed evidence of the muzzle stamp on his head. proof the barrel was up against his head when fired. pressed against his head for ANY amount of time even a second is reckless and uncalled for IMO.

http://mikembell.com/MuzzleStamp.html

"MUZZLE STAMP

Officer Gonzales, with his gun in his right hand, ran right up to Michael Bell, put his left hand on Michael’s head, placed the muzzle against the right side of Michael’s head, and pulled the trigger. During the autopsy, the forensic examiner observed a “muzzle stamp,” an imprint of the gun muzzle, on the skin surrounding the entrance wound on the right side of Michael’s head.

Using a scaled overlay drawing of the muzzle of a Smith and Wesson Model 4096, .45 caliber, the type of weapon used to kill Michael, the medical examiner found that it matched the entrance wound of the muzzle stamp on the right side of Michael’s head."

http://mikembell.com/images/MuzzleStamp.jpg
http://mikembell.com/images/EntryWoundDiagram.jpg