Key witness in the Brown/Wilson case is a racist crazy person
19 replies, posted
[url]http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/unmasking-Ferguson-witness-40-496236[/url]
[quote]
The grand jury witness who testified that she saw Michael Brown pummel a cop before charging at him “like a football player, head down,” is a troubled, bipolar Missouri woman with a criminal past who has a history of making racist remarks and once insinuated herself into another high-profile St. Louis criminal case with claims that police eventually dismissed as a “complete fabrication,” The Smoking Gun has learned.
While the “hands-up” account of Dorian Johnson is often cited by those who demanded Wilson’s indictment, “Witness 40”’s testimony about seeing Brown batter Wilson and then rush the cop like a defensive end has repeatedly been pointed to by Wilson supporters as directly corroborative of the officer’s version of the August 9 confrontation. The “Witness 40” testimony, as Fox News sees it, is proof that the 18-year-old Brown’s killing was justified, and that the Ferguson grand jury got it right.
However, unlike Johnson, “Witness 40”--a 45-year-old St. Louis resident named Sandra McElroy--[B]was nowhere near Canfield Drive on the Saturday afternoon Brown was shot to death.
[/B]When asked what she was doing in Ferguson--which is about 30 miles north of her home--McElroy explained that she was planning to “pop in” on a former high school classmate she had not seen in 26 years. Saddled with an incorrect address and no cell phone, McElroy claimed that she pulled over to smoke a cigarette and seek directions from a black man standing under a tree. In short order, the violent confrontation between Brown and Wilson purportedly played out in front of McElroy.
When Sandra McElroy returned to the Ferguson grand jury on November 3, she brought a spiral notebook purportedly containing her [URL="http://www.thesmokinggun.com/file/ferguson-witness-40?page=12"]handwritten journal entries[/URL] for some dates in August, including the Saturday Michael Brown was shot.
Before testifying about the content of her notebook scribblings, [B]McElroy admitted that she had not driven to Ferguson in search of an African-American pal she had last seen in 1988.[/B] Instead, McElroy offered a substitute explanation that was, remarkably, an even bigger lie.
McElroy, again under oath, explained to grand jurors that she was something of an amateur urban anthropologist. Every couple of weeks, McElroy testified, she likes to “go into all the African-American neighborhoods.” During these weekend sojourns--apparently conducted when her ex has the kids--McElroy said she will “go in and have coffee and I will strike up a conversation with an African-American and I will try to talk to them because I’m trying to understand more.” The opening entry in McElroy’s journal on the day Brown died declared,[B] “Well Im gonna take my random drive to Florisant. Need to understand the Black race better so I stop calling Blacks Niggers and Start calling them People.”[/B] A commendable goal, indeed.
Sandra McElroy did not provide police with a contemporaneous account of the Brown-Wilson confrontation, which she claimed to have watched unfold in front of her as she stood on a nearby sidewalk smoking a cigarette. Instead, [B]McElroy waited four weeks after the shooting to contact cops[/B]. By the time she gave St. Louis police a statement on September 11, a general outline of Wilson’s version of the shooting had already appeared in the press. McElroy’s account of the confrontation dovetailed with Wilson’s reported recollection of the incident.
McElroy’s devotion to the truth--lacking during her appearances before the Ferguson grand jury--was also absent in[B] early-2007 when she fabricated a bizarre story in the wake of the rescue of Shawn Hornbeck[/B], a St. Louis boy who had been held captive for more than four years by Michael Devlin, a resident of Kirkwood, a city just outside St. Louis.
In the face of McElroy’s allegations, the Kirkwood Police Department fired back at her. Cops reported that they investigated her claim and determined that “we have no record of any contact with Mrs. McElroy in regards to Shawn Hornbeck.” The police statement concluded, [B]"We have found that this story [/B][B]is a complete fabrication."[/B]
An examination of McElroy’s YouTube page, which she apparently shares with one of her daughters, reveals other [URL="http://www.thesmokinggun.com/file/ferguson-witness-40?page=8"]evidence of racial animus[/URL]. Next to a clip about the disappearance of a white woman who had a baby with a black man is the comment, “see what happens when you bed down with a monkey have ape babies and party with them.” A clip about the sentencing of two black women for murder is captioned, [URL="http://www.thesmokinggun.com/file/ferguson-witness-40?page=8"]“put them monkeys in a cage.”[/URL]
Near the end of her testimony,[B] McElroy was questioned about a Facebook page she had started to raise money for Wilson.[/B] McElroy corrected a prosecutor, saying that the page was “not for Darren Wilson,” but rather other law enforcement officers who have “been dealing with all the long hours” as a result of unrest in Ferguson.
It is unknown how much money McElroy’s Facebook gambit has raised, or how the money was spent. But in a [URL="http://www.thesmokinggun.com/file/ferguson-witness-40?page=17"]December 5 post[/URL], the “First Responders” page offered a fundraising update. Since “Officer Wilson’s attorney has made it clear there are to be NO online donation excepted,” McElroy wrote, [B]“I purchased a money order and mailed it” to the “Darren Wilson Trust Fund.”
[/B]
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[IMG]http://www.thesmokinggun.com/sites/default/files/assets/sandymcelroyfbjustice.jpg[/IMG]
^Posted to her Facebook account 2 days after contacting the police with her "story".
So, the article is a long, exhaustive dive into basically every corner of this person's life. Most of their information is public record and stuff trolled from her considerable social media presence. Here are the basic bullet points:
-She waited four weeks to call the police with her story.
-In that time, she made several social media posts supporting the cops and railing against the "thugs".
-After her first appearance before the grand jury, her story about why she was in Ferguson abruptly changed and, the next time she went before the jury, she was armed with a bunch of journal entries that she apparently never thought to mention to the investigators.
-Her new story about why she was in Ferguson was batshit crazy.
-There is no real evidence that she was there when Brown was shot.
-She has a history of bipolar disorder.
-She's lied to the police about high-profile cases on multiple occasions and in multiple counties.
-She's been convicted of check fraud.
-She actively raised money for Darren Wilson
-Her social media presence is full of racist garbage.
This person's testimony was central to the case, and was one of the main sources used to cast doubt on the "shot with his hands up" narrative. The prosecutor apparently believed this person was credible enough to testify alongside other witnesses who actually lived in the neighborhood and actually saw what happened. Her testimony, which so perfectly supported Wilson's, didn't come out until Wilson's version of events had been thoroughly disseminated by the media. A person with a history of racist tirades, fraud, and lying to police was presented as being just as credible as people who [I]lived on Canfield Drive.[/I]
It's obviously too late for anything about the case to change. But if you thought the grand jury process in Ferguson was fair, rational, or just, I hope knowing these things about one of their key and "credible" witnesses will make you reconsider that view.
I think false testimony is reason enough to call a mistrial isn't it?
[QUOTE=viperfan7;46728358]I think false testimony is reason enough to call a mistrial isn't it?[/QUOTE]
In case of eye witness testimony I wouldn't imagine so, I can't imagine there's any country that takes eye witness testimony seriously unless it can be corroborated by actual evidence.
[QUOTE=viperfan7;46728358]I think false testimony is reason enough to call a mistrial isn't it?[/QUOTE]
It was one witness out of the many (many, many, many :rolleyes:) that the prosecutor called. That alone isn't enough for a mistrial.
This person is fucking nuts. I'm surprised wtih a history like she has that they didnt add a note or something in there
However OP
[quote]This person's testimony was central to the case, and was one of the main sources used to cast doubt on the "shot with his hands up" narrative. [B]The prosecutor apparently believed this person was credible enough to testify alongside other witnesses who actually lived in the neighborhood and actually saw what happened.[/B] Her testimony, which so perfectly supported Wilson's, didn't come out until Wilson's version of events had been thoroughly disseminated by the media. A person with a history of racist tirades, fraud, and lying to police was presented as being just as credible as people who lived on Canfield Drive.[/quote]
You forget that the prosecutor allowed any, and all, witnesses to testify.. even if their story of the events that unfolded were already proven impossible by the physical evidence. What about those people? They lied under oath too.
This isnt going to get a mistrial when there are multiple witnesses who told completely false claims.
[QUOTE=Code3Response;46728535]
You forget that the prosecutor allowed any, and all, witnesses to testify.. even if their story of the events that unfolded were already proven impossible by the physical evidence. What about those people? They lied under oath too.
This isnt going to get a mistrial when there are multiple witnesses who told completely false claims.[/QUOTE]
No, I did not forget that fact. She was presented as being just as credible as anyone else they allowed in there to testify...which was pretty much anyone that opened their mouth. The whole handling of the case is a complete farce.
[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;46728779]No, I did not forget that fact. She was presented as being just as credible as anyone else they allowed in there to testify...which was pretty much anyone that opened their mouth. The whole handling of the case is a complete farce.[/QUOTE]
Not really. If anything it showed you didn't have any evidence to indict, which was kind of the purpose
As others are posting, the point of the multitude of witnesses being presented was to show that the witness accounts are too unstable to use as evidence. This is to make the jury see that the physical evidence is the only thing to rely on, given that we cannot know by testimony what happened.
So, no, not a mistrial.
This is like Francis E. Dec trying to defend himself during his trial, crazies have the right to law though
[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;46728779]No, I did not forget that fact. She was presented as being just as credible as anyone else they allowed in there to testify...which was pretty much anyone that opened their mouth. The whole handling of the case is a complete farce.[/QUOTE]
Yea, there were things that could have been handled a lot better than they were. Ferguson PD was not ready to handle an OIS. The issue is that now that everyone and their dead grandma knows something about the case, it would be impossible to get a new grand jury to have a second presentation of the evidence.
The case presented to the grand jury was a huge shit show, regardless of whether their decision was wrong or not
No grand jury decision based on a mishandled case like this could ever bring closure
I don't have time right now to sift through all the grand jury documents, but according to your own article, the investigators were critical about inconsistencies in her story, and those criticisms were in the material presented to the grand jury. It's not like they presented her claims as especially credible. Anyhow, if I understand correctly, witnesses 10, 12, 30, and 35 are all supporting Wilson's claims, so the idea that witness 40 is somehow the linchpin to the whole thing is misleading.
Why did they reveal the identity of a witness?
Yeah, I'm definitely asking for another source on this before I'm taking any of this seriously.....
And so are all of the "eyewitnesses".
[QUOTE=bravehat;46728372]In case of eye witness testimony I wouldn't imagine so, I can't imagine there's any country that takes eye witness testimony seriously unless it can be corroborated by actual evidence.[/QUOTE]
......
yes...no country that takes eye witness testimonies.......yes....
(we have a very bad habit of believing eye witnesses over factual evidence here, thousands of convictions are overturned yearly because of it)
[editline]16th December 2014[/editline]
i'm not sure if the source is biased, but there was a jurrer that was a racist and testified, though their testimony was pretty much destroyed by the prosecution too. the problem with cases like this is that the prosecution dumps evidence on the jurrers to try to force them to dismiss the case, even though the job of a grand jury is to [I]only[/I] decide if there is enough evidence of a crime that it should go to trial, in most of the cop-killings cases, the prosecution will often overwhelm the jury to try to get it thrown out
[QUOTE=bord2tears;46729861]Why did they reveal the identity of a witness?[/QUOTE]
I believe she came out herself.
[QUOTE=viperfan7;46728358]I think false testimony is reason enough to call a mistrial isn't it?[/QUOTE]
You dont need to call a mistrial for a grand jury. You can literally just call for another one. Double jeopardy does not apply to grand jurys.
If you ask me, this Brown's case was justified as far as I've read and concluded, but the chokehole'd dude? Fire and sentence the cop imo.
[QUOTE=bravehat;46728372]In case of eye witness testimony I wouldn't imagine so, I can't imagine there's any country that takes eye witness testimony seriously unless it can be corroborated by actual evidence.[/QUOTE]
Indeed, eye witnesses are worth jack shit unless the evidence supports their testimony. Otherwise it's just his word vs. her word, and no jury is going to convict someone based on that.
The reason eye witness accounts aren't considered evidence is because the brain tends to restructure memories over time. It's not a video camera tape that you can watch back over and over, it will change along and you wont even know it did.
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