evidence presented in court or listen to the court's instructions and then make a sound judgment? Um, no thanks.

I certainly am not saying that I would have found the officers not guilty but I also do not have all the evidence that the jury had. Does the OP?

Looking at the video, what did Kelly Thomas do to warrant that kind of abuse from a gang of officers? Does the public accept the way the officers handled this mentally ill person -- not because he was doing anything wrong, but simply because they knew they could jerk him around?

and criminal homicide. As I said, I am not agreeing with the jury at all. What I am saying is that I believe it foolish to ONLY look at one piece of evidence out of all the evidence presented and make your determination solely on that one piece of evidence.

Let me give and outlandish example:
Let's assume you have a video of the OBL killing. And that is it. No explanation of who he was, or what he did. Just a video of some people going to his house and shooting him. Was the shooting the cause of death - sure it was. Was it murder - no. But if you did not get evidence outside of the video, you would not know those additional facts. All you would see is some dude getting shot in the head (I assume).

Am I saying this poor guy was like OBL - absolutely not. What I am saying, again, is that we should examine all the evidence (if available) and not SOLELY look at one piece of evidence.

Some things are what they are; the video speaks for itself, imo. They beat him mercilessly & he died.

to the defense so I would hope that they had something good to get a not guilty verdict.

At least we seem to agree that seeing all the evidence is better than seeing only one piece of evidence and making a conclusion on that, no?

I just can't imagine any evidence outside of this video that would have justified a group of officers beating the pulp out of a mentally ill person, causing his death.

Cops are apparently immune to any prosecution.

My opinion, of course.

But that jury must have either been paid or threatened. I hope this man can sue these overweight assholes who call themselves cops. 4 cops can't take care of a man who weighs about 170 pounds.

and sooner or later LEOs will kill the wrong person & a family member or friend will go extremely and uncontrollably angry & even violent.
I ask myself. Who will be their target?

what happened preceding the video.

The video clearly shows 4 killers (just because they are "LEO's, they do not have the right to viciously beat and kill a relatively compliant person) taking the life of a human being, for no reason, he was not a threat.

It is compounded by the verbal threats the cops used.
How can anyone vote "not guilty" in this situation?
These good citizens may be their next victims. They approve their tactics so if those same tactics are used against them.....

Our nation does not resemble the same nation whose citizens used to be protected by "a god damned piece of paper."

that more and more trials are being thrown by the prosecution on purpose.

My opinion, of course.