This is the cover of Ferguson for Time Magazine.
No wonder they arrested the photographer that took this picture.
Lawrence O’Donnell revealed on his show last night that there WAS NO INCIDENT REPORT WRITTEN ABOUT THE SHOOTING OF MICHAEL BROWN BY THE FERGUSON POLICE.
As SG2 requested in the last thread:
Hey folks, lets get busy. Call @GovJayNixon at (573) 751-3222 RIGHT NOW & tell him it’s time to step up and replace Bob McCulloch.
Reign of April dropped it like it was hot about the Grand Jury and Bob McCulloch.
April @ReignOfApril
I think I want to talk tonight about how grand juries work, for those interested. Bottom line: The PROSECUTOR decides what facts to produce.
Retweeted by PragmaticObotsUniteApril @ReignOfApril
Maybe y’all understand that. But if the Grand Jury doesn’t bring forth an indictment, MIGHT be because of the way the case was presented.
April @ReignOfApril
Do. You. Hear. Me. If the Prosecutor decides something isn’t relevant to the case, the Grand Jury never hears it. Then a decision is made.
April @ReignOfApril
This is why the Prosecutor MUST be impartial and be on the side of justice. Because s/he decides what info the Grand Jury hears to decide.
April @ReignOfApril
In a grand jury, the defendant (#DarrenWilson) has no right to confront witnesses. But the Prosecutor decides IF witnesses are called.
April @ReignOfApril
Grand Jury members are selected by the judge, not the lawyers. So only the judge can strike them for cause (bias, etc). #Ferguson
April @ReignOfApril
We’ve been talking all week: Where do Grand Jury members come from, kids? That’s right. In part, voter registration rolls. #Ferguson
April @ReignOfApril
Note: Grand Juries are not required. Prosecutor could have already arrested #DarrenWilson. Why then? Political cover if they fail to indict.
April @ReignOfApril
Grand Juries are held in secret. So McCulloch can come out, shrug, and say “WELP, I tried. THEY didn’t indict #DarrenWilson. #Ferguson
April @ReignOfApril
#DarrenWilson can testify at the Grand Jury. He cannot be cross-examined. So only his side is heard. If Prosecutor calls no witnesses…
April @ReignOfApril
I hope y’all see where I’m leading you. This is why I say prepare yourself now.
Ferguson Police Officer Justin Cosma Hog-Tied And Injured A Young Child, Lawsuit Alleges
Posted: 08/24/2014 5:48 pm EDT
WASHINGTON — A Ferguson police officer who helped detain a journalist in a McDonald’s earlier this month is in the midst of a civil rights lawsuit because he allegedly hog-tied a 12-year-old boy who was checking the mail at the end of his driveway.
According to a lawsuit filed in 2012 in Missouri federal court, Justin Cosma and another officer, Richard Carter, approached a 12-year-old boy who was checking the mailbox at the end of his driveway in June 2010. Cosma was an officer with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office at the time, the lawsuit states. The pair asked the boy if he’d been playing on a nearby highway, and he replied no, according to the lawsuit.
Then, the officers “became confrontational” and intimidated the child, the lawsuit claims. “Unprovoked and without cause, the deputies grabbed [the boy], choked him around the neck and threw him to the ground,” it says. The boy was shirtless at the time, and allegedly “suffered bruising, choke marks, scrapes and cuts across his body.”
The 12-year-old was transferred to a medical facility for treatment, but the lawsuit says Cosma and the other officer reported the incident as “assault of a law enforcement officer third degree” and “resisting/interfering with arrest, detention or stop.”
Jefferson County prosecutors “refused to issue a juvenile case” against the young child, the suit says.
The allegations against Cosma were made in September 2012, shortly after he was introduced as a new officer at a Ferguson City Council meeting. Jefferson County is just south of Ferguson.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/24/justin-cosma-ferguson-police_n_5705409.html
Clinton ignores questions on Ferguson
// Westhampton Beach, New York (CNN) – Hillary Clinton, who has yet to comment about the protests over the death of an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, Missouri, ignored questions about the incident on Sunday. After signing more than 700 books at Books & Books in Westhampton Beach, Clinton was asked by two reporters for her reaction to the controversy.
Clinton ignored both questions and left the bookstore. Liberal activists and civil rights leaders have asked Clinton for her response, saying she is the presumed front-runner for her party’s presidential nomination in 2016 and that she has commented on major news stories in the past. //
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/08/24/clinton-ignores-questions-on-ferguson/
“Clinton ignored both questions and left the bookstore.”
She’ll make a great president, right?
White-on-white murder in America is out of control
Updated by Matthew Yglesias on August 21, 2014, 4:40 p.m. ET
Blacks represent 13% of the population but commit 50% of the murders; 90% of black victims are murdered by other blacks,” writes Time’s Joe Klein, calling for “provocative” thinking on race in America. “The facts suggest that history is not enough to explain this social disaster.”
Yet the disturbing truth, according to the FBI’s most recent homicide statistics, is that the United States is in the wake of an epidemic of white-on-white crime. Back in 2011, the most recent year for which data is available, a staggering 83 percent of white murder victims were killed by fellow Caucasians.
This is not to say that white people are inherently prone to violence. Most whites, obviously, manage to get through life without murdering anyone. And there are many countries full of white people — Norway, Iceland, France, Denmark, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom — where white people murder each other at a much lower rate than you see here in the United States. On the other hand, although people often see criminal behavior as a symptom of poverty, the quantity of murder committed by white people specifically in the United States casts some doubt on this. Per capita GDP is considerably higher here than in France — and the white population in America is considerably richer than the national average — and yet we have more white murderers.
To understand the level of cultural pathology at work here, it’s important to understand that 36 percent of those killed by whites are women — a far higher share than you see with black murderers.
Clearly, the social disaster of white violence has complicated roots. But the beginning of an answer is to admit that we have a problem. It’s striking that President Obama, who’s frequently found time to comment on the height of black men’s waistlines, seems oblivious to this torrent of white killing. To be fair to the White House, however, it would be uniquely difficult for Obama to address this delicate issue. The real tragedy is that none of Obama’s 43 white predecessors have addressed it either. Indeed, looking back on America’s political iconography, there are disturbing trends toward the glorification of white violence. Peer inside the US Capitol building, and you’ll find a monument to Confederate President Jefferson Davis — the leader of an insurgency that caused an unprecedented quantity of violent white deaths.
http://www.vox.com/2014/8/21/6053811/white-on-white-murder
https://twitter.com/brownandbella/status/503521594191650816
https://twitter.com/skepticalbrotha/status/503606562511147008/photo/1
ON POINT. Evil… SOULESS
I wonder how many of the officers fired from the jennings pd were simply rehired in neighboring counties……hmmmmm??? Enquiring minds want to know
BWA HA HA HA I know that’s RIGHT.
yep
It’s called GENOCIDE. EVIL BASTARDS.
Elon James White, CEO of This Week in Blackness, describes his harrowing experience of getting tear gassed.
I become so emotional everytime I listen to the video.
This really illuminates the difference between reading about Ferguson or watching videos and actually being there. The feelings of helplessness and powerlessness would be overwhelming as the police play their games with all their shiny new equipment and weapons. Damn them to hell, every last one of them. I wonder if there is a single, decent human being on the entire police force in that town. Any such person would be looking for another job.
Elon went down into the trenches with the folks of Ferguson. And now he really knows it ain’t pretty.
To all the “Ivory Tower” NEGROES who hammer away on their keyboards, skin & grin for the cameras, all the while bashing PBO for not doing anything for BLACK PEOPLE.
GO FUCK YOURSELVES!
Michael Brown supporter vs Darren Wilson supporters
“Retired cop” who supports Darren Wilson threaten to push white woman in the road of on-coming cars.
KSK(africa) @lawalazu
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What happened btw 12:02 and 12:43 pm from time Wilson shot #MikeBrown to the time he called it in? What was he doing? Who was he talking to?
12:40 AM – 24 Aug 2014
Greg Pinelo @gregpinelo
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Political me to my black son: “Tell that cop you have rights!” Daddy me: “Kneel, hands up, do what he says. Come home alive to me.” #America
Judd Legum ✔ @JuddLegum
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Rand Paul on Ferguson: “There is a very good chance that this had nothing to do with race.”
8:44 AM – 24 Aug 2014
Rand Paul needs to join that increasingly large group of people who are talking about Ferguson and haven’t a clue what they are talking about and need to STFU.
SHORT: Rand Paul can helpr raise montey for and go protest with the Darren Wilson crowd.
There will be no healing in Ferguson until justice is served.
Stacey Dunn @dunnclan
Autopsy report shows Louisiana police lied about suspect’s suicide by shooting self in back http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/08/23/autopsy-report-shows-louisiana-police-lied-about-suspects-suicide-by-shooting-self-in-back/#.U_lOLWlH2zk.twitter …
PragmaticObotsUnite @PragObots
Rev. Al: “…I’m not a studio activist from the Ivory Tower…” #SHADE #BlackTwitter #blacknews
I like Al Sharpton…..he knows how to focus the nation’s attention on important problems that need to be rectified.
Elon James describes being tear gassed in Ferguson. He broke down in tears. Very very emotional time on Melissa Harris Perry Show. I’m still crying…
when you can, please post the video
OK
Yes; I saw him. He was a MESS. Couldn’t get through the interview on the panel without breaking down.
check email for link! Thanks
I saw it this morning….could not help but cry.
I was still crying way after the show was over.
Ferguson cops treated Michael Brown’s death with sheer indignity
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2014/08/24/the-sheer-indignity-by-ferguson-cops-of-michael-browns-death/
Death is brutal, whether it’s from natural causes, a long bout with cancer, car accident, or from being shot six times by a cop as you walk down the street. But most people are more fortunate than Michael Brown when they die; most people aren’t left lying on the ground in a pool of blood for four hours while cops mill around and family members hover in agony, unable to attend to their deceased loved one.
From jump, the cops in Ferguson demonstrated the disrespect they clearly felt toward 18-year-old Michael Brown. The NY Times article, “Timeline for a Body,” clearly identified this blatant disregard for this particular dead individual. Very shortly after Michael Brown was shot and killed by Ferguson, Missouri, officer Darren Wilson, a paramedic arrived on the scene and stated that Brown’s injuries were “incompatible with life.” Eventually, the officers erected a low fence, used mainly in traffic crashes, in a weak effort to shield the body from view. It was a failed effort. Brown’s family, along with many other bystanders, viewed the body as it lay on the ground in the hot sun for hours, but weren’t allowed to go near. As practicalhomicide.com notes, “. . . [T]he first officer should not examine the contents of the scene. He should, however, stabilize the scene by isolating the body and immediate area, including any visible evidence, from all other persons.”
What happened in Ferguson, besides completely sloppy, incompetent police work?
Interviewed post-killing, Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson said that he was “uncomfortable” with the length of time Brown’s body lay on the ground, in the open, but defended the police department by claiming that there were gunshots ringing out in the surrounding area, which delayed the processing of the crime scene. According to the NY Times, none of the cops at the scene discussed the killing with family members. Nobody gave them information. Nobody offered condolences. The wagon-circling appeared to begin immediately.
Renowned former New York Chief Medical Examiner, Dr. Michael Baden, who conducted the second autopsy of young Michael Brown at the request of the family, said that there is “no forensic reason” to leave a body in the open for that length of time, “particularly given the temperature and the fact that people are around.” A former NY City detective sergeant said that, in a situation involving a struggle between an officer and a shooting victim, the officer’s shirt would be taken as evidence, and added that generally, police conduct very little examination of the body at the scene. And yet, Brown’s blood-soaked body lay in nearly full view for hours.
The sheer sight of Michael’s body lying in the street uncovered, blood oozing on the pavement is chilling. Only the cold-hearted killer cop Drren Wilson could stand over it in a dazed stuper.
If Darren Wilson had not been a cop he probably would still have become a murderer. Cold hearted killer is right. He just happened to be a cop.
So darren Wilson’s “supporters” get to set up literal camp with tents and beers and sit out there without cops and tear gas and have a “rally”. Nope no differences, racism or white privilege there. Please, they aren’t even trying to hide how differently they treat whites from the rest of the world. It’s so damn blatant, it’s insulting.
Darren Wilson was raised in Elgin Texas. A small town. 3A school. Known for its Texas Barbeque.
Hey Chicas!
It comes out in the wash, doesn’t it?
Darren Wilson’s first job was on a troubled police force disbanded by authorities. Officials in Jennings disbanded the force because of race problems and corruption. Wilson went to Ferguson.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/darren-wilsons-first-job-was-on-a-troubled-police-force-disbanded-by-authorities/2014/08/23/1ac796f0-2a45-11e4-8593-da634b334390_story.html?wpmk=MK0000203
FERGUSON, Mo. — The small city of Jennings, Mo., had a police department so troubled, and with so much tension between white officers and black residents, that the city council finally decided to disband it. Everyone in the Jennings police department was fired. New officers were brought in to create a credible department from scratch.
That was three years ago. One of the officers who worked in that department, and lost his job along with everyone else, was a young man named Darren Wilson.
Some of the Jennings officers reapplied for their jobs, but Wilson got a job in the police department in the nearby city of Ferguson.
Well, who isn’t shocked….there needs to be a review if all PD’s nation wide. You wanna know where all the leaders of the government hating militias are at. Look no further than your local PD. Ooh boy what a mess this country has on it’s hands now. They can’t turn away from this now. Too much has been exposed and we have to continue to bear this truth to light or they will continue this dark attack on us
AMEN!
Just watch, more vile & ugly is going to come out. The Ferguson police department is up to their neck in this.
That’s one of the reasons why I’m glad the DOJ went in so fast.
A pattern of racist behavior towards black folks. Well,, surprise, surprise, SURPRISE!
Ferguson protest in Washington, D.C., August 23, 2014
CHOCOLATE CITY!
President Obama Is Not Our Savior
August 23, 2014
Reign Of April
I have been a President Obama supporter since he declared his candidacy on that cold February day in 2007. He hasn’t always done things the way I would have preferred, nor as quickly as I would like, but my support has never wavered. With that being said, you may be surprised by my next sentence. President Obama is not our savior. There, I said it. He’s just not. He never was. Those of you who voted for him in 2008 because you thought he was may be disillusioned now. But that’s your fault, not his. He showed you who he was from the beginning. Reasoned, even-tempered, scholarly, purposeful. But there were no miracles. No walking on Lake Michigan. No healing of the sick (although Obamacare… just kidding). He promised us change, not resolution. Change we have seen, though it will never be enough for some. But ask the gay soldier whether things are better now that Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is no more. Ask the cancer patient if she sleeps a bit better now that the Affordable Care Act is in place. You get the idea.
…………………………….
Here’s a deeper question. What happens in 2017 when President Obama leaves office? Will we be asking a non-Black president to speak on issues of race? Because although former presidents may have done so before President Obama, I don’t remember the same level of outcry, especially from Black people, for them to do so. To continue the savior metaphor, once Jesus left the earth, people were required to rely more on themselves instead of looking to one man to solve their problems. We have about two years to learn to put the onus on those who are most directly accountable and can effect real change. Or replace them with someone who will.
http://www.reignofapril.com/president-obama-is-not-our-savior/
https://twitter.com/LuddoftheFuture/status/503330954707238912/photo/1
https://twitter.com/PresReed/status/503283809501327361/photo/1
pow!!
HA HA HA HA HA That’s IT. SHUT.DOWN.THEIR.SHIT
The depth of LIES & DECEITS is mindblowing.
Just think..CNN looped this all day for the past two days. OMFG!
I don’t think that those cable news channels verify anything anymore. If they are wrong they will just say so later since they’re on the air all the time. They just don’t care.
http://lowres.jantoo.com/law-policing-moral-truth-slogan-justice-motto-16509255_low.jpg
And, Ferguson has been one of those places.
Ferguson Solidarity @FergusonUnity
CNN JUST IN: President Obama orders review of programs enabling local law enforcement to buy military equipment #Ferguson
From DON over at TOD:
Tell it Rikyrah and let the truth set them free!
Pretty Foot @PrettyFootWoman
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Ferguson Responds To Michael Brown Death With Movement Mobilizing African-Americans Voters http://www.politicususa.com/2014/08/23/interview-ferguson-resident-peaceful-protest-calling-bob-mccullochs-recusal.html … via @politicususa
1:00 PM – 23 Aug 2014
https://twitter.com/TheObamaDiary/status/503234096559321088/photo/1
Is there anybody out there who truly does not understand the meaning of AG Holder intervening so swiftly and showing up in Ferguson?
Jamelle Bouie ✔ @jbouie
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All of this repression, because the police killed a kid and the community wants answers.
9:14 PM – 13 Aug 2014
All of this repression is because the police believe they are entitled to kill with impunity. They believe they do a dirty, dangerous job that no one else wants to do and the manner in which they do it should not be questioned. I really think that is their issue. They want to be an autonomous, para military organization unhindered by the people (citizens) who do not know or appreciate what they do. They do not think they are out of control. They live a forest and can’t see the trees.
https://twitter.com/TheJarell/status/502315752935137280/photo/1
AND THERE YOU HAVE IT.
https://twitter.com/TheObamaDiary/status/503016041107439616/photo/1
https://twitter.com/Our4thEstate/status/503057816530075648/photo/1
This image is heartwrenching. The little boy is so small. This is not what childhood should be about for any kid anywhere.
skeptical brotha @skepticalbrotha
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is it okay 2 admit that i hated “the beer summit,” that i really fucking hated it? false arrest doesn’t merit kudos or a White House visit.
6:45 AM – 23 Aug 2014
I’ve been thinking like this for a long time. The notion that we can all get along with just a little bit more understanding and open communication and blah blah blah has proved to be absurd. By now we should all realize that. I think what we should be aiming for is equality before the law and that isn’t even possible while white folks dominate law enforcement everywhere in this country. And white domination of law enforcement is supported by a complicit corporate media, white politicians, and white people who control all the wealth in this country. We see it now so much better because of social media.
Spot on, and bank it, the hunt is in progress to decimate social media access too
Yeah, I was thinking about that while I was writing. Now that they see what social media can do which is to interfere with their propaganda, they will try to either make it inaccessible to those who need it the most and/or control it in other ways.
I would like to add that some of these things I am trying to discuss are difficult to face. We want to believe that people are basically good, that we can be made to see the humanity in each other if given the opportunity. It’s a nice thought, but the truth of it is very, very limited. And it sure as hell cannot be the basis for governance, this hope that everyone will one day see the light.
I hear you Liza. It takes work on ourselves to affect any REAL change.
What change takes is a CHANGE IN CONSCIOUSNESS. There can be no change
without each individual taking ownership of their consciousness.
Our habits, thoughts, behaviors morals, ethics, and beliefs are taught, and they are deeply ingrained in some of us..
This change occurs through our experiences. The shifts in consciousness comes when we have differendt experiences that cancel out a previous belief of what we’ve been taught.
I could do an entire thread on CONSCIOUSNESS.
I have to think about this.
A thread on consciousness someday would be very interesting.
PBO’s declaration of CHANGE.
And to be honest, CHANGE has indeed come to America. It is happening in Ferguson.
I hope so, Ametia.
I thought that Oscar Grant’s murder by the BART cop would trigger something, would be some kind of catalyst. My God, there was a video. But it seems to have just gotten stacked on top of that eternally high stack of murders for which there will never be justice.
Trayvon was different, then Jordan, so maybe it’s happening. Corporate media will do all it can to get folks to shuffle off and move on, but maybe this is the right time. The fact that you believe it gives me hope.
I can’t get mired in hoplessness.
The murder of our black boys and men are a WAKE UP CALL. They will continue to happen until, the collective consciousness makes a shift. Exposing the causes, racism, income inequality, poverty, racial profiling, are a start.
The citizens of Ferguson are standing up and saying HELL NAW, ya’ll ain’t coming in here and killing us without inpunity! And what we’ve seen the past 2 weeks is shift in consciousness, because social media has continued to put America’s UGLINESS on FRONT STREET.
If you are willing to support Michael Brown’s family please donate to Michael Brown’s Memorial Fund. If you can’t give please pass this link along so others may get a chance to give. TYSM!
http://www.gofundme.com/justiceformikebrown
http://oathkeepers.org/oath/2014/04/29/bundy-ranch-advisory-for-april-29-2014/
Thank you for this.
No problem…this is some deep shit going on in this country right now
It’s so disturbing. It’s laying bare for all to see.
I think that Zimmerman’s murder trial unleashed so much of that pent up racial hatred that “conservative” whites (including Hispanic whites) have for black people. It was fueled by mainstream media cheerleaders and ended up setting a murderer back to the street.
But a lot of people woke up when they realized Trayvon could be anyone’s son. He was just an ordinary kid. The trial should have been a slam dunk with Zimmerman doing life. But there it was, big as Dallas, the law only protects white people. Black folks knew that, but hoped for a different outcome, only to realize that their black sons were going to be forever at risk if something doesn’t change.
And then there’s the cops. Are we just supposed to let them kill people?
Something has shifted and it’s about time.
**sending a murderer back to the street**
Sounds like this is another POS who shouldn’t be a cop.
Charles Johnson @Green_Footballs
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Now we know why the STL County and Ferguson PD didn’t want to release the Michael Brown incident reports http://lgf.bz/1whSzqB
12:58 PM – 22 Aug 2014
https://twitter.com/TalibKweli/status/502897206094221314
“Reactions to the Shooting in Ferguson, Mo., Have Sharp Racial Divides”
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/08/21/us/ferguson-poll.html
Ya think
Orlando Jones takes the ice bucket challenge….but it winds up being about Ferguson.
http://youtu.be/mcGwCnMN2Bc
ON POINT, ORLANDO.
Mediaite @Mediaite
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Officer Who Pushed Don Lemon Relieved of Duty After Racist Rant Emerges http://bit.ly/1zeuTQ0 (VIDEOS) #Ferguson
5:01 PM – 22 Aug 2014
http://oathkeepers.org/oath/2014/04/29/bundy-ranch-advisory-for-april-29-2014/
Interesting group law enforcement is a part of, eh??? Answers some questions doesn’t it?? The whole city’s cops have to be looked at.
“@typodactyl: Wow. Just wow. The @GoFundMe for #Wilson was started by the public affairs officer of #Ferguson http://t.co/88IrL7gz4T“
https://twitter.com/BuzzFeed/status/502860499978321920/photo/1
I received this email today and am passing it along to all of you:
Last night, Governor Nixon said he will not appoint a special prosecutor to lead a transparent investigation into Michael Brown’s shooting.
We cannot let this decision stand. Tweet Missouri Governor Jay Nixon and Attorney General Chris Koster, and ask them why they won’t support justice and transparency right away.
It’s been 13 days since Officer Darren Wilson shot Michael Brown, and we still have an investigation being led by a man with personal, family, and professional ties to a local police department that has repeatedly failed its community. And the presiding prosecutor has not demonstrated a commitment to resolving previous civil rights complaints. There is nothing full and transparent about this process.
Send your tweet to Governor Nixon and A.G. Koster right now:
http://action.naacp.org/still-need-a-special-prosecutor
Thank you,
NAACP
I’ve said since the beginning that if the cop murderer were brought to justice it would be on civil rights violations via the DOJ. Sadly, nothing in the past couple of weeks has changed my mind. The DOJ is slow and deliberate and it’s hard to wait for them to get all their ducks in a row. But with Darren Wilson being a cop, and with so many white men of questionable bias in charge, this may be best in the longer term. In fact, just my humble opinion, but I would like to see the DOJ Civil Rights Division take on all of these killings by cops, because the states sure as hell haven’t been successful.
It’s kind of interesting to look at Ferguson and all at once you can see, with respect to race, what has improved to some degree over the last 50 years but also what has gotten worse and what has stayed the same. We’ve got a long way to go.
The Michael Brown Shooting Incident Report Is Ridiculous
Charles Johnson8/22/2014 11:20:29 am PDT
As usual, someone pops up on Twitter with 24 followers to tell me there’s nothing unusual about these blank incident reports.
Right.
Here’s the incident report Ferguson PD filed on the convenience store robbery
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/comment/79/10519015
Economic harassment and the Ferguson crisis
http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-the-ferguson-crisis-20140821-column.html
Scratch any social crisis, and you’re likely to find economics not far below the surface. Via ArchCity Defenders, a St. Louis legal-aid nonprofit, we can see how this has worked to create the dismaying spectacle of the breakdown of justice in Ferguson.
According to the group’s recent report on the municipal court system in St. Louis County, the Ferguson court is a “chronic offender” in legal and economic harassment of its residents. There’s not much of a secret why: the municipality collects some $2.6 million a year in fines and court fees, typically from small-scale infractions like traffic violations. This is the second-largest source of income for that small, fiscally-strapped municipality.
For a low-income community–and for a black community subjected to the racial profiling, as the report documents–these fines can gather force like a boulder rolling downhill.
And racial profiling appears to be the rule. In Ferguson, “86% of vehicle stops involved a black motorist, although blacks make up just 67% of the population,” the report states. “After being stopped in Ferguson, blacks are almost twice as likely as whites to be searched (12.1% vs. 7.9%) and twice as likely to be arrested.” But those searches result in the discovery of contraband at a much lower rate than searches of whites.
Ferguson mom: Kids have post traumatic syndrome.
***********************************
I know damn well they do. I’m watching from the tv & I’m traumatized seeing police terrorize black citizens with tear gas, abusing them with walk don’t stop for exercising their constitutional right. I’m shaken to the core.
It’s just wrong, all of it.
Physical, emotional economic, and spiritual torture, that’s what white supremacy and privilege inflicts on its victims.
https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSCuRazRRlUB8rVP5pivHEQ89UPCLlceJoeJzm-VJHet_8cNZBelg
Hat tip-Yahtzeebutterfly
Now this is an excruciating visual.
EVERY BIT OF.THIS!
Charles Pierce: The Boy In The Street
I keep coming back to what seems to me to be the most inhumane thing of all, the inhumane thing that happened before the rage began to rise, and before the backlash began to build, and before the cameras and television lights, and before the tear gas and the stun grenades and the chants and the prayers. I keep coming back to the one image that was there before the international event began, before it became a television show and a symbol in flames and something beyond what it was in the first place. I keep coming back to one simple moment, one ghastly fact. One image, from which all the other images have flowed.
They left the body in the street.
Dictators leave bodies in the street.
Petty local satraps leave bodies in the street.
Warlords leave bodies in the street.
A police officer shot Michael Brown to death. And they left his body in the street.
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/The_Body_In_The_Street
Grand jury in Michael Brown case: 3 black members, 9 white.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/grand-jury-in-michael-brown-case-black-members-white/article_6bbba56c-e28a-53d0-8b85-b20c36810fbd.html
CLAYTON • The grand jury that is hearing evidence in the Michael Brown shooting death has one black man and two black women on the panel, and six white men and three white women.
The Post-Dispatch reported Wednesday that the grand jury had three black people, but the gender information is new. The gender information was supplied by Paul Fox, director of judicial administration for St. Louis County Circuit Court.
Fox said Judge Carolyn Whittington will hear a motion Monday morning about what else to release about the makeup of the grand jury, including age and hometown or zip code.
No surprises here. Remember these racist mofos can always use the Darrren Wilson’s being tried by a “Jury of his peers” Peers= (6) SIX WHITE MEN
http://blogs.thetimes-tribune.com/johncole/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/081714coletoon.jpg
http://www.newyorker.com/?p=2716491
Makes me shudder!
It’s HAUNTING.
Dorin Wilson was one of the first witnesses to come forward & other witnesses are all consistent with him. THEN, Michael Brady came forward and the media saw a pattern developing with consistency, they had to dig up dirt to discredit them. I’ll bet right now they’re combing through every inch of the other eyewitnesses lives. But no one touched on the credibility of the woman in the video. She doesn’t even have to give her real name. White privilege is a hellava drug.
This is how white power operates, SG2. Attempt to Destroy, Discredit, Disparage, Denigrate blacks, all while making themselves the victim. It’s sick and unconscionable.
Joy Reid @JoyAnnReid
St. Louis prosecutor McCulloch has faced controversy for decades: http://bit.ly/1mrTxqB via @STLtoday / and is running unopposed in Nov.
Chief Jackson, the mayor (who I think has the power to fire him) and Prosecutor McCulloch are attempting to block the DOOR TO JUSTICE in the same way that Gov. Wallace blocked the entrance to the University of Alabama as he turned away a Federal LE officer who was trying to enroll Black students.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/06/12/article-2340110-1A3EBBCC000005DC-593_634x403.jpg
Thank you, Yahtc. Off to tweet this.
I am praying hard that we will see a strong charge ultimately coming from the Grand Jury.
I worry about about ALL that we have witnessed that leads to distrust in the FPD and the justice system of that area.
Praying.
Dear MSM, you’re going to have a hellava job discrediting all those witnesses. Good luck with THAT!
x 2
Did you see this? SilentlyHeardOnce just posted it to the open thread. I’m dropping it here.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=724881710904951
Yes I’ve seen it. Just horrendous.
Only a clip of it before.
Thanks for posting it, Ametia.
FIRST THEY ROB, AND THEN THEY SHOOT TO KILL
Ferguson Feeds Off the Poor: Three Warrants a Year Per Household
In the chamber where Officer Darren Wilson received a commendation six months before killing Michael Brown, a minor court generates major money from the city’s poor and working people.
The Ferguson Police have now released a video that shows police Officer Darren Wilson receiving a commendation six months before he became known to the whole nation as the cop who gunned down an unarmed 18-year-old.
snip
But there is another, unnoticed irony in the venue itself. Three times a month—one day and two nights—the City Council chamber also serves as home to the incredibly busy and extremely profitable Ferguson municipal court.
A report issued just last week by the nonprofit lawyer’s group ArchCity Defenders notes that in the court’s 36 three-hour sessions in 2013, it handled 12,108 cases and 24,532 warrants. That is an average of 1.5 cases and three warrants per Ferguson household. Fines and court fees for the year in this city of just 21,000 people totaled $2,635,400.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/22/ferguson-s-shameful-legal-shakedown-three-warrants-a-year-per-household.html?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=cheatsheet_morning&cid=newsletter%3Bemail%3Bcheatsheet_morning&utm_term=Cheat%20Sheet
Rikyrah, I had to redownload the video. The first one was corrupt. I hope this one is much better.
Thank you so much, SG2
Rikyrah, 3 times I downloaded the video. A small section is corrupt. I thought it was on my part but no. It’s the video.
It’s the resistance, but the GREATER the RESISTANCE, the GREATER the RESULTS.
The Last Word ✔ @TheLastWord
Follow
.@LisaBloom on fact officer didn’t write an incident report: “At a minimum this revelation should result in the loss of his job.” #Ferguson
9:08 PM – 21 Aug 2014
https://twitter.com/amk4obama/status/502795963736412160/photo/1
Different rules apply
by Matt Zoller Seitz
August 19, 2014 | ☄ 411 Print Page
I want to tell you a story about the difference between knowing and understanding.
Over the weekend, my ten-year-old son and I had just finished eating supper at a diner near our house. The multiple TVs in the diner were all showing cable news coverage of the Ferguson situation. On the way out, we passed an African American mother talking to her son, a child around my boy’s age, seated in a booth near the front door.
The boy asked his mother, “So I should just put my hands in the air?”
“Yes,” his mother said. “Just put your hands in the air.”
“If I put my hands in the air, will the police not shoot?” he asked.
“Probably not, but you can’t be sure. Some people say you should just kneel or lie down, don’t ask questions, just get down on the ground.”
“If I lie down on the ground, they won’t shoot?”
“Probably,” she said.
I recognized the exhaustion in that “probably”—a parent trying to explain a fundamentally unfair fact of life in the most neutral terms possible, so as not to make a child prematurely paranoid or cynical or bitter, and realizing that there are no words with which to do such a thing. After my son and I left the restaurant, though, I was disturbed by a mental image of this small boy dropping face-down on the ground at the sound of a cop’s voice—thinking just maybe he wouldn’t get shot. I thought of Oscar Grant, who was detained by police on a BART platform on New Years Day, 2009, and got shot in the back anyway. To death.
“Is that what you’re supposed to do? Get down on the ground?” my son asked.
He’d heard about Ferguson. It was everywhere.
I said, “Not necessarily. Some police want you to put your hands up. Some don’t ask you to do that. It depends. I guess the main thing is to just do what the police officer tells you to do. Don’t make any sudden moves.”
“Can the police just shoot people?” he asked. He seemed genuinely worried.
“They’re not supposed to just shoot people,” I said. “There are supposed to be rules about when you can and can’t shoot a person. Sometimes mistakes happen and people who shouldn’t get shot do get shot. And there are other times when…”
And I trailed off because I realized I was evading the real issue.
“It happens, and it’s horrible,” I told my son,” and in a lot of cases the reasons why some people get shot and others don’t get shot are unfair, or they don’t make sense, but you….” I trailed off again.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“White people just aren’t as likely to get shot by police,” I told him.
“Why is that?”
“There are a lot of reasons why that’s true, and we’ll talk about them later, but that’s the bottom line,” I said. “It’s not right, but it’s the truth. That’s what that woman was telling her son about.”
My mind added: …in a conversation that most white dads would not be having with their white elementary school-age sons.
Why didn’t I say this out loud to my son? I don’t know. Something was holding me back.
Maybe it was the fact that my son has friends of different races and ethnicities, and I didn’t want to burst what I thought was an idyllic bubble, if indeed he lived in one, which he probably doesn’t.
No, that wasn’t it.
I wasn’t protecting my son from anything. I was protecting my son’s image of his father, or what I imagined that image to be.
And I was protecting myself from myself. I was lying to myself about myself.
I was reminded of something my best friend, a skinny Irish guy from Bay Ridge, told me. He was hanging out with his dad one afternoon. Out of the blue his dad told he should always be grateful for the greatest gift his dad and mom ever gave him.
“What gift is that?” my friend asked.
“Your white skin,” he said. “If you’re white in this country, you’re ahead of the game. You get more chances. You get more second chances. That’s the gift your mother and I gave you—and we didn’t have a damn thing to do with it!”
http://www.rogerebert.com/mzs/what-white-privilege-really-means-an-anecdote
https://twitter.com/bennydiego/status/502664534608580608/photo/1
Sadly……this IS where things stand today!
I agree it is frightening thinking of my grandson who are so innocent can be subject to this mistreatment or executed for being a black child.
SHO, I’m feeling you. I have a 2 year old grandson., Our children and grands are so precious….
Why Ferguson Matters to Asian Americans
August 20, 2014 10:02 am
For weeks I have been in awe of the organizers and writers – Rev. Osagyefo Sekou, Jamala Rogers, Malkia Cyril, Ta-Nehesi Coates, john a. powell, Falguni A. Sheth, and so many others – who have placed the situation in Ferguson into critical historical and political context. This despite persistent attempts by police, elected officials, and mainstream media to erase that context with vilifications of black political protest and black life. I write this post to express my solidarity and rage, and to offer a response to the disturbing question that I’ve heard asked, and that demands an answer: Does Ferguson matter to Asian Americans?
First and foremost, the murder of Mike Brown by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson is causing profound grief at the violent loss of yet another black mother’s child. The expression of that grief by the Brown family, and the pained words of solidarity from Sybrina Fulton, the mother of Trayvon Martin, are necessary bedrocks for understanding the human toll that anti-black racism takes. What makes this a national political crisis is that Mike Brown’s death was not an isolated incident. It was excruciatingly unexceptional – one more deadly outcome of white supremacy in a human rights crisis that spans cities, nations, centuries.
………………………….
I would never equate my inheritance of han to the real and imminent threat of violence that Ferguson’s black community and so many others face now. But I will say that I hold my own rage close to me, as part of my identity. I understand the need to defend, protect, and express it.
Secondly, America normalizes and indulges in black death in service to a dehumanizing narrative of black criminality. The exalting of Asian Americans as a model minority reinforces this narrative. And Asian death is rendered invisible when it has no value to the power structure. If Asian life falls outside of model minority and Orientalist narratives, if it doesn’t prop up ideas of American exceptionalism and meritocracy, it doesn’t register much. I was reminded of this a few weeks ago, when the story broke (but did not go viral) of Sandeep Singh, a 29-year-old Sikh man, who was run over and dragged 30 feet by a white man driving a pickup truck in Queens, shouting “Go back to your own country, Bin Laden!” That was less than a week before the two-year anniversary of a white supremacist shooting rampage that killed six people at the Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, WI in 2012.
The invisibility of Asian death, and the denial of any form of Asian American identity that doesn’t play by the model minority rulebook, is another reason why black rage holds such importance to me. It serves as a beacon when faced with the racial quandary that Asian Americans must navigate. As Jamala Rogers reminds us, the findings of the Kerner Commission in 1968, nearly 50 years ago, have come to fruition now: “Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal.”
http://www.racefiles.com/2014/08/20/why-ferguson-matters-to-asian-americans/
Missouri legislator pushed to have names of police in officer involved shootings kept secret
by Robin Smith / News 4 and Dan Greenwald / KMOV.com
KMOV.com
Posted on August 21, 2014 at 6:40 PM
Updated yesterday at 7:06 PM
(KMOV.com) – State Representative Jeff Roorda-D Barnhart introduced a bill in the Missouri Legislature to keep the name of police officers who shoot someone in the line of duty a secret.
Roorda said he introduced the bill in 2009 out of safety concerns for police officers.
“Releasing a name could put someone in grave jeopardy,” Roorda said.
Roorda is also the business manager of the St. Louis Police Officers’ Association. The bill would have prevented the public from obtaining any records and documents involving police shootings if those documents contained the name of the officer who pulled the trigger.
Roorda said he was concerned about retaliation.
“That someone would retaliate, think they did something wrong and try to hurt them or their family,” Roorda said.
The bill never became law. The Police Officer’s Association eventually reached a compromise with the St. Louis Police Department. The department agreed to not release the name of the officer if it felt the officer could face a threat. After the compromise, Roorda decided not to pursue the legislation.
http://www.kmov.com/news/just-posted/Mo-legislator-pushed-to-have-names-of-police-in-officer-involved-shootings-kept-secret-272229131.html?utm_term=%23kmov+%23News4StLouis&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter