By Charlton S. Stanley, Weekend writer
We should have seen this coming. I believe it is going to get worse before it gets better, if ever. At some point there is going to be a “pitchforks and torches” backlash.
It may be starting in Ferguson, MO. Take a look at one of the latest stories to come out of there. It’s sad that we have to look overseas to get reliable and up to date news about what is happening in the good ol’ US of A. Because of the great sucking sound that is the US corporate mainstream media, people who want to get a more balanced read on the news check sites such as Al Jazerra, The Guardian, RT, The Epoch Times, and Der Spiegel.
This is a brief clip from a story posted yesterday on RT (Russia Today). Emphasis is mine:
Nearly four years to the day before Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson opened fire and killed Brown, 18, a complaint filed in federal court accused the same law enforcement agency of violating the civil rights of a man who says he was badly beaten after being wrongly arrested, then later charged with “destruction of property” for bleeding on the uniforms of the cops alleged to have injured him.
It gets better. Reading the court filings, we learn that on September 20, 2010, Henry Davis missed his exit and found himself in the the St. Louis County community of Ferguson at 3:00 AM. As it happened, there was a warrant was out for a Henry Davis, but the wanted man has a different middle initial, different birth date, and different Social Security number.
However, Davis, a 54 year old African-American welder was assaulted by four officers (one of them female). The records show that he was thrown forcefully into a one-person cell, but the one-person cell already had an occupant. He would have had to sleep on the concrete floor, because the one bunk was already occupied. There was a pile of sleeping mats near the cell, so Davis asked for a sleeping mat. Because he asked for something to sleep on, he was called disobedient. At that point, Davis was thrown to the floor, and put in restraints. During this assault in the jail, one of the officers kicked Davis in the head.
After being restrained and kicked in the jail cell, paramedics took Henry Davis to the hospital where he insisted that his picture be taken before he was treated (photo and story at the link). The Emergency Room doctor diagnosed him with a concussion and stitched him up before releasing Davis back to custody of the Ferguson PD.
He was released 3 days later on a $1500 bond for “destruction of public property.” If they kick and beat you, you better not dare bleed on their uniforms.
Davis sued. When the four officers were deposed, all four denied that they had blood on their uniforms as they had signed on their affidavit of complaints. What does this mean? They either perjured themselves at trial or had falsified affidavit. That level of perjury is a felony. The county prosecutor declined to prosecute because he claimed Davis’, injuries were de minimus.
Let’s take a look at the prosecutor. The St. Louis County Prosecutor is a man named Bob McCulloch. He has a reputation of being extremely harsh in his prosecution of offenders. However, McCulloch has some personal baggage which calls both his judgement and racial neutrality into question. You see, Bob McCulloch is the son of St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department officer Paul McCullouch. Officer Paul McCullough was killed in the line of duty on July 2, 1964. Officer McCullouch was 37 years old at the time. His son, current prosecutor Bob McCulloch was 12 years old in 1964. I remember that cop killing, because we lived in St. Louis, and it happened not far from where I was working at the time. Officer McCullouch was responding to a kidnapping call at the infamous Pruett-Igoe Housing Project when he was shot in the head by the fleeing kidnapper. His killer was a black man.
Bob McCullouch wanted to become a police officer like his father, but lost a leg as a teenager. That eliminated him from joining the police force, so he went to law school and became a prosecutor, a position he has held for the past twenty years. His tenure as a prosecuting attorney has been marked by controversy. He has a reputation as being almost fanatical about prosecuting alleged perpetrators, but turns a blind eye to even the grossest misconduct by law enforcement officers. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has a story about him.
Mr. Davis’ injuries were de minimus, and according to McCullouch, not worth pursuing, yet Davis’ spattered blood on the officer’s uniforms did warrant charges. Maybe somebody smarter than me can explain that logic.
Henry Davis sued the city for civil rights violations, but late last year Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker ruled in favor the city. His attorneys filed a notice of appeal in March, and the case is currently slated to be considered later this year by the Eight Circuit Court of Appeals.
A PDF of the filing to the Eighth Circuit is embedded in the RT article.
–ooOoo–
“Max 1
sarah haley @sahaley
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“To respect the law, in the context in which the American Negro finds himself, is simply to surrender his self-respect.” James Baldwin, 1966″
PERSPECTIVE:
“If all earthly power were given me,” said Lincoln in a speech delivered in Peoria, Illinois, on October 16, 1854, “I should not know what to do, as to the existing institution [of slavery]. My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia, to their own native land.” After acknowledging that this plan’s “sudden execution is impossible,” he asked whether freed blacks should be made “politically and socially our equals?” “My own feelings will not admit of this,” he said, “and [even] if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of white people will not … We can not, then, make them equals.”
“While it is true that Lincoln regarded slavery as an evil and harmful institution, it is also true that he shared the conviction of Americans, and of many prominent statesmen before and after him, that blacks could not be assimilated into white society. He rejected the notion of social equality of the races, and held to the view that blacks should be resettled abroad. As President, he supported projects to remove blacks from the United States. Lincoln was also a strong supporter of the Illinois law that forbid marriage between whites and blacks.
LINCOLN WAS RIGHT OR LINCOLN WAS WRONG.
THE CIVIL WAR WAS RIGHT OR THE CIVIL WAR WAS WRONG.
Which is it???
John – The Civil War was right or the Civil War was wrong from whose perspective?
Paul C. Schulte
Dredd – as you well know, I have not rejected science, only some scientists, like Michael Mann and his ilk.
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So, when did you change your mind and why?
Dredd – I have never changed my mind about science or scientists. You have been too busy with you ad hominem attacks to notice what my position was.
I thought the National Guard was the authority now? How does the chain of command work in that civil situation? It is still very troubling and may yet expand.
slohrss29 – I think the National Guard is in charge of the martial law situation. But I think they are supplementing the Highway Patrol, who are supplementing the Fergeson PD. I am not sure who has arresting powers here.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119102/what-white-st-louis-thinks-about-ferguson “bout a 15-minute drive from the Ferguson protest that, by now, feels more like a block party, in the more upscale St. Louis suburb of Olivette, there’s a new strip mall with a barbecue joint and a Starbucks and an e-cigarette store. On a mild Thursday evening in August, people sat around tables, sipping coffee, sipping beer, dabbing barbecue sauce off their fingers.
All of these people were white.
It was a stark contrast to Ferguson, which is two-thirds black. Olivette is almost the exact opposite, at over 60 percent white. St. Louis, and the little hamlets that ring it, is one of the most segregated cities in America, and it shows.
Here in Olivette, the people I spoke to showed little sympathy for Michael Brown, or the protesters.
“It’s bullshit,” said one woman, who declined to give her name. When I asked her to clarify what, specifically, was bullshit, she said, “All of it. I don’t even know what they’re fighting for.” “
swm “A president and his attorney general were elected and appointed and confirmed to represent all of the American people, not just their people,” he added.”
It’s refreshing to finally have another president who acknowledges that black- and brown- skinned people have civil rights, too. We have had too many people in positions of authority who think that the only people who have such rights are “their” people, those with peach-colored skin.
CCR may also have been involved in the Nixon tape lawsuit at the SC. I know that Arthur Kinoy presented to the SC but I’m not sure if he was a presenter for CCR or otherwise.
Link to the CCR statement, provided by bettykath:
https://www.facebook.com/CenterforConstitutionalRights
@max-1
It ain’t 1966 no more. It’s 48 years later. Should we be “re-tweeting” somebody’s “we got to stop the Japs who bombed Pearl Harbor!”
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Paul, What is your source for claiming CCR is a Soros group?
It was founded by William Kuntsler and Arthur Kinoy (whom I knew) and others. Its purpose was, and is, to support civil rights activists. It successfully sued on behalf of Judi Barie’s estate, NYC for its “stop and frisk, and on behalf of the Guantanamo prisoners, among other civil rights cases. They have also been trying to get the torture decision makers brought to justice.
bettykath – looked at its tax returns and it is showing large donations from the Tides Foundation, which is Soros main group.
I watched the protest on LiveStream the last two nights. It was evident that both the police and the protesters are in high dudgeon. If the Feds take over this whole thing from the policing to the investigation and a possible prosecution the protesters would stand down, I believe.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/08/18/not-racist-birther-gadfly-is-shocked-obama-hasnt-renamed-it-the-black-house-yet/ “onservative activist Larry Klayman claimed President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder were waging a “race war” against white people by commenting on the police shooting of an unarmed black teenager.
“What makes my blood boil is that our so-called president and his attorney general jump to judgment, on a consistent and regular basis, against ‘whitey’ and in favor of their black brothers,” Klayman wrote Saturday at World Net Daily.
“A president and his attorney general were elected and appointed and confirmed to represent all of the American people, not just their people,” he added.”
SWM – Klayman does have a point. I don’t remember either Obama or Holder coming out in support of some white guy who got shot by a police officer.
https://twitter.com/sahaley/statuses/501237225770995712
Michael Brown shooting: Amnesty International sends team within US for first time as National Guard deployed
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/michael-brown-shooting-amnesty-international-sends-team-within-us-for-first-time-as-national-guard-deployed-9675149.html
https://twitter.com/diagnosed/statuses/501273330918236161
Dredd – as you well know, I have not rejected science, only some scientists, like Michael Mann and his ilk.
Charlton Stanley
USAG Holder has ordered there be an autopsy done by a Federal laboratory. That will be completely independent of both local examiners and the one requested by the family. Let’s hope the FBI forensic pathology lab does a competent job. In a high profile like this, I doubt the lab will use just one pathologist. It will be a team of super-specialists in several disciplines.
I only hope Dr. Steven Hayne is not involved in any form or fashion.
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The family also wanted a separate autopsy, and got one.
It shows that the murder victim was shot at least 6 times, twice in the head.
I want to see the forensics that determine the direction of the final shot to the middle of the top of the head.
Was it an execution style final shot?
Report from Center for Constitutional Rights, just posted:
Update from CCR staff on the ground in Ferguson: Last night, several hundred peaceful protesters in Ferguson—including families with young children, elders, and people in wheelchairs—were tear-gassed without warning three hours before the 12 am curfew. The tear-gassing occurred during a community march down Florissant Ave., a main street where protesters have been gathering on a daily basis since Michael Brown was killed. As protesters neared the cordoned off end of the street, police indiscriminately and without warning fired tear gas and smoke bombs upon the protesters. Many people quickly turned back, running to escape the tear gas. However, the police advanced down the streets so quickly that hundreds of people, including CCR staff, were caught in the tear-gas. We were given no warning, and even running from the gas, it was impossible to escape the falling canisters. Areas that were considered safe, such as the press area, were hit repeatedly. Soon after, we attempted to deliver supplies like milk, water, and antacid for the victims who had been tear-gassed. As we attempted to do so, tear gas was being fired all around us, without warning, including into an intersection where people were crossing. The town of Ferguson is under siege. Huge areas of the city have been made inaccessible—and inescapable, and the community has absolutely no place to safely assemble.
bettykath – CCR is a Soros group. I am a little suspicious of their report.
John,
How long have you worked for Big Bother?
Paul C. Schulte
Dredd – … logical fallacies …
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You rejected science some time back on the record, and embraced fundamentalist religion.
So, your dissertations on science are ill advised.
Have you recanted from fundamentalism, and now want to pervert symbolic logic too?
Or to you is symbolic logic now a fundamentalist religion?
If you use a cell phone you could be a virus.
Same if you don’t use a cell phone (On The Origin of the Genes of Viruses).
“”BarkinDog The Huffington Post is impossible to get on the screen because of the “scripts”.””
The Huffing and Puffington Post is difficult.
The Officer has enjoyed his rights, with the exception of “reporting” in the media including the Huffing and Puffington Post. Every shooting is investigated as the officer is reassigned.
The Officer encountered a suspect in two crimes, jaywalking and robbery.
Jaywalking, the officer saw and robbery was broadcast on the police radio.
The suspect assaulted and wounded the officer.
The suspect endangered the life of the officer.
The 6’4″ 300lb. suspect was a lethal weapon.
The total firing time of the gun by the officer is approximately 2 seconds.