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–
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/08/18/1322560/-Ferguson-Store-Owner-Says-NO-ONE-From-His-Store-Called-Cops-To-Report-Cigar-Theft?detail=facebook#
Well, we have a new report from Ferguson. it seems that store video where Michael Brown allegedly stole some cigars was rather selectively produced. The full security video from the store shows Michael Brown PAYING for his cigars. The store owners did NOT report a robbery because there was no robbery. The interaction at the door was apparently b/c Michael didn’t have enough money to pay for all that he wanted so some were left on the counter.
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2014/08/18/ferguson-pd-busted/
“Ferguson, Mo., police are doing little to instill confidence”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ferguson-mo-police-are-doing-little-to-instill-confidence/2014/08/18/265f8acc-271b-11e4-86ca-6f03cbd15c1a_story.html
By Editorial Board August 18 at 7:27 PM
IF THERE were any doubt that the citizens of Ferguson, Mo., had good reason to question the professionalism of their police force, it has been erased by several days of revelations about the shooting of teenager Michael Brown.
The facts we now have include these: Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson killed the 18-year-old Mr. Brown when he was unarmed and more than 30 feet from the police car in which an initial confrontation between the two apparently occurred. On Monday, the public got some bits of new information, including autopsy reports indicating that Mr. Brown was shot from the front and that the teenager had marijuana in his system. A secondhand account of Officer Wilson’s side of the story also emerged. But these bottom-line points stand: Police officers have a responsibility to use non-deadly means to defuse situations whenever possible, and nothing on the record indicates that Mr. Brown had to die.
Meanwhile, the Ferguson Police Department continues to fumble the vital job of providing information to the public about the shooting. When local officials have produced information, its release has often been self-servingly selective. Authorities waited days even to identify Officer Wilson. Crucial details of the shooting remain murky — including the officer’s full, on-the-record account of the story — yet Ferguson police released extensive documentation of a convenience store robbery in which Mr. Brown was allegedly involved. If the intent of the police is to avoid prejudicing eyewitness accounts still being collected, this is an awful way of doing so. Instead, this looks like contempt for the public’s right to know, incompetence or both.
There was a moment at which tensions seemed to be cooling. After days of clashes between protesters and police toting military-style weapons, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon (D) relieved the St. Louis County Police Department of the job of securing Ferguson. The Missouri Highway Patrol commander the governor tapped to step in made a concerted effort to engage with the community. Nighttime unrest briefly abated. Then the robbery information and the contradictory explanations for its release helped bring the situation back to a boil.
Police misbehavior is no excuse for violence and looting. But in such a powder-keg situation, a key role for the government is to calm rather than to inflame. The Ferguson police failed that basic test.
It is good that federal authorities are conducting a thorough parallel investigation and that President Obama will dispatch Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to Ferguson this week. Federal officials should conduct their probe as quickly as possible and release as much information as they can, as soon as they can. Not only would that show more respect for the people of Ferguson than their own police have; it would apply pressure to local authorities to conduct themselves more responsibly. ~~~Editorial Board, Washington Post
Video Killed Trust in Police Officers
Conor Friedersdorf Aug 18 2014, 6:00 AM ET
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/08/police-officers-havent-earned-our-instinctive-trust/378657/2/
“The answer isn’t to stop respecting all police officers, or to assume that any allegation of police misconduct is true. Even officers involved in suspicious killings, like the one in Ferguson, Missouri, deserve a fair hearing from the public. No one knows for sure what happened when Mike Brown was killed, and while the reaction of local police to protesters does not inspire confidence, the objective ought to be an impartial, accurate investigation by a credible, independent party.
But in the age of YouTube and Google, where police brutality can be seen from the comfort of one’s home, along with documentation from dozens of serious law enforcement scandals, there is no longer any valid excuse for being blind to bad cops generally, or denying the possibility that an officer could have callously killed an unarmed man.
In my generation, an increasing number of people will reach the conclusion that when a dispute arises pitting the word of law enforcement against the word of the policed, they ought to be on equal footing—disputes should be adjudicated by dispassionately weighing the available evidence, not reflexively giving police officers a benefit of the doubt that their profession, as a collective, has not earned (although you wouldn’t know it from police brass, judges, and district attorneys). As the police continue to lose the trust of the public, due largely to documented instances of bad behavior by fellow officers, as well as law enforcement’s longstanding inability to police themselves, I suspect that more and more good cops will be clamoring for cameras on their dashboards and lapels. Until then, citizens ought to record police during every incident as it unfolds. Doing so will bring vindication to good cops and indictments of bad cops.
Don’t trust. Verify.”
Squeeky said: “In fact, the very search for discrimination or racism just provides cover for the very white folks who bear a lot of responsibility for the state poor blacks find themselves in. Which makes me think the search for “racism” is nothing but a distraction from the Great Society BS which is to blame for much of this.”
I totally agree with Squeeky, but when a president refuses to acknowledge how handouts have destroyed our society, there is no wonder Obama has set back not just race relations 50 years, but the middle class, too.
Karen S, I understand you totally. You are bucking a lot of people who want it both ways.
Nick, well said.
Karen, You are obviously RAAAACIST since you don’t want to skip the investigation and go right to the sentencing phase of the cop. Same horseshit went on here w/ the Zimmerman trial w/ the usual suspects.
Get off your soapbox, Karen.
Squeeky
Understanding does not necessarily mean to agree…
anonymous:
“Nobody in their right mind wants more violent protests. But nobody wants more Michael Browns either. ”
Do you know what happened to Michael Brown? Do you have proof yet about what happened? Nope. So, are we asking for no more justified shootings? No more charging at police? No more hate crimes? No more poor officer training? Do you even know what you’re asking for, since neither you, nor anyone else, actually know what happened yet.
Again, the implication is that this was a hate crime. That may be, but we don’t know yet.
And as for “riots are the language of the unheard,” this is not the Jim Crow South. The poor ARE heard. Their votes are courted. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton built their empires on their backs.
MLK, Jr understood unrest, but he did not condone violence. It is in error to use his name to justify a lynch mob.
John
Sorry, missed your comment back to me.
Perspective: Watch the DemocracyNow video I posted.
MLK also said”
“Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”
“True peace is not the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.”
“A riot is the language of the unheard.” -Martin Luther King
“In Ferguson the violence of the state created the violence of the street”
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/18/ferguson-violence-martin-luther-king-michael-brown
“Nobody in their right mind wants more violent protests. But nobody wants more Michael Browns either. And those two things – the violence of the state and the violence of the street – are connected. “A riot,” said Martin Luther King, “is the language of the unheard.” The people on the streets don’t donate thousands of dollars to anyone’s campaign. They don’t get a seat at any table where decisions are made or have the ear of the powerful. But with four black men killed by the police in the country in the last four weeks, they have a lot to say, and precious few avenues through which to say it. The question now is who’s listening.”
bettykath – what the heck is CCR doing there adding to the mess anyway? They are clearly just getting in the way.
mespo:
“The point is that you have no point. The issue was discrimination based on race. Cars and black gangbangers don’t kill because of discrimination and to use your analogy it matters not one iota to those killed and moldering in the ground what killed them … but it matters to us as a society.”
You’re struggling with understanding my consistent point. Let me try bullet points for clarity:
1) We need to have an investigation and find out what happened
2) We need to act accordingly with the facts to ensure there is justice.
Where you get the idea that I don’t care what or who kills people is beyond me. You can fabricate false opinions and attribute them to me all you want but that doesn’t make it true.
rafflaw:
“What Mespo said about the inflammatory statements and logical fallacy being propounded by Karen S.”
I swear it’s like I’m in the Twilight Zone. Has everyone gone barking mad? How are my repeated calls for peace inflammatory and a logical fallacy?
OK, I’ve had a shocking look at the Liberal Left blowing themselves up on this very interesting thread. There are very few people, like me, who are interested in finding out the actual facts, and acting accordingly.
I enjoy discussing the events, wondering what happened, following the trail of evidence, and finding out how this turns out. But that’s considered a sin by the Party of Peace.
So, ya’ll just go get your pitchforks and rope and have a ball. I’ve done my best and wash my hands of it.
Karen – a public lynching by the Left is far more fun to watch then finding out the actual truth. Just ask the President.
Max:
“Karen S
Beat the dead horse some more… What mespso
The need to indict the black populace speaks of an underlying agenda and I’m calling THAT out!”
What the heck are you talking about? I don’t have an agenda except for everyone to calm down the rhetoric. People are getting hurt in these riots and businesses are getting damaged. It is irresponsible to keep throwing gasoline on the fire.
I never said we should indict the black populace. I have clearly, and repeatedly, explained that it is false to claim that white-on-black crime is rampant, and I used actual facts from the DOJ to back it up. I have explained in a way obvious to the meanest understanding that it specifically was to counter a false narrative, to explain that I wish the community would address the actual dangers to its youth, and that it is irresponsible to claim that every white-on-black shooting is automatically racist.
I have to say that I’m rather shocked at what I’m reading from people who have claimed they are just, tolerant, and have an evolved world view.
Whose side do you think MLK, Jr would be on? Mine calling for peace, an investigation, and justice, or the side of those howling that they already know what happened, facts be damned, and it’s definitely a hate crime and go get ’em?
bettykath:
“They are using their badges to brutalize the citizens and get away with it because of the racism in the police department and the DAs office.” Where is your proof that the police department AND the DA are racist? That would be a really serious problem, if the KKK have infiltrated the force. I suppose it could happen, but I would want to be extremely sure before I made a claim like that on the Internet.
Wouldn’t you feel bad if you were wrong, it wasn’t a hate crime, but people reading comments like that took it as Gospel and burned the police station down?
We have a responsibility to be very careful about what we state as a certainty.
bettykath:
“This isn’t about citizen on citizen crime. This is about a police officer, wearing his badge and using his state provided weapon, killing an unarmed Black teen.”
Hence the need for an INVESTIGATION. Are you saying we should just shoot Darren Wilson now, as the crowd is demanding, before the facts are in? This could be a justified shooting, or it could be poor police training, or it could be a hate crime.
If wrongdoing is found, then it needs to be addressed. I have consistently commented before against police brutality or the abuse of power.
I keep saying we need to find out what happened before any of us go beyond conjecture and jump to conclusions. Before a protest turns into a lynch mob.
Does anyone here think I am wrong?
Mespo:
“That’s inflammatory and absolutely irrelevant to the topic.”
Really? I am trying to counter the clarion call that white-on-black hate crimes are the biggest threat to the African American community. You know, the kind of rhetoric that has now led to crowds chanting for the police officer’s DEATH.
I am trying to put things in perspective.
How are facts inflammatory? There is a serious gang problem in the African American and Latino communities. I live in CA, and it is frequently on the news. What a lost opportunity when the community blows up all across the country on the false premise that a white cop shooting a black man MUST be racism.
I suggest you join with me and discuss the facts instead of fanning the flames of unrest.
What is so wrong with a repeated call to ensure an impartial investigation gets under way, and that it is foolish and irresponsible to assume that such a shooting is always a hate crime???
Paul, Considering the work done by CCR, I’m delighted that they are getting funding. I judge CCR by the work that they do. It would be just great if they could go out of business b/c there are no more cases for them to litigate. What a country we would have!