Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson indicated this week that they are “pursuing” an investigation into whether comments made by Michael Brown’s stepfather Louis Head (shown here in the white cap) should be charged for his inciting a riot for his response to the news that there would be no indictment of Officer Darren White. While I certainly do not condone the language, I have long been a critic of such “violent speech” prosecutions and I believe that such charges would violate his free speech rights and ignore the mitigating factor of a family member in a highly emotional position that night. Warning: profane words are contained in the story below and the videotape.
After the news of the grand jury decision, Head started to scream “Burn this motherfucker down! Burn this bitch down!” Looting and arson broke out soon after the decision of the grand jury.
In addition to police chief, Missouri Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder told Fox News that it sounds like Head was trying to incite a riot.
After the grand jury’s decision was announced, 12 commercial buildings in Ferguson were destroyed by fire and there were well over 100 arrests at St. Louis-area.
I do not believe that Head’s comments would satisfy the standard established by the Supreme Court in 1969 in Brandenburg v. Ohio as advocating imminent violence. Violent speech is protected under the Constitution absent such a threat of imminent violence. I have previously written about the dangerous line of criminalizing speech. I currently have a case going before the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit on this issue in United States v. Al-Timimi.
Adding to the constitutional concerns raised by the threatened prosecution of Head is that fact that he was a grieving family member expressing widely shared anger at the news of the decision. He had just jumped up to hold his wife who was sobbing after the news. I doubt anyone seriously believes that it was Head who triggered the rioting, looting, and arson. Those crimes occurred at the time of the incident and were widely anticipated by law enforcement personnel. Head has apologized for his outburst and said that he was wrong to call for violence.
Source: CBS
This is a tough one. Can an adult incite other adults into a riot. . . Considering that Louis Head is now a public figure, I’m not sure it applies. At first I thought Head should be charged, because Michael Brown Sr. seem to be a peaceful protester in his own right.
I think if I were a burned down business owner in Ferguson, perhaps a civil suit against Louis Head would be better. Arresting him and charging him with a crime isn’t going to teach him a lesson, he has a record as long as his arm. However, if you hit him in his wallet, that might do it.
Yet, if you wear a t-shirt with a gun on it into the airport, the TSA will have you followed by BDO’s (behavior detection officer) and will at times ask the t-shirt offender to remove his t-shirt or turn it inside out. I’ve seen it done many times.
What about Louis Farrakhan and his hate speech! The preacher on an earlier post. What about Charles Manson, he was also known for his hate speech. I think the Facebook case currently being looked at by SCOTUS, will be interesting. If we just didn’t give it any attention or airtime, it will just dissipate.
http://youtu.be/dQSOUBPMxcA
Msjettexas – I think you need to include Head, Nixon, Holder and Obama in the lawsuit if your business was harmed in any way. And I would include all those witnesses who perjured themselves.
Anybody that thinks he incited the riot needs their heads examined.
Golden Country – with all of the War songs including the one of your avatar from the 60s and 70s don’t you think Mr. Head’s Poetic License really took advantage of the situation and the heated emotions of the people standing up above them all and screaming burn the b***tch down four times and the F**er down also? for good measure. CNN tried to cover it up and couldn’t.
Pogo: Why should Ferguson get him? He did not live in Ferguson. Where do you live Pogo?
Upon reflection Mr. Head should receive the nomination as our next Attorney General.
Ferguson was a dynamite powder keg ready to explode. Saying something in anger and acting out on it are two different things. The protesters are the one’s who should be prosecuted, because they acted out and caused the damage.
Michael Brown’s step-father should not have made his comments public, but one must realize his anger and emotional distress at that time. Consequently, I do think his comments discredited him and harmed his reputation with many American’s.
Michael Brown’s father should be sentenced to living in Ferguson.
I am glad that this itShay happened in New York. Now maybe, just maybe, the rats will burn down AL Qaeda Sharptone’s home. And his church. Does he have a church?
http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.2032159.1417644510!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/gallery_1200/bramhall-world-justice-system-eric-garner.jpg
Don’t be surprised if the Mo GJ indicts the person filming Louis Head’s emotional outburst…
Who protects the people from the police when the criminal justice system won’t?
My first thought was to prosecute the step father, but the more I thought about it and the more I learned about the destruction that took place that night I changed my mind. A distraught man standing on a car yelling, “Burn this MFer down” right before the riots took place could not be responsible for all the burnt buildings and looting that took place shortly after. It wasn’t the smartest thing to say in public because he is now an easy person to blame. This rioting, however, had to be planned well in advance. It was a well known fact that extremist organizations and anarchists were in Ferguson. One hundred FBI agents were not in Ferguson for nothing and they did uncover a plot that included persons purchasing materials to make a pipe bomb and threats to prosecutor and police chief. This rioting and destruction that took place was a conspiracy. It is not the obvious person who incited the riots, but the anonymous people working behind the scenes.
@ Darren
I think that inciting a riot might be a federal crime.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2101
(a) Whoever travels in interstate or foreign commerce or uses any facility of interstate or foreign commerce, including, but not limited to, the mail, telegraph, telephone, radio, or television, with intent—
(1) to incite a riot; or
(2) to organize, promote, encourage, participate in, or carry on a riot; or
(3) to commit any act of violence in furtherance of a riot; or
(4) to aid or abet any person in inciting or participating in or carrying on a riot or committing any act of violence in furtherance of a riot;
and who either during the course of any such travel or use or thereafter performs or attempts to perform any other overt act for any purpose specified in subparagraph (A), (B), (C), or (D) of this paragraph— [1]
Shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
So. Sounds like Sharpton et al might be guilty 🙂 since they traveled interstate, but Browns stepdaddy might not be since he stayed in the State of Missouri.
I doubt that any charges will be filed anyway. Mainly because it would just incite more vandalism and rioting.
Just want someone to see this I know will look New evidence Louis Head said he was going to start a riot if he did not get the indictmenthttp://theconservativetreehouse.com/2014/12/05/explosive-new-video-mike-brown-step-dad-im-going-to-start-a-riot-minutes-before-he-climbs-car-and-proclaims-burn-this-bitch-down/
Given the demands for black officers and teachers and local governments in black communities, there has been a strikingly strange shift backwards into separate but equal,
Pogo – as someone who helped interview job applicants for teaching, I really needed (wanted) a black teacher to be a role model for my black students. I had a heck of a time finding one and when I did we eventually had to fire him because he was incompetent. The pool is very very small.
Vince Warren on How Police Officers Get Away with Killing from Ferguson to NYC
http://youtu.be/5ceG6s5b5VQ
It’s another attempt by a corrupt Justice system to shut innocent people up in a conspiracy to protect corrupt police officers in their line of duty violating our civil Rights…
I looked in the Missouri Revised Statutes and could not locate an offence that addressed Inciting a Riot.
http://www.moga.mo.gov/mostatutes/ChaptersIndex/chaptIndex574.html
Ridiculous. Africans are, obviously, superior (there is absolutely no need for affirmative action), appropriately placed upon a pedestal and untouchable. As it should be. I forget the rationale just now but they are. This is simply the order of the universe and all must adapt to these simple truths.
Alternatively, this “scumbag” (Charles Barkley) should have been apprehended, incarcerated and prosecuted with extreme prejudice in a “New York” minute.
But then, who’s concerned with law? Roberts allows Obama care and can’t grasp that the first step in freedom is the freedom to discriminate (tell a citizen, “you’re free, but you can’t discriminate,” WHAT?) , the President morphs himself into the legislative branch, the Confederacy couldn’t secede (Scotland’s vote, Bangladesh, Pakistan, etc.), Mexicans abuse the 14th which addressed freed slaves without citizenship, Obama is not a “citizen” like Congressman, he is a “natural born citizen” with a foreign citizen parent, the principles of the Communist Manifesto prevail in America under the Constitution (they must be the same documents), affirmative action, in the nation of freedom and equality, tilts the playing field in the direction of the arbitrary and racial victims-du-jour, the chosen, as it discriminates against Americans.
Oh hell yeah! A nation of laws.
happypappies,
So because one or two or three white people are not treated unfairly, that is your defense to the numbers that I provided you? I have been arrested and handled unfairly, but I did not get shot because of it.
That same article discussed how many times police are prosecuted for the shootings when a black or person of color is involved.
Rafflaw
I am not going to write a book about my past life in North County St Louis. Suffice it to say, there has been Police Brutality there from day one in the 1960s. It did not matter if you were black or white. I told you that after Jim Crow was over that in my neighborhood, black people moved in subsidized housing and there was racial tension and infighting at first. It ended in the 1990s when Reagan’s economy kicked in because the St Louis market was always experimental economically speaking. We all got along and there was diversity. Especially in places like Ferguson if you were watching some of those people speak besides the rabble you would have caught that.
But for you to say it is like that everywhere and there were just a few of us white folk when our whole entire neighborhood was white until 1975 is too much. Please try to understand that the Police Force and the Government there is a machine and has been corrupt for years no matter WHAT COLOR anyone’s skin is. I just adopted a puppy out from a Latino from Ferguson that said the same thing. She included Asians too. She said no one understands that. It’s the Police in General.
Once again, you don’t even mention DeAndre Joshua and his subsequent murder and torching. Doesn’t that retaliatory murder count because it wasn’t the police but an angry and ugly mob thirsty for revenge because they didn’t get what they wanted?
It’s okay to murder DeAndre Joshua but not Michael Brown who violently attacked the store owner and Officer Wilson whether you want to face it or not
Sounds to me like he was just quoting from, or paraphrasing The Good Book.
He just needs to claim to be a white (mixed race) preacher from AZ & hell will freeze over before hes prosecuted
For those interested in actually avoiding riots . . . one of the surest ways to incite a riot right now would be to arrest Michael Brown’s Father in law for inciting a riot.
Just sayin’. . . .