On the eve of the decision not to prosecute of Ferguson, Mo., police officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown, state prosecutors are considering charges against Michael Brown’s family. While potentially explosive in light of the rejection of civil rights charges, the case is based on what is reported as criminal acts of assault and theft by Brown’s mother Lesley McSpadden and other family members.
The incident stems from who is entitled to cash in on the name of Michael Brown. A “Justice for Mike Brown” stand was set up outside of a restaurant to sell teeshirts and other items. One of the vendors was Pearlie Gordon, 54, the mother-in-law of Michael Brown Sr. (who is divorced from McSpadden).
The police say that a group of about 20-30 suspects “jumped out of vehicles and rushed” Gordon, Tony Petty, and Matthew Cosey. McSpadden, 34, is quoted as saying “You can’t sell this shit.” What reportedly ensued was an intense debate of who had trademark options on the name of the dead teenager. Gordon reportedly states that “unless McSpadden could produce documentation stating that she had a patent on her son’s name she (Gordon) was going to continue to sell her merchandise.” Police say that Desureia Harris, McSpadden’s mother, then began to rip down t-shirts while other family members began “tearing her booth apart.” Gordon allegedly was knocked to the ground and repeatedly struck in the head. Gordon accused McSpadden of running up and punching her while one of McSpadden’s group encouraged her to “get her ass.”
Also accused is McSpadden’s husband, Louis Head, who was previously the subject of calls for prosecution in his encouraging protesters to “Burn this bitch down” after no charges were brought against Wilson.
Petty was also transported to a local hospital for treatment of “injuries sustained during the assault.” Police also found that more than $1500 in merchandise and $400 in cash “was stolen by unknown subjects” during the assault and that they fled before the arrival of the police.
To make matters worse for the Brown family, there is a witness as well as a videotape showing the assault on the vendors, according to police.
That record would seem highly compelling for criminal charges. They have sworn statements from the alleged victim, third-party witnesses and a possible videotape showing a vendor being pinned on the ground. That does not rule out defenses based on claims that the vendors started the fight. However, self-defense would not excuse the alleged taking of merchandize and cash.
In a normal situation, there would have already been arrests and charges in such a case. However, this case seems anything but conventional and prosecutors may be more timid after prior events triggered arson and looting. The delay may be a reflection of that caution, but (absent new evidence) there may be no avoiding arrests in the case since at least two people were sent to the hospital and violence was involved in the alleged crimes.
Here is the police report: Brown Family police report
The empowerment of women by an affordable education and a decent living wage certainly won’t hurt. Otherwise it’s the responsibility of the black communities to lift themselves up and quit the perpetuation of their situation. For starters they could get out and vote, with that large of a majority they should have a majority black local government and police force. All the legislation to make voting more difficult doesn’t help the situation. So is so much more that can be done as far as plentiful jobs, trade deals, etc. That could be done. Don’t make it so easy to shop jobs overseas and hide money in tax havens.
Annie; How do you purpose to change ones society and upbringing? put’em all on welfare and remove all incentives to earn a better life
Pogo
So, if one states the obvious to those that would rather not know, then one is the creator of that obvious? Oh Pogo, how soon you forget.
Nuke ’em
” He was there in the convenience store egging on Brown…”
Obama has been using his bully pulpit to egg on blacks to do exactly that, consistent with his past community organizer tactics.
He is not unlike any other liberal black leader in that respect.
1. Foments class resentment
2. ACORN and Project Vote: pit the poor and nonwhite minorities against the rest of society
3. Emphasizes inter-group conflict (colonialism)
4. Scapegoats the “top 5 percent”
5. In 1998 he said “I actually believe in redistribution”
6. Obama equates conservatism with greed, and free markets with “social Darwinism”
7. Obama divides races: He said in 1990 that “There’s certainly racism here [at Harvard Law School]. There are certain burdens that are placed [on blacks], more emotionally at this point than concretely…. we’re going to reshape America in a way that is less mean-spirited and more generous.”
8. Obama said suburban whites are racist (1995 interview): “the white executive living out in the suburbs, who doesn’t want to pay taxes to inner city children for them to go to school.”
9. Obama implied that the Bush Administration was racist In the slow federal response to the victims of Hurricane Katrina in 2005
10. Obama said the criminal justice system is racist: ““The criminal-justice system is not color-blind. It does not work for all people equally, and that is why it’s critical to have a president who…”
11. he told People magazine that the US is still very racist: ““There’s no black male my age, who’s a professional, who hasn’t come out of a restaurant and is waiting for their car and somebody didn’t hand them their car keys.””
Paul
Don’t you get it yet? Read Pogo’s posts. It’s all Obama’s fault. He was there in the convenience store egging on Brown to steal and swat the clerk aside……
Question. Are the Brown’s grads of Trump’s University?
I see muck of the racial turmoil as subconscious. The US gets a black prez and he doesn’t really care about poor, black people. It is such a taboo subject they suppress it and rage ensues elsewhere.
Brown’s death has become yet another liberal shibboleth, a test to distinguish someone as belonging to the left.
It exposes again the vast cultural divide, between those who demand a life free of consequences and those who see success in life as dependent on accepting and even embracing consequences.
That is, serfs/slaves versus freemen.
With another national election coming up in 2016, how much longer will it be before the Dems’ guardians (MSM) find another racial incident to help roil the country and drive Black voter turnout? Maybe someone can start a pool.
I am sorry Brown is dead. I do not relish seeing a young man dead. But if you get in a physical altercation with the police, that is a likely outcome. I am not naive to think the police are always right, but in this case it is far more probable than not that Officer Wilson’s actions that day were justified.
How about a photo of Brown’s mom on toilet paper? She is a poster child for Aid For Dependent Children and Food Credit Card.
To discount upbringing and society in the behavior of teens and young adults is a reflection of one’s own dysfunction.
To not take responsibility for one’s actions is the key to immaturity.
In order for a normal level of maturity to happen in a teen or young adult, he / she needs to have had a modicum of a normal upbringing, or an unusual degree of insight or intelligence. The developing brain of babies and children are actually physically altered by constant high levels of the stress hormones. There is a plethora of studies out there that have proven this. Try doing some reading.
Rather than studies, I have lived it. I worked in a petri dish of high stressed students who, if your contention was right, would be committing crimes all the time. If my students got in trouble they didn’t blame the system or their parents or the neighborhood, they ‘manned up’ and took responsibility.
Inga, You forgot victim of his own stupidity.
No Beldar. Because he was a victim of either police or his family or even society in general, plus he’s dead. He’s been disrespected enough, laying in the street for hours like road kill.
Brown was a victim of his own bad decisions. To blame others is just silly.
In Ferguson they have photos of the dead adult which show him to be a bit older than the photo on the article here. But, someone on the blog here (Inga (Annie?) was kind enough to provide us with a photo of another guy depicted on toilet paper. Can she do that with the photo provided of the thug shown on the article above? I could make a poster of it for this “poster child”. When I travel to Al Sharpton’s neighborhood in New York I can hang them in Al’s village. Tag line: Burn the Bitch Down!
They are doing what capitalism teaches them. Make a buck at any cost. The fish rots from the head by the way. Seems like charges should be filed on the assault though. Probably a misdemeanor though. If I were the DA, I would hope it would go away, unless the victim wishes to press charges and insists.
What a sad pathetic dysfunctional family. Selling T Shirts of their dead son and grandson? The proceeds were going to go where? In their own pockets? Or were the funds to be used to pay the attorneys? Unseemly for grandma to be selling shirts, unseemly for mom and other grandma to be fighting and thieving, ugh. I have to give credit to the other families’ of police and vigilante shooting victims for comporting themselves with more dignity.
At the same time the Brown family is filing a wrongful death lawsuit against Ferguson police department.
I said it before, but these riots, egged on by the Administration, will kill the city of Ferguson and the rest of St. Louis County like Ebola.
Al Sharpton is going to have a heart attack.