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Fear, Mistrust Linger In Ferguson Despite Reform Efforts By Police

Fear, Mistrust Linger In Ferguson Despite Reform Efforts By Police

By Carey Gillam

FERGUSON, Mo. (Reuters) — The scene outside the Ferguson Police Department in Missouri on Friday night was familiar: A crowd of 300 protesters, angry over last year’s fatal police shooting of an unarmed black teen, went toe-to-toe with a line of officers, screaming profanities.

But unlike last summer, when police responded to even peaceful protests with batons, tear gas, and rubber bullets in the aftermath of rioting and arson that tore apart the St. Louis suburb of 21,000 people, this time officers watched quietly but did not respond.

“They were in our face, but we didn’t react,” said Ferguson police Sergeant Dominica Fuller, clad for Friday night’s police work in a polo shirt bearing the phrase “community engagement team” rather than the body armor and riot helmets common in the unrest following the death of 18-year-old Michael Brown on Aug. 9, 2014.

“Our job now is to listen,” said Fuller, one of five black officers on the 50-member police force who in May became the city’s first black female police sergeant.

Brown’s fatal shooting by white Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson was one of a series of police killings over the past year that provoked an intense debate on race, justice, and policing in the United States.

The scenes of protests marked by periods of violence that played out in Ferguson last summer and again in November when a grand jury found Wilson had broken no laws in shooting Brown were repeated in cities including New York and Baltimore following similar killings of unarmed black men by white officers.

The depths of Ferguson’s policing problems were laid bare in a scathing Justice Department report issued in March that accused the department of illegal and discriminatory enforcement actions that particularly exploited African-Americans.

Friday’s restrained response by Ferguson police served as an illustration of what city leaders said are their efforts to improve relations between the still majority-white police force and the city’s population, which is two-thirds black.

Anthony Gray, a lawyer for the Brown family, said he was pleased to see a number of changes at the police department, particularly the appointment of an African-American chief of police, even though it is only an interim appointment.

“They’ve made some good positive steps in the right direction,” Gray said. “Ferguson seems to be taking the attitude that they want to do some internal adjustments to kind of meet those community needs.”

Despite a range of reforms that include de-escalation and anti-bias training, minority recruitment and promotion efforts, and pleas by supervisors for officers to “be professional at all times” many Ferguson residents say they still fear and distrust the city’s police.

Andrea Walker, 25-year-old black Ferguson resident, said she thinks fear of the police is worse now than it was a year ago. She said she believes many police officers are trying to overcome those fears, but face an uphill battle.

“Every black person I know has a fear of police,” said Walker, a married mother of two.

She was one of roughly 20 Ferguson residents interviewed in recent days who described themselves as wary of police. Many declined to be named, out of fear of attracting unwanted police attention.

Walker said she was recently pulled over for speeding by a Ferguson police officer and was surprised when the officer seemed to go out of his way to be non-threatening and let her off with a warning.

But she still advises her 13-year-old stepson never to agitate a police officer for fear of what the officer might do.

Recruiting Troubles

Fuller, who has spent 17 years on the Ferguson force, said the department is well aware that it will take time to heal the deep wounds.

“A lot has changed. But there’s still people that are still hurt and angry. It’s not going to be overnight for healing,” she said. “It’s going to take some time. But we’re working on that.”

One key effort at reform – the recruitment of minority officers – is largely failing, she admitted.

At least one black officer quit the force after Brown’s shooting and others have shied away due to the negative attention the department has received, said Fuller. The city has started a program to pay for black police candidates to go through the police academy, but has struggled to find any takers, she said.

“There’s not a lot of minorities that want to be police officers, let alone in the city of Ferguson,” said Fuller.

Officers are being trained to be more “compassionate,” to offer warnings instead of traffic tickets if the circumstances allow for it, and to spend more time at community events.

On Saturday, as a crowd marched for miles, police monitoring the demonstration handed out water bottles and popsicles to the protesters.

They are also inviting area teens on “ride-alongs” to learn what is involved in policing and have started distributing literature about community programs at a farmer’s market.

Mary Chandler, a 37-year-old black Ferguson resident, said she has seen a “180-degree change” for the better in the city’s police.

“It used to be aggression, zero tolerance,” said Chandler. “Now they are more tolerant. They are listening to us.”

Angelique Kidd, a 42-year-old white Ferguson resident, said she has seen Ferguson police mistreat the city’s black residents for years, but was heartened by the changes she has seen.

“It’s a start,” she said.

(Reporting by Carey Gillam; Editing by Scott Malone and Lisa Shumaker)

Photo: Protesters lie down in the street in a “die-in” outside the police department in Ferguson, Missouri, August 7, 2015. REUTERS/Rick Wilking

Journalists Must Rediscover Skepticism

Journalists Must Rediscover Skepticism

Some years ago, I had an interview with a homicide detective that got delayed. I used his office phone to postpone a tennis match.

“Tennis, huh?” he said after I’d hung up. “I wondered.”

“Wondered what?”

“Well, you’ve got an indoors, sit-down job,” he explained. “But you’re always tanned and your hand’s callused. Now I know why.”

Me, I’d have asked. Or simply never noticed. Sgt. Dawson sometimes talked as if ungrammatical sentences were a point of honor. But no critical detail escaped him. I’ve always thought that if more journalists thought like him, we’d be spared much of the nonsense that passes for wisdom, not to mention the embarrassment when treasured tales collapse.

From Ferguson to Charlottesville, it’s happening all the time.

Journalists needn’t be homicide cops, but we should be able to abide by Rule One. I think it’s the New Jersey state motto, or was when I grew up there: “Oh yeah, who says?”

Increasingly, however, skepticism is out. The manufacture and dissemination of didactic fables pleasing to the viewing audience is what many journalists do. And that’s becoming almost as true at MSNBC as at Fox News. Particularly in stories involving race and sex, that is to say, a lot of them.

The telltale clues often reside in the homeliest details. For example, how I came to doubt the Murdering Racist Cop version of Michael Brown’s tragic death was right at the start, in his companion Dorian Johnson’s version of how the conflict began.

According to the slight young man with the dreadlocks who was everywhere on TV after his friend’s killing, Officer Darren Wilson reached through his driver’s side window, grabbed Brown by the throat, and pulled him into the patrol car as Brown struggled to escape.

With one arm. From a seated position.

Never mind why would he do that? It’s a physical impossibility. Even if Michael Brown hadn’t been a 6-4, 293 pound man-mountain.

So right out of the box, I don’t trust Dorian Johnson, or Witness 101, as the recently released Department of Justice report called him.

But let Jonathan Capehart take it from there. Capehart is an African-American columnist at the Washington Post who bought into the Murdering Racist Cop narrative bigtime. Until he read the DOJ report. There he learned that “just about everything said to the media by Witness 101…was not supported by the [forensic] evidence and other witness statements.”

Capehart adds that “Witness 101 ’made multiple statements to the media immediately following the incident that spawned the popular narrative that Wilson shot Brown execution-style as he held up his hands in surrender.’ In one of those interviews, Johnson told MSNBC that Brown was shot in the back by Wilson…And, like that, ‘hands up, don’t shoot’ became the mantra of a movement. But it was wrong, built on a lie.”

Strong words, but necessary. Possibly Johnson came to believe the tale he told. But none of it was real. Thousands of angry protesters from sea to shining sea have spent months chanting an intoxicating slogan based upon sheer make-believe.

Do I need to tell you that Capehart has been denounced in Salon and elsewhere as a racial sellout and worse?

Me, I’m thinking maybe comedian Chris Rock could do a routine about a black parent having The Talk with his teenage son about white cops.

“The first thing,” Rock might say “is don’t punch them in the face.”

I suspect a black audience would roar with laughter, for all kinds of complicated reasons. Coming from me, maybe not so much.

But it gets worse. The DOJ report tells about Witness 128, who “told Brown’s mother that Wilson shot Brown at point blank range while his hands were up, and that even after Brown fell to his death, Wilson stood over Brown and fired several more times.”

Confronted by DOJ investigators who said none of that matched the forensic evidence, Witness 128 admitted he might have “hallucinated.” Actually, it’s not clear he saw anything.

Several witnesses who did see poor, doomed Michael Brown assault Darren Wilson, struggle to take his gun, and then make a final crazed charge, testified they feared “retaliation from the community” if it became known they’d contradicted the legend of Brown’s martyrdom.

It was ever thus, my fellow Irish-American friend Bob Somerby and I agreed recently. Bob, who has written a series of incisive posts on his Daily Howler website, compared the atmosphere in Ferguson to Belfast during “The Troubles.” I was thinking Dublin, 1916.

On MSNBC, the new party line is that the DOJ report on Michael Brown’s death shows the difficulty of prosecuting civil rights cases beyond a reasonable doubt. But the report actually concluded that Officer Wilson acted entirely in self-defense: “it was not unreasonable for Wilson to fire on Brown until he stopped moving forward and was clearly subdued.”

Nothing but a crying shame.

Photo: Rose Colored Photo via Flickr

No Federal Charges Against Officer In Ferguson Shooting, Justice Department Says

No Federal Charges Against Officer In Ferguson Shooting, Justice Department Says

By Molly Hennessy-Fiske and Michael Muskal, Los Angeles Times (TNS)

FERGUSON, Mo. — The Justice Department will not bring federal charges against former Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson in the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, officials announced Wednesday.

“There is no evidence upon which prosecutors can rely to disprove Wilson’s stated subjective belief that he feared for his safety,” a Justice Department criminal investigation found.

No reliable evidence proves that Brown had his hands up when he was shot, the investigation found.

In the meantime, the future of the Ferguson Police Department remained unclear with Missouri officials expected to comment later Tuesday on the report showing that blacks were subjected to a pattern of excessive force and harassment.

The report revealed patterns of racial bias toward African-Americans across the criminal justice system in Ferguson, from encounters with police patrol officers to treatment in the municipal court and jail.

Black drivers, for example, are far more likely to be searched than whites, even though they are less likely to be found with illegal substances. Nearly all people kept at the city jail for more than two days are black and the overwhelming majority of cases of police force involved African-Americans.

The report was ordered in the wake of the fatal shooting of the unarmed Brown, who was black, by Wilson, a white police officer, on Aug. 9, 2014. The first wave of protests, which at times turned violent, came in the weeks after the shooting, and a second wave came in November after a grand jury decided not to bring any charges against Wilson, who has since left the force.

There were no protesters in front of the Ferguson police headquarters early Wednesday, but the main street was still marked by the nights of turmoil that followed the grand jury decision — more than a dozen storefronts are still boarded up. Uplifting slogans, from “Ferguson strong” to “An injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere” and “Community” were visible.

Darren Seals, 27, just coming off the night shift at a General Motors plant Wednesday morning, said that after hearing about the Justice Department report he’s convinced the police department should be shut down.

“I don’t see no other way,” Seals said. “You can’t improve that. How are they going to improve their hearts, their intentions? You need an entirely new police force. I mean, look at how they treated the protesters. They haven’t done the right thing in all this time, they’re not going to do it now.”

Bradley Rayford, 22, a junior at St. Louis Community College Florissant Valley, was among those who met with Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. last summer when he visited Ferguson in the wake of Brown’s shooting.

“I’m just glad people know it happened. The question is what can you do about it now? What can you start to change about the culture in the police department? The culture is going to be hard to change. So I’m interested to see what happens going forward,” Rayford said.

The Brown family was in town Wednesday but did not plan to make any statements about the Justice Department report, said family attorney Anthony Gray.

“Clearly it’s not enough,” Gray said of the report. “The family has always felt that a crime occurred on Aug. 9 and the officer should be held accountable.”

Gray said that whether the police department is shut down or overhauled as a result of the report, the key will be holding it accountable in months and years to come.

The city announced it would not comment on the report until it is formally released. But city leaders are expected to face hard choices in the coming days, including how to pay for possible retraining of the existing force vs. contracting out police services to St. Louis County.

“It will be expensive to carry out charges,” said Antonio French, an alderman in nearby St. Louis and a frequent presence during the demonstrations and disturbances. “It is not clear where that money will come from and it may be easier to contract with the county.”

Patrick Green, mayor of nearby Normandy, said Ferguson will have to revamp its department.

“It’s in their best interests. The department was running in some ways on its own without the detailed oversight from its officials,” Green said.

“They need to restructure,” he said, “Can they do it because of what DOJ is saying? Sure they can.”

African-Americans make up about two-thirds of the population of Ferguson, about 10 miles from downtown St. Louis. At the time of the Brown shooting only three of 53 city police officers were black.

The Justice Department has conducted about 20 investigations of police departments during the last six years while being led by Holder. Holder has announced he is stepping down soon.

Investigations that find wrongdoing usually lead to a consent decree between the federal government and the municipality, and an independent monitor is appointed to oversee the recommended changes, including the retraining of law enforcement officers.

Large cities can usually afford the cost associated with retraining but smaller cities have had to scrimp or borrow to make ends meet.

Gabe Crocker, president of the St Louis County Police Association, said he was eager to see the full Justice Department report, especially their statistical analysis.

“As a police union leader, I want to know the numbers, I want to see how they did what they did and how they came to those conclusions,” he said.

He said he expects the Ferguson police department will end up operating under a consent decree.

“They had to find something,” he said, because, “a lot of folks out there want to see change.”

AFP Photo

Sometimes A Tragedy Is Just A Tragedy

Sometimes A Tragedy Is Just A Tragedy

Sometimes a tragedy is just a tragedy, and not necessarily a melodrama pitting good against evil. No heroes, no villains, just a terrible misfortune and a damned shame. We accept that when people are killed by tornadoes. Otherwise, however, many prefer the illusory comforts of a well-told tale — particularly one that reflects favorably upon their own ethnic tribe or political cohort and unfavorably upon others.

So it’s been in the infinitely sad death of Michael Brown at the hands of Ferguson, MO police officer Darren Wilson. Tragic not only because of one young life snuffed out and another ruined, but because of a veritable avalanche of racial and political accusations that have millions fighting bitterly over who’s to blame.

Whether on Fox News, CNN or MSNBC, marketing racial discord has become a profitable niche industry. There’s a well-known cast of ex-prosecutors, defense attorneys and professors who appear to spend more time in TV studios than courthouses or campuses.

Even professional athletes have joined in, with five St. Louis Rams receivers striking the now iconic hands-up, don’t-shoot pose, and the policemen’s union demanding an apology from the NFL.

Well, they’re not going to get one. Political symbolism is a big part of professional sporting events; cops can’t expect to be lionized as heroes all the time. Athletes have free speech too.

Never mind that the hands-up gesture may be pure urban myth to begin with. Yes, as you’ll hear nightly on MSNBC, more witnesses told the grand jury they saw Brown make a gesture of surrender than described him charging Officer Wilson. However, several of the same witnesses also claimed they saw Wilson shoot Brown in the back or murder him execution-style, which both autopsy and ballistic evidence proved impossible.

Some admitted they tailored their stories to what they heard in the street or saw on TV.

Having previously written that a nationally-televised murder trial might have cleared the air, I now doubt that’s possible. As a friend commented on Facebook , the Ferguson case looks like the left’s Benghazi — an endlessly evolving conspiracy theory that morphs into new forms as evidence contradicts its premises.

People committed to the thrilling tale have conjured a white racist plot out of a bad John Grisham movie. Before encountering Mike Brown, it’s worth noticing, Darren Wilson had never so much as drawn his weapon, much less shot anybody dead in broad daylight.

Media mind-readers like Georgetown University’s Michael Eric Dyson have no difficulty explaining a total stranger’s motives. “To the police officer…” Dyson wrote in the New York Times, “Michael Brown was the black menace writ large, the terrorizing phantom that stalks the white imagination.”

What rubbish. Thinkers like Dyson apply the methods of bad literary criticism to reality, with pernicious results. Everything’s a symbol, and only experts like themselves can interpret them.

Converting poor Mike Brown into an abstraction also prevents anybody from asking why such a peaceable young man acted so bizarrely that terrible morning — assaulting an armed cop for no sane reason. It’s the left-wing equivalent of calling him a “300 lb. black thug.”

In my experience, people who see visions of Satan and God battling in the clouds, as Brown’s father told the New York Times he did weeks before his death, and who send cellphone photos of the sky documenting those illusions, are in dire need of psychiatric intervention he never got.

According to the AP, Brown had made dramatic pronouncements to his great uncle, Pastor Charles Ewing. “He said, ‘One day the whole world is going to know my name.’ Isn’t that something? Not knowing that this was going to happen, and that’s what touched me, ‘the whole world will know my name.’”

It’s apt to touch anybody familiar with the messianic delusions of schizophrenia rather differently.

Yes, Wilson depicted Brown’s face as looking like a “demon.” His account of Brown’s actions, however, will sound sadly familiar to anybody who’s ever dealt with an enraged person suffering from psychosis: “He was almost bulking up to run through the shots, like it was making him mad that I’m shooting at him. And the face that he had was looking straight through me, like I wasn’t even there…Just coming straight at me like he was going to run right through me.”

One horrified witness told jurors, “the only thing I kept saying was is he crazy? Why don’t he just stop instead of running because if somebody is pulling a gun on you, first thing I would think is to drop down on the ground and not try to look like I’m going to attack ’em.”

Another woman testified, “Michael turned around and started charging towards the officer and the officer [was] still yelling stop. He did have his firearm drawn, but he was yelling stop, stop, stop.”

Beyond race, beyond politics, the question is: Could Michael Brown even hear him?

Photo: Curtis Minter, right, of Akron, Ohio, at the memorial to Michael Brown in the Canfield Apartment complex in Ferguson, MO, on Saturday, Nov. 29, 2014. “This case has too many unanswered questions not to deserve a trial,” Minter said. (Christian Gooden/St. Louis Post-Dispatch/TNS)