There’s a major storm looking to complicate holiday travel all up and down the Eastern Seaboard Wednesday, but I suspect we’re nowhere near talked out on last night’s miscarriage of justice…
Jamelle Bouie, at Slate, has (yet another) excellent take:
… None of this was a surprise. It’s extremely rare for a police officer to face an indictment for a shooting, much less criminal punishment. “The FBI reported 410 justifiable homicides by law enforcement in 2012,” noted Talking Points Memo in an August story following the events in Ferguson, “The number of indictments appear to be minimal after a TPM review of available press reports.”…
Beyond this, there are the general standards for use of deadly force by police, which give wide latitude to officers who use their weapons. The Supreme Court allows police to use their weapons in two circumstances: To defend their lives and to stop an escaped felon. If Wilson believed that Brown was a felon—or committed a felonious offense—then he was justified under existing law. And if Wilson believed he was in danger of losing his life—a belief that only has to be “objectively reasonable,” not likely or even possible—then, again, he was justified under existing law…
… The judicial system as we’ve constructed it just isn’t equipped—or even willing—to hold officers accountable for shootings and other offenses. Or put differently, the simple fact is that the police can kill for almost any reason with little fear of criminal charges.
Which is to say this: It would have been powerful to see charges filed against Darren Wilson. At the same time, actual justice for Michael Brown—a world in which young men like Michael Brown can’t be gunned down without consequences—won’t come from the criminal justice system. Our courts and juries aren’t impartial arbiters—they exist inside society, not outside of it—and they can only provide as much justice as society is willing to give…
Here’s Mr. Charles P. Pierce:
… There is something gone badly wrong in the way police are taught to look at civilians these days. This is the logic of an occupying power being employed on American citizens. Ever since 9/11, when we all began to be told that we were going to have to bend a little bit, and then a little bit more, to authority or else we’d all die, the police in this country have been militarized in their tactics and in their equipment, which is bad enough, but in their attitudes and their mentality, which is far, far worse. Suspicion has bled into weaponized paranoia, especially in the case of black and brown people, especially in the case of young men who are black or brown, but this is not About Race because nothing ever is About Race. Even the potential of a threat requires a deadly response, Dick Cheney’s one-percent idea brought to American cities and towns until Salt Lake City, of all places, winds up with cops who are deadlier on the streets than drug dealers. This is how you wind up with Darren Wilson. This is how you wind up with Michael Brown, dead in the middle of the road. This is how Darren Wilson walks, tonight, for the killing of Michael Brown. This is how you end up with an American horror story…
Even this little putz smelled something hinky:
Very much would like answers from #Missouri officials that allowed this to be announced in primetime with the hysterical build up
— Luke Russert (@LukeRussert) November 25, 2014
In the Washington Post, Jenny A. Durkan (“United States Attorney in Western Washington for five years, until October 2014… served on Attorney General Holder’s Advisory Committee and served on the Civil Rights Subcommittee.”) describes some horror stories from her time in Seattle, and talks about the next step:
… My office joined the DOJ Civil Rights Division to conduct two investigations: a criminal civil rights probe, and a separate broader look at whether the police were systematically using force in an unconstitutional way. (This is happening right now in Ferguson too.)
After looking at the facts, we concluded that we couldn’t bring criminal civil rights charges… But broad and enduring change was still possible. Even where individual criminal cases cannot be brought against an officer, a system that fosters unconstitutional policing can be corrected.
We reviewed voluminous documents and data, conducted dozens of interviews and meetings with both community members and law enforcement. Eventually, our other investigation concluded the Seattle Police Department had a pattern of using unconstitutional force and found troubling evidence that it acted with racial bias….
Opposition was stiff at times. Political leaders were bitterly divided. Even after agreement was reached and a consent decree entered, pockets of resistance remained. But under threat of litigation, the city finally agreed to a broad consent decree entered in federal court. The order required wholesale changes in how and when police used force, how they were trained and how they will be held accountable…
Today both the city and the department have new leaders who have embraced reforms. Years of work remain to implement the new policies and truly change the culture. But all parties-community, police, elected leaders and the DOJ-are building the type of department the city needs and wants. These are the lasting changes that are possible in any city, including Ferguson.
***********
What else is on the agenda for the day?
Mustang Bobby
Miami, which knows a thing or two about the tense relationship between African Americans and law enforcement, had a quiet night after the news from Ferguson.
Perhaps anger has given way to resignation.
redshirt
Fuck the police.
Ninedragonspot
Shorter version: you can indict a ham sandwich, but you can’t indict the pig.
Another Holocene Human
Fuck that excerpt you posted of Bouie, hope the entire piece isn’t so blinkered and fuck this “it’s all about cops/militarization” shit. No. THIS, TODAY is about white supremacy. Giuliani’s stupid performance this weekend and the DA’s (McCullough?) horrid performance ought to put the nail in the coffin that this is anything other than racial.
I’m not denying police brutality is sometimes enacted on white homeless people and stuff but the reason this system is in place, the reason these cops are armed to the teeth and prepared for battle, the reason the cops are mobilized in the neighborhoods where they are, that resources as put into investigating certain things and only certain things, it’s white supremacy.
Nice hot steaming cup of white supremacy. Nothing else can match the flavor.
And I am ANGRY tonight, have been for days.
Villago Delenda Est
James Bond never had it so good with his license to kill.
The “judicial system” we’ve constructed isn’t about justice. It’s the opposite of that, very obviously.
Bring on the meteor.
NotMax
All the “I’m shocked, shocked to discover that laws are tilted to favor those in positions of power or authority” breast-beating is mighty disingenuous.
Another Holocene Human
I think the protestor tactic of blocking highways is fascinating. It was done this summer in ATL but tonight protesters in NYC and Ferguson blocked major highways or interstates. Ferguson protestors also attacked a lot of cars.
The interstate highway has an ugly history in the US as a tool of white supremacy. The car built environment itself (along with cruel zoning regs and defunding and dismantling of public transportation) is part of a broader war on the poor and communities of color most specifically. I think it’s amazing that they have the courage, the numbers, the seizure of this tactic for pure spectacle — and the insight to make the connection and it’s fitting that #ATL did this first because of how the highway was used there.
redshirt
How do we decommission our internal occupying force?
Another Holocene Human
@NotMax: I’m kinda sympathetic to the scofflaws who set #HealSTL on fire. Because the system didn’t work. Working through the system didn’t work.
That image of Mike Brown’s mother when the GJ finding was released? Gutwrenching. I keep thinking of the biblical story of Cain and Abel. His blood cries out from the earth for justice.
But I don’t blame Antonio French … Blacks and non-racist fucks are badly outnumbered, definitely outgunned, blockaded and outmaneuvred. Shit has sucked for a really long time and all the attention in the world hasn’t changed a damn thing. Even the stupid media is willing to let the cops piss on them and happily report that’s it’s raining. Smoke canisters my azz.
Provider_UNE_AndPlayersToBeHatedLater™
@NotMax: I dont knoe about disingenouos. I think alot of people whose eyes have been opened truly hoped, possibly beyond hope that the Justice system still posessed a shred of justice.
Reading a Peoples History of the US, was an awesome education that wiped a bit of glaze from my eyes. It also put me in a mean funk for a couple of years.
…
Morzer
@Another Holocene Human:
I think we’ve got to pair the Ferguson murder with the Stand Your Ground laws and face the fact that one way or another white people have effectively created a murderer’s charter when it comes to black/brown folks.
Betty Cracker
@redshirt: That’s THE question. I don’t think it’s really possible without disarming the population. And that’s never going to happen, at least not in the next hundred years.
Villago Delenda Est
I’m afraid that the rule of law is in serious jeopardy, as law enforcement has devolved into lttle more than uniformed gangs, doing essentially anything they want with no serious outside accountability at all, in naked defiance of the concept of checks and balances.
Police departments everywhere, even on the left coast, fight the very concept of a citizen review board to keep them in check. The police cannot police themselves, and Ferguson is just the tip of the iceberg here.
“Equal Justice Under Law” is a very sad joke in this country.
Morzer
@Villago Delenda Est:
The police have become little more than a white fat-cats’ militia. Militarizing them is the dumbest thing that we’ve done to ourselves in a long time.
Another Holocene Human
@redshirt: Somehow make it so policing really sucks for sociopaths.
Maybe we need to replace beat cops patrol officers with unarmed, non-violent community relations officers, like PSTs but for dealing with low level disputes.
You’d still need armed officers for dangerous stuff like domestic calls, armed robbery in progress (which is kinda rare, but whatever), active shooters.
Somehow, you’d have to take away the incentive for coercive, thuggish nonsense.
More cops drawn from the community and combining rinky-dink forces into regional forces with better pay and higher standards and levels of professionalization would really help.
Get rid of elected top cops. Hell, I’d say get rid of elected DAs too. The top cop should be under the mayor who is popularly elected (ideally during the highest turnout voting cycle). The DAs should be professionals not beholden to cop union PAC funds and favors to block-voter community leaders like that asshat Hines who let all those child molesters run free in Brooklyn. (Elected AGs seem to be universally scumbags as well. I could mention Democrats or Republicans.)
I am always amazed watching that reality show about Maine troopers just how rarely they arrest anybody. White privilege is a hell of a drug.
It’s amazing that they won’t hire anybody as a cop whose IQ is too high (greater IQ correlates with less overtly anti-social behavior, IDK, like shooting citizens maybe?) but DO hire people whose amygdala is running out of control. They ought to use a brain scan and weed the paranoids and wingnuts out from the get-go.
Another Holocene Human
@Morzer: murderer’s charter is a good phrase. I might have to steal it.
Another Holocene Human
@Villago Delenda Est:
Isn’t it funny how we keep getting told that citizen review boards are illegal?
Who watches the watchers? Apparently nobody.
Provider_UNE_AndPlayersToBeHatedLater™
@redshirt:
raise taxes on all transactions where money becomes self replicating…bring back the fainess doctrine…who the fuck am i kidding
My biggest fear in 1999 was realized in the Roberts court whose dreamspace seems to be bending toward a Corporatechno-Plutocracy and the preservation of white supremacy.
Yeah, a hot bath’ll take care of it.
…
redshirt
I posted about this a couple of days ago: http://redshirtlament.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-civil-war-cont.html
Obvious stuff, but it all seems so stark these days.
Another Holocene Human
Somebody on Wonkette posted “Goddamn America”. Aside from modifying the diction a bit to “God damn America”, exactly this.
Rev. Wright was softpedaling, is the thing.
Another Holocene Human
Aside from tired, Obama looked really, really angry tonight.
He repeated that stuff about violence several times but I don’t think any of the ones causing the violence were listening … especially not the cops with their tear gas riot.
They let the crowd burn all these businesses and only then call in the Nat Guard … suuuure… that’s logical … like giving the news at 9pm instead of 9am … suuuuure … SOP, right?
redshirt
Aha, it’s 4:30AM that is truly the deadest of hours.
Provider_UNE_AndPlayersToBeHatedLater™
Rollerball and Network really were prophetic. Toss in a dash of the Godfather and the use of 1984 as a users manual and…..,,,…..
…
Betty Cracker
@redshirt: It certainly is around here. The night owls have finally gone to bed, and the early birds haven’t yet chirped.
redshirt
@Betty Cracker: And yet you’re posting.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. :)
Kryptik, A Man Without a Country
Up early for a flight for thanksgiving, but all I have left to say at this point is: from the evidence and proceedings released last night, McCulloch was clearly the best defense lawyer Darren Wilson could ever have hoped for. And as someone else said, the release of this shit pretty much poisons any possible future jury at this point.
Well done, Missouri. Well done. Oh, and fuck you too. Forgot about that, because you made it clear how little non-white lives matter to you, so…yes. Fuck you, Gov. Nixon, Fuck you, Mr. McCulloch, and a very special fuck you to the Ferguson PD from top to bottom.
Mustang Bobby
@Betty Cracker: But I did tweet @BobbyBBWW…
Quiet drive in to the office this morning in downtown Miami, and I switched from NPR to Classical South Florida’s Music Through the Night. I don’t want to hear the sage chin-stroking of the punditry, and I’m so glad I can’t see Morning Joe and his band of Orcs tut-tut about the lawlessness of the mob and disregard for decorum.
NotMax
@Betty Cracker
Oh, still hanging around. Just have nothing to say regarding Ferguson that hasn’t been said or alluded to a dozen times already.
FrY10cK
Luke Russert senses that something is wrong … but … he can’t quite … put his finger on it.
What a dim bulb.
Gvg
I agree with a lot said already but 911 had nothing to do with it. It started much further back and the damned drug war was the big cover I saw. probably goes back further but I know that was part of it.
NotMax
Blatant bigotry of a Republican county chairperson.
Really, what is anyone thinking (rhetorical term) might come of posting such excrement?
Alex S.
Can the Stand Your Ground laws be used against the police?
redshirt
It’s as if there is a secret code that can be discovered and unlocked.
Betty Cracker
Pre-dawn lightning and thunder in my neck o’ the woods. Just started raining too. I’m told this is the edge of a cold front.
raven
@Betty Cracker: We’re going to take a day and drive the coast road over to Pensacola. Catching a couple of nice sized did wonders for my outlook!
chopper
heading to chicago for xgiving. if i didn’t have a family i’d consider just up and schlepping the rest of the way north and becoming canadian.
seriously, this country. it just…i mean…fuck.
Baud
@Alex S.:
Legally, I don’t think they exempt police. Practically, if you even made it to trial, you would lose unless you’re a white guy with HD video of the whole encounter.
sharl
The Onion has held forth on events in Ferguson (links to the relevant posts at the Onion website can be found at the linked tweets):
Wellll, {snaps suspenders, spits out some chaw} some of the folks replying to those tweets don’t find those funny at all, no sirree, they sure don’t.
Why can’t The Onion be funny without troubling mah beautiful mind?
OzarkHillbilly
@Gvg: But 9/11 was when white people finally noticed, (Sorry Mr Pierce, if the truth hurts, wear it). It really cracks me up to hear white people complain about “getting groped” at the airport. They thought Stop and Frisk was a capital idea when it was only applied to black and brown people.
@Morzer: It’s called “Lynching”, we don’t need any other euphemisms for it.
PurpleGirl
Predicting rain and snow for tomorrow in NYC (a storm watch is in effect). I have errands to run today. Thinking about what I’m doing Sunday for my birthday. I need to pass by the various kitten cams I follow.
At 63 years old (as of Sunday), I’m tired, just tired of all the racial shit that goes on in this country. I was bullied and made fun of as a child because I stutter. I know a little something about discrimination and what it makes you feel. When does it stop?
redshirt
@PurpleGirl: Happy Belated Birthday!
p.a.
Only way things will change is when black cops start gunning down whites for moving too fast, too slow, too soon, too late, too…
Baud
@p.a.:
What do you think will change if that happens?
Elizabelle
@redshirt:
Actually you’re ahead of time. Think the birthday is post Turkey-Day.
@PurpleGirl:
Happy last week of being 62.
Betty Cracker
@raven: That’s a beautiful drive. I don’t get up that way as often as I’d like. What did you catch?
raven
@Betty Cracker: Caught a legal redfish, about 21″ and a nice black drum. I got beat up pretty good in the surf. . .it hurts so good!
Mustang Bobby
Staying here for the Thanksgiving bash; going to friends for the dinner (my contribution will be pumpkin pie and carrot cake which I made… by making a trip to Publix). I will do some writing — I’ve been invited to contribute to a local one-minute play festival in January — but other than that, I’m planning on basically being slovenly. Ah, the simple joys of singlehood.
Betty Cracker
@raven: Nice! We’re completely out of fish…need to go raid my dad’s freezer!
wilfred
We’ve lived the past 13 years killing, torturing and mutilating brown people all over the world with very, very few efforts at prosecution. When those people attempt to fight back, they’re militants, extremists or radicals.
As above, below.
Punchy
I’m still consuming fecal waste and and trying to expire in the midst of an uncontrolled oxidative reaction, as I was told.
PurpleGirl
@Elizabelle: TY. Yes, the birthday is after Thanksgiving.
@redshirt: TY, although it’s not belated yet. My birthday is after Thanksgiving.
More information coming out about the shooting in Brooklyn: The cop was trying to open the staircase door with same hand he was holding his gun in. Why wasn’t there a working light in the stairwell? Why were the elevators working so slowly that the young man and his girlfriend decided to walk down a dark staircase? I’m sure these conditions did not just happen last week, that they were ongoing conditions in those buildings. (If they were happening in one building, I know they were happening in others.)
Mustang Bobby
@PurpleGirl: Happy birthday and best wishes.
As for when does it stop, well, I’ve come to the conclusion that we spend our adulthood trying to escape our childhood (and some of us write plays and novels about it). I still fight with my older sister like we’re 12 and 9, and I’m now 62.
OzarkHillbilly
@PurpleGirl:
Who trained this dumbshit? And who passed him? They are just as guilty of manslaughter as he is.
Baud
@PurpleGirl:
Happy upcoming birthday!
OzarkHillbilly
@Mustang Bobby:
Not me. I used to be an adult, it sucked! I’m going back to 5 years old.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
I broke one of those new mercury light bulbs doing something just as stupid (trying to swat a fly) and spent half the night trying to clean that up. In my defense, I was not using a gun and I have never received formal training in fly swatting.
debbie
I’ve heard some of the dribbles coming out of the testimony and it’s more than a little worrying. Such as Wilson didn’t have a taser because he felt it was too uncomfortable to put on. How is this alone not a violation of police procedure?
raven
@debbie: Here are all the documents. It’s not going to matter to anyone but here it is.
Baud
@raven:
Someone will go through them. I’m glad they released them.
debbie
@raven:
Thanks for the link. I’ll definitely be going through them.
I also heard something about Wilson saying that wrestling Brown was like some little guy trying to tackle Hulk Hogan, when in actuality, Wilson’s only an inch shorter and maybe 30 pounds lighter. That lie alone should have counted for something.
I hope a very large civil suit is on the horizon and that Wilson’s life turns into the circus that is Zimmerman’s and OJ’s. He deserves nothing less.
PurpleGirl
@OzarkHillbilly: There’s a saying in SF fandom: It’s not too late for a happy childhood.
OzarkHillbilly
Meanwhile, in Utah:
But in some ways, even more eye-popping than that was this response from the spokesman for the Utah state police union. Asked about the report, Ian Adams said “The onus is on the person being arrested to stop trying to assault and kill police officers and the innocent public. … Why do some in society continue to insist the problem lies with police officers?”
via TPM
Sherparick
The only thing I would disagree with with Pierce is this attitude of course pre-dates 9/11 (See the Battle of Seattle, December 1999) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Seattle_WTO_protests). And although Black and Brown communities are particularly afflicted, basically anyone questioning the current free market system is pretty much has a target on their back for organized police violence. The hippies of Occupied certainly felt the crush from NYPD and police across the country, as opposed to the TLC for right wing Tea Party and Open Carry mobs whose violence and thuggery against others is tolerated by corporate class and the police because of “Freedom” don’t we know.
Iowa Old Lady
@debbie: I suspect you’ll get your wish on the suit and the circus. He deserves the suit, and he’s good media fodder for the circus.
satby
@PurpleGirl: Fell asleep in my chair early last night and looks like that was a blessing. I’m a young sprout of only nearly 60, but I’ve been a political activist my entire life since my early teens, and I’m tired and discouraged too. Hard to remember that there have been some steps forward when falling backward is so ugly.
Matt McIrvin
@Another Holocene Human:
Or, as they’re called in some countries, “police”. (They’re not necessarily nonviolent, but they endeavor to minimize the amount of force they use.)
Mustang Bobby
@PurpleGirl: I may grow old but I’ll never grow up. So there.
Gvg
how could people fail to notice long before 911? in my very privileged white life it was bloody obvious. the cops are killing whites too, have been all along. Not to the same degree as blacks by a long shot but still…you can’t foster an attitude of us versus them and not have it bite you. Obviously most people didn’t notice but it seems so blind to me.
A lot of it seems to be people are too afraid. I consider myself to be rather timid but I don’t fear all kinds of imaginary monsters. i don’t seek out scared stories either. I don’t like being afraid and take steps to avoid it. These people seemed to need it yet it makes them miserable.
Reading a little about what th gj was told, they seemed to have been presented with a very different set of witness statements than what we heard. and the police officer is too fearful to be a cop IMO.
Ben
Controversial thought of the day: this country could be improved by a Darren Wilson–Bill Cosby murder-suicide…
debbie
Another brilliant essay by TNC:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/11/the-gospel-of-rudy-giuliani/380498/#disqus_thread
Rudy needs a macaca moment — someone who will really call his bullshit.
ms_canadada
@chopper: c’mon up! but wait until we get rid of our ‘baby bush’ Stephen Harper!
Mike in NC
Hitting the road to Georgia and Florida, hoping to not get shot by rogue cops.
Elizabelle
Michael Brown’s family did not get justice last night. But:
this was the end of the first act. It’s apparent that police resort to lethal force too often in dealing with their communities, particularly communities of color. Why is that?
That transcript will be interesting. More intelligent people than the Grand Jury or Wilson’s defense lawyer aka the St. Louis prosecutor will comb through it.
Community policing vs. having a militarized police force is on the public radar. They cannot put that genie back into a bottle.
The “us” vs. “them” of law enforcement (sadly, including the courts) is on the public radar.
And, with respect to Officer Wilson: he sounds badly trained and ready to shoot first. We will find out more about him down the road.
Police face a heavily armed populace — the NRA has made sure of that. Where they might have talked or waited before, they protect their own lives first. That is not good, but it’s not insane either.
“Law enforcement” in Ferguson made sure that Michael Brown and those unreliable witnesses from the community were on trial, not the police. As someone mentioned last night, the police statements were not subject to the same level of scrutiny.
And the police acted terribly here throughout.
None of that will go unnoticed.
OzarkHillbilly
@Mike in NC: You can relax a little, Utah is the other way.
hildebrand
@Elizabelle: Or, in John Cole’s world, the worst bit of the whole thing is that President Obama didn’t blow a gasket during his speech last night. Yes, I am still irritated beyond belief that Cole decided that the most important part of last night was that he didn’t get his magic rhetoric pony from the President.
Elizabelle
Zandar’s put up a fresh thread on Ferguson.
I think there are going to be a lot of rotten conversations among family members this Thanksgiving. Thanks, prosecutor aka police defense attorney Bob McCulloch.
This case is a mirror. You see what you want to see.
Morzer
@hildebrand:
That was a low in the history of the blog – and the worst part was the hastily deleted comparison of the President to Bill Cosby. That was beyond embarrassing.
Keith G
@Morzer: @hildebrand: Get over as soon as possible, will ya.
There are much bigger fish to fry. One of un-blessings of the internet is the ability to drill down and focus on the unimportant, to obsess on the ill thought out, or the mistimed. I read many stupid commentaries last night, that from a point of view of intellectual clarity and consistency were just plain juvenile.
I chalked them up to the heat of the moment and not an accurate indictment of the soul of the typist.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mike in NC: The rogue cops are the ones who don’t open fire before even asking for your license.
Fort Geek
@raven: If I’d known you were coming here, I’d have cleaned the joint up a bit.
I can highly recommend the Museum of Naval Aviation, if you’ve never been to it. Or Fort Barrancas and/or Fort Pickens.
Don’t mind the rednecks–but don’t feed ’em, either *grin*
Bob In Portland
Robert Parry gives his opinion on the ousting of Hagel.