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Ferguson Tag

Posted by Amy Miller on December 02, 2014 22 Comments
For all the spin the left has provided on the protests in Ferguson, Missouri, you'd think they'd have a little more respect for their own race-based premise. Democrats in Congress probably thought they were performing an act of solidarity when they engaged in a "hands up, don't shoot" protest on the floor of the House last night, but all they did was cheapen the efforts of actual protesters and make the popular "white cop attacks unarmed black teen" narrative that much more ridiculous. Mediaite has the scoop:
Democratic members of Congress showed solidarity with Ferguson protesters tonight by making the “Hands up, don’t shoot” gesture on the House floor tonight. New York’s Hakeem Jeffries and Yvette Clarke, along with Texas’ Al Green, all made the protest gesture on the House floor tonight. Green made the gesture in reference to what the St. Louis Rams did, but touted it as a “new symbol” of protest.
You can also watch the video here, via C-SPAN. [caption id="attachment_108136" align="alignnone" width="600"]http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/12/01/rep-hakeem-jeffries-d-n-y-brings-hands-up-dont-shoot-to-house-floor/ (Image via WaPo)[/caption]

Posted by New Neo on December 01, 2014 35 Comments
John McWhorter's Time essay on Ferguson demonstrates his graceful way with words, and his struggle to fight the truth about Ferguson. The only bit of truth that survived McWhorter's preferred narrative is this:
I’m not sure that what happened to Michael Brown — and the indictment that did not happen to Officer Darren Wilson — is going to be useful as a rallying cry about police brutality and racism in America.
McWhorter recognizes that, yet it is instructive to see the mental gymnastics he performs in order to stay with the liberal line:
The key element in the Brown-Wilson encounter was not any specific action either man took — it was the preset hostility to the cops that Brown apparently harbored.
So far, so true---although Brown's hostility, and the acting-out of that hostility, seems hardly to have been limited to cops. But then McWhorter writes this:
And that hostility was key because it was indeed totally justified.
So, despite the fact that McWhorter goes on to agree that Wilson's actions were not necessarily motivated by racism, and despite the fact that he even acknowledges that Brown had just robbed a convenience store, and despite the fact that McWhorter knows nothing---absolutely nothing---of Brown's actual attitudes towards police, why he might hold those attitudes, and what his previous encounters with police had been, he claims that this supposed attitude of Brown's was not merely justified, but totally justified.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on December 01, 2014 9 Comments
Demonstrations called "Hands Up Walk Out" are taking place all over the country today. According to the event website:

In the wake of events in the last weeks, including the non-indictment in the killing of Mike Brown and the senseless killings of Akai Gurley in New York and 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland, our communities are hurting and justifiably angered. What gives us hope in this moment of pain and anguish is the thousands of people who have poured into the streets of America to demand change.

From the #ShutItDown actions that have blocked major highways and intersections to the #BlackoutBlackFriday protests,the message is clear: No more business as usual. We can no longer do what we have always done and cooperate with a system that does not respect Black Lives. We will only get the change we want if we disrupt the daily order and insists that Black Lives Matter. If that means shutting down the entire country, that’s what we’ll do.

On Monday, Dec 1st people around the country will be walking out of their schools and places of work in solidarity with Ferguson communities across the country effected by police violence.

Where? It can be any central location at your school or the area where you work . Consider if there is a place that has relevance to social justice such as a monument, chapel, or scene of previous protests.

"Hands Up" refers to early reports that suggested Mike Brown had his hands up in the air as a sign of surrender when he was shot by police officer, Darren Wilson. Later, it was revealed this was not true.

Participants of "Hands Up Walk Out" were encouraged to post photos of their events online.

Not surprisingly, the largest turnouts seemed to have occurred at ivy league campuses and leftist organized marches, but even those were not particularly large. The rest? They were itty bitty. Take a look:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 30, 2014 50 Comments
Rich Lowry, Editor of National Review, was on Meet the Press this morning, discussing Ferguson. Here's what I tweeted out at the time: Here's the video of what was playing just before I sent that tweet, via NRO:
National Review editor Rich Lowry riled up a panel of establishment media talkers Sunday by advising Americans to obey the law and exercise caution with police. “If you look at the most credible evidence [of Michael Brown's death at the hands of a Ferguson, Mo., police officer], the lessons are really basic,” Lowry said during an appearance on Meet the Press. “Don’t rob a convenience store. Don’t fight with a policeman when he stops you and try to take his gun. And when he yells at you to stop, just stop.” Those comments elicited gasp from a panel that included the Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson and MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell. Mitchell exclaimed “Whoa, whoa” during Lowry’s comments, while Robinson said his recitation of the known facts in the case was an attempt to “relitigate” Brown’s death.
Here's Mitchell's reaction in slow-motion:

Posted by Andrew Branca on November 30, 2014 55 Comments
One of the most recent of the seemingly never-ending succession of Progressive complaints about the Ferguson Grand Jury is that the Grand Jury's decision not to indict is inherently flawed because they were permitted to consider self-defense. Those professing this argument rely for support on one of their favorite variations of the classic "straw man argument":  they quote an authoritative Conservative figure in purported support of their position. In this case, they are calling upon none other than Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, as in the Think Progress post: Justice Scalia Explains What Was Wrong With The Ferguson Grand Jury. In particular, the Think Progress post states the following:
Justice Antonin Scalia, in the 1992 Supreme Court case of United States v. Williams, explained what the role of a grand jury has been for hundreds of years.

It is the grand jury’s function not ‘to enquire … upon what foundation [the charge may be] denied,’ or otherwise to try the suspect’s defenses, but only to examine ‘upon what foundation [the charge] is made’ by the prosecutor. Respublica v. Shaffer, 1 Dall. 236 (O. T. Phila. 1788); see also F. Wharton, Criminal Pleading and Practice § 360, pp. 248-249 (8th ed. 1880). As a consequence, neither in this country nor in England has the suspect under investigation by the grand jury ever been thought to have a right to testify or to have exculpatory evidence presented.

This passage was first highlighted by attorney Ian Samuel, a former clerk to Justice Scalia.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 29, 2014 20 Comments
It has come to this. The video is by anti-Israel activist Bassem Masri, whose voice narrates as protesters take over parts of the South County Mall someplace, somewhere in America. (Language Warning) Broadcast live streaming video on Ustream Biggest surprise of the evening? There's a Sears store still open. UPDATES:  Sears has been breached, as protesters used the ancient Escalator Maneuver, first used by Hannibal to cross the Alps, flanking the Ladies' Wear staff and leaving the Mens' Footwear attendant fleeing into the Holiday Special Items section:

Posted by Leslie Eastman on November 29, 2014 9 Comments
One of my favorite Christmas moments is when I watch "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas" with my son. This year, I didn't have to pull out the DVD to review the story. Ferguson protesters captured its essence by surrounding  some children caroling for a Christmas tree lighting in Seattle and making them cry.
Demonstrators marched through holiday traffic, blocked intersections and shut down light rail service to Westlake station. Some protesters moved the demonstration to the edge of the Capitol Hill neighborhood, where they clashed with police officers. Both officers and demonstrators used pepper spray, police said. Some protesters wore gas masks. Later, the city's traditional Christmas lighting ceremony at Westlake started early after protesters surrounded the area and began rallying. Police turned out in force, arresting five people and prompting the mall to close several hours early.

Posted by Andrew Branca on November 29, 2014 37 Comments
As a follow-up to our post yesterday, de-bunking Lawrence O'Donnell's claim that a purported error on the part of prosecutors led the Ferguson Grand Jury into error, I thought it might be informative to progress that de-bunking to an even more comprehensive level. As noted yesterday in No, Prosecution did not Mislead #Ferguson Grand Jury into Erroneous Decision, Officer Wilson had several potential legal justifications for his use of deadly force against Michael Brown.  Among these were the justification to use deadly force in making an arrest under MO statute §563.046. Law enforcement officer’s use of force in making an arrest and, alternatively, the justification to use deadly force in self defense under MO statute §563.031. Use of force in defense of persons, the state’s self-defense statute.  Both of these statutes were presented to the Grand Jury. Either one of these statutes alone is more than sufficient to justify Wilson's use of deadly force against Brown.  He did not, however, attempt to avail himself of both statutes. Wilson himself testified for more than four hours to the Grand Jury, in person and without legal counsel present.  during the entirety of that testimony he never--not once--argued that his use of deadly force against Brown was based on an effort to arrest Brown in general, nor based on his arrest powers under §563.046 in particular. To the contrary, Wilson relied explicitly and entirely on his right to use deadly force in self-defense, as allowed for by §563.031.

Posted by Andrew Branca on November 28, 2014 62 Comments
There have been many false factual narratives of the Michael Brown killing, such as "hands up, don't shoot." Now there's a new false legal narrative spreading, that a prosecutorial mistake misled the Grand Jury into erroneously failing to indict Police Officer Darren Wilson. The source of the claim appears to be MSNBC's Lawrence O’Donnell. O'Donnell, who was magnificently misleading in the Trayvon Martin case, expounds on this claim in the Ferguson case with absolute moral and intellectual certainty, as he always does. The heart of O'Donnell's claim is that a legal error in presenting the law on use of force in making an arrest early in the Grand Jury proceedings somehow led the Grand Jury astray.  O'Donnell maintains that this error could have led the Grand Jury to think it was okay to shoot Michael Brown in the back as he was running away, even though the corrected law was given to the Grand Jury prior to deliberations. There are at least two major flaws in O'Donnell's argument. First, and most important, even if O'Donnell is correct that prosecutors misstated one justification for Wilson's use of deadly force (arrest powers), these same prosecutors correctly stated an alternative and independent justification for that same use of force (self-defense). Thus, even if Wilson's arrest powers were insufficient justification for his use of deadly force, his right of self-defense was more than sufficient justification for that use of deadly force. And even O'Donnell claims no error in that instruction to the Grand Jury. Second, the justification that O'Donnell claims was read to the jury in error is entirely irrelevant, as it applies only if the suspect is shot while fleeing arrest. Here, Michael Brown suffered not a single gunshot wound to the back, nor did Wilson ever claim to have shot Brown while he was fleeing in order to affect an arrest.  Instead, Wilson claims consistently that he shot Brown in self-defense, and numerous witnesses testified and the forensic evidence supports that Wilson fired only when Brown was actively advancing towards, and not while Brown was fleeing from, Wilson. As a result the legal justification that O'Donnell claims to be in error, that of arrest powers, simply has no application to this case. Now to the video: O’Donnell’s diatribe is an almost perfect example of what is commonly referred to as a “straw man” argument.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 28, 2014 17 Comments
Casey Breznick is the Editor in Chief of The Cornell Review, the conservative Cornell undergraduate journal and its blog, The Cornell Insider. Casey also writes for Legal Insurrection and previously College Insurrection. Casey has done a lot of great reporting for the Review on political events, such as the Martha Robertson campaign, "Rape Culture" protests, and also on the anti-Israel Students for Justice in Palestine protest at Ho Plaza on Cornell's campus on November 19, 2014. That Ho Plaza incident also has been reported at Legal Insurrection, based in part on Casey's work for the Review blog: On Tuesday night, November 25, Casey covered for the Review the Ithaca community vigil regarding the Michael Brown case. The vigil quickly turned into a street protest in which roads were blocked in downtown Ithaca and cars were trapped, leading to police intervention. In the Cornell Insider post about the protest, Casey recounts how two of the non-students involved in the SJP Cornell protest spotted him and tried to get him to stop filming.  One of them, kat yang-stevens, pushed her sign into Casey. Here is Casey's video: (language warning)

Posted by New Neo on November 28, 2014 9 Comments
Let's take a look at the classic depiction of Justice: justice She wears a blindfold. And not because it's Halloween. It's because:
Lady Justice (Latin: Iustitia, the Roman goddess of Justice, who is equivalent to the Greek goddesses Themis and Dike) is an allegorical personification of the moral force in judicial systems. ...Lady Justice is most often depicted with a set of scales typically suspended from her right hand, upon which she measures the strengths of a case's support and opposition. She is also often seen carrying a double-edged sword in her left hand, symbolizing the power of Reason and Justice, which may be wielded either for or against any party. ...Since the 15th century, Lady Justice has often been depicted wearing a blindfold. The blindfold represents objectivity, in that justice is or should be meted out objectively, without fear or favour, regardless of identity, personal wealth, power, or weakness; blind justice and impartiality. The earliest Roman coins depicted Justitia with the sword in one hand and the scale in the other, but with her eyes uncovered. Justitia was only commonly represented as "blind" since about the end of the 15th century.
Reason. Justice. Objectivity. Laudable and important goals.

Posted by Andrew Branca on November 28, 2014 22 Comments
The official transcript of the Ferguson Grand Jury continues to be fascinating as I chug my way past the 20% reading mark. A portion of the current eye witness testimony before me, that of Interview #4 taken on September 17 , was particularly engaging however. The reason? It shows in visceral detail some of the explicit and coordinated efforts to physically intimidate eye witnesses from speaking with law enforcement, and how genuinely frightened these efforts made those witnesses. I've reproduced the relevant section of Interview #4 below, and the entire length of that interview is embedded at the bottom of this post. (This interview did not take place before the Grand Jury itself, but rather the audio recording of the interview conducted at an earlier date was played for the Grand Jury.) There are three interviewers, whom I have labelled (as best I was able to discern from the transcript) as "Unknown," "Mr.," and "Ms.," at least one of whom is an FBI Special Agent and another of which is an attorney with the prosecutor's office.  (It is possible the "unknown" category should be assigned to some combination of "Mr." and "Ms.")  The witness is labelled as "I4."  All identities and identifying information has been redacted in the official transcript. The interview has been going on for some time when one of the persons leading the questioning interrupts the substantive discussion:

Posted by Amy Miller on November 27, 2014 19 Comments
The Ferguson protesters have proven themselves to be destructive, violent, and completely uninterested in anything having to do with "justice." Not only are they okay with this assessment---they're completely proud of it. In fact, they're beginning to look an awful lot like another "justice movement" we got to know quite well a few years back. Back in August, an enterprising writer over at Buzzfeed engaged in some solid journalism and noticed that the Ferguson protests---namely, the evolving encampments were beginning to look a little like the Occupy Wall Street protests:
As the marches in Ferguson grow smaller, this apparently semi-permanent encampment has echoes of Occupy Wall Street and other radical encampments who sought to claim and hold territory in 2011 and 2012. “Why do we need a leader?” Alexander asked. “I’m saying everybody can be leaders.” The camp even has a few Occupy veterans who drifted in during the last week and are giving them pointers on how to deal with things like tear gas — a threat Alexander said is still present, especially as their numbers grow. A couple of miles away in downtown Ferguson, across the street from the still-under-construction police station, another group is also digging in. Unlike the protesters on W Florissant, the gathering downtown is older and includes more women than men. Many of the demonstrators leave by the middle of the night, though someone is always out and always will be until they “get some answers,” according to organizer Angela Whitman. “We come out when it’s storming and raining,” she said. “We don’t play around. We don’t care what the weather is. We’ll be out here as long as it takes.” The atmosphere downtown is almost familial, with chairs and tables spread out across the street corner. Friday night, the group had prayers and competing chants between men and women, among other things.
In fact, Occupy is more interconnected with Ferguson than was immediately apparent when people started to organize.

Posted by Mike LaChance on November 27, 2014 47 Comments
Back in the good old days, the left loved to lecture us about civility. That time is over. In the course of the last few days, at least two writers from liberal outlets have tried to justify and even advocate for the violent rioting in Ferguson. First, we have Darlena Cunha of Time:
Ferguson: In Defense of Rioting When a police officer shoots a young, unarmed black man in the streets, then does not face indictment, anger in the community is inevitable. It’s what we do with that anger that counts. In such a case, is rioting so wrong? Riots are a necessary part of the evolution of society. Unfortunately, we do not live in a universal utopia where people have the basic human rights they deserve simply for existing, and until we get there, the legitimate frustration, sorrow and pain of the marginalized voices will boil over, spilling out into our streets. As “normal” citizens watch the events of Ferguson unfurl on their television screens and Twitter feeds, there is a lot of head shaking, finger pointing, and privileged explanation going on. We wish to seclude the incident and the people involved. To separate it from our history as a nation, to dehumanize the change agents because of their bad and sometimes violent decisions—because if we can separate the underlying racial tensions that clearly exist in our country from the looting and rioting of select individuals, we can continue to ignore the problem.
Next up is Matt Bruenig of Gawker:

Posted by Amy Miller on November 26, 2014 13 Comments
The violence that gripped Ferguson, MO in the wake of the grand jury's decision not to indict Darren Wilson has spread to multiple cities across the US. Minneapolis Portland

Posted by Leslie Eastman on November 26, 2014 53 Comments
A lot of San Diegans were caught in gridlock when a group of student protesters from my alma mater, University of California - San Diego, blocked Interstate 5 just in time for morning rush hour.
Dozens of UCSD students brought traffic to a halt on northbound Interstate 5 Wednesday morning to protest the decision of a grand jury in Ferguson, Mo., not to indict a white policeman for killing an unarmed black teenager. A crowd of an estimated 50 to 70 protesters marched onto the freeway at Nobel Drive at about 6:49 a.m., blocking the northbound lanes. They remained in the roadway for about 40 minutes until San Diego police arrived and removed them. The protesters left the freeway peacefully and began marching on surface streets. There were no immediate reports of arrests. The demonstrators, led by an unidentified man with a bullhorn, held signs objecting to the Missouri grand jury’s decision not to charge Officer Darren Wilson in the Aug. 9 shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown, who was unarmed but allegedly came at the officer and, at one point, tried to take his service weapon from him.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 26, 2014 19 Comments
Darren Wilson, the Ferguson Police Officer whom a Grand Jury declined to indict over the shooting death of Micheal Brown, gave a lengthy in-person interview to George Stephanopoulos on ABC News last night. That interview is embedded at the bottom of this post. But this post is not really about Darren Wilson, at least not directly. It's about Johnson City, NY (near Binghamton), Police Officer David Smith, who was involved in a similar incident on March 31, 2014. A reader from this area (Johnson City is about 45 minutes from Ithaca) forwarded me the link, writing: "I had forgotten about this event very close to home but it seems to me that it is relevant to current events." http://www.localsyr.com/story/d/story/officer-shot-and-killed-near-binghamton-area-hospi/21718/364J-3q63EqZs8BkWb6lSw In that incident, a seemingly crazed and aggressive perpetrator managed to take Officer Smith's weapon from him, and then use it to murder Officer Smith:
Police say a suspect shot and killed a Johnson City police officer with the officer’s own weapon on Monday morning. Officer David Smith was an 18-year veteran of the force, police said at an afternoon news conference. The suspect, 43-year-old James Clark of Greene, pulled away Smith’s weapon and shot the officer three times, according to police. Clark fired at another officer, who then shot the suspect several times. Clark was taken to a hospital and later died.
As recounted in this video, the circumstances were remarkably similar to the initial assault on Darren Wilson by Michael Brown: Sucker punches to an officer seated in his patrol car, with the perpetrator then leaning in to try to steal the weapon:

Posted by Andrew Branca on November 26, 2014 41 Comments
This post focuses on the second-half of Police Officer's testimony before the Grand Jury, during which he is responding to direct questions from both the Prosecutors present (Whirley and Alizadeh) as well as from individual Grand Jury members. This portion of the testimony also covers the relevant post-shooting events. The first half of Wilson's testimony before the Grand Jury consisted of his narrative of events, and was covered in yesterday's post here: #Ferguson Grand Jury evidence: Police Officer’s Account of Shooting. It bears mentioning again that Officer Wilson was not compelled to testify before the Grand Jury, but rather volunteered to do so.  He did so knowing he would not be permitted to be accompanied by legal counsel during his testimony. As was done in yesterday's post, below is an abridged version of the testimony, to ease reading through the material. The full-text of the testimony is embedded at the bottom of this post in the form of a PDF of the official Grand Jury transcript. One observation comes immediately to mind as I've had the opportunity to both carefully review Wilson's September 26 testimony before the Grand Jury as well as watch him recount events in his November 25 ABC News interview with George Stephanopoulos, and that is the utter consistently between the two accounts. This stands in sharp contrast to the very often wildly varying testimony of "pro-Brown" witnesses before the Grand Jury.
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