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Ferguson Tag

Posted by Mike LaChance on August 25, 2015 14 Comments
Missouri woman Peggy Hubbard has had enough. Following an incident in St. Louis involving a young black man and the police, she made a video message for #BlackLivesMatter and it has gone viral. Dave Urbanski of The Blaze:
Black mother Peggy Hubbard notes on her Facebook page that she’s from St. Louis. And even though she now lives north of the area’s racial turmoil, watching and listening to Hubbard’s profane-but-precise video takedown of Black Lives Matter protesters is to witness a woman who loves her hometown and hates the choices some people are making there. First Hubbard contrasted how the Black Lives Matter contingent reacted when a 9-year-old girl was fatally shot doing homework on her mother’s bed and the next night when an 18-year-old was fatally shot by police who said he pointed a gun at them. Then she asked, “Last night, who do you think they protested for? The thug. The criminal.” Then Hubbard let loose.

Posted by Amy Miller on August 06, 2015 8 Comments
It's hard to believe that we started talking about Ferguson almost a year ago. For better, worse, or neutral, what happened in that town between teenager Michael Brown and police officer Darren Wilson has changed the way this country regards the ever-evolving relationship between citizens and the police. August 11th marks the 1 year anniversary of the day this quiet corner of the greater Saint Louis area exploded into chaos and violence, and city officials, local residents, and even those of us who watched from afar are concerned that renewed protests will once again overtake the streets.

Posted by Andrew Branca on June 03, 2015 29 Comments
One of the dominant theories of our time is that police officers are waging a Terminator-like war against unarmed young black men, killing them with a ruthlessness and determination evocative of a genocide, all the while escaping legal sanction. The Washington Post, certainly not a paper to shy away from fanning the flames of discord, seems to have stumbled upon some actual data on the subject.  Their reporting of this data is, as one might have expected, far richer in anecdote than analysis, but nevertheless the snippets of data that slip through are perhaps noteworthy. We start with a data point showing 385 police killings of suspects so far this year. Of these 385 killings, only about 25% involved a black suspect.  While it is certainly true that this 25% is disproportionate to the 13% or so of the US population that is black, it is also true that black suspects are disproportionately represented among those arrested for violent crime in general.

Posted by Andrew Branca on June 02, 2015 32 Comments
It looks like two members of the St. Louis Chapter of the New Black Panthers who planned multiple terrorist bombings around Ferguson, MO last year have been gifted a sweetheart plea deal from Obama's Department of Justice, based upon reports by Fox News/Associated Press and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Today Olajuwon Ali Davis (on left in the featured picture above) and Brandon Orlando Baldwin (aka Brandon Muhammad, on right in picture), both 22,  changed their plea of "not guilty" to accept a plea arrangement in which they will each serve 7 years in Federal prison. That means both men will be back on the street and free to continue terrorizing innocent people while still under the age of 30. If convicted of the charges initially brought against them they would each have faced decades in prison. The men were originally charged with plotting to kill Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch and then-Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson, and planning to blow up a Ferguson police station, police vehicles, and other area targets including (according to law enforcement sources) the famous St. Louis Gateway Arch monument. Their plan for the Arch was to plant a bomb on the observation deck.

Posted by Andrew Branca on May 18, 2015 34 Comments
Anybody remember VonDerrit Myers? That's him, on the right side of the picture above. Heck, I couldn't quite place the name, and I actually posted about his untimely demise at the hands of law enforcement way back in October 2014, shortly after the Mike Brown kerfuffle in the same St. Louis area. (See: St. Louis Shooting Victim Vonderrit Myers Tests Positive for Gunshot Residue.) VonDerrit was one of those "cops shoot unarmed black child" stories that that had cities on edge. Then his mom had to concede that her son was armed, "but only with a sandwich." It didn't take long for the lab results to come back, however, and confirm that if VonDerrit's mom was correct, then her son's sandwiches were made of fired gunpowder--because that's what they found all over his deceased hands. The police forensics report would also supplement the gun powder residue (GPR) results with three recovered 9mm bullets fired from the S&W handgun found in the deceased VonDerrit's possession. Of course the police all along had reported that they fired on VonDerrit only after he had fired his own gun at them. Fortunately, the police were more timely and accurate in their fire, and so the loss was not as great as it might otherwise have been.

Posted by Amy Miller on April 28, 2015 31 Comments
The Baltimore riots are raging, which means that the parade of talking heads, activists, and local flacks has begun in force. Last night, Sean Hannity spoke to Adam J. Jackson, a Maryland activist and CEO of Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle, about whether or not what's happening in Baltimore is a movement anyone with a brain should be involved in. Jackson quickly got to his talking points, and made a valiant attempt at ignoring the issue at hand:
“Is this the type of protest you want to be a part of?” Hannity asked Jackson, as footage of burning looting debris played in the background.

Posted by Mike LaChance on March 17, 2015 16 Comments
I would imagine the toughest thing about doing business with Al Sharpton is asking him for a lost receipt, but the National Legal and Policy Center is asking NASCAR to end its relationship with him over Ferguson. Alana Goodman of the Washington Free Beacon has the story:
Watchdog Calls on NASCAR to End Funding to Al Sharpton A government watchdog group is calling on NASCAR to cut ties with Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network in response to the cable news host’s comments about police in the wake of the shooting of Mike Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and the questionable financial activities at his nonprofit groups. The National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) asked NASCAR to “end its financial support of Al Sharpton and his organization” in a letter to CEO Brian France on Monday. NASCAR has previously been a sponsor of NAN’s annual conference, a key fundraising event for Sharpton’s group, according to the NLPC. “The cold-blooded murder of two New York City police officers, Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, followed weeks of Sharpton’s vilification of law enforcement personnel. Now two police officers have been gunned down in Ferguson, Missouri,” wrote NLPC president Peter Flaherty in the letter. “Mr. France, police lives matter. You can demonstrate your support for law enforcement by ending your support for Sharpton without delay.”
Sharpton has been a regular presence in Ferguson. He even held a press conference after the grand jury decision in November.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on March 17, 2015 53 Comments
Race Together. If you find those words gracing your morning cup of joe, it's because Starbucks launched a new initiative yesterday. CEO Howard Schultz is encouraging baristas (or 'Partners' as Starbucks calls their employees) to initiate conversations about race with their customers. Citing Ferguson and New York, Schultz decided to join the race conversation, “we at Starbucks should be willing to talk about these issues in America," Schultz said. "Not to point fingers or to place blame, and not because we have answers, but because staying silent is not who we are." After holding forums in select cities like Oakland, St. Louis, Chicago, Los Angeles and New York City, partners began voluntarily writing 'Race Together' on cups, according to a statement released Monday. Now, Starbucks is taking the campaign nationwide. Special 'Race Together' stickers will be provided to baristas, who may place the provocative stickers on beverages, as a way to engage customers in friendly discourse about race. "It is an opportunity to begin to re-examine how we can create a more empathetic and inclusive society – one conversation at a time," Schultz said. Schultz's efforts seem noble, but might be viewed as more legitimate were his reasons for entering the contentious race arena not predicated on blatant falsehoods and astroturfed race hustling. To be fair, conservative ideology has bled into the turbulent world of corporate advocacy, though with marked distinction and with significantly less prevalence. Chick-fil-a President and CEO, Dan Cathy, got a chance to tussle with the gay rights mafia (which must be separated from advocacy groups working in earnest) a few years ago when his sentiments on same sex marriage made their way into the public. Enduring intense public backlash, Cathy later said Chick-fil-a had no place in culture wars.

Posted by Amy Miller on March 12, 2015 32 Comments
Ferguson is falling apart again, and the police are once again in the crosshairs. Officials are still trying to calm things down in the wake of the targeted shooting of two police officers tasked with supervising a protest earlier this week. Here's how the AP covered the shooting:
The officers were quickly released from the hospital, but St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar said they could have easily been killed and called the attack "an ambush." Several people were taken in for questioning after a SWAT team converged on a Ferguson home near the shooting site, but they were later released, and no arrests were made. The shootings marked the first time in eight months of tension in Ferguson that officers were shot at a protest, and the bloodshed threatened to inflame the already fraught relationship between police and protesters just as the city seeks reforms in the wake of a withering Justice Department report on racial bias in its law-enforcement practices. The attack also seemed to create another layer of race-related mistrust after a week in which an unarmed young black man was killed by a white officer in Madison, Wisconsin, and a University of Oklahoma fraternity chapter was thrown off campus after a video surfaced showing members singing a racist chant.
I'm not entirely sure where a group of racist twenty-something idiots comes into a discussion about police officers getting shot and/or using deadly force to protect themselves, but hey, might as well drag everything into the pot while the fire's hot. MSNBC's Ed Schultz isn't helping, either. On Monday, he suggested disarming the Ferguson PD entirely, and today, he asked whether or not police really needed to be at these protests to begin with. Because they're so peaceful. No, really.

Posted by Mike LaChance on March 08, 2015 26 Comments
The Justice Department has confirmed that the entire notion of "Hands Up, Don't Shoot" was completely false. That hasn't stopped one CNN host from keeping the meme alive, if only in a "symbolic" way. Transcript and video via Real Clear Politics:
ANA CABRERA, CNN: You’re part of this Hands-Up-Don’t-Shoot coalition. Have you had a chance to read the Justice Department's findings on Michael Brown's death, as they pertain to Darren Wilson? MONTAGUE SIMMONS, DON'T SHOOT COALITION MEMBER: I’ve had a chance to take a glance, yes. ANA CABRERA: Has it changed your view of Darren Wilson at all, the fact he was cleared in this incident? MONTAGUE SIMMONS: Not at all. Unfortunately, the findings were expected -- meaning that usually in these cases we've seen law enforcement, and the voice of the officers involved, are given much heavier weight than [other] witnesses. Even though we've seen countless witnesses come forward and testify that his hands were up, they're still giving a greater weight to law enforcement's findings. Even if his hands weren't up in this case, he was not -- he should even have been executed in the way he was. ANA CABRERA: Obviously the whole catch phrase hands up don't shoot takes on a much more symbolic meaning moving forward.
Watch the video: CNN has taken a keen interest in the idea of "hands up, don't shoot" from the beginning.

Posted by Andrew Branca on March 08, 2015 94 Comments
Stop me if you've heard seen this one before: the now tiresome and wholly predictable cycle of news coverage when a white police officer shoots and kills an unarmed black teenager: Step 1: Build the false narrative. Mainstream media outlets report that a police officer has shot an unarmed black teenager, and provide extensive coverage of the victim's grieving family alongside flattering photographs and background stories of said teenager. The event is followed within hours--hours!--by well-organized protests, family spokespersons, and (naturally) lawyers (these last two typically combined). Step 2: Watch the false narrative implode.  These mainstream media reports are inevitably followed by factually correct and comprehensive reports of the victim's violent and criminal background and actions at the time of the shooting. These facts place responsibility for his death squarely on the victim's own shoulders, and make it clear that the police acted appropriately. Sounds familiar, right? In case you've not yet had enough of that cycle, allow me to introduce you to the late Tony Robinson, the "unarmed black teenager" who was shot and killed by a veteran Wisconsin police officer this past Friday evening (so, not even 48 hours prior to the writing of this post).

Step 1: Build the False Narrative

Let's take a look at  how NBC covered this shooting in a post headlined: Black Teen Tony Robinson Shot Dead by Cop in Madison, Wisconsin, Was Unarmed. First, their lede:

Posted by Andrew Branca on March 05, 2015 32 Comments
Perhaps the single most potent piece of political theatre to emerge from the Ferguson MO shooting of Mike Brown by Police Officer Darren Wilson was the meme of "Hands Up, Don't Shoot." The "Hands Up, Don't Shoot" meme was based on the false claim by Dorian Johnson that Brown had his hands raised in surrender when Wilson shot him.  A handful of other purported witnesses--none of whom were ultimately deemed sufficiently credible to warrant either criminal or civil rights charges against Wilson--soon parroted the claim. Protestors were quick to adopt the meme en masse, gesticulating with their hands above their shoulders while chanting the phrase.  Even US Congressmen speaking in the House chamber prominently mimicked the same motions: congress-members-hands-2 Indeed, there was even an amateurish movie centered on this meme, appropriately titled "The Movie: Hands Up, Don't Shoot."  Here's a taste of the movie's credulous depiction of the hilariously fabricated "witness statements" on which this false meme was based, and the manner in which the meme nevertheless dominated the public consciousness of the shooting:

Posted by Andrew Branca on March 04, 2015 27 Comments
The New York Times reports that the Department of Justice has released an extensive report (embedded below) clearing former Ferguson, Missouri police officer Darren Wilson of civil rights violations in the shooting death of Mike Brown in August 2014. Wilson's shooting of Brown led to weeks of often violent protests, including repeated nights of looting and arson. These protests, largely organized by Al Sharpton and similar racial activists, left portions of Ferguson in ruins. In November 2014 Darren Wilson received a no true bill from the grand jury empaneled to hear criminal charges against him, sparking additional riots. He shortly thereafter resigned from the Ferguson police department, and has stayed out of the news since. We covered the grand jury's findings extensively here at Legal Insurrection, including here: Analysis: #Ferguson Grand Jury: NO Indictment In Michael Brown Shooting In considering civil rights charges against Wilson the Department of Justice ultimately determined that the credible witnesses and forensic evidence overwhelmingly favored Wilson's narrative of lawful self-defense. The witnesses whose testimony favored a narrative of racist misconduct were found to be lies, inconsistent with the forensic evidence, or simply not credible relative to the witnesses favorable to Wilson's narrative. A Department of Justice investigation continues into the Ferguson police department generally, on the basis that the department has engaged in racist activity. The specific examples noted by the New York Times, however, seem only to illustrate mockery of President Obama and his wife, rather than black people generally.
A report from that investigation found a wide pattern of discrimination by the city’s police force, and said that city officials had sent racist emails on their government accounts. One depicted President Obama as a chimpanzee. Another included a photo of topless African women with the caption, “Michelle Obama’s high school reunion.”
One can't help but recall the thousands of Progressive depictions of President George W. Bush as a chimpanzee during his administration.  Not racism, I guess.

Posted by Mike LaChance on January 23, 2015 25 Comments
A newly released video shows a mob of Ferguson protesters breaking into and looting a small grocery store in the nearby town of Dellwood. The store has been looted multiple times and in December, the owner said he might close his business. As you watch this, you might find yourself wondering: What does this have to do with justice for Michael Brown? The answer is nothing. This is just a mob urged on, at least indirectly, by liberal political rhetoric of class and race warfare. No audio is needed but if you get bored watching them try to break in through the door, just skip to the 2:20 mark to see them break the wall down instead. What a classy way to honor Michael Brown's memory. As I mentioned, this is a new video and police are asking for help from the public in identifying the criminals.

Posted by Andrew Branca on January 21, 2015 34 Comments
The Department of Justice is preparing to drop the pretense that it has any expectation of bringing Federal civil rights charges against Darren Wilson, the Ferguson, MO police officer who successfully defended himself against Michael Brown after Brown attempted to beat Officer Wilson into submission and seize the officer's sidearm. The New York Times reports in part that:
The Justice Department has begun work on a legal memo recommending no civil rights charges against a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo., who killed an unarmed black teenager in August, law enforcement officials said. That would close the politically charged case in the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown. The investigation by the F.B.I., which is complete, found no evidence to support civil rights charges against the officer, Darren Wilson, the officials said.
Let no one allege that the U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder didn't allocate sufficient resources to uncovering any possible trace of misconduct by Wilson. The Times report notes:
Federal investigators interviewed more than 200 people and analyzed cellphone audio and video, the law enforcement officials said. Officer Wilson’s gun, clothing and other evidence were analyzed at the F.B.I.’s laboratory in Quantico, Va. Though the local authorities and Mr. Brown’s family conducted autopsies, Mr. Holder ordered a separate autopsy, which was conducted by pathologists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner’s office at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, the officials said.
Despite these resources, the DOJ was unable to find any evidence whatsoever to suggest that Darren Wilson violated anyone's civil rights:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 20, 2015 18 Comments
Don't say I didn't warn you about how anti-Israel activists have set on a deliberate course to hijack the Ferguson and #BlackLivesMatters protests to their own anti-Israel agenda: It started in Ferguson, then the Eric Garner protests, and is being pushed by the anti-Israel Students for Justice in Palestine through groups like Dream Defenders, which carries a Tides Foundation logo on it's website.  Dream Defenders was responsible for Marc Lamont Hill's trip to "Palestine" in which he recorded a video supporting "Revolutionary Struggle" against Israel. http://youtu.be/L2yMMdPTQ30 A key player in the effort to turn the #BlackLivesMatter movement into an anti-Israel movement is recently graduated Stanford student and SJP activist Kristian Davis Bailey, who writes not only for the anti-Zionist Mondoweiss website, but also has been promoting the effort in Ebony Magazine.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 18, 2015 38 Comments
Last Thursday protesters exploiting the #BlackLivesMatters movement as an excuse for anarchy blocked traffic on Route 93, a key highway leading into Boston:
Protesters affiliated with the activist group Black Lives Matter carried out their most audacious and disruptive demonstration yet in the Boston area Thursday, blocking the largest highway into the city, snarling rush-hour traffic, and stopping an ambulance in its tracks. In a pair of coordinated surprise actions that angered commuters, the protesters formed human barricades on Interstate 93 north of the city in Medford, and south, in Milton. Some put barrels filled with concrete on the highway and chained themselves to them. Twenty-nine protesters were arrested. The well-organized protests were carried out on Martin Luther King’s birthday by activists calling attention to the deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of police in Missouri and New York.
The protesters are being prosecuted, more vigorously than usually happens, perhaps because at least two ambulances had to be rerouted due to the traffic jam.

Posted by Andrew Branca on January 07, 2015 21 Comments
Two Bridgeton NJ police officers shot and killed 36-year-old Jerame Reid during a traffic stop last night, reports NBC 10 News our of Philadelphia (see embedded video, below).  The officers, Braheme Days and Roger Worley, are on paid leave as the killing remains under investigation.  Prosecutors have released little information, but a gun was recovered at the scene.  An autopsy is scheduled for today, although there seems little question as to the cause of death. The witness circus, so familiar from the Michael Brown shooting, seems to have already begun.  It remains to be seen whether the witnesses in this instance have any greater credibility than those in Ferguson who claimed that Brown was shot in the back while fleeing, that Brown was shot while on his knees, that Brown had never advanced on Officer Darren Wilson, and other such creativities.
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