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Ferguson Tag

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.

Posted by Amy Miller on January 05, 2015 29 Comments
Teachers in the San Francisco United School District are concerned about race. In an area where schools are almost 90% non-white, you'd expect that an emphasis on cultural diversity would happen by default, and that teachers wouldn't need the help of an institutionalized curriculum to get the job done. But in the wake of the Ferguson protests and rise of the "Black Lives Matter" movement, five teachers from the San Francisco area have teamed up to provide other educators with a guide to teaching about the Michael Brown shooting, the Ferguson protests, and race-based social justice movements. From the San Francisco Examiner:
Chalida Anusasananan, a teacher librarian at Everett Middle School who helped launch the resource guide, said both incidents and the subsequent protests have hit home with many public-school students in San Francisco, where nearly 90 percent are nonwhite. "We wanted to make sure that teachers had a means to teach what students were talking about with their families, or seeing on the news, or feeling every day," Anusasananan said. The resources, posted to the SFUSD's LibGuide page, includes the grand jury documents, poetry, videos and graphics, readings, and lesson plans and activities for elementary, middle and high school students. "What has to happen first and foremost is to create a safe space in the classroom for young people to talk about these things," said Karen Zapata, a humanities teacher at June Jordan High School and a co-founder of the grass-roots organization Teachers 4 Social Justice. "What's happened affects young people on an emotional level."
I took a look at the online curriculum provided by the five teachers, and it's pretty much what you'd expect to see. I took some screenshots: Screen Shot 2015-01-05 at 1.08.01 PM

Posted by Amy Miller on December 29, 2014 6 Comments
Over the past year, we've provided extensive coverage of the controversy surrounding the death of Michael Brown, the grand jury's decision to not indict Darren Wilson, and the ensuing fallout, riots, and protests that wracked cities all across America. What started out as a local controversy turned into a national discussion, which subsequently morphed into a national protest and social media movement that endures even as 2014 comes to a close. It's official: "#Ferguson" was the most tweeted news story of 2014. Via Mediaite:
Digital research firm Echelon Insights has put together an infographic that charts the year in news as seen through 185 million Twitter mentions. And between the initial protests that followed Brown’s death and the grand jury decision months later that cleared Officer Wilson of any charges, #Ferguson was far and away the most talked-about event of the year: Screen-Shot-2014-12-29-at-11.42.28-AM-650x267 Midterm Election Day created the second-biggest spike, followed by the State of the Union and the Donald Sterling L.A. Clippers controversy. The firm also broke down Twitter mention by political leaning and found that while conservatives had more to say about Benghazi, guns, Iraq and Ebola, liberals were more likely to talk about Chris Christie, Obamacare, Ferguson/Eric Garner and the midterm elections. But regardless of political persuasion, the most-talked about politician for both sides, by far, was President Barack Obama.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on December 29, 2014 33 Comments
Kids these days. Students who neglected their studies to protest the Michael Brown grand jury decision were disappointed when their appeal to the administration for special accommodations during finals was rejected. According to Fox News Cleveland:
Over 1,300 Oberlin students signed a petition for college administrators asking for understanding and “alternative modes of learning” as they continue to cope with what’s happening across the country. They asked for the normal grading system to be “replaced with a no-fail mercy period,” and said “basically no student …especially students of color should be failing a class this semester.” In response, Oberlin President Marvin Krislov said that he understands their concerns and that he and the Academic Deans took the request seriously, however “we are in firm agreement that suspending grading protocols is not the way to achieve our shared goal of ensuring that students have every opportunity and resource to succeed,” he said in a statement. Administrators did offer students some assistance in the form of counseling and other support services. They also added increased flexibility in terms of students making “incomplete requests.” They also extended the deadline for students to change from “a grade to the pass/no pass” option.

Posted by Amy Miller on December 23, 2014 8 Comments
Bloomington City Attorney Sandra Johnson is making moves to hold accountable the organizers of this past Saturday's "Black Lives Matter" protest at the Mall of America. Officers were present on-site, and once the chanting started, moved to close almost 100 stores and several entrances to the mall. I say "moved to" as opposed to "were forced to" because the shutdown occurred as soon as the protests began, and there were no reports of some sort of violent instigating event; but perhaps it's a good thing the officers moved so quickly, based on how mall employees describe what happened next: From CBS Minnesota:
Nate Bash works at one store near the rotunda, which he didn’t want us to name. “You had people yelling and screaming inside the mall that wanted out and you had people yelling and screaming outside the mall that wanted in,” he said. “I would say the mall was less than half as busy as it should have been considering what day it was.” “This was a powder keg just waiting for a match,” said Johnson.
Police officers are busy using social media in an attempt to single out the organizers (arresting every single protester would be chaos, and not worth the trouble;) their goal is to target the organizers and participants who encouraged others to come to the mall even after officials made moves to emphasize that the Mall of America is privately owned, and those disrutping business would be asked to leave. Officials don't yet know how much money was lost during the shutdown, but they're throwing around words like "staggering," so I'm willing to assume that losses were well worth the effort to track these people down and file a lawsuit.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 21, 2014 9 Comments
On October 25, 2014, I wrote about how anti-Israel activists attempted to co-opt and hijack the Ferguson protests and riots and turn the anger towards Israel, Intifada Missouri – Anti-Israel activists may push Ferguson over the edge. The activists gathered under the "Palestine2Ferguson" banner and Twitter hashtag. One of the key anti-Israel activists was Bassem Masri, a Palestinian-American who attempted to instigate confrontations between police and protesters, as he livestreamed the protests. [caption id="attachment_104112" align="alignnone" width="550"]Bassem Masri Ferguson Resistance is in our blood(Bassem Masri, on right)[/caption] Fast forward to the execution of two NYPD police officers, Wenjian Lu and Rafael Ramos, on December 20, by Ismaaiyl Brinsley. The killer wrote on Instagram in his final post:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 15, 2014 53 Comments
As we reported, a coalition of student groups at Harvard Law School demanded exam delays due to student trauma over the Ferguson and Eric Garner grand jury refusals to indict. There was withering criticism, including here. HLS refused to budge, but did agree to counseling, meetings, and other steps. William Desmond, a third year HLS student who also is a Law Review Editor, defends the demand for an exam delay in The National Law Journal, Delaying Exams Is Not a Request from 'Coddled Millennials' (h/t Drew M.). Here's an excerpt:
... In essence, law students are being told to grow up and learn how to focus amidst stress and anxiety—like “real” lawyers must do. Speaking as one of those law students, I can say that this response is misguided: Our request for exam extensions is not being made from a position of weakness, but rather from one of strength and critical awareness. Although over the last few weeks many law students have experienced moments of total despair, minutes of inconsolable tears and hours of utter confusion, many of these same students have also spent days in action—days of protesting, of organizing meetings, of drafting emails and letters, and of starting conversations long overdue. We have been synthesizing decades of police interactions, dissecting problems centuries old, and exposing the hypocrisy of silence.

Posted by Amy Miller on December 14, 2014 19 Comments
Yesterday, as they often do, thousands of protesters descended on Washington, DC to protest police brutality against black men. The rally, led by Al Sharpton and attended by high-profile activists in the black community, focused on promoting a "black agenda," and railed against the typical enemies of the progressive community: the Koch brothers, establishment politicians, and the Republican party. To close the rally, Reverend Jamal Bryant of Empowerment Temple in Maryland offered one of the angriest, most divisive prayers ever uttered in public. Via the Daily Caller:
Dispatch angels right now of protection around our sons from psychopathic, sociopathic police officers. I pray right now that you will convince prosecutors who have, in fact, given up the law for popularity. We pray that you will disrobe judges who are elected, but have not been appointed by your glory. We’re going to march in 2016 until we have righteous Congress people, righteous Senators, and a righteous President. God, we don’t want just black elected officials, we want a black agenda. We want to make sure that ‘our lives matter’ is not a slogan, but it is a lifestyle. Let us march on. And God, for every person who opposes justice, every person who opposes righteousness, we came to remind them – we know when they are sleep, we know when they’re awake, we know when they been good or bad, and because they been bad please send Black Jesus for goodness sake. Amen and God bless you.
Watch:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 14, 2014 20 Comments
Does it really matter who it was? Could have been anyone. It was Peter Thiel, the founder of PayPal. And no, it wasn't because of the high fees. Via The Blaze:
Billionaire investor and PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel was forced offstage at the University of California, Berkeley, on Wednesday after Ferguson and Eric Garner demonstrators barged into the room and took over. Protesters banged on doors of the lecture hall where Thiel was speaking, causing the audience to grow more and more uneasy as the noise continued to get louder. Then, a male student inside the lecture hall stood up, yelled “F*** you” at Thiel and left.
Business Insider further reports:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 12, 2014 25 Comments
College Insurrection and others recently reported how the President of Smith College apologized to the student body for using the term "All Lives Matter" rather than "Black Lives Matter." A Cornell engineering student just tweeted to me about a similar statement from the Chief of the Cornell University Police, Kathy Zoner, in an all campus email. https://twitter.com/TTimeOnThe19th/status/543545839927693312 I checked my own email, and sure enough, there it was: Cornell Police #ALLLIVESMATTER That original message from the week before was:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 12, 2014 23 Comments
You thought it was bad that law students at Columbia, Harvard, Georgetown and Berkeley demanded exam delays because of the failure of grand juries to indict in the killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner? Sit down. Harvey Silverglate, civil liberties lawyer and co-founder of the FIRE, tweets a link to a Volokh Conspiracy post: https://twitter.com/HASilverglate/status/543529885248282625 The original story is from the UCLA Daily Bruin, Law school exam question on Ferguson shooting draws criticism:
Some students at the UCLA School of Law have expressed concerns after a professor asked an exam question this week relating to the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, in Ferguson, Mo. The exam, given by Professor Robert Goldstein in Constitutional Law II, asked students to write a memo related to the Ferguson shooting. Some students who took the exam said they found it difficult to write about the incident in terms of the first amendment while ignoring issues such as police brutality.... Hussain Turk, a second-year law student who took the exam, said he thinks the question was problematic because he thinks exams should not ask students to address controversial events. He added that he thinks the question was more emotionally difficult for black students to answer than for other students.

Posted by Amy Miller on December 08, 2014 14 Comments
The slacktivists at Columbia Law School have found a new way to exploit the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner to the very convenient benefit of race card hustlers everywhere--- they're canceling finals. That's right. One of the finest law schools in the country is allowing the collective #outrage of its flock of immature, untested baby lawyers to completely derail the academic integrity of its exam system. Via Power Line Blog:
The grand juries’ determinations to return non-indictments in the Michael Brown and Eric Garner cases have shaken the faith of some in the integrity of the grand jury system and in the law more generally. For some law students, particularly, though not only, students of color, this chain of events is all the more profound as it threatens to undermine a sense that the law is a fundamental pillar of society designed to protect fairness, due process and equality. ... The law school has a policy and set of procedures for students who experience trauma during exam period. In accordance with these procedures and policy, students who feel that their performance on examinations will be sufficiently impaired due to the effects of these recent events may petition Dean Alice Rigas to have an examination rescheduled.
They're also providing counseling and developing a speaker series to encourage open dialogue. I'm not quite sure what the powers that be at Columbia are smoking, but whatever it is, it has made them forget what it actually takes to be a lawyer. I'm not sure how many of you reading this have ever gone through law school, but part of the educational process is reading things that some may find upsetting. My first internship involved criminal appeals in a Detroit court, and all I'll say is that I saw things. Upsetting things. Things that make you angry. But I did the work and learned from it because that's part of the job.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 07, 2014 11 Comments
Yes, I agree that #BlackLivesMatter. So do all other lives, including the lives of police (of all races) who keep us from the abyss. Remember Officer David Smith never lived to tell about enraged perp who stole his service gun. Someone started a hashtag, #PoliceLivesMatter. Seems worth retweeting some of these tweets, don't ya think?
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