The decision by the Ferguson Grand Jury on whether or not to indict officer Darren Wilson for the killing of an unarmed teenager, Mike Brown, is almost here. And in preparation for that decision, gun sales have skyrocketed in Ferguson.
Metro Shooting Supplies, which is located near Ferguson, usually sells 30 to 40 firearms per week. But this week, the owner told The Washington Post, the store has sold 250. In other words, there has been about a 700 percent spike in sales.
“These people are afraid,” said owner Steve King. “One hundred percent of them are buying because of Ferguson.”
Defensor Tactical is a firearms shop in St. Louis that does a significant amount of business in body armor and custom rifles. John Heidbrink, an employee at the store, told The Huffington Post that Defensor Tactical has also seen an increase in sales lately.
“We’re a smaller shop in a small section of St. Louis, but we have a constant flow of business,” he said. “Our volume of sales has definitely increased — not to the order of what we saw right after Sandy Hook, but it’s definitely a constant flow. Lot of interest.”
Congressman John Lewis is not mincing words. The Civil Rights hero and activist who marched with Dr. King and was beaten for demanding equal rights for all Americans, went on the Roland Martin radio show and called on Americans to do the right thing and protest all over the nation if Mike Brown’s killer, Darren Wilson, is not indicted.
While appearing on Roland Martin‘s radio show, Rep. Lewis was asked whether the numerous stories of African-American men being shot by police — Brown’s death chief among them — was “the modern-day Selma”, referring to the 1963 march that saw hundreds of protestors beaten and arrested for demanding African-American voting rights.
“I believe what is happening is moving towards that point,” Rep. Lewis mused:
Selma was the turning point. And I think what happened in Ferguson will be the turning point. I think people are waiting, they’re watching, and we’re gonna see within the next few days what’s going to happen — and that would be massive, nonviolent protests all over America. When we were beaten on that bridge in Selma, people couldn’t take it, for they saw it, they heard about it, they read about it, and it lit a sense of righteous indignation. When we see a miscarriage of justice in Ferguson, they’re going to have the same reaction they had towards Selma.
And he should know, he was there and played a key role in the pivotal march.
With what is slowly becoming apparent that police officer Darren Wilson will walk free after gunning down a teenager in Ferguson Missouri, organizers, protesters, the police and even the KKK are all preparing for war, waiting for the decision from the grand jury.
Thangs can always get worse, and anytime the KKK is involved, things usually will get worse.
In preparation for the upcoming decision on whether to charge Darren Wilson for the murder of 17 year old Mike Brown in Ferguson Missouri, the local KKK has put out this flyer to the residents of Ferguson, letting them know that they will be killed if Wilson is freed and the ensuing protests get out of control.
“We will use lethal force as provided under Missouri law to defend ourselves,” the flyer reads.
Frank Ancona, the imperial wizard of the local chapter spoke with The Riverfront Times, saying that the protesters are driving more people to join the KKK.
“These Ferguson protesters are the best recruiters since Obama. Normally we might hear from ten people a week in Missouri, and now we’re hearing from more like fifty people a week. Sometimes, depending on these news stories, we get 100, 200 calls in a day.”
The decision on Wilson is expected anytime this month. Recent reports suggest that he will not be charged with any wrongdoing in Mike Brown’s death.
CNN is reporting that Ferguson’s Police Chief, Thomas Jackson, is about to resign. The chief however, along with the mayor, are denying the report.
Under the proposed plan, after Jackson leaves, city leadership would ask the St. Louis County police chief to take over management of Ferguson’s police force.
The announcement could come as soon as next week.
It would be one step in what local officials hope will help reduce tensions in the city as the public awaits a decision on whether the St. Louis County grand jury will bring charges against Officer Darren Wilson in the fatal shooting of Michael Brown.
“The animosity that existed in Ferguson were way before Mike Brown’s shooting, justified or not. So, unfortunately, the leadership in the police department has to change,” said CNN legal analyst Mark O’ Mara. “And if he’s sort of a sacrificial lamb to get this started, it’s going to have to be. Ferguson’s going to have to more forward. And it doesn’t seem they can move forward with this police chief in place.”
For some of us this is about winning an argument and nothing more. Some would say he was a human being who lived in a country that believes in the freedom to walk down the street without getting six bullets pumped into his body by a police officer.
Others would say he was a thug, and they will quickly point at a video showing him allegedly robbing a convenience store. And although the video had nothing to do with him being killed, these people would say that the video somehow proves that he was a thug, a strain on society, a young man who chose not to listen to the orders of a police officer and therefore, deserved the officer killing him… in the free country.
One of these groups will win their argument and he will either be remembered as a human being, a teenager with a mother and father still weeping his loss. A boy who had birthdays, dreams and heartbreaks. For these people, Mike Brown will be remembered as a human being. He will be remembered as a a teenager with a soul who made mistakes like any other teenager, but like any other teenager, he too deserved to live.
Or, Mike Brown will be looked upon as the ruthless thug who disobeyed the orders of a cop. A thug whose crime began when he literally walked in the streets of this “free” nation. Or maybe, just maybe his crime actually began when he was born and society saw the color of his skin. And maybe because of that color they disregarded his humanity, his birthdays, his dreams and his heartbreaks. And because he wasn’t a human in their eyes they associated his teenage mistakes with thuggery. And they thanked the officer for cleansing the streets of Ferguson. These thug creatures must die.
In the end, one of these groups will have justice, whatever justice means these days. And that justice will either lead to real changes between the police and the communities they’re supposed to protect, or that justice will lead to more Mike Browns and a society stuck in the quicksand of intolerance, a society drowning in its own racism.
There is a report out now trying to put a spin on the official autopsy report. That report states that the official autopsy report of Michael Brown supports officer Darren Wilson version of what happened when he killed the unarmed teenager in Ferguson Missouri.
The supporting evidence, according to this report, was the blood on and around the door of the officer’s patrol car, and gunshot residue around Michael Brown’s thumb area. This, the report said, supports Darren Wilson’s version that Mike Brown attacked him in his patrol car, tried to reach for the officer’s gun, and punched and scratched officer Wilson in the face.
According to a St. Louis medical examiner Dr. Michael Graham, who looked at the forensic documents obtained by the Post-Dispatch, the evidence “does support that there was a significant altercation at the car.”
Graham suggests that their was a bullet that moved from Brown’s right thumb to his waist, leaving gunshot residue on Mike Brown’s thumb and that residue, Graham says, is “consist with products discharged from the barrel of a firearm.”
And Dr. Judy Melinek, a forensic pathologist interviewed by The Post-Dispatch said the findings “support the fact that this guy is reaching for the gun, if he has gunpowder particulate material in the wound.”
She went on, “If he has his hand near the gun when it goes off, he’s going for the officer’s gun.”
What is this report telling us? It’s not telling us anything new, except the fact that these two professionals are looking for reasons to believe Darren Wilson.
Before these two professionals expressed their opinion, their interpretation of Brown’s autopsy report, we already knew there was a struggle at the policeman’s car. We already knew that a bullet was fired at the policeman car and that Brown was hit with that bullet. This information was already corroborated by eyewitnesses to the shooting. One eyewitness, Dorian Johnson, was just feet away and watched the whole thing unfold.
No one is disputing that there was a struggle at the car. But why do we automatically ignore the eyewitness accounts and take the word of an officer who murdered an unarmed teenager, an officer who is looking for any excuse he can find to clear his name and has had almost 2 months to come up with a story? These two professionals looked at an autopsy report and concluded that Mike Brown tried to take the office’s gun, which resulted in his own death.
Another obvious explanation for the residue on Mike Brown’s thumb would be – Officer Wilson obviously felt threatened by the struggle – a struggle which is disputed by no one. He reached for his gun which is his first line of defense, and shot at Mike Brown. Mike Brown, realizing that he was about to be shot raised his hand in his defense to avoid what was about to happen. It is likely that he then reached for the gun trying to stop the bullet, resulting in the wound and the gunshot residue on his thumb.
Former St. Louis County Police Chief Tim Fitch told KMOX that he could understand why Darren Wilson shot Mike Brown at the car.
“If there was a struggle inside that car over a firearm, it sounds to me like Officer Wilson would have been justified in taking the action he did if he pulled the trigger and actually shot Michael Brown in the vehicle area,” Fitch said. Fitch also said that “half the officers killed every year with firearms are killed with their own,” which again could explain the first shot.
No one is explaining the 6 or so shots fired at Mike Brown as he ran away from Darren Wilson. Clearly Wilson kept control of his gun and did not lose it in the struggle. And clearly, after the supposed threat to his life was not only removed, but running away, the officer made the fateful decision to get out of his car, followed Mike Brown and almost emptied his clip at the fleeing teen, killing him in the middle of the street.
No, the professionals are not explaining the most important decision by Wilson, the decision to kill. They’re choosing instead to ignore the most obvious explanation to support a killer who will say or do anything, even lie, to clear his name.
The latest shooting of a black kid by a cop, once again in the state of Missouri, has created more hatred and distrust of the police. There are more protests, this time in the city of St.Louis. The details surrounding the shooting are fuzzy, as in they don’t make sense. There seems to be missing elements and someone is either lying or has no real clue as to what happened. An 18 year old boy was killed once again by an unnamed officer. As I write this we only know that he is 32 years old and white. Until we know the name of the person who killed the boy I won’t mention the boys name either. Just my new rule.
What we do know is that the unnamed officer was off duty, working for a private security firm BUT he was wearing his city uniform. This has been a pet peeve of mine for a long time now. I hate that cops can wear their government issued uniforms at private events. Whether it be working for a small firm or an entity as big as the New York Yankees. I also don’t believe police officers should be allowed to work these second jobs. Let the private companies hire their own security officers, let them be retired cops, but not working police. If the pay you receive as a cop isn’t enough, you can do some other line of work. As I have said before there is no cop draft, one takes the job voluntarily. I don’t know of any other job where you can wear your official uniform, badge etc while working for a private company. I want people who want to be cops, not carry a gun for as many people as possible to make as much dough as possible.
We also know that the off duty officer shot at the 18 year old kid 17 times. 17 times. I will say it again, 17 times. The cop said he wasn’t sure the kid had a gun until he turned and pointed it and took 3 shots while running away. The police claim a gun was found and that three projectiles were recovered that were headed downhill towards the officer. The officer also said he got into an altercation with the kid before the shooting and that he was wearing a “grey hooded sweatshirt.” A surveillance camera which was taken just moments before (image at top of post) shows the victim and two friends buying a sandwich. The store clerk said he didn’t believe the victim was armed, and no gun can be seen which of course does NOT mean he didn’t have one hidden. However there was no grey hooded sweatshirt. Two of the boys had black t shirts and one a grey t shirt. The officer also said he saw the victim holding his waistband as he ran which made him believe he had a gun. In the video we can see the pants “sagging” on at least one of the boys, so it’s possible the victim had to hold his pants up at the waist so they didn’t fall as he was running. Like I said, the facts are murky at this point.
But I want to go back to the 17 shots. I’m guessing I can do better and I’ve never shot a gun. Held one only once. Here is a cop who has been on the force for six years and is also being employed by a private company. One would think, especially in this day and age where cops are using their guns more and more every year, that accuracy of the shot would be at least somewhat important. Yet in Ferguson we get 7-8 shots at a victim that was just feet away from the officer. Shortly after that we saw over 10 shots at a guy with a knife that was also just feet away from the officer. Now 17 shots at a fleeing kid. 17.
These cops could easily take on the moniker of “The gang that couldn’t shoot straight.” Here is an idea. If, after the first, oh, let’s say 10 shots, you haven’t ended the event, then stop shooting. Just stop and turn around and go get a different job. How about that? How about a limit on how many shots a cop can take? We are talking about densely populated urban areas, with innocent people, children, who can get hit with one of those 17 shots. The autopsy shows the kid was hit 5-7 times. So at least 10 shots missed him. At least 10 shots that could have killed a grandmother or an infant. There is absolutely no reason to take 17 shots at one kid running away, even IF he turned and fired 3 at you. This is incompetence at BEST. The details to come will tell us if there is a worst.
I still can’t figure out why this off duty cop confronted these three kids who had just bought a sandwich. There are no details in the accounts I have read so far that explains it other than there may have been a robbery or something and that the three looked “suspicious” to the cop. These days that usually means they were black and there was a crime within 100 miles of their location. We shall see.
Then there is the cop in my home town of Brooklyn, New York. He was caught on camera taking $1,000 out of the pockets of a blue collar worker who of course happened to be black. He stole the money and when was asked to give it back, maced anyone who was in his way. He clearly could see that he was being filmed. He didn’t care.
So as you can see cameras won’t solve the issue of police brutality and criminal behavior. It won’t solve the problem because these bad cops believe they can do anything they want and will get away with it. Camera, no camera..audio, no audio…witnesses, no witnesses, it doesn’t matter. And you can’t blame them for that mentality because well, usually nothing happens. At absolute worst they get fired. That’s it. Where you or I would be rotting in jail, the punishment for burglary or abuse or murder by cop is you get to do something else for a living while also getting a pension. That’s it.
Over and over again they get away with it. Either because prosecutors are afraid of putting their buddies on trial or because dumb American juries think a cop can really do whatever they want and acquit. So why would they care about cameras? Or laws?
They can steal money, shoot an unarmed kid, and fire 17 shots in the dark.
As if having a racist cop murder Mike Brown wasn’t enough, protesters went to a Cardinals/Dodgers game on Monday and while protesting Brown’s killing outside the stadium, something they were constitutionally allowed to do, they were shouted down with racists rants from the good ole folks at the game.
Apparently, Darren Wilson, the cop who took out his gun and pumped 6 bullets into Mike Brown’s fleeing body, has a lot of fans out there.
Chief U.S. District Judge Catherine D. Perry who sits on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, dropped a bomb on the Ferguson Police Department today, informing the group that they have violated the constitutional rights of the people of Ferguson MO, and she especially focused on the order by police for the protesters to “keep moving.“
“The evidence from plaintiff’s witnesses shows that the police, including those from St. Louis County, told many people who were either peacefully assembling or simply standing on their own that they would be arrested if they did not keep moving,” wrote Perry, who sits on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. “Some law enforcement officers told people that they could stand still for no more than five seconds. Others gave instructions that people were walking too slowly, or that they could not walk back and forth in a small area. Some law enforcement officers did not make people keep moving, others did. Some officers applied the strategy to reporters, others did not. Many officers told people who were standing in small groups on the sidewalks during the daytime hours that they would be arrested if they did not keep moving.”
Perry ruled that individuals who wished to gather “in the wake of Michael Brown’s tragic death have a constitutional right to do so.” She also noted that “they do not have the right to endanger lives of police officers or other citizens.” She said that nothing in her order restricted the ability of police officers to do their jobs.
If nothing else happens from the murder of Mike Brown by police officer Darren Wilson, at least one thing’s for sure. Ferguson residents are finally realizing where their true power lies, in their vote. And their voter registration drive since the shooting is admirable.
Of the 4,839 people in St. Louis County who have registered to vote since the shooting, 3,287 are residents of Ferguson — a city with a population of 21,203, according to the last census.
The city’s population is predominantly African-American, yet most of its elected representatives and a vast majority of its police force are white.
“It’s a great move when people come out and register in mass like that,” St. Louis 3rd Ward Committeeman Anthony Bell said, according to USA Today. “They are sending a signal that we want a change. It doesn’t give justice to the Michael Brown family but it will in the future give justice to how the administration is run in a local municipality like Ferguson.”
Anthony Gray, an attorney who represents Brown’s family, said citizens of Ferguson could enact real change come the November elections.
“It could completely change the political landscape, the power structure, (and) the decision making,” he told USA Today. “The service to the African American community would almost quadruple because they would be viewed as a credible and legitimate voting block.”
One way to look at this is to say, at least the police chief has apologized. Another way to look at it is, what the hell was he thinking, or was he thinking?
There are still a lot of raw emotions in Ferguson two months after police officer Darren Wilson gunned down an innocent, unarmed teenager. The people of Ferguson stood by for hours and watched as the Ferguson police left Mike Brown’s body in the street, their anger growing as the seconds ticked by. And the people watched as the Ferguson police transformed into their war fatigues, employing snipers prepared to kill again if need be, to stop them from exercising their constitutional rights to protest Brown’s murder.
So yes, the people are angry! And an apology from the Police Chief was not going to calm their nerves or soothe their anger. It was not going to reverse the actions of the police. His apology was not going to bring back Mike Brown or get Darren Wilson arrested.
Yes, Darren Wilson is still in hiding, still collecting a paycheck and still being protected by the police. And here comes the Chief of Police with his apology!
I thought it was okay when the chief, Tom Jackson, apologized on video. I listened to the apology and saw the resemblance of a man who possible had feelings, possible understood the pain the community felt. And I, although I’m not directly connected to Ferguson, I accepted his apology. I was okay with it, believing that the man somehow cared. But that apology should have stayed on video. Going out to the streets like the Chief did last night, showed a callous lack of understanding, an insensitivity to the pain still saturating the community. His apology tour in the street of Ferguson made him look like all he was doing was making a selfish attempt to clear his name and take the target off his back.
The people was not having it, and again, for a short while as the Chief tried to pacify the situation with his apology, the riots ensued and we were, once again, reliving the Ferguson protests!
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