PROTESTORS
MARCH PEACEFULLY
IN MANY
OTHER BIG CITIES
ONE OF THE
DOZEN BUSINESSES SET ABLAZE IN LAST NIGHT’S CHAOS
TAGS:
FERGUSON GRAND JURY DECISION, NO INDICTMENT FOR PO WILSON,
PROSECUTOR
BOB McCULLOCH’S ANNOUNCEMENT, PEACEFUL DEMONSTRATORS VERSUS
LOOTERS,
ARSONISTS, AND THE OPPORTUNISTIC VIOLENT ELEMENT,
MISTAKES
MADE ON BOTH SIDES,
AFTER
ACTION REVIEW
An After Action Review
(Wednesday November 26, 2014,
FDR Drive, NYC) For the most part those
who chose for whatever reason to come out last night and block traffic here at
the southern segment of the FDR, at the Manhattan Bridge and along Seventh
Avenue in Times Square have been peaceful; vocal, yes, but peaceful. Certainly there are those who are
opportunistic and seize on a night such as this to cause trouble, incite anger
in others and hope that the peaceful assembly will turn violent mob. The NYPD was certainly prepared but opted to
not engage the marchers and eventually, with a small number of arrests for
“unlawful assembly”, “failure to comply” and “impeding” the flow of traffic,
the crowds dissipated as the temperature dropped and the wind gusts grew more
forceful. The NYPD excels in all
aspects of urban policing and they have mastered the art and logistics of crowd
control. Anyone who has ever been
present in Times Square on New Year’s Eve can attest to this fact.
Over a thousand miles away it
was difficult watching the upheaval in Ferguson Missouri in the wake of the
non-indictment of Police Officer Darren Wilson.
The Ferguson Police Department and other area Law Enforcement Agencies
(LEA’s) had over three months to prepare for last night and, it became painfully
clear early on into the night that they had squandered that time. In the weeks leading up to last night’s Grand
Jury announcement, officials on the ground here in Ferguson, and other
neighboring towns, the St. Louis County PD, the State Office of Public Safety
all the way up to the Governor himself had been proclaiming their readiness for
whatever last night might bring. It is
difficult to see any evidence that they were prepared. Quite the contrary. The night rapidly devolved into a riotous atmosphere
with all the accompanying arson, looting, random gun fire, destruction of
Police cars and public property. The
smoldering ashes seen today were largely family owned, local “mom and pop”
establishments that serviced and employed many Ferguson residents. To be sure, it was not the entire community
that poured out into a two block commercial area stretching down Florissant
Avenue to Cantwell Drive. The majority of residents stayed
home and they had no disturbances in their neighborhoods.
We have witnessed similar
scenes before. In many ways we have
witnessed the same scene played out with minor variations to the general
narrative of heavy handed, racially biased, predominately White Police Officers
abusing, arresting, assaulting and, at times, shooting unarmed young Black men. Are there endemic problems embedded in some
of our policing practices, procedures, policies and protocols? Yes.
And there are the hosts of social and cultural ailments so routinely
recited regarding the plight of the African American, People of Color
communities throughout America. Yes,
Black Americans as a whole are more likely to live in poverty, suffer high
unemployment, lack sufficient basic education, are stopped and questioned by
Police Officers at a disproportional rate when compared demographically to
Whites, and over 48% of Black families do not have a male presence, either a
father, a father figure, or a responsible, available, engaged male in the
family unit. These are sad facts but
they are facts nonetheless and it is difficult to launch efforts and
initiatives aimed at these eroding, destructive forces when the harsh reality
also includes the rate of Black on Black crime of every category and the pernicious
antagonism between the Black community and the Law Enforcement Community (LEC).
A PREPONDERANCE OF BLUNDERS
ITEM ONE: THE PROSECUTOR
It will be argued in criminal
justice classes, Police Academies, in academia and the LEC at large what
precisely was the etiology for the eruption in Ferguson last night especially
given the months official had to prepare.
It is often awkward to critique another LEA from afar and from a “Monday
morning quarterback” stance. That aside,
there were plainly obvious a few major errors made by all involved from the
Prosecutor to the Ferguson PD and beyond.
Bob McCulloch, the St. Louis
County Prosecutor, the son of a Police Officer killed in the line of duty by a
Black man when he was 12 years old, was from day one very obviously not up to
the task. While we must err to the side
of the 12 members of the Grand Jury who did their due diligence and deliberated
in good faith based on the evidence and testimony they were exposed to over the
last three months, we can question some of the particulars McCulloch chose to
present even though he himself noted that some of the witnesses “made up”
testimony while others “heard things from other people” prior to
testifying. If there were ant suspect
witnesses, witnesses that did not pass the bar of credibility, it is fair to
ask the Prosecutor why he opted to have them testify, under oath, before the
Grand Jury.
Even more problematic than the
manner in which the Grand Jury appears to have been conducted was McCulloch’s
inexplicable rationale for making the announcement at 8 o’clock PM local time
and delivering an odd soliloquy that could have easily been interpreted as a
defense of PO Wilson. There is not proof
that McCulloch steered the Grand Jury in the direction he wanted it to go but
some of his actions that have come to light do raise concerns particularly his
unprecedented 20 minute summary to the media.
One could reasonably assume a prosecutor sitting on the hottest case in
the United States for three months would have been far more adept and skilled
when delivering the Grand Jury findings knowing the potential for serious
trouble was at hand.
ITEM TWO: THE POLICE
Leaving Officer Wilson aside
for the time, the 54 person Ferguson Police Department was never and could
never have been prepared for the widespread civil disobedience they encountered
last August in the days and weeks following the shooting death of 18 year old
Michael Brown. From the most basic,
rudimentary tasks to be conducted at a crime scene, particularly a shooting “death
by Cop” crime scene, were bungled, fumbled and ignored. As the Grand Jury evidence so starkly proves,
virtually all involved in the “investigation” as Michael Brown’s body lay in
the street, either did not know what they were doing or were being willfully
negligent. Yes, these are harsh
assertions yet a reading of the Grand Jury transcripts contain so many
self-incriminating statements by those on the scene and at the Ferguson Police
HQ, that it boggles the mind. There was
gross, florid negligence; a complete failure to secure the crime scene, the
physical evidence and Officer Wilson’s post-shooting actions and statements
that any Law Enforcement Officer (LEO) no matter their personal opinion on the
events in Ferguson must concede that the ineptitude – be it a lack of proper
training or a failure to follow precise protocols – is inexcusable. The Ferguson PD has a joint mutual aide
agreement with the St. Louis County PD and they should have immediately
contacted the larger LEA to preserve and begin the investigative process at the
scene.
ITEM THREE: THE PROTESTORS
In deference to honest, open
debate, those Ferguson residents who began marching and protesting immediately
after the shooting were voicing real hurt, frustration, and sadness. Those hot August nights initially were
violent interactions between members of the community and Law Enforcement. It was a moving site to see as mothers pushed
their infant children in strollers with their hands in the “Don’t Shoot”
posture that became the indelible symbol for the entire reactionary
movement. But, as is always the case,
others – outsiders – poured into Ferguson with the sole objective of creating
trouble, making havoc and looting.
Nothing says you support a specific cause more than looting local
businesses, right?
Again, open debate insists we
must be willing to examine the issues at hand from all sides. While Officer Wilson testified that he feared
for his life and has “no regrets” about the incident and that the outcome would
have been the same if Michael Brown was a White man instead of a Black man,
when a predominately African American community is policed by what is virtually
an “All White” Police force, there exists a natural antagonism if not flaming
distrust; an unavoidable rift in which every citizen/police encounter can be
assessed through the prism of race and skin color.
As a broad spectrum of mostly
young New Yorker’s marched and blocked traffic last night to express,
interchangeably, their collective anger at and frustration with a
Police/Criminal Justice system that is inherently and deeply flawed, perceives
people of color as “less than”, commits atrocities and acts of murder with
impunity on members of those communities, the powers that be do not have the
ability to dissuade them of those core beliefs.
Every time a White LEO shoots or otherwise engages physically with a
person of color, to the protestors and other like-minded people, it is a
criminal incident for which the police Officer must be “punished”.
ITEM FOUR: PUNISHMENT
The Black community is quick
to call for punishment for every LEO that has ever been involved in a “Black on
White” confrontation no matter the circumstances and details. Their calls for “justice” often prove to be
nothing more than the cause of the day.
Yes, there are without question some isolated reasons that the Black and
Latino community can be skeptical of Police accounts of one incident or
another. Unfortunately for everyone,
only the Police Officers who patrol our streets, housing projects, drug and
crime infested neighborhoods know what the denizens of the night look like and
what they are capable of.
Arm chair critics, aggrieved
liberals, and all the multicultural, African American scholars throughout the
land should roll one night in an RMP with two Officers charged with enforcing
the law in their particular sector. What
they might likely witness would make them scared; sick to the stomach with fear
of the sheer raw violence that ensues often even in the most non-confrontational
encounter. Streets that hum with the
hustle and bustle of commerce, of people going to and from work, of children
coming back from school and playing on the sidewalks and in the streets in the
light of day, become transformed later in the small dark hours of the morning
when they more resemble an alien landscape defined by shadows and corners that
may or may not conceal a life or death threat.
And during the in between moments those very same Police Officers render
assistance to the sick, answer the call of the battered women and children,
emergency scenarios of every type, and comport themselves in the truest nature
of public servants.
What many of the residents of
Ferguson and activists who insinuated themselves into the fray there have long
called for “justice” for Michael Brown when, in reality, they want to have
Officer Wilson punished; they seek the completion of the ancient “eye for an
eye” maxim based not on facts but on perceptions. PO Wilson has become the convenient scapegoat
representing every White Law Enforcement Officer everywhere who has ever had a
contentious interaction with a Black person.
ITEM FIVE: PASTORS, PREACHERS AND PUNDITS
Sometimes it is stunningly
striking how “men of the cloth”, Clergy members approach volatile events and
the issues that often are behind them.
While in one instance they call on their congregants’ better nature and
plead for reasoned and rational peaceful responses to troubling incidents in
their communities, they can, in the very next breath utter words from their
pulpits that only serve to further the divide between Black and White, between
Law Enforcement and the communities they minister to. It needs to be mentioned that many inner city
members of the Clergy seek to set the proper tone in defining their congregants
and the children of such in their sermons and lessons concerning the proper way
to interact with the police.
Yes, there are many of every
race, color and creed who stridently complain that no one should have to
“teach” their children how to interact with members of the LEC. They have a point but it is a dull point, not
capable of penetrating the reality of hostility and anger deeply held by the
young members of the community. Pop
culture has a guilty role in this dynamic as they continue to glorify and
celebrate “Thug Life”, “Old School Gangsters”, and remain continuously devoid
of any measure of social responsibility.
Those who will protest and assail this claim are ignoring another aspect
of reality.
Then, of course, there are the
pundits, the “Professional Black’s” and “Professional Liberals” who are all too
willing and able to stoke the flames of discrimination, oppression, and
prejudice no matter what the facts may be.
These are often the shrillest voices on any issue that even has a shadow
of a connotation of racism in Police relations with the Black public. They have high profile platforms from which to
elaborate, pontificate, and proliferate their own views, as a means leading to
an end that enhances their own public profile while adding to their personal
wealth. These exploiters are the worst
of the worst yet they continue to prey on their own community while blatantly
appealing to the lowest common denominator in the hearts and minds of their
captive audiences.
ITEM SIX: PERCEPTION
As sure as the sun rises in
the east the perceptions regarding all the events in Ferguson reflect the sharp
polarization between Black America and White America. In many ways the images from last night
served only to cement the deeply held convictions of each side. Black America reacted to what they see as an
indifferent Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice system in which their lives
are not valued, where it is nearly impossible to get fair treatment and that
the Police can due as they please with impunity. White America sees the flames in the night
and roaming crowds looting and ravaging the very same neighborhood in which
they live, work and worship and call those perpetrators “animals and savages”. Such harsh words in and of themselves help
perpetuate the worst of perceptions on both sides.
Human perception is based
largely on previous experiences that have been reinforced time and time
again. From our own unique perch we
assess the world around us and have a natural affinity for circumstances and
events that comport with our perceptions.
This makes it very difficult to have any kind of “open, honest” debate
about such an emotionally charged atmosphere as events play out in Ferguson. The distrust on both sides of this Black and
White equation seems to remain intractable.
Many in White America express
frustration about the state of race relations today. Those of a certain age recall the riots that plagued
the Deep South and larger Northern cities prior to the Voter’s Rights and Civil
Rights Acts. Others express a level of
disgust noting the years of Affirmative Action, racial quotas in some
workplaces, and housing and now have little to no sympathy for the plight of
the Black community. Yes, the Black community
in some of the largest urban areas has advanced minimally over the last 50
years and the reasons for this stagnation are many and varied but this is not
the time to explore them. We can take
some of them as tacit proof that Black America faces obstacles White America
does not. Yet, there is never a good
reason to act up in a violent manner; arson, looting and widespread civil
disorder, as we have previously noted, have no place in society and are more
than counterproductive for those who perpetrate such activities.
TOMORROWS
Tomorrow the damage in Ferguson
will be surveyed as the remnants of last night’s fires smolder in the rubble of
were thriving businesses. The Ferguson
PD and the other LEA involved on the ground last night review their tactics and
strategy going forward. Tomorrow and all
the tomorrows to follow People on both sides will either be willing to move on
or they won’t. The LEA’s will conduct “after
action reviews” to identify where and why they allowed last night to get so far
out of hand. Hopefully leaders and
others from the Black community will evaluate what the proper path ahead
is. There are certainly acceptable ways
to express anger at “the system” but it will not be found in the hearts and
minds of those who seek anarchy and violence.
This is the time for all the self-appointed Black Activists and leaders,
preachers and pundits to step up to the plate in an effort to enact initiatives
geared towards positive change; the kind of change that helps bridge the
divide. The proof will be in what tact
the Black community opts for. People of
goodwill exist on both sides and it will be incumbent upon them to steer the
discourse. The status quo will only lead
to the next Ferguson.
Copyright The
Brooding Cynyx 2014 © All Rights Reserved
