Tag Archives: Ferguson

national news

Ferguson cop to leave law enforcement

1 Comment

This might be the least surprising story to come out of the Ferguson, Mo., police shooting incident.

The officer at the center of the controversy is leaving his job. Darren Wilson, cleared of criminal wrongdoing by a state grand jury, is stepping down from the Ferguson Police Department to, shall we say, “pursue other interests.”

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/cop-at-center-of-ferguson-case-to-leave-force/ar-BBg6391

His days as a police officer are over. He shot a young black man to death in August and the unrest that erupted in Ferguson and the debate that ensued across the country has yet to be contained fully.

It’s the only call he could have made, given all that has transpired.

Michael Brown’s death has touched off a serious national discussion about police-community relations, particularly as it concerns majority white police departments and the African-American community.

I am passing no judgment on whether Darren Wilson should have been indicted. I wasn’t in the grand jury room and I didn’t hear the evidence that the jurors heard. I’ve read all the conflicting accounts of what happened that terrible night in Ferguson — and I’ll leave it at that.

The aftermath, though, has been tragic at many levels. The criminals who looted, burned and smashed innocent people’s personal property after the grand jury announced its no-bill against Wilson is shameful in the extreme.

And now a policeman’s career has come to an end. Was this young man a good officer? I don’t know that, either.

But he’ll have to find another way to restore some semblance of sanity to his life.

I wish him good luck. He will need lots of it.

 

national news

No stunts with Officer Wilson, please

Congressman Peter King is prone to performing rhetorical stunts on occasion. He pops off when he would do better to remain quiet.

The New York Republican did it again this week when he suggested President Obama should invite Ferguson, Mo., Police Officer Darren Wilson to the White House to receive, in effect, a public apology from President Obama for the “slander and smear” he has endured in the media for the past four months.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/11/peter-king-obama-ferguson-reaction-113168.html?hp=b1_r2

Here’s a better idea. Why not just let Darren Wilson go back to doing his job, if that’s possible now that he’s become an international celebrity/pariah?

Wilson was no-billed by that grand jury in the August shooting death of Michael Brown. Wilson is white, Brown was black. The shooting touched off riots in Ferguson. Then came the grand jury decision, which set off some more riots, not just in Ferguson but in other communities across the country.

The president does not need to engage in a publicity stunt here. He has spoken his piece about the decision. He urged calm and restraint in its aftermath; his plea fell on deaf ears.

Now comes Rep. King to insert himself into this story by suggesting something patently ludicrous on its face.

Let’s have a national discussion about the nature of police-community relations, particularly among the African-American community.

But we can have it without some kind of grandstand play by the president of the United States.

His plate is quite full already, Rep. King.

 

political news

Why not just accept grand jury verdict?

Maybe the onset of old age is making me more circumspect about some things.

Such as when the criminal justice system renders a decision many folks find repugnant. Meanwhile, I have grown to just accept it as the system doing what it’s intended to do.

The grand jury in Ferguson, Mo., delivered a verdict this week that has many folks reeling. It found that a white police officer, Darren Wilson, did not commit a crime when he shot a young black man, Michael Brown, to death this past summer.

At one level I thought perhaps Wilson overreacted when he confronted Brown one night in the St. Louis suburban community. Brown wasn’t doing anything. Wilson wanted him to stop. Brown threw his hands in the air and the policeman shot him.

Well, that’s not what the grand jury heard in testimony. So it delivered a decision that some believe is unjust.

I won’t go there. I truly have no sure-footed opinion on who is right or wrong. Why? I wasn’t in the grand jury room. I didn’t hear the evidence. I didn’t see the faces of the people testifying before the panel. I didn’t have all the facts to ponder.

We’re all spectators.

That hasn’t stopped some folks from grandstanding.

At another level this case reminds me a bit of the outrage that followed the 1995 verdict in the O.J. Simpson murder case. My reaction then was similar to what it is now. That was nearly 20 years ago, so I cannot claim “old age creep” back then.

But my initial reaction to the acquittal was that the jury got it wrong. I still believe Simpson got away with murder.

Then I wrote a column in which I surmised that after many weeks of testimony, all the hoopla and courtroom histrionics, only the 12 people in the jury box had seen and heard all the evidence. Only they knew what none of the rest of us knew. I didn’t agree with their verdict, but I accepted it. The system did its job.

Then, as now, the rest of us were spectators.

I’m not going to wring my hands over this latest decision. However, I do hope it spurs a serious community conversation in Ferguson, where African-Americans think their government doesn’t represent their interests sufficiently.

The folks there have the tools to fix the problem. They can do so at election time.

 

Uncategorized

Get out and vote, Ferguson residents

There appears to be a fairly straightforward political solution to the problems that have beset Ferguson, Mo., the suburban community being swallowed up by unrest and violence in the wake of the shooting of a young black man by a white police officer.

The town is roiling with turbulence. Cops are under fire for their gross overreaction to residents’ protests; Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon has called out the National Guard; U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is going there to assess whether federal involvement is needed; President Obama is calling for calm; the town is swarming with broadcast and print media representatives, not to mention an assortment of civil-rights activists.

The solution? It’s at the ballot box.

National Public Radio reported this morning a few interesting facts:

Ferguson is roughly 65 percent African-American; its mayor is white; its city council is mostly white; its police force has three African-American officers. Here’s the kicker: The 2013 municipal election produced a 12 percent turnout among African-American voters.

The solution? The city needs to elect qualified African-American residents to positions of power on the city council, who then need to perhaps reshape the city’s law enforcement infrastructure to reflect more accurately the city’s population.

Imagine, then, what might happen to a troubled community if the city’s police force and governing council reflected the backgrounds of the residents whose interests they represent.