The Other Killing "He’s Dead!"

16 Comments

1. 

   Oui on August 21, 2014 at 3:35 am

   Pastors: Man claiming to be peacekeeper actually escalating things in Ferguson

   (KMOV) – Pastors are pointing the finger at Malik Shabazz, the former leader of the New Black Panther Party, and many church leaders want him to leave Ferguson. Robinson said Shabazz is an attorney from Washington D.C. who is causing problems.

   “I literally watched him cause chaos within a large group of people and prepare to send them to the front line, then he shifts and says `let’s keep the peace.’ We’re calling him out. We want him out of our city, we don’t need his help at all, and he’s doing nothing but cause chaos.”

   According to the Anti-Defamation League, Shabazz is trying to recast himself as a serious civil rights leader that inserts himself in high profile, racially charged situations. The Southern Poverty Law Center says Shabazz is skilled at organizing provocative protests.

   Local church leaders say they are going to keep a close eye on Shabazz Tuesday night as they try to keep the peace on the streets of Ferguson.

   Shabazz did not respond to News 4’s request for a comment.

2. 

   Oui on August 21, 2014 at 3:37 am

   Officer who threatened to kill protester in Ferguson suspended

   ST. ANN (KMOV)  ̶  Police announced an officer who was caught on camera threatening to kill a protester Tuesday night has been suspended.

   The officer, who works for the St. Ann Police Department, was suspended after a YouTube video surfaced of the officer using foul language while threatening to kill someone if they did not follow his command.

   St. Ann Police Chief Aaron Jimenez said the officer raised his gun after he saw a weapon in the crowd. After realizing it was only a BB gun, Jiminez said the officer then scanned the crowd with his AR-22 rifle raised, which Jiminez said is a standard procedure.

   A sense of change in St. Ann, its approach to Latinos

   ○ ACLU: Officer Who Threatened to ‘F*cking Kill’ Ferguson Protesters Taken Off Duty

   I have lived in St. Ann Mo … we had a tornado come through which caused great damage to schools, homes and library.

3. 

   Salunga on August 21, 2014 at 8:52 am

      How many of our policemen are vets? Its not just the weapons coming back we are getting soldiers back that need serious help.

   • 

     Marie2 on August 21, 2014 at 10:43 am

     How many policemen are juicing?  If any profession in this country should be subject to steroid testing, it’s these guys.

     • 

       Salunga on August 21, 2014 at 9:17 pm

          Its scary to think how many of these guys take steroids or how many have other drug abuse problems. These guys have been through insanity, so make them cops? You need to balance trying to help a vet and his family with making sure proper screening is in place. Not a good old boy network.

     • 

       Arthur Gilroy on August 21, 2014 at 11:19 pm

       You have no idea!!!

       I do.

       I have relatives…they’re clean…who are cops. PEDs are epidemic. Bet on it. So are alcohol abuse, amphetamines, etc.,,,everything except downers.

       More reason not to confront cops directly.

       Bet on that as well.

       AG

       • 

         Salunga on August 23, 2014 at 7:25 am

         They are paranoid, quick to anger and violent. All signs of drug abuse. Watch this lunatic

4. 

   Marie2 on August 21, 2014 at 10:57 am

   IMHO, these two cops should have been arrested yesterday.  

   • 

     Marie2 on August 22, 2014 at 4:48 pm

     Here’s why I’m wrong: US police should shoot to kill or not at all, law and justice experts say

     …
     Based on video of the Powell shooting released by St Louis police, Klinger said Powell left the two officers with no choice but shoot because he advanced at them brandishing a knife.

     “It’s tragic and its unfortunate, but the suspect here in this situation drove the encounter,” Klinger said. “He really didn’t give the officers many options.”
     …

     Disagree that the officers had ‘no choice.’  It wasn’t as if Powell was wielding a machete and could take the cops by surprise.  But it was easier for the cops to brandish their guns and stand their ground and blast Powell away when he charged at one of them.

5. 

   Oui on August 21, 2014 at 1:17 pm

   Honestly, from your Jackson State website … unbelievable the parallels! And of course, Kinloch doesn’t exist anymore today.

   An Officer Shot A Black Teen, And St. Louis Rioted — In 1962

   There aren’t many clear details surrounding Donnell Dortch’s death on Sept. 23, 1962 — at least, not from the newspapers that wrote about it.

   It was 11:40 a.m. on a Sunday. Donnell Dortch was driving a car in Kinloch, the predominantly black St. Louis suburb where he and his family lived. And, as United Press International told the story, at some point in the 19-year-old’s drive, a black police officer named Israel Mason stopped Dortch, who was also black.

   According to the county coroner, three witnesses recounted seeing a starkly different string of events, one without accidents, with what seemed like more intention.

   “According to the witnesses,” the Constitution-Tribune writes, “Mason pulled Dortch from his car and struck the youth twice with the revolver. Then Mason stepped back five feet and fired, the witnesses said.”

   Donnell Dortch’s death certificate tells the rest of his story with much more certainty and accuracy than the media’s reports. As was common with very public, very contentious deaths, the wire services and local newspapers focused more on the protests and riots that followed Dortch’s killing than on the death itself — or the altercation leading up to it.

   “The crowd estimated at more than 300 Negoes massed in front of the Kinloch City hall early today and chanted ‘We want Mason. . . . ‘We want Mason.” They demanded Israel Mason, 74 year-old Negro policeman, who was suspended pending a hearing into the fatal shooting Sunday night of Donnel Dortch when the youth resisted arrest on charges resulring from a drag race.
   [Mayor Clarence] Lee announced today that Mason has submitted his resignation and it had been accepted. He announced thet police and county officials were investigating Dortch’s death and planned tp present information to the St. Louis county grand jury.”

   [UPI on Sept. 25 - 2 days after shooting! Reporter writes shooting happened Sunday night, it was 11:40 a.m.]

   UPI describes Kinloch as a small, 6,500-person town, “one of several predominantly Negro suburbs in the St. Louis area which date back to Civil War days.” (For some comparison, Kinloch, which shares a border with Ferguson, had about 298 residents during the 2010 U.S. Census — most of whom were black.)

    « click for more info
   An African American and a white girl study a sign in the integrated Long Island community of Lakeview, New York, on April 1962. (The Atlantic - photo series 1962)

   Crowds of hundreds assembled before Kinloch’s city hall in the days after Dortch’s death, chanting “We want Mason! We Want Mason!” (The police officer was suspended from his post and eventually resigned.)

   Some people were setting the town ablaze, razing an elementary school and a string of empty houses in the process, trying to light the police chief’s new home on fire. (UPI writes that the police chief, “acting on a hunch, drove home, discovered the blaze and extinguished it himself.”) The same UPI article reports that there were two shotgun blasts fired into the Kinloch police station, and that a bomb threat was called into a high school. Residents carried signs, inscribed with phrases like “Was Murder Necessary?” and “How Much Training Have Our Officers Had?” and “Will Our Son Be Next?” One resident who spoke to the UPI writer described the town police as “Kinloch cowboys” and “village police,” and said that they wanted the “St. Louis county police to protect the area.”

   Local officials stepped up their reaction. Almost a hundred county and town police were ordered to man Kinloch’s streets and were equipped, according to UPI, with machine guns and police dogs. Fifty people were rounded up and questioned about the violence that had unfolded following Dortch’s death. Missouri Gov. John Dalton assured folks that he’d do whatever necessary to “preserve the peace.” He consulted with the Missouri highway patrol, and debated whether to send in the National Guard.

   Kinloch’s mayor, Clarence Lee, enacted a curfew and denied that this situation — the hordes of people rioting in the streets, the violence — stemmed from any sort of racial tension. It was, UPI quotes him saying, “wholly a problem of police enforcement, resulting in a misunderstanding between the citizens and the police.”

   ○ My earlier diary – Kinloch Missouri, Hometown of Maxine Waters (Dem – CA) on August 14, 2014
   ○ Why the Fires in Ferguson Won’t End Soon
   The tensions have been building for a long time, and even justice for Michael Brown won’t change that.

   • 

     Marie2 on August 21, 2014 at 2:34 pm

     You may be in violation of fair use standards.  Suggest less cut and paste and more summaries with selected quotes.

     • 

       Oui on August 21, 2014 at 2:59 pm

       It’s a patchwork from various sources, some historic, some from newspaper clippings/archives, not all from the original source: © 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

       I will heed your post as a reminder to stay in compliance with fair practise. Thanks.

       • 

         Marie2 on August 21, 2014 at 3:07 pm

         Suggest blockquoting the individual sources to make it clearer.  That would also make it, IMHO, easier to read and absorb.

6. 

   Oui on August 23, 2014 at 5:10 am

   Crowdfunding campaign for officer who shot Michael Brown spurs controversy | RT |

   Calls to have the website hosting the campaign, GoFundMe, take down the donation page reached a fever pitch when the internet was alerted to the fact that many of the comments being left alongside donations were hateful and racist in nature.

   “This page has been created to support Officer Darren Wilson of the Ferguson Police Department,” the page originally read, according to Business Insider. “We stand behind Officer Darren Wilson and his family during this trying time in their lives. All proceeds will be sent directly to Darren Wilson and his family for any financial needs they may have including legal fees.”

   Additionally, when donations began flooding in, many were accompanied by racist comments, causing many on social media to accuse the campaign of violating GoFundMe’s terms and conditions. The website specifically states that “items that promote hate, violence, racial intolerance, or the financial exploitation of a crime” are prohibited.

   On Friday, the page supporting Wilson was removed anyway, but not by GoFundMe. Instead, the organizers who set up the campaign stopped taking donations in order to launch another page, which accepted donations for Wilson through a charity that Buzzfeed found to be linked to a police union called Lodge 15 [page off line – cached version] of the Fraternal Order of Police.

   ○ SLCPA News – ‘Numquam Perit Fraternitas’

   Lodge 15 functions as a labor union for police bargaining:
   A majority of police officers and sergeants in Chesterfield and University City certified the Eastern Missouri Coalition of Police, Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge 15 union as their exclusive representative for collective bargaining under the public sector labor law.

7. 

   Oui on August 23, 2014 at 7:38 am

   Grand jury in Michael Brown case: 3 black members, 9 white | St. Louis Post Dispatch |

   CLAYTON, MO * The grand jury that is hearing evidence in the Michael Brown shooting death has one black man and two black women on the panel, and six white men and three white women. The gender information was supplied by Paul Fox, director of judicial administration for St. Louis County Circuit Court.

   Fox said Judge Carolyn Whittington has scheduled a hearing for Monday morning on a request to release more details about the makeup of the grand jury, including age and hometown or zip code.

   The demographics roughly reflect the racial breakdown of St. Louis County’s population, which is about 24 percent black and about 68 percent white.

    « click for more info
   We Salute Our Heroes (The Backstoppers Inc.)

   The grand jury’s term began in May, long before Brown was shot. Its term was set to end in early September, but will likely be extended so the same grand jury can continue to hear evidence in the Brown shooting case, which may last into October, according to St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert P. McCulloch.

   Ferguson courts a ‘chronic’ violator of the rights of poor residents| Hunter @dKos | h/t Errol

   The Arch City Defenders report on St. Louis Municipal Courts and their pattern of using traffic fines both as steady cash generators and as gateways for criminalizing the poverty of their citizens [white paper in pdf]:

   We observed over 60 different courts during our court watching program and obtained sworn statements from clients and individuals we encountered. Three courts, Bel-Ridge, Florissant, and Ferguson, were chronic offenders and serve as prime examples of how these practices violate fundamental rights of the poor, undermine public confidence in the judicial system, and create inefficiencies. […]

   In addition to dramatic differences between the rate of traffic stops and subsequent arrests for black and white residents, the report outlines illegal steps taken by the courts, such as barring public entry, and notes a recurring theme of violators not being properly informed of their right to an attorney.

   According to the report, Ferguson makes 2.6 million dollars a year from court fees. In 2013, the court “disposed of 24,532 warrants and 12,018 cases, or about 3 warrants and 1.5 cases per household.”

   ○ McCulloch is VP on the Board of Directors of The Backstoppers Inc.
   ○ Ms. Jennifer M. Joyce Assistant Circuit Attorney is President of The Backstoppers Inc.

8. 

   Oui on August 24, 2014 at 8:21 am

   My impression has been in Missoure, the State Troopers are well educated and trained law enforcement officers, highly respectable.

   Mo. troopers spotted playing basketball with Ferguson youth plus video
   By KMOV Staff | on August 22, 2014 at 6:32 PM |

   As the situation in Ferguson continues to show signs of quieting down, News 4 found examples of law officers reaching out to the community, most notably reaching out to kids in the neighborhood. Some Missouri Highway Patrol officers in Ferguson are trying to make positive, lasting impressions.

   “I’ve been on the highway patrol for 21 years,” said Corporal Christensen, “This has been one of the best assignments I’ve had.”

   “We’ve met a lot of people who are concerned about their community, about things that are going on here,” Christensen continued, “It’s very important that we invest in that – those children. Who knows, the seed might have been planted in that young man’s mind that one day he might want to be a Missouri State Trooper or a police officer in St. Louis or Ferguson or elsewhere.”

   Statewide Radio Network Eases Communication For St. Louis Police, State Highway Patrol

   ○ Jury awards $7.5 million to ex-St. Louis officer who claimed harassment, retaliation