August 18, 2014
Ferguson Shooting Called America's ‘Tipping Point’ Amidst Demands for Officer’s Arrest
By Hazel Trice Edney
Police officers face down protestors in Ferguson on Saturday night. PHOTO: Lawrence Bryant / St. Louis American
(TriceEdneyWire.com) – Arrest him. That is the outcry that continues among crowds of peaceful protestors and rioters in Ferguson, Mo. this week, following the police killing of unarmed teenager Michael Brown.
As the police officer Darren Wilson remains protected on paid leave, one action appears to be the hope for calm. That action is what Brown’s mother, Lesley McSpadden, described as justice: “Arresting this man and making him accountable for his actions,” she said.
“The shooters must be held accountable for killing our children,” says Brown family attorney Benjamin Crump, in an interview with the Trice Edney News Wire. “When you have a Michael Brown, we have to say it’s not right to execute our children in broad daylight whose hands and arms are up. Despite everything, once his hands are up, you don’t keep shooting… This is the universal sign of surrender,” Crump said.
President Obama - breaking from his vacation - spoke again from the White House this week, obviously steering clear of an opinion in the case, but seeking to express empathy with the racial divide:
"In too many communities, too many young men of color are left behind and seen only as objects of fear. Through initiatives like My Brother’s Keeper, I'm personally committed to changing both perception and reality. And already we're making some significant progress as people of goodwill of all races are ready to chip in. But that requires that we build and not tear down. And that requires we listen and not just shout. That's how we're going to move forward together, by trying to unite each other and understand each other, and not simply divide ourselves from one another. We're going to have to hold tight to those values in the days ahead. That's how we bring about justice, and that's how we bring about peace," Obama said.
Attorney General Eric Holder was scheduled to visit Ferguson this week as the Department of Justice and the FBI continue to investigate.
“Hands up! Don’t shoot!” has been the clarion cry for protesters, many who walk with their hands raised to illustrate the ultimate injustice that has hit Black communities around the nation – mainly the killing of unarmed Black men. Some have worn t-shirts or carried signs saying, "I'm Michael Brown", denoting that the shooting could happen to any Black man in America. Across the nation, people are showing signs of agreement that Officer Darren Wilson must be arrested for peace to begin.
Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson has claimed Brown was killed after a struggle over the officer’s gun and that Wilson was treated for a facial wound after the shooting. Jackson also released video showing a man appearing to be Brown shoving a store clerk as he leaves a story with a pack of cigars. Sparking even more outrage, Jackson conceded later that Wilson only drove up and confronted Brown and a friend “because they obstructing traffic by walking in the middle of the street.”
Preliminary autopsy reports by famed forensic pathologist Michael Baden – hired by Brown’s family – says he was shot at least six times with most bullets apparently entering into the front of his body, four in his right arm and two in his head, according to Baden speaking on a press conference aired live on Monday. At least one of the bullets could have entered from the back of the arm, he said. The fatal and what appears to be final shot entered the top of the head, indicating that Brown was leaning forward when he was hit, supporting eye witness testimony that he was trying to surrender or falling. Preliminary analysis also indicates that Brown may have been at least eight feet away from the officer when he was shot multiple times, in what many have described as an “execution”.
Two additional autopsies are underway, one by the St. Louis County Police Department and the other by the U. S. Department of Justice.
From the protestors’ perspective, on any given day in a Black neighborhood, if someone is killed and the police knows who did it, the suspect is regularly arrested on the spot and an investigation follows.
Yet, in Ferguson, more than a week since the August 9 shooting in broad daylight, federal and city investigations are underway, but no arrest has been made and protestors are wondering how, when, and whether Michael Brown will ever get justice.
This is part of what’s fueling the rage that has continued to build. Their anger is exacerbated by the sight of the same police officers perceived to be protecting Brown’s killer and by the fact that they are being asked to suppress their rage in the face of a perceived injustice. It is also exacerbated by statistics in cities across the country showing racial divides through economic and social oppression as well as unequal justice on a regular basis.
These ingredients have erupted into nightly chaos in Ferguson with a mixture of peaceful protests, Molotov cocktails (improvised fire bombs), gun fire, tear gas, looting, arrests, and police in riot gear and military vehicles.
Some of the more violent behavior is reportedly coming from some who have come in from other cities. But, the mass unrest in Ferguson – a predominately Black suburb under largely White political rule – has become what some believe is a “tipping point” that will ultimate lead to change in police-community relationships around the country.
In interviews with the Trice Edney News Wire, civil rights leaders say they believe only justice will bring calm.
“It is a tipping point as was the murder of Trayvon Martin,” says pioneer civil rights leader Julian Bond. “Will it stop the murders of black young men? No, but it will serve as a marker, as has other deaths. Emmett Till's death is still with us; this one will be with us too.”
“I think it’s a tipping points that’s going to at least cause a conversation to ensue,” says the Rev. Markel Hutchins, 37, a civil rights activist who once headed the Atlanta-based National Youth Connection, described as a modern-day SNCC (Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee). “I think what we see in Ferguson today is a powder keg that has exploded.”
Also on Monday this week, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon had deployed the Missouri National Guard to assist the Missouri State Highway Patrol amidst escalating tensions. The Highway patrol, under the command of Captain Ron Johnson, a Black man, was appointed by Gov. Nixon to oversee security in the city given the community distrust of the vastly White police force.
But even amidst weekend marches, rallies and church services with national civil rights leaders Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and Johnson giving moving speeches, the fact that an unarmed teenager was killed while apparently fleeing and then surrendering with his hands raised - is too much for many to bear. The nightly chaos and resistance to the midnight to 5 a.m. curfew has continued even amidst peaceful protests – all undergirded with the demand for an arrest.
“I think that the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri is a sign that the Black community has had enough and they are going to take matters into their own hands… I think that finally mothers and fathers are saying, ‘What about my son?’” says Harvard Law Professor Charles Ogletree, founding director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard. “I think that the protests that we’re seeing in Ferguson is just a tipping point of what we’re going to see – not just in Ferguson – but around the country.”
The only way to circumvent the escalation, Ogletree says, is to “Indict the police officer, have a jury decide what happened and I think that will tell a lot about what’s happening in America today. There really is no justification for what happened to Michael Brown.”