Bob McCulloch: 0 For 5 In Ferguson

Our beloved writer/friend David Phillips picks up a pen to call out 

Bob McCulloch as the police protector he is, instead of 

the prosecutor he has never been.

With his permission, we republish his blog here.

Bob McCulloch is O For 5 In Ferguson

by

David E. Phillips

It is remarkably easy to get an indictment from a grand jury. Former New York state Chief Judge Sol Wachtler once said you could get a grand jury to “indict a ham sandwich.” There is no defense present. It is an opportunity to run up the score. What typically happens, when a prosecutor is seeking an indictment, is they present the evidence to the grand jury in an effort to achieve just that. Otherwise, why are they there? Normally, potentially exculpatory evidence is not shared with the jurors. Once again, the prosecutor is normally trying to gain an indictment. How easy is it to gain an indictment, you might ask? In 2010, the federal government brought 162,000 cases to a grand jury. They were denied all of eleven times.

Which is why what happened in Ferguson last night was so remarkable and deeply weird.

The prosecutor Bob McCulloch, in charge of Darren Wilson’s grand jury hearing, did none of those things. Watching his press conference last night, I couldn’t figure out what his job was. He sounded more like a defense attorney, not a member of any prosecution. What’s kind of fascinating to me is the idea of a prosecutor presenting the evidence in a way that clearly made it look like he was, at best, ambivalent on reaching an indictment. It is a rare thing for the prosecution to release all the evidence to a grand jury. His delivering of all the evidence to that body has been described as a “document dump.” Now, on one hand, you could argue this is how it should always be done. Maybe it’s the most honest way to do it, right? On the other though, you could point out this is almost never how it is done. In fact, it is beyond rare to find instances of it. Last night, on the various networks, a plethora of legal experts were completely flummoxed and unable to cite a single case in their experience.

McCulloch has a long history of closeness with police in the county. His father was killed in the line of duty in 1964, by an African-American man. McCulloch was twelve years old. As well, his brother, an uncle, and a cousin served in the Saint Louis PD, and his mother worked there as a clerk. The community of Ferguson was so concerned with the prosecutor in this case that they circulated a petition, one that resulted in more than 26,000 signatures requesting his removal from the case, which was something Missouri Governor Jay Nixon could have done when McCulloch refused to recuse himself.

Nixon, who could make a deer in the headlights look positively spry, issued a statement on August 19 that said he would not ask McCulloch to recuse himself, and he would be leaving that decision up to the prosecutor himself. McCulloch took this soft statement of support with indignation, saying Nixon should “man up” and make a decision. He went further still, making his offensive personal, “It’s the typical Nixon doublespeak. He says nothing and he’s ducking.” Nixon offered no retort. This sort of back and forth between a prosecutor, and the top elected official in his state, is positively remarkable.

What’s even more remarkable though, is McCulloch’s inability to return an indictment. Here was a case of an unarmed teenager gunned down in the street by six bullets from an officer’s gun. While eyewitness accounts were–unremarkably–inconsistent, there was no argument that officer Wilson caused the death of Michael Brown under, at minimum, unusual circumstances. Many citizens have been indicted for far less.

Ferguson has a long history of distrust between its citizens, who are 2/3 African-American (66%), and its police force, which as of August of this year, only three of its fifty officers were (6%). A police force that does not reflect the community is a powder keg of unrest. The shooting of an unarmed black youth in the middle of the street, and leaving the body there for four and a half hours, did nothing less than blow the lid off.

Last night, cars were battered, businesses were looted and buildings were set on fire. Martin Luther King Jr. once said “A riot is the language of the unheard.” You can argue that it’s counter productive, but to paraphrase what Ralph Wiley once said, there is a reason why black tend to shout. In the dark of the Ferguson night, they were screaming in response to a prosecutor who does not reflect their community, and quite simply was derelict in his duty. He, and the state of Missouri’s feckless governor, caused this last night. This is a population that does not know what justice looks like. And after watching McCulloch’s defensive and derisive press conference last night, they still don’t.

It was pointed out last night on MSNBC that Bob McCulloch has now brought five cases to a grand jury targeting police officers. He has returned an indictment against none of them. That means Bob McCulloch has indicted as many police officers in his twenty-three year career as I have. Think on that as you watch the people of Ferguson take to the streets.

Putting Cameras On Cops

We have to start watching the watchers.
(On Glass, 2014)

If Darren Wilson, the officer who shot at, and killed, Michael Brown, had been wearing a camera, the nation might already know who’s telling the truth about what happened the afternoon of August 9th in the middle of the street in Ferguson, MO. Instead, too many of these types of events between police, and well, everyone else who isn’t armed, result in wildly conflicting accounts. Sure the aftermath could be difficult, time-consuming and expensive to resolve. But let’s face it, in most cases, nothing is done at all to further an investigation. The quick work that is completed is for a couple of officers to hold up a rug, and a couple more to sweep the victim under it. So imagine, what if Michael Brown’s last moments had been recorded?

As Morning Joe suggested, let’s just put cameras on cops. The only people that would oppose that would be bad cops, and criminals. So let’s just do it. “This is a technology that has a very real potential to serve as a check and balance on police power,” says Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union.

The politicized fatal police shootings of late have prompted calls for more officers to wear body cameras (Some worn like Google Glass, and some as simple, lapel-mounted gadgets) to capture video footage of law enforcement’s interactions with the public. Let’s face it, these stories aren’t new. They just usually don’t make it on the news, and proponents of police officer video surveillance contend the devices add a new level of accountability, all the way around.

The Miami Herald reports Mayor Carlos Gimenez vowed body cameras would become mandatory for all patrol officers in the county, making the announcement at a budget town hall meeting in Little Haiti last Thursday. Gimenez’s proposed budget would include 500 mini cameras meant to outfit only half of the county’s patrol force. The cameras are made by Taser and are small enough to be placed on glasses or a hat. CBS Miami reports Gimenez told the group, “I think if there had been a camera, a lot of what happened (in Ferguson) could have been avoided….Police officers, everyone once in a while may step out of line. But there are also are a lot of frivolous allegations against them.”

The case supporters make is simple: Cops and criminal suspects alike are less likely to cross the line if they know they’re being recorded. And there’s some evidence supporting it. In a recent Cambridge University study, the police department in Rialto, California — a city of about 100,000— saw an 89 percent decline in the number of complaints against officers in a yearlong trial using the cameras. That’s huge. The number of times the police used force against suspects also declined. In fact, after the study was completed, the cameras became mandatory for the Rialto Police Department’s roughly 100 officers.

In the meantime, the Los Angeles Police Department is testing out the use of cameras and the New York City Police Department said that the department is exploring the feasibility of using the devices. Manhattan’s public advocate, Letitia James, has called for the cameras as a check on police misconduct following the death of Eric Garner who was placed in a choke hold by a police officer last month in Staten Island.  The city medical examiner ruled the death a homicide and the Staten Island District Attorney said last week that the case is going to a grand jury. Luckily, there was cell phone footage available, or it is much more likely that the indictment would not have gotten to this point.

Across the U.S., a growing number of departments are implementing the cameras. Apparently, one in six U.S. police departments now use body cameras in some form, according to ACLU attorney Scott Greenwood. ACLU’s Jay Stanley cautions that the gadgets “must also come with well-thought-out policies, including guidelines that spell out how long recordings are kept, and what to do in situations where footage goes missing.” Good thinking, Jay.

Lots of styles of body cameras are available.

A recent petition submitted to the White House.gov We The People petition page calls on the Obama Administration to generate a bill that would require all police officers at the state, county and local levels to wear cameras. As of the writing of this article, the plea has more than 147,702 signatures. It only needed 100,000 for the White House to take up the issue, so it looks like we are well on our way to positive legislation. Check it out for yourself, and see if this is policy you could get behind, call your representatives about, writing them letters in support of future legislation as well. Who knows, the administration could use the petition to weigh in on the broader issue of police accountability and transparency.

There are, of course, legal and procedural questions like, who gets access to the recordings? And what happens when an officer’s device mysteriously malfunctions or gets turned off at an inopportune moment? ‘Cause that happens. Taser’s cameras, for instance, are constantly recording, but the footage is deleted every 30 seconds unless an officer presses record. Then, and only then, are the 30 seconds before the officer hit record kept, in addition to everything else that’s subsequently captured. That might not do. It sounds like there’d be too great a possibility for wardrobe malfunctions. In the case of of Taser’s technology, the recordings are stored on Taser’s Evidence.com online service. Taser’s CEO Rick Smith claims the site is to police cameras as iTunes is to iPods. Again, “It’s not the hardware that’s difficult, it’s how you manage the data coming out of all these devices,” Smith says.

There is some opposition, mostly from police unions; however, the same sort of decision to embed dashboard cameras in police cars not so long ago had its own skeptics when they were first introduced. Nowadays most precincts consider it standard issue. Again,  the only people that would oppose cameras would be bad cops, and criminals. Smith adds, “Most officers started to come around to the dashboard cams after seeing that the recordings could help prove false claims against them wrong.”

In Ferguson, MO, the town with the tanks and the rubber bullets, body armor and camo uniforms,  the local police department apparently had these cameras; it just hadn’t gotten around to using them.

In South Carolina, WTLX in Columbia reports that their police department just bought 12 cameras and is already being used in the field. “The public gets to see what I see which is a benefit for everyone,” said Lt. Joseph Rowson. Rowson says their new body cameras will help make sure that the truest facts are given. Rowson adds, “When you get a video of it, a camera shot with video and audio of exactly what is going on, then it is less likely someone can dispute the facts.” Well, duh.

In Grand Rapids, Michigan, police from eight Montcalm County police agencies have been outfitted with 24 high-definition “Scorpion” personal video cameras. The $125 thumb-sized cameras attach to officers’ uniforms and help them document witness statements and crime scene details. In fact, the police there use all sorts of CSI type of gadgets. From heat-sensing cameras used to track suspects lurking in the shadows to instant messaging that alerts motorists to fiery crashes in their area, technology has become a staple for many law enforcement agencies. Cameras are just a logical link in the chain of neighborhood policing efforts.

In Branford, CT, the Shoreline Times reports the Branford Police Department plans to purchase 10 additional video cameras, after the ones they had were clearly working out. Capt. Geoffrey Morgan said the department has had two of the $900 “VieVu” brand cameras for about a year. The department is adding the additional cameras with funding from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Assets Forfeiture Fund, specifically from funds seized from drug dealers. “These cameras are predominantly for capturing the interaction between an officer and a driver,” Morgan said. “They are for when the officer is out on the street, asking someone for a consent to search, for example. It is to substantiate or review officers’ conduct, which will hopefully lead to less civilian complaints and lawsuits.” With the additional cameras, all Branford officers on patrol on any given shift will have one, and, according to Morgan, officers in the department have been supportive of the program. The cameras, however, will have to be shared among officers on different shifts, police said. How that could possibly interfere with chain of evidence, we can’t possibly imagine.

The front chest option, by VieVu. Very fashionable.

Unfortunately, corruption is a sticky thing, hard to unglue. Simply mandating that the cameras be used isn’t enough, as City Lab reports from San Diego. “Here in San Diego, our scandal-plagued police department has begun outfitting some officers with body cameras, and the City Council has approved a plan to roll-out hundreds more. Officers wearing the cameras were present during at least two shootings earlier this year, and we’re still not any closer to knowing what happened in those chaotic moments — whether the perpetrators can be easily identified, what kind of interactions the officers had with those present, nothing.” That’s because the department claims the footage, which is captured by devices financed by city taxpayers and worn by officers on the public payroll, aren’t public records. Media’s requests for footage from the shootings under the California Public Records Act were denied.

This is absurd, of course. The police work for the public. The cameras were purchased with public funds. Government employees are answerable to the public, especially those who have the power to detain, arrest and kill. A police department that refuses to release dash-camera or lapel-camera footage to the public after a controversial incident is basically saying just trust us. Well, that’s not gonna happen. There have been too many instances in which an officer ‘forgot’ to turn on a camera, a camera has coincidentally malfunctioned at a critical time, or video has gone missing.

In the beating of Jack McKenna, III at the University of Maryland college, a campus police surveillance camera was pointed at the area where Mr. McKenna was beaten. But there’s no security video of the incident. Campus police say the camera coincidentally malfunctioned at the time of the beating. A local news station reported that the officer in charge of the campus surveillance video system is married to one of the officers later disciplined for McKenna’s beating.

That was not the first time a police camera malfunctioned at a critical time. In 2007 Andrea McCarren, an investigative reporter for the D.C. TV station WJLA, was pulled over by seven Prince George’s County police cars. McCarren claimed police roughed her up during the stop, causing a dislocated shoulder and torn rotator cuff. McCarren was following a county official in pursuit of a story about misuse of public funds at the time. The Prince George Police Dept. reached a settlement with McCarren, but she was never able to obtain video of the incident. Prince George’s County officials say all seven dashboard cameras in the police cruisers coincidentally malfunctioned.

Last March, Justice Lee Ann Dauphinot of the Second Court of Appeals in Texas complained in a dissent that when defendants accused of driving while intoxicated in Fort Worth challenge the charges in court, dash-camera video of their arrests is often missing or damaged. “At some point,” Dauphinot wrote, “courts must address the repeated failure of officers to use the recording equipment and their repeated inability to remember whether the car they were driving on patrol contained the video equipment the City of Fort Worth has been paying for.”

It has previously happened in Ferguson, Mo. Michael Daly reported in the Daily Beast that, when Ferguson cops beat Henry Davis after mistakenly arresting him in 2009, a jailhouse camera was supposed to be recording the area where he was beaten. Somehow, the footage of the incident was destroyed.

More recently, on Aug. 11, New Orleans police officer Lisa Lewis claims she was engaged in a struggle with motorist Armond Bennett just before she shot him in the head. New Orleans officers are outfitted with cameras, but there’s no video to verify Lewis’s version of events, because she says turned her camera off just before the incident. NOPD Superintendent Ronal Serpas called this a “snafu.” One could understand if a critic were to opt for another word, like coverup.

So in addition to making these videos public record, accessible through public records requests, police agencies need to make sure officers implement rules requiring them to actually use the cameras. If we can resolve the disappearing footage issue, then we need to ensure that these rules are enforced by disciplining officers when they don’t comply. Officers, the agencies that employ them, and prosecutors all take care to preserve footage, even if the footage reflects poorly on officers. There just has to be some accountability there.

One policy that would go a long way toward achieving those three objectives is what defense attorney Scott Greenfield calls the missing video presumption. Currently, the courts generally treat important video that goes missing as a harmless mistake. They assume no ill will on the part of police. If you discover that the police were, or should have been, recording an encounter that would vindicate you of criminal charges or prove that the police violated your rights, and that video goes missing, you’re simply out of luck. Under the missing video presumption, if there should have been officer generated video and there isn’t, then the courts would assume that the video corroborates the party opposing the police, be it a criminal defendant or the plaintiff in a civil rights lawsuit. The state could still get over the presumption by presenting other evidence, such as witnesses, medical reports, and so on. This would result in penalizing officers for loosing footage. Otherwise, there’s just too strong an incentive for vindicating video to be leaked and for incriminating video to disappear.

We have issues to resolve, but the good clearly outweighs the bad. We just need to have those cameras turned on the minute an officer leaves his car, or gets called to a conflict. In an age when we have surveillance literally everywhere, not having a record of an officer’s attempt to thwart crime, in an era where some evil officers ruin it for everyone, is unacceptable. Don’t you agree. Let’s wonk this one out.

The Policy Geek

The Incredible Importance of Hopey Changey

Planning for the unplanned, August 18, 2014
(Yahoo News, 2014)

FERGUSON, MO -- August 20, 2014 – This last week in Ferguson has become worldwide sensation. The Michael Brown Phenomenon is the rapid and strong international reaction (yes, it’s gone global) to the death of an 18 year old unarmed teenager named Michael Brown, Jr. That was the touchstone.

A neighborhood grieving from the shocking incident was further marred when the young dead man was left in the street for hours, laying in his own blood just where he had been shot. Not for forensics. Just because.

In point of fact, complaints began during those very hours when Michael Brown’s lifeless body lay bare, face first, in the middle of the street. Not even a sheet. The unrest began right then. Scared and fed up citizens of Ferguson poured into the streets with energized support for the family. Was this yet another clear sign of rampant racism alive and well in Missouri? Was this local enforcement overreachEyewitnesses seem to think so, and the fine folks of Ferguson have taken to protest.

(David Carson, 2014)

In the end, this shooting may have actually had nothing to do with disenfranchised youth, racism, poverty, employment opportunities, or any of the proposed reasons coming from the talking heads. This could have just been a bully kid who bullied a shopkeeper, then bullied policemen and lost. We don’t really know, but that's no longer the point.

Human Rights observers around the globe are watching now. Phones have been confiscated, press have been arrested. Gas canisters, smoke bombs, rubber bullets, flash grenades, tanks, and anti-riot gear against civilians, night after night, in the name of "crowd dispersal" have been marching down Main Street, USA and the images are making headlines from Mexico to Moscow. In light of the absence of an arrest of the officer in question, Darren Wilson, what was an incident is now a flash point for a national discussion on police brutality, and cover ups.

Singing and praying protesters chanting slogans, all a Kum-Ba-Ya, turn into fleeing humans at the sound of Boom-Bah-Yee-Hah in less than a second. It’s a cycle of provocation and reaction. Small verbal altercations between protesters and police turn into full out chaos, ending in a stand-off at the QuikTrip. Every time the local police over react, coming at the protesters with unnecessary force, for seemingly no reason at all, it just further traumatizes the local residents, and rallies the few tenacious anarchists in the area.

New Yorkers Rally In Time Square
(ABC News, 2014)

To complicate things, there seems to be a turf war, an ego bruising knock-down drag-out turf war, between the local police and, well, everyone else. The only night that worked well, not without incident, but went rather well, was when State Highway Patrol Captain Ron Johnson attended the protests. The next night there were standoffs between protesters and looters with locals trying to save their neighborhood stores. Thankfully, although fires have been set, there have been no additional deaths at this point

This is not about Missouri. Not just Missouri. Of course it’s not just about Missouri. We feel for the parents, we scream for justice for the child, we fear for the town, but this is not just about Ferguson, Missouri. It’s touched a nerve with protesters worldwide who remember that, not so long ago, Time Magazine named the person of the year, The Protester. From all accounts, people around the world feel they need to protest in solidarity with Ferguson and the Johnson family now.

Time Magazine, 2011

When Darren Wilson of the Ferguson Police Department hit that teenager with six bullets, was that response appropriately limited to the perceived threat? Is that what American citizens should expect from the men in blue who should serve at the pleasure of the public?

Gov. Jay Nixon today said, "We charge our police forces, in times of unrest, to help restore peace and order.” Well, how’s that going to happen when the peace and order was disturbed by the local police force to begin with? It’s about a disproportional response from a disproportionately diverse police department in a disproportionately impoverished neighborhood with no representation in sight.

Systemically, the local police delayed announcing even the name of the officer who fired the shots, Darren Wilson, for a week. When they did, we got a blurry video of what seems to be a shoplifter in action at the very same time. Surprisingly, most people forgot the name Darren Wilson in the aftermath. That delay, and the handling of the announcement, further enraged the neighborhood.

Unbelievably, this is the only photo released officially of Darren Wilson of the Ferguson Police Department, and stunningly, he was getting a student-of-the-month award when the image was shot.

His mother must be so proud.
(Yahoo Photos, 2014)

The setting off of fireworks, molotov cocktails, broken windows, scattered shootings, 2 people shot, about 46 people arrested (31 of them last night) represent the other element on display in Ferguson, Missouri. Chris Hayes of All In With Chris Hayes, who has been covering the stand offs locally, confirms that “there are people in Ferguson only there to set it off. Estimates are between 17 and 100 people like that.” Some sources say it’s around 20 – 30.

We need to see the competing realities. One, could the officer have been acting defensively? Were Officer Darren Wilson’s reactions proportional to the actual chain of events that led to Michael Brown’s murder? When is the leveling of a gun justified? Is this what we want from those who are entrusted with the very real public need to be protected and to be served.

When we assign blame, let’s not ignore the way the world really is. It is the policeman’s job to keep a tight lid on a world stalked with injustice. Each eight hour shift is spent searching for trouble. When you have a hammer in your hand, everything looks like a nail. At the same time, there is the very real problem of power-seeking bellicose, racists and haters with anger issues finding their way tangled up in blue onto a street near you. There are similarities here between racist police pockets, and news stories about priests and teachers who have pedophiles hidden in their ranks. If you are a pedophile, you of course look for a job where you could be left alone with children. After all, you do deserve a pension. If you are one of the bad apples turned boy in uniform, you found a job that helps you use your socially irresponsible personality traits unhindered.

Sunday Night, the brave and empathetic Captain Ron Johnson, beaming the best in all of us, reports that the National Guard deployed by Governor Nixon is “now under his command.” He remains determined to “ensure everyone has their rights to peaceful protest.” Beware those who arrive in Ferguson looking for trouble. “We will resolve those conflicts.”

"I'm humbled by how this community has come together"
(CNN, 2014)

At the very least, Captain Johnson can report, “We are seeing a separation between those peaceful protesters, the good people of Ferguson, the good people of Missouri, the good people from all across this country that traveled to Missouri, and those who are bent on having conflict, vandalism, and causing injury to our community, and I use the word injury.”

There are people looking to set if off, and there are police officers looking for an excuse. The powerful are twitchy, and the residents are really and truly scared to death of being shot down just like that 18 year old boy.

Captain Johnson clarified, “Our peaceful protesters are marching in peace, and I use the words ‘marching in peace’, because they do just that.” He added, “These other protesters bent on causing conflict join into those crowds. Their actions are planned and calculated, and the things they are doing may not be immediately visible to the protesters, but we can see them. They are spoiling for a fight, throwing fireworks and bottles at the police and into the crowds.”

At the very least, Captain Johnson can report, “We are seeing a separation between those peaceful protesters, the good people of Ferguson, the good people of Missouri, the good people from all across this country that traveled to Missouri, and those who are bent on having conflict, vandalism, and causing injury to our community, and I use the word injury.”

There are people looking to set if off, and there are police officers looking for an excuse. The powerful are twitchy, and the residents are really and truly scared to death of being shot down just like that 18 year old boy.

Captain Johnson clarified, “Our peaceful protesters are marching in peace, and I use the words ‘marching in peace’, because they do just that.” He added, “These other protesters bent on causing conflict join into those crowds. Their actions are planned and calculated, and the things they are doing may not be immediately visible to the protesters, but we can see them. They are spoiling for a fight, throwing fireworks and bottles at the police and into the crowds.”

(Twitter @eyeFLOODpanties, 2014)

Calls and texts are reportedly flooding in thanking Johnson for his support of the town’s right to peaceful protest, while also charging that 'these vandals who are committing violent acts are disrespecting the death of Michael Brown.' Apparently, some of those arrested for vandalism came from as far as New York and California.

They just want to voice their opinions,” says Captain Johnson. “I feel their pain; I feel their sorrow. This is all about making things better. Whether it is in this community or any other community, this issue will be addressed. There will be some who are bent on conflict. We will stand against that. We will all stand against that. This situation has brought us to where we need to be today, and where we need to be herein after, throughout this nation.”

Sharpton weighs in on Ferguson.
(Yahoo News, 2014)

The certainty of disenfranchisement attacks a child’s soul early in their youth. That is the tunnel vision through which the unarmed view their local police departments. Unless a teacher, or hopeful parents or grandparents intervene, society tells these kids, “You are going to live here, and you ARE going to die here.” Is there a better word for that than injustice? Is there? These are the questions that MUST be asked at the very least in the wake of this 18 year old's death--long overdue.

The community of racist bullies allowed to fester openly, and behind closed doors, in these incubators, er, police departments, must end. The innate problem with the staffing of our local constabularies with haters is that they have a lot to hide. There are really good cops, but every head turned is flipping a blind eye to justice. The entrenched know this. Some don’t like change, but most, let’s face it, have racism interwoven into their skin. They can’t see outside of their myopic, fearful view of a group of humans, many of whom are descended from slaves, all of whom are descended from Apes, as is every human currently on earth.

Our differences are at the root of these simple fears. Our differences should be celebrated. But that fear of change, repeatedly taken out on the hides of young men, has established a culture of incredible distrust between people and police across the US. By cracking open that fear, we hope we do not have to wait another couple of generations for it to die out.

We really hope these things can start to change now.

"Stand Back You Animals": Jon Oliver on Ferguson

You have to see this piece on Ferguson. Seriously, you just have to watch it. Jon Oliver is good, but this was great. Make time, get popcorn, and enjoy. So very right on.

The Tactics of DeHumanization

If the Hose Fits... (Moore, 2011)

When does the national conversation change? What is the trim tab that adds a new word to the general lexicon, one that was only being whispered in the back rooms of the old south as a spitten curse. Equalitization. Is it a photo? A video? A speech?

In 1963, images printed in Life Magazine told the story. Systemic arrests and harassments by local officials in Birmingham, Alabama were nothing new, but self awareness is a hell of a thing. Large crowds of people were starting to march led by a young preacher named Martin Luther King. Not yet a doctor but already a Reverend, he had a vision of change and a way of getting others to believe in that change.

Walter Gadsden being attacked by dogs in Alabama, 1963
(Hudson, 2011)

Peaceful clean cut kids who gathered in Alabama that fateful summer, with intelligent messages and a need to have their voices heard, were protesting the Jim Crow state of affairs in the area. Birmingham's Commissioner of Public Safety, Eugene "Bull" Connors, wasn't having any of that. There were laws enforcing segregation.

On a hundred degree day, the simple relief of a swimming pool in a public park could not be enjoyed by people whose skin was considered too dark to be human. You want to swim to cool off now, $1.50 will take that 103 degree day in D.C. into a manageable zone at one of many public park pools, regardless of race. In that summer of 1963 in Alabama, they were experiencing 110 degrees in the shade. It's not dry heat, it's not humid heat, it's some other kind of heat that beats down on you. A person of a pale complexion would have their neck turn bright red in that heat rather quick.

Bull and his buddies thought some bullying was in order, so they took out the hoses. And the dogs. DOGS. On a hot 110 degree day.

What has been seen, can't be unseen
(Colorado edu, 1968)

In 1968, 5 years later, they came again. Bunch of really smart kids calling themselves "Yippies" took over a park, wanted to the change the world, or at the very least, that national conversation. They were getting together peacefully to listen to music and have a few free drugs and some free love back then. Oh yeah, and to protest outside the Democratic National Convention about the seemingly endless Vietnam War. The people in THAT park from THAT time who were sick of war and calling for peace got hit with much worse than just hoses and dogs. Much, much worse. Like Bunker Hill worse. (Go to your local DVD download portal and see Chicago 10 to have all your questions on that one answered if you want to know more.)

Tanks? Really? Mine resistant Tanks? Yes, In Ferguson this week
(International Times, 2014)

The last four days, newspapers, websites, social media, and cable news are awash with images of tear gas, stun grenades, and rubber bullets being lobbed at innocent citizens on the street in 'ol Mizzou. Local residents were getting together peacefully to listen, to march, to sing, chant and pray the pain away after what seems like the senseless death of yet another unarmed teenager. Oh yeah, an unarmed black teenager.

When local police officials are embarrassed by an officer stepping over the line, protocol seems to be to attack those who complain until they shut up. Fear them into submission. Tell them they can't assemble after dark. Peaceful protesters, an alderman, and members of the Fourth Estate being arrested and harassed just because local officials are embarrassed. That's all it takes, shame and a desire to cover up mistakes made by a police force that has made too many of these mistakes in the past.

Militarized Police Overkill in Ferguson
(ABC News, 2104)

Rachel Maddow of MSNBC put it best today when she reported, "This is a policing failure on a huge scale. This is terrible, terrible policing. What is the justification? Terribly conceived and terribly done. The decision to treat this like a military operation is a failure in its own level, but the lack of professionalism, the lack of restraint, deliberately going after the media time after time after time to stop coverage of what they are doing is hard to fathom in its incompetence."

Perhaps shame has its rightful place here. Shaming the local police for their response to an active community of people who feel it is not only their right, but their duty to protest the gross distortions leading to multiple deaths of young black men. Southern Poverty Law Center President Richard Cohen offered this insight, "Our entire criminal justice system has mushroomed, in large part because certain politicians have made it a strategy to stoke fear among white people - fear about young black men. Young men like Michael Brown - and their families - are paying the price."

Police advance through smoke, Wed. August 13 in Ferguson, MO.
(MSNBC, 2014)

This time, caring and mourning patriotic protesting civilians were set upon by militarized officers launching teargas canisters into a milling crowd of the thoughtful. A real pressure cooker for the bubbling up of fear and hatred is being built and it's being stoked by local officials and local law enforcement. This should be a revolution of thought and process, shedding light on the entrenched racism rampant in the St. Louis police department. It should be. Self awareness is a hell of a thing. Do these cops need sensitivity training, or racial boot camp?

What is clear is that there is an urgent need to have this Ferguson police force adequately represent the local population of the people they protect. Today, Ferguson is nearly 70 percent black, but the law there is still enforced by a police department that is more than 90 percent white, a fact that helps engender widespread distrust of officers. Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson confirmed, "50 of the city's 53 police officers are white.

Lone Protester Surrounded By Tear Gas Explosions
(USA Today, 2014)

After all sorts of complaints and concerns poured into the United States Justice Department in the wake of the last four days in Ferguson, the local police have been replaced with the state highway patrol and a brave Captain named Ron Johnson is at large and in charge. What a difference a day makes. This captain and his tactics have turned the situation around 180 degrees today. Tonight there is very little police presence. Young people are directing traffic and neighborhoods are self-policing their areas. It is a peaceful though raucous night in Ferguson this evening.

Tensions Ease As Highway Patrol Captain Marches With Ferguson Protesters
(BuzzFeed, 2014)

Will that be our trim tab? Will the photos of those hit with rubber bullets and covered with welts open the eyes of the sleeping? Will the video of people being gassed in their own front yards settle the issue of the use of excessive force by police officers in this country? Ah, if only this warranted a 'mission accomplished' banner. But we are far from a solution when it comes to racial bias in this country.

One all encompassing and remarkably easy deterrent against any unlawful bad apple police brutality is instituting the practice of placing cameras directly on the front of police officers. In the wake of the ongoing and numerous fatalities coming out of police/citizenry encounters, many talking heads in search of an answer to the problem are calling out for just that. The San Diego Police Department has reported making a large purchase of "body-worn" video cameras this year. Recently, Dallas police got a glimpse of what Chief David Brown calls "the future of law enforcement" when an officer's uniform worn camera recorded a fatal police shooting for the first time. Of course, that was June. There has been no report as to the outcome of the review of that footage. Hmmm.

Today, Joe Scarborough of Morning Joe used his bully pulpit to advocate that, "police officers ought to wear cameras. They really should. The only ones afraid of wearing cameras are bad cops and criminals. So let's make it a national thing."

Another "watershed" moment is right in front of us. This revolution, apparently, will be televised. Don't you just love history in the making? All power to the people and the policy they invent.

Lisa, The Policy Geek