Today, it looks like any other Midwestern town. There are fast food restaurants, auto shops, drug stores, a laundromat, and rows of cookie-cutter houses. Cars fill the streets, people on their phones brush by on the sidewalk, and of course there’s the ice cream truck bell, the ubiquitous sound of summer. But if you walk around, you’ll notice remnants of a not so distant past.

I wandered into Canfield Apartments, a not especially impressive apartment complex that was eerily empty on a Friday afternoon. I stopped at the entrance and was greeted by this sign, but when I peeked around the edge, a sticker had been placed on it that read simply “cop watch”.

I looked down and there was a plaque cemented into the sidewalk, emblazoned with a name that is now all too familiar “Michael Brown”. The plaque reads “I would like the memory of Michael Brown to be a happy one, he left an afterglow of smiles when life was done. He leaves an echo whispering softly down the ways, of happy and loving times and bright and sunny days. He’d like the tears of those who grieve, to dry before the sun of happy memories that he left behind when life was done.” At first, it seems out of place, but the more you look around, the more you notice the little reminders. A patch of graffiti here, a mural there, deflated balloons, or stuffed animals.

But this isn’t about Michael Brown, and I’ll try not to rehash what happened in August, 2014, at least in this article. This is about a conversation I had with an unmovable, and at times colorful, Ferguson business owner. A business owner who was angry about what happened to his community, angry about a perceived failure from his government to act. A business owner who displayed that anger in block letters in his store front sign for all to see, for over 2 years, some say out of spite, others say out of passion.

His name is John Zisser, owner of Zisser Tire & Auto Services, located on the corner of West Florissant Ave. & Chambers Rd. John has been in the community for several years, and he was quite taken aback by the events in 2014. John says he’ll never forget the first night of the unrest, he was at home watching a sports game. Then from another room his wife yelled “John! John! Turn on the TV!” and he saw West Florissant, full of people and full of glass. He says he wanted to run out of the house and defend his store, but his wife advised against it, worried about his safety. But by the time John had seen the news, the damage was already done.

I ask John how he feels now about everything, and he sighs deeply. Then he says “I wish I never heard the name Michael Brown. That none of this would’ve happened”. It’s a feeling shared by many Americans, not because they want to forget, but because Ferguson reopened a wound that many Americans thought had been closed for 40 years. The reactions of ordinarily decent people after Ferguson, revealed that cultural resentment and racial prejudice had been growing in what most people assumed were tight-knit communities.

John says “it was sad to see what happened to the properties in the area.” Some businesses never returned to Ferguson. Lots where buildings once stood, but were razed to the ground during the unrest, still sit empty. Some stores have been boarded up, others have for-sale signs in their windows. But that’s not representative of the entire community.

John reassures me, “out of all the bad, there came some good.” The good John is referencing is the recent economic investment in the area. There are new projects in development, like the beauty shop across the street being rebuilt, while others are already completed like the Starbucks further down the street. Something I found notable was the Urban League under construction in the same space where a Quik-Trip, and later the burnout shell of a Quik-Trip, once stood. Fundraisers and a lot of community support allowed businesses to survive the immediate aftermath of the unrest. This isn’t to say that everything is great for everyone. John says that he took some loses and “what used to be my best property…” he hesitates, but then continues, “business has recovered, but it could always be better.”

I ask John what frustrates him, and he says “I wish the full story was out there, and people would take everything into context.” John tries to help me understand his feelings returning to his business after the unrest, he asks me if my home has ever been broken into, and if it had what crossed my mind whenever I went back. John says that if I’m like him, then my biggest concern was “can this happen again?” John says the hardest part wasn’t cleaning up after the unrest or trying to get insurance to pay for damages. John says the hardest part was coming to work every day after. John is scarred by what happened, not afraid necessarily, but more attentive than he once was. John says every time he watches the news he worries. “When something happens in Baltimore or Chicago like what happened here I just think ‘Oh crap, not again'”. There’s a lingering fear that the next event is going to spark a protest, and John’s business will once again be in danger.

Now, back to the infamous sign. I never asked John’s political affiliation, and he explicitly said “I don’t want to get political.” which was followed with the caveat “But I’m glad Nixon is the hell out of here! I can finally use my sign again!” I asked why even use his sign in the first place and he replied simply “I was mad!”

John said he never heard much from government officials, the last time he talked to the mayor of Ferguson was before the election, and he’d never heard from former Governor Nixon, who has drawn so much ire from John and other Ferguson residents. In my personal experiences with people in the community, outrage over lack of communication before, during, and after the unrest is a recurring theme.

I asked John what would he tell the outside community about Ferguson, or his shop in particular.

He said “We’re still here, and we’re not leaving…. Every place has its problems, in Des Peres this morning there was a stolen car.” he admits that maybe there were racial issues, even if they weren’t obvious to him. “Most of our customers are black, upwards of 51%. All of customers are just normal decent people, sometimes you run into an idiot, but that happens at fast food joints, gas stations, and everywhere really.” John contends that Ferguson, is just like anywhere else.

He ends our conversation with “things are gonna get better. I believe things are gonna get better.”

I sure hope so John.

The post “Ferguson: Nixon Fails while Business Thrives” appeared first on Occasional Planet.

In a few weeks, I turn 20. People keep telling me how young I am— how my life is just beginning. But today I can’t help but feel keenly how old I am— how many more years my life has had than millions of lives do.

How many Syrian refugees died before they had to use both hands to count their age? How many Iraqi, Thai, and Congolese children died soldiers before they lost their baby fat? How many Yemeni and Somali children will waste away of malnutrition without ever learning to walk? How many Afghani and Nigerian girls died giving birth to a child while themselves still children? How many trans teenagers in the United States ended their lives before their adolescence ended?

To them, my life has been eons already. By their metrics, I am ancient. I am acutely conscious of the privileges I have as a fluke of my birth that conspired to keep me alive here today rather than in a grave as small as theirs.

A month ago, Jordan Edwards was shot to death by a police officer in Dallas, TX as he drove away from a party. He was only 15 years old.

I am almost 5 years older than he will ever be. But because my body is not Black and male, here I sit. The number of unarmed Black men killed by police is so incredibly high, it is numbing. The number of lives cut short by police brutality is almost unfathomable. The number of birthdays lost to violence because a Black man’s unarmed body was seen as inherently too dangerous to exist is staggering.

How many unarmed Black boys’ and men’s lives were cut brutally short by police before they even left their teenage years?

• Tamir Rice was killed at age 12 in Cleveland, OH (11/22/2014).
• Tyre King was killed at age 13 in Columbus, OH (9/14/2016).
• Laquan McDonald was killed at age 17 in Chicago, IL (10/20/2014).
• David Joseph was killed at age 17 in Chicago, IL (2/8/2016).
• Michael Brown was killed at age 18 in Ferguson, MO (8/9/2014).
• Paterson Brown was killed at age 18 in Richmond, VA (10/17/2015).
• Tony Robinson was killed at age 19 in Madison, WI (3/6/2015).
• Keith McLeod was killed at age 19 in Reisterstown, MD (9/23/2015).
• Christian Taylor was killed at age 19 in Arlington, TX (8/7/2015).
• Dalvin Hollins was killed at age 19 in Tempe, AZ (7/27/2016).
• Dyzhawn Perkins was killed at age 19 in Buckingham County, VA (2/13/2016).

The number of candles on their birthday cakes will never increase to more than mine. How can I not feel too old?

And in none of these instances will the police officer who cut their lives abruptly short be charged with a crime.

And what about the many lives which existed for only a few years beyond 20?

• Terrance Kellom was killed at age 20 in Detroit, MI (4/27/2015).
• Zamiel Crawford was killed at age 21 in Leeds, AL (6/20/2015).
• Christopher J. Davis was killed at age 21 in Milwaukee, WI (2/24/2016).
• John Crawford was killed at age 22 in Dayton, OH (8/5/2014).
• Christopher Kimble was killed at age 22 in East Cleveland, OH (10/3/2015).
• Vernell Bing, Jr. was killed at age 22 in Jacksonville, FL (5/22/2016).
• Deravis Caine Rogers was killed at age 22 in Atlanta, GA (6/22/2016).
• Levonia Riggins was killed at age 22 in Hillsborough County, FL (8/30/2016).
• Sean Bell was killed at age 23 in Queens, NY (11/25/2006).
• Albert Davis was killed at age 23 in Orlando, FL (7/17/2015).
• Calin Roquemore was killed at age 24 in Longview, TX (2/13/2016).
• Ariel Denkins was killed at age 24 in Raleigh, NC (2/29/2016).
• Kevin Judson was killed at age 24 in McMinnville, OR (7/1/2015).
• Ezell Ford was killed at age 25 in Florence, CA (8/11/2014).
• Freddie Gray was killed at age 25 in Baltimore, MD (4/19/2015).

By a fluke of my birth, I was born into this body in these circumstances in this place with these opportunities and privileges, and so here I sit. But by a fluke of their birth, they weren’t given the same privileges as I was.

And that’s not even counting the thousands— the millions— of people whose lives may not be over, but who through a fluke of their birth were not given the opportunities and privileges by which their lives could flourish.

I just earned my undergraduate degrees; I’m going to law school in the fall. How many people could have been world-class lawyers or doctors or engineers or politicians transforming our society but who weren’t given the opportunity to complete their education? Who were put in underfunded school systems that didn’t have the funds or resources to provide a quality education? Who had to drop out of high school? Who couldn’t afford college tuition? Who are so desperately living paycheck-to- paycheck so their children can one day go to school even though they harbor no hopes of themselves seeing a degree in their name?

When I think about the opportunities I’ve been given in almost 20 years that some people are never given their entire lives, I can’t help but think that perhaps the standards we use to measure if someone’s life is “just beginning” are just lies— cold comfort so we don’t have to think too hard about the way our life could have been if not by a fluke of our birth. And the more I think about those names and those dates, I just remember how old I am. Happy birthday.

The post Happy Birthday appeared first on Occasional Planet.

The decision not to indict Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown is wrong in multiple ways, not the least of which is the unorthodox way that County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch presented his “case.”

There’s a lot to question: Police procedures immediately following the shooting; the hard-to-believe story told by Wilson; the fact that Wilson—the potential indictee– even testified to the grand jury; the undirected data-dump of evidence.

One thing I’m not hearing, though, is a more “meta” view of the grand jury proceedings. As I have written previously, I served on the St. Louis County Grand Jury a number of years ago, and it’s clear to me that McCulloch’s approach to the Wilson case was totally unorthodox—and perhaps even calculated to result in a non-indictment.

Floating above all of my doubts about the sincerity of McColloch’s attempt to get an indictment is the fact—in itself—that he treated this one case so differently—so unequally. In this one case—this case only—the possible indictment of a white police officer in the death of an unarmed black teenager—McColloch decided to go “separate and unequal” in his approach to the grand jury.

If he had wanted to demonstrate fairness, McCulloch could have treated this case just like any other. An “equal” treatment would have meant that the prosecutors would—as they do in all other cases before the grand jury—cull the evidence and show just enough to make the case for probable cause.

“Equal” treatment would have meant that the person facing possible indictment would not be given the opportunity to testify to the grand jury.

“Equal” treatment would have meant that the prosecutors would definitively list the charge they were seeking.

“Equal” treatment might also have meant that prosecutors would take their evidence directly to a judge for a preliminary hearing in open court—not to the secret grand jury. [My understanding of the role of the grand jury is to hold closed-door, probable cause hearings in cases in which the identity of minor children or undercover police officers need to be protected. This case did not meet those criteria.]

But “equal” is not what we got.

McCulloch’s separate and unequal grand-jury strategy is, to me, just another reflection of the inequalities in our society and in our criminal justice system. Our system treats black people differently, plain and simple. In this case, a black victim received a different standard of justice. [He jaywalked. He may have shoplifted. He was unarmed, but was shot dead.] A white perpetrator—a police officer, no less—got special treatment. Not just on the street, and not just in the police station and in the media, but in the grand jury room as well.

It’s just another part of the ingrained, unacknowledged, not-so-subtle institutionalized racism that permeates our society and our justice system.

Shame on Bob McCulloch for being a part of it.

The post Ferguson grand jury: Same old inequality, different venue appeared first on Occasional Planet.

There is justifiable concern about an outbreak of violence in Ferguson once the Grand Jury announces whether or not it is issuing an indictment directed at Officer Darren Wilson. If no indictment is forthcoming, it will be very understandable, if not acceptable, for many people to be quite upset. Once again they will have experienced another case of a white police officer acting inappropriately towards an unarmed African-American man, and nothing comes from it.

If Wilson is indicted, there may be an explosion of pent-up joy that the legal process is taking Wilson’s actions seriously and in the end, justice may prevail. I should add that all of this is premised on the contention that Officer Wilson escalated an ordinary citizen-police officer incident into a deadly shooting. Even if Michael Brown acted inappropriately, it was not appropriate for Officer Wilson to bring a gun into the equation.

I remember teaching in an integrated high school in St. Louis when the O.J. Simpson verdict was announced. There was not violence, but the joy of many African-American students permeated the building for hours and on into days. It did not seem to matter whether justice had been done; what was important was that “our side won this one.”

Most conjecture about what might happen seems to be focused on inside-the-box-thinking. There seem to be three possibilities of what might happen: (a) Wilson is not indicted at all, (b) Wilson is indicted for the closest possible crime to murder, or (c) He is indicted for one or more of many possible lesser charges. Any of the three choices has potential to be followed by unrest.

Here’s an outside-the-box possibility that may bring relief rather than intense emotions and could keep the situation calm. It’s simple: Officer Wilson does the “right thing.” He walks himself into the Ferguson Police Station, or possibly a St. Louis County police station, or perhaps Prosecutor Bob McCulloch’s office. He announces that he now recognizes that he has done something wrong, and it’s time for both him and the community to receive justice. He acknowledges that Michael Brown was shot by his revolver and in some way, he was responsible. He says that figuring out what really happened is beyond his ability. It’s difficult for him to be both a participant and an adjudicator in the situation. He wants to be part of figuring out what happened, and he thinks that one way or another, he bears a measure of responsibility.

Once Wilson acknowledges that he did something improper, Prosecutor McCulloch asks the present or a different grand jury to indict Wilson for an appropriate crime. For McCulloch to fail to do so would be disregarding the honest words of a police officer.

As you might expect, I do not anticipate that Officer Wilson will turn himself in. But for those who call themselves his friends, and even defendesr, they might do both Officer Wilson and the community right by bringing up to him that “it’s not too late.” And it’s not.

The post An honest way to prevent unrest in Ferguson: Do the right thing appeared first on Occasional Planet.

The Ferguson incident: A young unarmed black man, Michael Brown, was shot several times by a white police officer, Darren Wilson. Several witnesses have publicly stated that Brown had his hands up and was facing Wilson, who continued to shoot him. There was an explosive reaction to this event on the part of black residents of the city, leading to a military-style police overreaction. Most of this is now accepted as true.

In the aftermath, there’s been some official effort to understand and explain why one shooting among so many shooting deaths generated such a reaction. There’s also been plenty of backlash towards those efforts to understand and deal with the anger among Ferguson residents in any way other than denial and suppression. The instinctive reaction of many in the area seems to be to “support” the police no matter what they do, as long as they’re doing it to “those people.” Consider the following when you hear anyone telling you that the Ferguson events are exceptional and folks mostly get along in St. Louis:

— An online fundraiser to cover “expenses” for the police shooter. Among the comments left by donors:

“Ofc. Wilson did his duty. Michael Brown was just a common street thug.””Waste of good ammo. It’s my privilege to buy you a replacement box.”

“Black people can be their own enemy and I am not white…He was shot 6 times cause the giant wouldn’t stop or die. Evil people don’t die quick”

“All self-respecting whites have a moral responsibility to support our growing number of martyrs to the failed experiment called diversity.”

“I am so sick of the blacks using every excuse in the book to loot and riot.”

“I support officer Wilson and he did a great job removing an unnecessary thing from the public!”

The fundraiser was shut down when it seemed that there might be legal, tax-related issues about how the money could be used – but not until it had raised $400,000 dollars from sympathizers for the shooter. Did you know you could shoot an unarmed boy and collect a big reward for doing it?

— Until the U.S. Justice Department stepped in, some law enforcement officers working to contain the protests in Ferguson thought it was helpful to express their opinion of the shooting by obscuring their name badges and wearing “I am Darren Wilson” bracelets.

— Residents of Wildwood and other West County locations made it their priority  to organize a food and water drive for the policemen who were moving all their heavy military surplus equipment into Ferguson to put down the protests. According to a police spokesperson, this effort to express appreciation for police efforts to shut down the turmoil as forcibly as possible rendered the police “ecstatic.”

— St. Louis Cardinals fans really showed their colors when they responded to peaceful protesters at Monday night’s game:

At one point, an older white man starts yelling at the protesters, shouting, “That’s right! If they’d be working, we wouldn’t have this problem!” Then, the Cardinals fans begin chanting “Let’s go Cardinals!” which morphs into “Let’s go Darren!” referring to Darren Wilson, the police officer who fatally shot Brown.Later on in the video, a woman shouts, “We’re the ones who gave all y’all the freedoms that you have!” which is a tidy way of identifying with slavers and Abraham Lincoln at the same time, covered in a thick layer of modern racism.

— There have also been more refined expressions of distaste for activists’ efforts to keep the issues surrounding Michael Brown’s death alive. SMP’s Michael Bersin wrote about the events at the St. Louis symphony Saturday night when a group of symphony goers inserted a “Requiem for Mike Brown” before the beginning of the second act of the Brahms Requiem. According to Bersin, “they pulled this off perfectly,” and the audience was mostly sympathetic. No doubt. However, nothing is perfect and in this morning’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch “Letters” section, genteel disapprobation of what the letter writer evidently deemed an unseemly disruption reared its head:

Is Powell Hall a proper venue for a protest? I assume the protesters bought tickets for this opportunity to have their voices heard. What comes next? Can we expect such events to happen at the art museum? At Circus Flora? At a school graduation? The experience saddened me profoundly. Just like the Ferguson situation, I was left tensely unresolved.

Imagine. A man was murdered, his shooter is very unlikely to be punished, and this individual is horrified that he/she had to sit “rigidly for what felt like an eternity” during the brief protest. If he/she was left “tensely unresolved,” as opposed to as blandly indifferent as his letter implies he wishes to be, then it’s high time that the protest has invaded this refuge for well-off St. Louisians.

You want to know what is behind the events in Ferguson, read the list above and think about what it implies about the St. Louis zeitgeist. While folks do mostly get along, I suppose, it’s also true that things are not always just what they seem to be at the surface. The water can get mighty dirty when we start fishing in the depths.

[This post first appeared on Show Me Progress.]

The post Racism redux: St. Louis after Ferguson appeared first on Occasional Planet.

A few years ago, I was a member of the St. Louis County Grand Jury—the same body that is currently considering evidence in the Michael Brown shooting. According to news reports, the Grand Jury still operates the same way it did back then. Based on my experience in that grand jury room, I predict that Darren Wilson, the officer who shot Brown, will not be indicted. Here’s why:

As St. Louis County grand jurors, our weekly routine began when we received the day’s docket of cases. It was a multi-page document, on which were printed the case numbers, defendants’ names, and—this is the part that’s most significant to my no-indictment prediction—the charge that we were to consider, plus its legal classification [e.g., D Felony].

Our weekly case dockets contained from about 30 to as many as 60 cases. Each case was introduced by a prosecutor, who brought in witnesses—usually police officers—to testify about the details of the crime. Most of the cases were “slam-dunks.” The evidence was overwhelming [thieves who left their wallets with IDs behind at the crime scene, muddy tire tracks leading directly from a home invasion to the burglar’s house, shoplifters caught on security cameras, etc.] On our first day as grand jurors, County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch [who is leading the Darren Wilson investigation] joked that “We don’t catch the smart ones.”

I cannot remember a single case, among the close to 1,000 that we looked at on our dockets, that did not list the charge for which the prosecuting attorney was seeking an indictment.

Looking back, I can see how the formatting of the dockets and the presentation of the cases conditioned us—both openly and in a subliminal way—to vote for indictments, which we did, in, I’d estimate, 95% of the cases. And I can imagine that a case without a charge listed on the docket would stand out.

So, let’s see: All of the other cases are linked directly to a specific charge. This case doesn’t include a charge. In fact, it’s even more confusing than that: The prosecuting attorney is asking the grand jurors to decide IF there should be any charge at all, and WHAT that charge might be [a job for which grand jurors—if they are like me—are completely unqualified].

Given this break in protocol and the confusion it must be creating, I think it’s logical to infer, as a grand juror, that on this case, the prosecuting attorney is not really seeking an indictment. And since grand juries, as has been demonstrated many times, overwhelmingly follow the prosecutor’s lead, I think we can see where this is going.

And that’s why, if I were a betting person—and if Las Vegas bookies were perverse enough to offer odds in the Darren Wilson case—my money would be on a no-indictment result.

[UPDATE: Local news, as you may have heard, is now reporting that the grand jury looking into the Darren Wilson case is now under investigation itself, because a member of the grand juror may have discussed the case outside of the jury room–as indicated by a “friend-of-a-friend” post on Twitter. That potential breach of protocol could tank the entire grand jury investigation and could should help deep-six any indictment, too.]

The post Ferguson aftermath: Why I think Darren Wilson will not be indicted appeared first on Occasional Planet.

The power to indict or not indict Darren Wilson—the police officer who shot and killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri—is completely in the hands of St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch. I think this because, in 2007, I served on the St. Louis County grand jury overseen by McCulloch himself.

My time on the St. Louis County grand jury is probably very much like that of current jurors. Here’s how it worked when I was there, and what I learned that is influencing how I look at the case against Darren Wilson:

The summer session of the St. Louis grand jury met every Wednesday for 16 weeks, starting in May. The jury consisted of 12 people. We started as members of the general jury pool. None of us was selected for a regular jury, but at the end of the day, a group of about 50 of us were asked if we would consider volunteering for the grand jury.

A judge explained to us that the St. Louis County grand jury is not an investigative body. [Those kinds of grand juries are usually convened separately, he said.] Rather, the jury we would be on would serve as an alternative to preliminary hearings, to take on part of the load otherwise handled by judges in courtrooms. We had to be available for all [with some excusable absences] of the 16 sessions, from 8:30 am to 5 p.m. The judge then asked for volunteers, and he briefly interviewed each of us. About a week later, I received notice that I had been empaneled.

On our first day, after meeting the judge who would supervise our work [but not be present in the room], McCulloch came into the grand jury room and briefed us on the importance of our work as grand jurors. He explained that our job was to listen to witnesses and to decide—not whether the accused were guilty or innocent—but whether the prosecutor had presented enough evidence to merit a trial, where a trial jury would rule on guilt or innocence. If there was enough evidence, we would vote for a bill of indictment. Neither the prosecutor nor the witnesses [nor a judge] were in the room when we deliberated and voted. After we’d reached our decision, the jury foreman signaled the prosecutor—by pressing a button—to come back in and get the result.

On some Wednesdays, we heard as many as 50 cases. That is not a typo. In many instances, there was one witness—the arresting officer—and the presentation took 10 minutes or less. Defense witnesses and those accused of crimes were not invited. And in most cases—I’d say 95 percent of them—it took just a few minutes of discussion for us to conclude [via voice vote] that an indictment was justified. Occasionally we turned down the indictment. In one case, when we voted against indictment, the prosecutor came back into the room and said that he pretty much knew that’s what we’d do, because even he thought the evidence was flimsy.

And that is why I’m pretty sure that St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch can make the Darren Wilson grand jury go whichever way he wants.

Remember: the vast majority of witnesses that McCulloch’s prosecuting team brings to the grand jury are police officers. He relies on them to make his cases. They are his allies. It seems clear that he has to be reluctant to piss them off by indicting a police officer for what Darren Wilson purportedly did. [By the way, unlike some people, I don’t believe that the fact that McCulloch’s father was a cop–killed in the line of duty–presents a conflict of interest. But I do wonder if there’s a question of loyalty here, because of McCulloch’s reliance on cops as witnesses in other cases.]

McCulloch has options: He can present the case against Wilson any way he wants, to get the outcome he wants. Depending on who testifies, and what evidence is brought in, he can make it look like excessive force by Wilson, or he can make it look like a justified shooting in the line of duty. He can present the case in all its nuanced details, or he can streamline it. He can bring in eyewitnesses—or not. He can show the infamous convenience-store videotape—or not. The length and tone of the case is entirely up to him. [We hear, in news reports that McCullough is saying that the case will take more than one day to present. If that’s true, it could mean that he is preparing a thorough and even-handed case–which is what citizens should expect.]

The grand jury can ask as many questions as it wants, and I’m sure they will, if they are doing their jobs as directed. But, as it has been said many times, a good prosecuting attorney can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich. However, that assertion also implies the inverse, as well: If the prosecutor doesn’t want an indictment, he or she can make that happen, too.

So, I’ll be watching closely. If there is no indictment in the Darren Wilson case, it could be because the prosecutor himself didn’t want it and presented the weakest possible case. [We will never know, as St. Louis County grand jury deliberations are secret—you’re not supposed to talk about them outside of the jury room. If there is a subsequent trial, the case presented by the prosecution will be indicative of what transpire in the grand jury hearing, as prosecutors often practice their court cases on the grand jury.]

Personally, I’m hoping for the indictment, so that there is a public trial, where a jury can decide what should happen—or not happen—to Darren Wilson.

The post Inside the grand jury: Prosecutor in Michael Brown case holds all the cards appeared first on Occasional Planet.

America continues to make international headlines as the world watches racial tensions repeatedly reaching the breaking point after the killing of an unarmed African-American:

• Sean Bell, 2006: shot at 50 times by a team of NYPD officers, hours before his wedding. Officers forced to retire (all but one with pensions intact), but face no other legal consequence

• Oscar Grant, 2009: shot in the back at train platform by a police officer who “meant to grab his taser” in California. Officer convicted of involuntary manslaughter and serves one year in jail.

• Trayvon Martin, 2012: shot by a neighborhood watch volunteer claiming self-defense under Florida’s stand-your-ground laws. Shooter found not guilty of second-degree murder and manslaughter.

• Renisha McBride, 2013: shot by a Michigan man to whom she, shell-shocked after a car accident, appealed to for help by knocking on his door (who claimed, after changing his story several times, to mistake her for a thief).  Shooter found guilty of second-degree murder and may face life in prison.

• Jordan Baker, 2014: shot by off-duty Houston, Texas police officer when riding a bike and allegedly looking into stores at strip mall, because the officer was looking for black hoodie-wearing armed robbery suspects, and Baker happened to be wearing a black hoodie. Officer put on administrative leave pending further investigation.

• Eric Garner, 2014: dies when NYPD officer’s chokehold triggers an asthmatic attack during an arrest for selling untaxed cigarettes. Officer’s gun and badge have been taken away, but he has not faced any legal ramifications yet. (Witnesses who filmed the death have been arrested).

• John Crawford III, 2014: shot by Ohio police in Walmart while he talked on a cell phone and took down a BB-gun from the shelf, (Witnesses say he informed police that it was a toy). State (and potentially federal) investigations still pending.

• Michael Brown, 2014: shot by Ferguson, Missouri police officer- details still emerging through federal and state investigations. This shooting comes 4 days after the Crawford shooting and 2 days after the conviction of Theodore Wafer for McBride’s murder.

Many of these incidents have been followed by massive protests–sometimes even rioting that results in further violence–calling for justice for the responsible parties and societal change to prevent such a tragedy from happening again. Each horror has been followed by calls for institutional change, inspiring hope in the communities that perhaps,we are on the cusp of reform. The message is that black lives are NOT expendable, after all. Looks like it hasn’t happened yet. But I hope it happens soon. We need another massive revolution to reiterate the  the 15th amendment and Civil Rights Acts.

In hope that the deaths have not been in vain, I envision the events to be the slowly growing base that will culminate in a wave of change to turn into a social reality the legal equality promised to every individual, regardless of race, so many years ago.

In the discussion, we need to keep in mind how mass incarceration is disproportionately affecting the black population and is being called “The New Jim Crow.”  We also need to consider the recent outrage over Donald Sterling’s bigoted comments. Each of these events is a signal that the supposedly color-blind state of our society may be more of a myth than we would like to believe. When everything is being analyzed for racist and prejudiced undertones, why do we continue to dole out little slaps on the wrist for heinous crimes? Why do we continue to hesitate to openly mark something as racist, no matter what we find in that undertone analysis, for fear of being called racist ourselves? Why do we continue to silence the people trying to talk openly about race as if they are the ones perpetuating racism?

Researching the case of Michael Brown, I stumbled upon  similarities to the other cases. I saw one similar case only to find another and then another and then another, before I finally had to stop pulling on the  lengthy string of horrors. Of the eight deaths outlined above, only one resulted in the conviction of the perpetrators for murder. One.

America: you can’t have your cake and eat it, too. Either make change–real change, not rioting and violence– and bring justice, or openly condone the idea that white life is worth more. We need to destroy the idea that we are a color-blind society and admit that there are major flaws in the system that set us up to be less a “post-racial” society and more an “innocent until proven racist” society. But we also need to keep in mind that those flaws can be fixed, and that it is our personal responsibility to make sure they are. We need to stop ignoring prejudice until tragedy strikes and then pretending we never hid it in the first place. Something has to give for the horrors to stop, and I hope we can make it happen soon. I really do.

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When I was in college in 1968, I attended Congressional hearings on the 1967 urban riots (soon to be followed by even more severe ones in 1968). Two sides had lined up; one saying that the riots were caused by urban residents’ lack of respect for the law and others saying that the forces of racism and economic depression combined with the rising expectations of the civil right movement caused young people to vent through rioting.

On February 29 of 1968, the Report of the National Advisory Commission Civil Disorders (Kerner Report) was published. Included in the summary was:

This is our basic conclusion: Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, and one white- separate and unequal.

Our principal task is to define that choice and to press for a national resolution.

To pursue our present course will involve the continuing polarization of the American community and, ultimately, the destruction of basic democratic values.

The alternative is not blind repression or capitulation to lawlessness. It is the realization of common opportunities for all within a single society.

This alternative will require a commitment to national action-compassionate, massive and sustained, backed by the resources of the most powerful and the richest nation on this earth. From every American it will require new attitudes, new understanding, and, above all, new will.

The vital needs of the nation must be met; hard choices must be made, and, if necessary, new taxes enacted.

Violence cannot build a better society. Disruption and disorder nourish repression, not justice. They strike at the freedom of every citizen. The community cannot-it will not-tolerate coercion and mob rule.

What has happened in Ferguson, MO has much of the look and feel of what I saw in the 1968 Washington disturbances. As was the case with many of the disturbances in the ’60s, the troubles began with a police-citizen conflict. Invariably the police believed that they operated with restraint and only wanted to enforce existing law. Those who engaged in civil disobedience said that the police had used excessive force and were targeting African-Americans.

In Ferguson, there are clearly two stories on “what happened.” The police version indicates that Michael Brown started the altercation. Other witnesses say that a police officer arbitrarily fired on an unarmed youngster.

I believe that two things are certain from this incident:

1.  Ferguson police, like police forces in many jurisdictions, need to learn more about restraint.
2. The issue of race is not yet solved in America. On the plus side, we have elected an African-American president, one who may be among the best who have ever served. On the down side, incidents such as Ferguson happen. Unfortunately, the progress that we make is limited in part because of a Congress which repeatedly fails to pass legislation to improve race relations and bring us closer together. In the name of fighting a straw “class war” in which the rich are targeted by everyone else, they (meaning most Republicans and some Democrats) continue to oppress those among us who have the least means with which to survive in contemporary society.

Those involved in what happened in Ferguson, and I’m specifically talking about the local citizens and the police, will not have their needs addressed by the vague Republican agenda of balancing the budget. To many, the Republican words are just code for the federal government failing to meet its obligations to bring our country closer to equal opportunity.

We need to follow a progressive agenda which is sensitive to the needs of all. We need to give others the benefit of the doubt (something that the Ferguson police officer may not have done). If we are smart, what happened in Ferguson will be a wake-up call. If not, it will just be another case of the powers that be in this country sleepwalking through an urgent time for action.

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