Ferguson MO grand jury no bills the officer that shot Michael Brown

[Albert Doyle]

NPR had an article discussing Dorian Johnson's witnessing which differed from officer Wilson's. I wrote a comment saying Wilson was lying and that a first year detective would realize the reason Brown stopped to turn around was in response to shots. This proves Wilson's account to be lies. My comment was removed.

[David Guyatt]

From ConsortiumNews:

The Strange Ferguson Grand Jury

November 30, 2014

There is an old saying that prosecutors can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich and statistics bear that out. But the police slaying of a young African-American man in Missouri received startlingly different treatment with the grand jury almost invited to exonerate the officer, says Marjorie Cohn.
By Marjorie Cohn
You know the fix is in when a suspect who shot an unarmed man voluntarily provides four hours of un-cross examined testimony to a grand jury without taking the Fifth.
On Aug. 9, Ferguson, Missouri Police Officer Darren Wilson gunned down 18-year-old African-American Michael Brown. Since that fateful day, people across the country have protested against racial profiling, excessive police force, and the failure of the criminal justice system to provide accountability.

Michael Brown, the victim of a police shooting in Ferguson, Missouri.

The nail in the coffin of "equal justice under law" came on Nov. 24, when the St. Louis County grand jury refused to indict Wilson for any criminal charges in the shooting death of Brown. In a virtually unprecedented move, St. Louis Prosecutor Robert McCulloch in effect deputized the grand jurors to sit as triers of fact as in a jury trial.
In a normal grand jury proceeding, the prosecutor presents evidence for a few days and then asks the grand jurors to return an indictment, which they nearly always do. Of 162,000 federal cases in 2010, grand juries failed to indict in only 11 of them, according the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
The standard of proof for a grand jury to indict is only probable cause to believe the suspect committed a crime. It is not proof beyond a reasonable doubt, which is required for conviction at trial. Yet McCulloch's team presented testimony and documents to the panel for three months, evidence not subjected to adversarial testing by cross-examination.
Justice Antonin Scalia explained the function of the grand jury in United States v. Williams as follows: "t is the grand jury's function not to enquire . . . upon what foundation [the charge may be] denied,' or otherwise to try the suspect's defenses, but only to examine upon what foundation [the charge] is made' by the prosecutor. [citations omitted] As a consequence, neither in this country nor in England has the suspect under investigation by the grand jury ever been thought to have a right to testify or to have exculpatory evidence presented."
Every principle Scalia cited was violated in this case. The grand jury was asked to determine whether Wilson acted in self-defense. Wilson was allowed to give four hours of self-serving testimony to the grand jury. And for three months, prosecutors presented both incriminating and exculpatory evidence.
The prosecutor did not ask these grand jurors for an indictment. They were left to sift through the evidence on their own, with no prosecutorial guidance about what to charge. Indeed, the transcripts indicated that prosecutors asked Wilson gentle, leading questions designed to bolster his self-defense claim. For example, a prosecutor told Wilson, "You felt like your life was in jeopardy," followed by, "And use of deadly force was justified at that point, in your opinion?" But prosecutors rigorously challenged witnesses who contradicted Wilson's testimony.
As the grand jury is a secret proceeding, with only the grand jurors and the prosecutor present, the grand jurors did not hear any cross-examination of the officer's testimony, or that of other witnesses (which is customary in an adversarial jury trial).
These grand jurors, who were nearing the end of their term, which began in May, knew the drill, since they had sat on several other cases. They knew the prosecutor always asks for indictments. Thus, when the prosecutor handled the Wilson case in a radically different manner, this signaled to the grand jurors that they were not expected to indict. And they did not.
Another unorthodox aspect of this case was McCulloch's announcement of the grand jury's decision on national television. Sounding like a defense attorney delivering a closing argument in a jury trial, McCulloch characterized and analyzed the witness testimony in the light most favorable to the officer.
McCulloch has a history of bias in favor of police involved in altercations with black men. But, ignoring the pleas of 7,000 residents in and near Ferguson who signed a petition, McCulloch refused to recuse himself in the Wilson case.
McCulloch had mischaracterized testimony in a 2000 case in which two black men were killed after officers fired 21 shots at them. As in the Wilson case, the reasonableness of the officers' use of deadly force was critical. In the 2000 case, the officers said the two victims were driving toward them, trying to run them down, and McCulloch claimed that all the witnesses corroborated the officers' story. A later federal investigation, however, determined that the car was not moving forward, and that only three of the 13 officers said the car was moving forward.
Likewise, Wilson's claim that Brown was "charging" at him when the officer fired the fatal shots into the top of Brown's bowed head was critical to the reasonableness of Wilson's use of deadly force. When McCulloch announced the grand jury's decision, he characterized the witnesses who testified that Brown was "charging" the officer as believable, but dismissed the testimony of witnesses who said Brown was surrendering. McCulloch sounded like a defense attorney, not a prosecutor charged with representing "the people," including Brown.
Wilson fired 12 shots at Brown, six of which struck the teenager. There was a great deal of contradiction among the witnesses, including whether Brown's hands were up or down when Wilson shot at him. That is precisely why there should have been an indictment and a jury trial. Jurors would hear all of the evidence, subjected to adversarial testing by cross-examination. They would assess the credibility of the witnesses, and determine whether Wilson had committed any crime(s) beyond a reasonable doubt.
After reviewing the transcripts and evidence in the Wilson case, San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi noted: "Dorian Johnson, the key witness who was standing next to Brown during the encounter, provided strong testimony that called into question Wilson's claim that he was defending his life against a deranged aggressor. Johnson testified that Wilson, enraged that the young men did not obey his order to get on the sidewalk, threw his patrol car into reverse.
"While Wilson claimed Brown prevented him from opening his door, Johnson testified that the officer smacked them with the door after nearly hitting the pair. Johnson described the ensuing struggle as Wilson attempting to pull Brown through the car window by his neck and shirt, and Brown pulling away. Johnson never saw Brown reach for Wilson's gun or punch the officer. Johnson testified that he watched a wounded Brown partially raise his hands and say, I don't have a gun' before being fatally shot."
Adachi also wrote, "Prosecutors never asked Wilson why he did not attempt to drive away while Brown was allegedly reaching through his vehicle window or to reconcile the contradiction between his claim that Brown punched the left side of his face and the documented injuries which appear on his right side."
If properly directed, the grand jury may well have indicted Wilson for one of several offenses, including first-degree murder, second-degree murder, voluntary manslaughter, involuntary manslaughter, assault with a deadly weapon, unlawful discharge of a firearm, and battery. Wilson testified that he was acting in self-defense when he shot Brown. If he were indicted, the jury would assess whether Wilson acted reasonably when he used deadly force against the teenager.
A police officer in Missouri can use deadly force in making an arrest or preventing escape if he reasonably believes it is necessary to effect the arrest and also reasonably believes the person to be arrested has committed or attempted to commit a felony, or may otherwise endanger life or inflict serious physical injury unless arrested without delay. The key word is "reasonably."
The jury would be told to consider whether a deadly weapon was used, how far apart Wilson was from Brown when the former used deadly force, any disparities in the sizes of the two, the crime involved, etc. The evidence was contradictory about the distance between the two during the confrontation, both Wilson and Brown were the same height but Brown was heavier, and the officer contradicted himself about whether he knew that Brown was suspected of committing petty theft for stealing cigarillos (a misdemeanor, not a felony) before the officer stopped him.
In Tennessee v. Garner, the Supreme Court held that an officer cannot arrest an unarmed felony suspect by shooting him dead. If the suspect threatens the officer with a weapon, or there is probable cause to believe he has committed a crime involving the infliction or threatened infliction of serious physical harm, deadly force may be used if necessary to prevent escape. Although there is a dispute about whether Wilson knew that Brown was suspected of stealing cigarillos before stopping him, Brown had likely committed petty theft a non-violent misdemeanor, not a felony.
Wilson's testimony raises several questions, listed in a piece by Ezra Klein on Vox: "Why did Michael Brown, an 18-year-old kid headed to college, refuse to move from the middle of the street to the sidewalk? Why would he curse out a police officer? Why would he attack a police officer? Why would he dare a police officer to shoot him? Why would he charge a police officer holding a gun? Why would he put his hand in his waistband while charging, even though he was unarmed?"
In my opinion, McCulloch should have filed charges against Wilson, who would then have had the right to a public preliminary hearing. He could present evidence and cross-examine the witnesses against him. And if it were televised, the viewing public could see that justice is done.
According to Adachi, "Wilson's description of Brown as a demon' with superhuman strength and unremitting rage, and his description of the neighborhood as hostile,' illustrate implicit racial bias that taints use-of-force decisions. These biases surely contribute to the fact that African Americans are 21 times more likely to be shot by police than whites in the US, but the statement's racial implications remain unexamined."
Because of the great social implications of cases involving police shootings of people of color, the presumption in these cases should be that prosecutors utilize the public preliminary hearing process instead of the secret grand jury proceeding.
In a unified statement, several civil and human rights organizations recommended an independent and comprehensive federal investigation by the Department of Justice (DOJ). They said the DOJ should also investigate all police killings and reports of the use of excessive force and racial profiling against youth and people of color. And they would require Body-Worn Cameras to record every police-civilian encounter, and increased community oversight of local law enforcement.
Thousands of people in cities throughout the country are protesting the travesty of justice that occurred in Ferguson. But, as the civil and human rights organizations wrote in their statement, "Nothing will be resolved until there is a systemic change throughout this nation in the implicit and explicit bias against people of color and particularly African-American youth who are routinely targeted by law enforcement even within their own communities."
Marjorie Cohn, a criminal defense attorney, is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, where she teaches criminal law, criminal procedure, and evidence. She is co-author (with David Dow) of Cameras in the Courtroom: Television and the Pursuit of Justice. [Copyright, Truthout. Reprinted with permission.]

[Magda Hassan]

The whole grand jury thing seems rather odd. Then there is this. Not sure about Euro Times is a bit sus some times but this is plausible. Then there was the rather successful Anonymous operation against the KKK of which many of the Ferguson police department seem to belong to.

First Pro-Truth Witness Murdered? Or, Just Trying To Get To Dorian? DeAndre Joshua, 20, found dead yards from scene of Michael Brown's death…
DeAndre Joshua, 20, fits the social profile of an eye-witness who gave a police/FBI statement and testified before the Grand Jury in the Mike Brown shooting case. He was an employed black male, with no history of drug use or illicit behavior. He was also a friend of Dorian Johnson who is currently under protection.


Obviously, as you can see, Dorian is freaking out right now.
Several of the eye-witnesses, who gave honest testimony to the Grand Jury, were, according to their own statements, warned immediately after the shooting to keep their mouths shut. All of the eye-witnesses were African American. If you read the reports the sense of fear about speaking the truth is overwhelming.
Many, if not all, of the witness statements outlined in police reports, FBI reports, and later in Grand Jury testimony who testified to the factual events as outlined by officer Wilson, and whose testimony fit the physical and forensic evidence were threatened by the local Canfield Greens community.
A man has died during the Ferguson riots just yards from where Michael Brown was shot dead. Residents on Canfield Drive said that DeAndre Joshua, 20, was shot whilst in his car though police at the scene refused to confirm any details.
DeAndre's grandmother Renita Towns said that somebody killed him' during the carnage.
She said that he graduated Beaumont High School and that he was working in Wal-Mart.
Family member Brian Joshua, 45, added: He was a good kid, he's gone to high school, he's got a job, he's not into drugs or any of that stuff.
I only saw him yesterday morning. He was a smart guy, he spoke cleanly, he was positive'.
Police took away DeAndre's white Pontiac Grand Prix and interviewed witnesses around 11am.
A woman in her 20s broke down in tears and said: I knew him, he was my twin'.
Source

[Albert Doyle]

Prosecutor McCulloch:


" People are accusing the Ferguson police of shooting people with impunity. "

[Lauren Johnson]

Another weird thing was the timing of the announcement. When I heard it was timed for prime time television hours and at night, I thought this thing is set up for rioting on TV. The state governor when asked to do something about the time, said it wasn't his call. Oh, really?

Cue the agent provocateurs.

Search "Ferguson" and "fires" on youtube, and see what you think.

[Albert Doyle]

Basketball star Charles Barkley has come out in favor of the police in Ferguson calling the rioters 'scumbags'. He said it was ridiculous to think the police were targeting black people for murder (which is a strawman that side-steps the issue). The CNN reporter Brooke Baldwin never bothered to inform Barkley that the statistics strongly favor the claim. Maybe network sports commentator Barkley got a Mockingbird tap?

[Albert Doyle]

CNN's Smerconish has done his Mockingbird duty and come right out and said the right decision was made in the Michael Brown case. I guess Smerconish has no problem with Wilson lying.

[David Guyatt]

CNN's Smerconish has done his Mockingbird duty and come right out and said the right decision was made in the Michael Brown case. I guess Smerconish has no problem with Wilson lying.

He also works for CNN which might explain his position. I was told by a British journalist years ago who had previously worked at CNN that certain intelligence connections existed. However, that's no different from the rest of media, I guess.

[David Guyatt]

Consortium News:

Legacy of Whites Killing Black Demons'

December 6, 2014

The police officer who killed Michael Brown convinced a St. Louis grand jury not to indict by likening the unarmed 18-year-old black man to "a demon" who looked "mad that I'm shooting at him" language reminiscent of an earlier era when whites saw blacks as frightening sub-humans, writes William Loren Katz.
By William Loren Katz
The murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, illustrates that even when an offending officer is brought before a grand jury, he can explain away why he fired shot after shot at an unarmed suspect and have jurors wave him home unpunished, perhaps a hero.
The death of Eric Garner in New York shows that a police officer can commit murder using a banned chokehold in broad daylight while being videotaped by a bystander and still avoid indictment. [Remember the similar situation surrounding Rodney King's beating in Los Angeles?]

The autopsy drawing of Michael Brown's body after the 18-year-o;d was gunned down by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri.

In both instances, the police also left their victims on the street, Brown lying dead for four hours and Garner for precious minutes when swift medical treatment might have saved him. In their behavior, the police were twice giving a negative answer to the question: "Do black lives matter?"
Since nothing exists in the DNA of white police officers or other white people that leads to race-driven murder, the motivation of these armed guardians of the law lies elsewhere. The only available testimonytoday is from Officer Darren Wilson before the St. Louis County Grand Jury as he threw useful light on how he saw his deadly confrontation with Michael Brown.
Both Brown and Wilson were over six feet tall and over 200 pounds. But Wilson who was armed compared himself to "a five-year-old holding onto Hulk Hogan." To him the unarmed suspect "looks like a demon, that's how angry he looked." Further he "was almost bulking up to run through the shots, like it was making him mad that I'm shooting at him."
Wilson's words rang bells in my historian's mind; it took me back to 1900 when the American Book And Bible House of St. Louis published a popular justification of lynching entitled The Negro A Beast. This was during the long reign of "Judge Lynch" when white individuals, lawmen or mobs killed three or four black men and boys a week, enjoyed impunity and often the approval of governors, senators and local officials.
Even leading Northern politicians greeted lynching with indifferent shrugs or vague support. "Progressive" President Theodore Roosevelt, for example, advocated white "racial selfishness" and stated, "It is wholly impossible to avoid conflicts with the weaker races." While TR stated his opposition to lynching, he also sternly lectured black audiences that their "rapists and criminals did more harm to their race than any white man can possibly do them."
One of the historical echoes of Wilson's striking testimony can be found in South Carolina Sen. Ben Tillman's classic defense of lynching on the floor of Congress on Jan. 21, 1907. During his term as governor and four terms in the U.S. Senate, Tillman considered lynching a messy but needed part of the legal process.
This grew out of the Senator's vision of a giant struggle "between barbarism and civilization, between the African and the Caucasian for mastery." Violence assured the white community that the black enemies would be kept "in their place," segregated, working for and fearful of whites and never dare to demand the right to vote, sue, testify in court or sit on a jury.
Tillman began by strumming a familiar Southern white chord: "the black rapist." Tillman said: "I would lead a mob to seek the brute who had ravished a woman." The "brute" he said, was "negroes . . . a black flood of semi-barbarians," "a lurking demon," "the Beast leans forward, huge and black."
In Tillman's view, the problem began when President Abraham Lincoln's "new birth of freedom" forever changed obedient slaves into human monsters: "murder and rape become a monomania, the negro becomes a fiend in human form." Tillman's fellow whites faced "an irrepressible conflict between civilization and barbarism."
Despite this terror, Tillman said he was not in favor of burning accused rapists to death. Neither was he a bigot: "I have never called them baboons." But he added, "some are so near akin to the monkey . . . the missing link," "a creature in human form."
Tillman's words assured those who lynched African-Americans that they had the political support and the personal sympathy of powerful people and government institutions.
In our age of repeated police shootings of unarmed black men and boys, North and South, our schools and media rarely shine a light on America's centuries of lynching nor the racist images and language that accompanied the violence. No leader of either race can seem to get a national discussion going about this painful topic.
More than a century ago, Tillman spun his provocative visions: "brute," "lurking demon," "bulk" "fiend." Did Tillman's words somehow seep into the largely white St. Louis Grand Jury that announced, in effect, that suspect Michael Brown did not deserve to live? Or the Staten Island Grand Jury that let off the police killers of Eric Garner?
Does Tillman's fearful, angry nightmare still haunt today's police departments, grand juries and many whites, even those who oppose racism? Hasn't enough already gone wrong to prove we need to talk to each other openly and honestly before more bodies of unarmed black men and boys are left in the street like refuse?
William Loren Katz is the author of Black Indians: A Hidden Heritage and forty other history books. His website is: http://www.williamlkatz.com

[Magda Hassan]

Consortium News:

Legacy of Whites Killing Black Demons'

December 6, 2014

The police officer who killed Michael Brown convinced a St. Louis grand jury not to indict by likening the unarmed 18-year-old black man to "a demon" who looked "mad that I'm shooting at him"

Jeez, can't imagine how bloody furious I'd look to anyone trying to shoot at me.