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

[Drew Phipps]

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

I got a sinking feeling when the DA announced that all his evidence had been turned over and inspected by the Justice Department.

The Guy Faulks masks are already making their appearance.

[Drew Phipps]

Here is the news article:

Ferguson grand jury says Darren Wilson will NOT face trial for shooting dead Michael Brown

Nov 24th 2014 9:23PM

Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson will not go on trial for fatally shooting Michael Brown earlier this year, a grand jury has announced. The highly-anticipated decision came as Wilson is reportedly set to resign from the force, and also after days of preparation by local authorities and business owners.

Wilson has been cleared of any wrongdoing in the unarmed black teen's August 9 death, but that has not stopped protestors' rage from boiling over. Local authorities now have an angry population that's poised to explode after the prosecutor inexplicably made the announcement at night, hours after the grand jury finished deliberations and was sent home.

The decision sparked outrage in the predominantly black Ferguson community, which for months has been joined by a chorus of prominent civil rights leaders in saying such a decision would be a "miscarriage of justice." Local shop owners spent hours boarding up businesses as police and National Guard troops set up barricades around Clayton, where the courthouse is located, and Ferguson. Even statues and monuments were covered to protect them from vandals.

Safety measures put into place when Missouri Governor Jay Nixon declared a state of emergency last week immediately took effect. A number St. Louis County school districts announced last week in advance of the decision being made public that there would be no classes for at least this week. More announced class cancellations Monday in the hours after the grand jury was released.

A joint taskforce of St. Louis County and St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department officers, bolstered by the National Guard, moved in to control angry mobs expected to vent their rage on the boarded up streets of Ferguson. Business owners already hit hard by the last round of riots hunkered down and hoped for the best in the St. Louis suburb.

Wilson, who has been living in isolation since fatally shooting Brown, once again vanished from public view. His safety has been in question since August, but a recent bounty on his head put authorities on heightened alert. "The world will be watching us," St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay said during a Monday evening press conference.

Millions around the globe are watching, and wondering why the announcement was made hours after the decision.

This is a developing story, more information will come as it is made available.

[Drew Phipps]

President Obama will address the nation on this topic.

[Albert Doyle]

Prosecutor McCulloch said two shots were fired at officer Wilson in the car.


Later when detailing all the shots he then proceeded to say of the two shots in the car one grazed Michael Brown's thumb and the other lodged in the door by the hand rest. None of the reporters at the court noticed this diametrically opposite description. None of the paid CNN experts noticed it. McCulloch had described two completely different things.


McCulloch spent most his time making the witnesses look silly. He was clearly a biased participant and never should have been allowed to preside over any body associated with the event. This attacking of the witnesses is a common trick used by the authorities like with Flight 800.


In a very rare event for CNN lawyer and commentator Mark Geragos said this was a fixed event with a pre-determined outcome. He was cut off and the picture quickly went to a reporter at Ferguson.

[Peter Lemkin]

When the State or agents of the State [down to local Police and Officials] are suspected of criminal activity, they often resort by hook or crook to not having a trial - if it is not in the interest of the State to have a trial....be it Ferguson 2014 or Dallas 1963. In either case, had there been a trial, the Truth might have come out and Justice might have been done. While I'm not comparing the two matters, the fact that political/judicial manipulations were used to ensure there was no trial and no jury of peers, no real attempt at looking at the evidence and weighing it, in that way the two matters [as with so many others] bear similar patterns. The Grand Jury system, as with the larger Legal System has long been broken and easy to manipulate in favor of the State or even local powers and prosecutors. Even when there are trials, they are often [too often] manipulated in various ways - but to not have any trial erodes what little is left of the (in)justice system, IMO. Police are not held to account for possible crimes, nor use of overly aggressive and deadly force. Intelligence Agencies and the State - both the visible and Hidden 'States' [and their officials/hidden leaders] are not held to account for their crimes - nor are the rich and powerful. Laws, courts, police, prisons, etc. are basically used for keeping down and 'in line' the poor and middle class (the disenfranchised), as well as those who have interests other than those of the State. Hardly the hallmarks of a functional democracy - and IMO getting less so by the day. Looks more and more like a repressive Oligarchy to me - and has looked like one to me since 11/22/63 when a secret coup d'etat was allowed to go un-investigated and unpunished. If those kinds of crimes can not be held to account, it should come as no surprise that those of a 'little' policeman in the middle of 'nowhere' will, as well. Meanwhile many totally innocent people languish in prison or are even executed - before or after trial. The increasing use of brute forces over moral and legal ones - inside the nation, as without it - continues apace.

What is happening now in Ferguson was all too predictable and part of a pattern I see from sea to shining sea. In this case, institutionalized racism plus a general disregard for those who are not rich and powerful was played out. It happens regularly and increasingly, all over the Nation.

[Albert Doyle]

Even if Brown stole the cigars (which it looks like he did). Even if Brown punched officer Wilson in the face (which it looks like he did), once Brown was running away and Wilson had time to regroup and exit the car it became a totally new situation. One where the excuse of his life being in danger no longer applied. So prosecutor McCulloch helped Wilson stretch his fear for his life into a situation where there was no such justification. Police officers are trained to assess a situation and act according to their training. It sounds like Wilson was justifying his anger from a young out of control kid punching him into his shooting him dead with 12 bullets a minute later.

If you listen to Wilson's testimony it is very fuzzy and he says he doesn't remember how many shots he took. It's a classic "the gun just went off" type testimony. I don't trust him. I think he's lying.

Also, is it plausible that an unarmed boy who has already been shot is going to turn around and commit a Hara Kiri charge of a cop with his gun pointed at him?

None of Brown's friends who witnessed the whole thing were interviewed by the American media to see how this testimony lined up.

A week or so later the same police gunned down a disturbed man who walked towards them. They said he came at them with a weapon in a raised hand position. Video of the event showed otherwise, showing the man was mowed down in a hail of bullets from two officers after approaching them.

The St Louis cops have a new Bush form of Taser.

[Peter Lemkin]

AMY GOODMAN: We are in Clayton, Missouri, right next to Ferguson, Missouri, where we spent all last night. Today we're standing in front of - well, the Clayton Courthouse where the grand jury has deliberated close to two dozen times over the last few months, before they came out with their decision yesterday, announced by the prosecutor Bob McCulloch. Our guest right now, in New York, we're joined by Vince Warren, the Executive Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights who will help us decide- will help us understand the decision that the grand jury made. And with me here in subfreezing weather, here in Clayton is Osagyefo Sekou, he is the Pastor from the First Baptist Church in Jamaica Plain Massachusetts, dispatched to Ferguson by the Fellowship of Reconciliation. He went to high school in St. Louis and has family in Ferguson. We're going to go first to Vince Warren. Can you explain the grand jury decision?
VINCE WARREN: Yes, thanks Amy, and good to see you Sekou. It is almost inexplicable. The first thing we have to remember is that this is not a verdict. This hasn't gotten to verdict. This was an indictment. So the grand jury was asked to consider evidence in order to prefer charges so that the police officer could go to trial, but they did not do that. What was so strange about it is I've never seen, in my years, I've never seen a prosecutor take such a hands-off approach. And to listen to that press conference, Amy, you would think that he had just sort of spread out the pieces of paper on the table and said, grand jury, do your thing. Let me tell you, prosecutors never do that. There's a reason why they say prosecutors can indict a ham sandwich. It's because they can entirely control that process.
Now, they did release some of the transcripts yesterday. And I took a look at some of them, and what I saw, which people need to know, is that this wasn't just the grand jurors listening to the testimony I idly. The prosecutors are framing the evidence. And as you heard in that press conference yesterday, there was more talk about what Mike Brown did than there was about what Darren Wilson did. It was almost as if in that grand jury process looking to charge Darren Wilson, that they were really charging Mike Brown. And I also noticed in some of the transcripts that they were setting up the prosecutors were setting up the sense of fear, even asking the Police Sergeant when he got to Mike Brown's body, when he first got there, leading them into the testimony to say, yeah, there were people that were agitated, there were people that were upset, there were people that were moving around. And of course there were people that were agitated because Mike Brown's body was on the ground. But they're setting this up so that essentially to play into the defense of Darren Wilson, that he acted reasonably out of fear for his life, A, B, that he acted reasonably and pursuant to the law because he thought that Mike Brown was breaking the law.
So what we have is a grand jury system that for most people in the world seems to play out like it was, gosh, what can we do, the evidence was really overwhelming. But I don't think the evidence was. You only have one set of that story. Unfortunately, in this process, Mike Brown's side of the story never gets told. What we do know is the prosecutors were setting this up so that it was in the best light, in my view, it was, from what I've seen, in the best light for the police officer and his "reasonable belief" that his life was in danger, so that is why he shot.
I don't think we can take away anything from this decision not to indict other than that it is now officially open season on black folks when it comes to police violence. That feeling that most of us had yesterday when we were listening to the decision, that feeling in your stomach, that unsettling feeling like there's nothing we can do that is what injustice feels like. We have to remember that the folks on the ground feel that same way but they felt this for a long time. This is not a media event, this is life for people in the black community in urban areas. This is life for people in Ferguson. And so, yes, people are upset. People are acting out. People are disrupting the status quo. People want to shut it down. And frankly, I think that they should.
We should be thinking about the folks in Ferguson's pro-democracy protesters, as anti-structural racism protesters. Because when you think about what they're challenging on that big a scale, we know that a grand jury decision in one way or another is not when a solve the structural racism problem. What solves the structural racism problem is getting to people like Bob McCulloch so that he can't do the thing that he did in a press conference. If you notice, he on the one hand said this was a justified shooting by the police officer but then on the other hand said, oh, but we have to change the system. Those are completely inconsistent. It makes no sense. It makes no sense legally and certainly doesn't make any sense politically.
What we have with the protesters, and I'm happy that the Center for Constitutional Rights and Arch City Defenders locally on the ground, The National Lawyers Guild and Advancement Project have organized 300 lawyers to come down to be able to help represent the protesters because this is what our democracy looks like. Let's not think about this as these people are burning folks here or these people are throwing rocks here, that entire picture that you're looking at, Amy, that you are involved in, that is the state, the representation of the state of our democracy for black folks in America. It is messy, can be ugly, it's full of passion but people should not turn away from it. People should not try to tamper down and control it. People should begin to understand that if that is what we are dealing with, if that is where we are as a society, we need to think about structural changes in order to change the status quo.
AMY GOODMAN: Vincent Warren, the St. Louis County prosecutor's office has released Darren Wilson's testimony to the grand jury showing the officer described the 18-year-old Michael Brown as looking like a "demon" on the day of the shooting. Wilson said, "And when I grabbed him, the only way I can describe it is I felt like a five-year-old holding onto Hulk Hogan." Wilson went on to claim that Brown punched him twice and was concerned the third punch could be fatal or knock him unconscious. He defended his decision to shoot Brown multiple times. Wilson said, "At this point it looked like he was almost bulking up to run through the shots, like it was making him mad that I'm shooting at him." In addition to the testimony, the prosecutors released images of Darren Wilson in the hospital after the altercation. One of his cheeks was red, but wasn't heavily bruised. So, here we have Darren Wilson, four hours of testimony, Mike Brown was not there to give his side of the story.
VINCE WARREN: That's right, Amy. It is important to recognize that at this moment, we have to become clear as a society that police officers can commit crimes even while on duty. And police officers can and do lie particularly, particularly in these types of legal proceedings. I would note that I was looking through some of the Sergeant testimony and when he first talked to Darren Wilson, when the Sergeant got to the scene, he talked to him about what happened but he didn't write it down. And the reason why he said he did not write it down was because he was multitasking. Now, that kind of evidence collection becomes critically important because it gives if you don't have it, it gives the police officer the opportunity to change his story, to present the facts in the light that is more favorable to them. And you can certainly do that in a criminal trial when you're the defendant. But remember, police officers have two duties. One is that they have to preserve the evidence in order for people to find out what happened but it sounds to me like Darren Wilson was afforded the opportunity to create an evidentiary narrative that supported his version of the events. This is a huge problem and is not unique to Ferguson. This happens all over the country in every criminal context that we can think of. Ask any defense attorney about this and they will tell you that the way this went down with the prosecutor's office, with the police department was so shady, it was so shady that you can't have any confidence, any confidence whatsoever that the story that Darren Wilson told is in fact what happened.

We are standing in front of the Clayton Courthouse where the grand jury deliberated over the last months. The Clayton Courthouse is called the Justice Center.
REV. OSAGYEFO SEKOU: Well, it seems the case that the name of the center is inappropriate given the high level of repression and undemocratic engagement by the prosecutor, the Governor. These young people have been betrayed every level of government. As West Florissant burned last night, democracy was on fire last night. The Constitution shredded. And young people who have been backed into a corner, abused by the police system for many years as you mentioned earlier, I went to high school here. I remember being told by my mother and my sister not to go through Ferguson. I remember police sticking their hands in our underwear and accusing us of being drug dealers when we were just some preppy kids with argyle socks attempting to go on dates. The rage that we have seen today, last night, is a reflection of the kind of alienation and the few options that young people feel like they have to express their democratic rights at this moment.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to talk about what burned and what didn't. We were on South Florissant. In fact, I saw Jelani at South Florissant. The riot police were lined up. There were armored vehicles, automatic weapons. They were really taking on the protesters. But when we went to West Florissant where the buildings are, the businesses, mainly black-run businesses, there was no National Guard in sight. When we were here months ago, when we were here months ago on West Florissant, you cannot even make a turn there. They had completely sealed off the area. But last night, to our shock, we drove unimpeded right down West Florissant. People were breaking windows. They were setting the buildings on fire. This is black Ferguson that was left by the National Guard, is that right?
REV. OSAGYEFO SEKOU: Yes. I was there for some two hours and witnessed first-hand the lack of response by the fire department, the casual nature, the way in which the way the police engaged. They eventually shot tear gas. But what we are seeing now is this was a primary example of the racial divide in Ferguson, in St. Louis, and the nation. Because this story has always been about Mike Brown and bigger than Mike Brown. Every other day in America, every other day, some black or brown child is subject to the arbitrary violence of the state with little to no recourse that every other day in America, a mother is writing a funeral program that would perhaps be the elegy of the democracy.
AMY GOODMAN: Jelani, I saw you on South Florissant. That is where the Ferguson police the newly built Ferguson Police Department is. Describe the scene and what you saw.
JELANI COBB: Initially, there was a crowd gathered out there. People were silently hoping against hope that there would be that there would be an indictment. And there was none in the offing. People were there. They were hearing the long-winded and insulting statement the prosecutor Bob McCulloch gave before announcing that there would be no indictment. Then you begin to see tensions ratcheting up. But as that happened, there was kind of a noose structure that the police enacted. They were on the kind of north side of the street. And then in short order, you saw armored vehicles and a very significant number of police kind of marching in formation with weapons some had weapons drawn. There were tear gas canisters that began to be fired. They had people hemmed in, in essence, on South Florissant.
And as you said, on West Florissant, it was shocking to see the lack of police presence there. And so, we heard earlier in the evening, we heard from Governor Jay Nixon as well as last week on Friday at a press conference that Mayor Francis Slay of St. Louis gave, and they use the word "restraint." They said that the police would be restrained in their response. It seemed as if somehow they gotten the message, perhaps, that people wanted to be treated like human beings. And then we saw what restraint looked like last night. Restraint was a kind of nonchalant approach to what was happening on the black side of town with a hyper-vigilant approach to what was happening on the white side of town.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to read a quote of Dr. Martin Luther King. This was what three weeks before he was assassinated. It was March 14, 1968. He said, "It's not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent and intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say, tonight, that a riot is the language of the unheard." That is Dr. Martin Luther King three weeks before he was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, April 4, 1968. Reverend Sekou?
REV. OSAGYEFO SEKOU: It is quite relevant to this moment, the reality that these young people face. We hear it all the time for 100 days, them saying that I'm ready to die because I don't have anything to live for. School systems have betrayed them. The President has betrayed them. Eric Holder has betrayed them. Governor Nixon has betrayed them. Chief Jackson has betrayed them, the electoral system has betrayed them. They have extremely limited options, school systems decrepit, no economic opportunity. And so then on top of that, to see their brother, their son laid in the street for 4.5 hours and to have wound upon wound that they are in a situation where that the destruction of property seems the only way that they can vent their rage because they have been given no recourses. And so, while the president calls for calm but is not dispatched enough resource to hold Darren Wilson and a draconian police force accountable, we of simply betrayed them. It is a shame that the nation has engaged as such behavior among the most vulnerable young people in our nation.
AMY GOODMAN: What about the issue, Jelani Cobb, of civil rights charges being brought against Darren Wilson? I mean, Eric Holder, the Attorney General, is retiring leaving his position, but he did come to Ferguson. Yesterday, President Obama was in the White House and he honored 18 people. Among them were three posthumously; James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Mickey Schwerner. The state did not bring charges against the men who killed these three civil rights workers in 1964. But then the federal government did.
JELANI COBB: Right. There's been this conversation around this. One of the things that happen here, is that people will say the narrative that we have heard, we heard Mayor Giuliani say something along these lines, former Mayor Giuliani of New York, say something along these lines that people are rioting, that they have no respect for democracy, that they have no respect for other people's lives, other people's property. In fact, people have rioted and rebelled last night precisely because of the opposite. Because the traditional mechanisms of democracy have failed them. So, people did not riot immediately. There was some small scale skirmishes, but largely, people kind of withheld their anger in hopes that the actual system of legal recourse would grant them some relief in a situation of Michael Brown's death. That did not happen. And failing that, people began to enact the plan of last resort.
When Eric Holder came here in the summer, he counseled restraint, he counseled people to give the legal system an opportunity to work. And last night was a refutation of that. That given all their patience, that given all their hope, given all their idealism, despite what we've seen with Trayvon Martin, despite what we've seen with John Ford, John Crawford, rather, in Ohio, despite what we've seen with Oscar Grant all these circumstances that we can outline people still had faith that the legal system might give them a modicum of justice. It is difficult to say that there's a likelihood that there's going to be civil rights charges now. It would be very difficult to prove that this was done kind of racially motivated or that Mr. Brown was intentionally deprived of his civil rights. And so, I'm not much more optimistic than the people who were out on West Florissant rioting that the legal system will give any kind of recourse.
AMY GOODMAN: In 162,000 cases in 2010, grand juries, these federal cases, grand juries declined to return an indictment in 11. Of 162,000 federal cases. Reverend Sekou, this is the first night of protest, and I wanted to ask a question about the timing. There was a big discussion about whether the decision would be announced 48 hours later, 24 hours. In the end, they decided to announce it at night late at night. Why? Did that contribute to what happened in the streets?
REV. OSAGYEFO SEKOU: I mean, it was clearly orchestrated in such a way that it created a context of provocation. That it was during the summer that it had become evident that the later it got, the hotter it got in terms of people's relationship to the police. And so is seems that way. But, as we think about this reference to the civil rights movements, these young people have been in the street for over 100 days. A third of the way of the Montgomery bus boycott. With limited resources, limited access to the civil rights tradition, limited support from various institutions and infrastructures. But for over 100 days, they been primarily nonviolent in their approach to this. They gave the system a chance, and the system broke their heart. And then many of them right now as we speak, 125 of my colleagues are in the streets right now prepared to engage in acts of civil resistance in a nonviolent tradition. There will be ongoing nonviolent protests. I mean think about that. This is the second longest protest, I believe, brother here's story, in 50 years of black people, calling America to account, making her say and be honorable to the things she has placed on paper. And so, rather than demonizing these young people, we should be celebrating. Because what they're doing is stretching that living document of the Constitution and creating a space for the possibility for America to be true to what she said on paper.
JELANI COBB: Can I add, can I add to this, Reverend Sekou? One of the things that we saw that was personally most inspiring here was that people began here in a community they said was not extensively organized. And they taught themselves rapidly how to organize. And they came out in that brutal, unforgiving, relentless heat of August and protested and marched and protested and a thunderstorm struck in that first week. You saw thunder and lightning in the sky, and people were marching and protesting saying, black lives matter, hands up, don't shoot.
We saw the weather change. We saw an early winter set in. And despite all of those obstacles, despite the aspersions from the official parts of this community as well as from other individuals that were in unsympathetic to this cause, people came out again night after night after night, and they refused to let Michael Brown's death be in vain. I think that is what we should take from this. This story is not over. The flames are a preface, they are not a coda. This story has not ended. I think that people will find some means of achieving justice in the long haul, and that people here are committed to doing whatever they need to do for as long as they need to do it to make sure that that happens.
AMY GOODMAN: And tonight, what are the plans? In terms of organized protests and what you understand of what else will be happening?
REV. OSAGYEFO SEKOU: Well, there are actions happening right now as we speak throughout Clayton, bearing witness to the injustice that these young people have experienced and that this city and community has experienced. There will be a action and people will be gathering at Kiener Plaza at noon today and subsequent action and there will be ongoing actions every day on every hour in this place for over 100 days. People have been in the street willing to put their bodies on the line, risking arrest, tear gas, pepper spray, because they are trying to keep alive the best of the democratic tradition.
AMY GOODMAN: Jelani Cobb, we have ten seconds. Your final thoughts?
JELANI COBB: The only thing that I can say is this is Ferguson is America. That what happened here is not atypical. This is a national problem and something that we all need to be mindful of it, or we will see more Fergusons in the future.

[Drew Phipps]

It is apparent to me after reading the available material that the reason the grand jury decided not to indict was that they were presented and considered "defensive evidence". This practice is virtually unheard of in a grand jury proceeding, in that the job of the grand jury is to decide if there is probable cause, not guilt or innocence.

On the one hand, allowing defensive evidence into a grand jury proceeding might seem fair, and will certainly prevent many of the needless indictments that clutter our justice system. On the other hand, grand jury proceedings are not public, they are secret; and reaching the ultimate issue of guilt or innocence in a secret proceeding was one of the underlying reasons for the American Revolution.

[Peter Lemkin]

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: On Tuesday, the family of Michael Brown held a press conference at a church not far from Ferguson. Michael Brown Senior was present but did not speak. He wore a red St. Louis baseball caps and much of the one his son had on when he was killed by Officer Darren Wilson, and a T-shirt that read No Justice No Peace. The first speaker was the Brown family's attorney Benjamin Crump, who blasted St. Louis County prosecutor Bob MucCulloch's handling of the evidence before the grand jury, leading to the decision he announced Monday night.

BENJAMIN CRUMP: Attorney Gray and Attorney Darryl Parks and myself we objected back in August to this prosecutor. We even wrote a letter to Governor Jay Nixon requesting a special prosecutor to be appointed. We objected when he informed us the process that he was going to use that was different than anything else, different than any normal grand jury that you would have presented. And now after we watched him last night and his comments, we strenuously objected to this prosecutor and this process. But this morning, after we, like all of you, went through as much of the information I think it was described as a data dump we went through as much of it as we could and saw how completely unfair this process was. We object publicly and loudly as we can on behalf of Michael Brown Junior's family that this process is broken.

The process should be indicted. It should be indicted because of the continuous systematic results that is yielded by this process. And let's be very honest. Let's be very honest about this process. We have the local prosecutor who has a symbiotic relationship with the local police and the local police officers who sit in judgment whether they indict the police when they brutalize or kill a young person from our community. Normally, that prosecutor has no relationship or no regards for the young person of color. And so, as Attorney Gray, Attorney Parks predicted at the beginning, we could foresee what the outcome was going to be. And that is exactly what occurred last night.
AMY GOODMAN: That's Benjamin Crump, the lawyer for Michael Brown Jr.'s family, speaking Tuesday at the Greater Saint Mark's Church in Ferguson. Democracy Now! was there on the streets and then inside the news conference to ask questions after the Reverend Al Sharpton spoke.

AL SHARPTON: Three days after Michael Brown Junior was killed, we had a major rally in this very church. We said that night, with his parents present, that we had little to no faith in the grand jury by the local district attorney. We said that night that we wanted the federal government to come in. That Sunday we had a unity rally where thousands came and joined us. We repeated it. And all the way through the funeral where I eulogized. Last night, the appearance by the district attorney made it clear to everyone why we had little faith in a state prosecution. I have been out involved in civil rights all my life. We have seen cases go ways that we felt were right and ways that we felt was wrong.

I have never seen a prosecutor hold a press conference to discredit the victim. Where he went out of his way to go point by point in discrediting Michael Brown Jr., who cannot defend himself. How do you, in explaining why you're not indicting a man that killed, try and convict the young man for shoplifting that can't explain the tape, try to convict him for interfering in the police car when you don't hear his side of the story. Have you ever heard a prosecutor go in a press conference to explain to the press why the one that did the killing is not going to trial, but the victim is guilty of several things that no one has established? It also was very strange to us that he lectured the media a media that he and others had no problem with when you leaked the video tape of Michael Brown in the cigar store or in the convenience store, a media that you had no problem making all kinds of favorable stuff for the prosecution, a media you had no problem leaking things for the officer. So, it seems to me that he has had the use of the media, then has a strange decision in a town that has been tense, in a town that has been forecast to have all kinds of problems, his solution is, let's announce it at night after dark. Let's make sure that all the kids are home, that all the students are back for Thanksgiving break, and it's dark outside. And we gonna announce it and then I'm going to get up in the dark and castigate the character Michael Brown Jr.
I think that it was the responsible. I think that it was unnecessarily provocative. But, I think it only cleared why many of us said, let's go to the federal government from the first place. He implied last night that the federal government and the state investigation ran hand-in-hand and ended last night. That is not the case. The Attorney General has released a statement saying the federal government investigation continues in the killing and in the review, and Mr. MucCulloch's statements last night are led others to believe differently. Let me be very clear that we were not surprised at what the outcome was. Certainly, it is painful for the mother and father, certainly, there will be emotional reaction. I've never seen a case where there wasn't. You are dealing with their flesh and blood. But, let the record be clear, you have broken our hearts, but you have not broken our backs.

AMY GOODMAN: Two quick questions. Yesterday, the grand jury handed down it's decision. In Washington, President Obama awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom to the civil rights activists Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman who their killers were not indicted by the state but by the federal government. Are you hoping for the same thing here. And number two, last night, as we covered the protests in front of the Ferguson police station, it was packed with riot police, state troopers were there, all the advanced weaponry was there. When we went over to West Florissant and expected to be stopped there by the police as we were at the protests months ago, it was wide open. We saw no state troopers and we hardly saw police. Do you think the authorities let Ferguson burn?

CROWD: Yup, yeah, yes, yes! [Clapping]

AL SHARPTON: Well, let me say to the first part of your question, because I think the second question has been answered. The first part of you question, it is and you are probably more aware than most of the media, if not all that are here it has been the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement that you always had to go to the federal government and could not depend on states. Whether it was Goodman, Chaney or Schwerner, whether it was Michael Brown Jr. So, we are not in a strange place. We had hoped we'd be in a different place, but it's not strange. And I think that it is interesting that on the day that Goodman, Chaney and Schwerner were given the Medal of Freedom was the day that McCulloch decided, in the dark hours, to announce the state decision on the Michael Brown case, and eight years ago today, Sean Bell was killed by police in New York. So, all of these things come together. But, I think the lawyers have stated the legal case. I say that many of us from Marc Morial and Cornell Brooks and all of us, this is not our first rodeo McCulloch. We will deal with this in a way civil rights leader have.

[Albert Doyle]

CNN had a hired forensic expert on today saying they got it right as the science showed. The CNN legal lady agreed.



Meanwhile here's an eyewitness who was there:



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8L3iAOy_5g