New witnesses to the apparent execution of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, have come forward. CNN has cellphone video of them watching what happened and, oh yeah, they’re two white contractors from out of town. Isn’t it funny how that “white” part makes a big difference (to us white people)? The video and the description of events offered by these witnesses is strong evidence that Michael Brown was indeed executed that afternoon.
Tag Archives: Crime
What People Say Happened in Ferguson
The town of Ferguson is near St. Louis, Missouri. It has a population of 21,000, so it’s big enough to have a small police force. Everyone agrees that Darren Wilson, a Ferguson police officer, shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed black man, around noon on August 9th. The results of the official autopsy haven’t been released yet, but it’s been reported that it will substantially agree with a second autopsy done at the family’s request: Wilson shot Brown approximately six times.
I spent some time recently trying to find out how many witnesses to the incident there were and what they had to say. It wasn’t easy, but two sites had some details. One was Wikipedia and the other was The Root. The latter is a magazine devoted to African-American news and commentary founded by Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Donald Graham, Chairman and CEO of what used to be the Washington Post.
Here’s a summary based on these two sources and a statement made by the St. Louis County police chief on August 17th:
Officer Wilson ordered Michael Brown and Dorian Johnson to walk on the sidewalk, not the street. Wilson and Brown got into a physical altercation while Wilson was still in his police car. A shot was fired in the car, which may or may not have struck Brown. Wilson’s face was apparently bruised during the struggle. Brown then ran away. Wilson got out of his car, chased Brown and fired again. Apparently, none of these other shots hit Brown until Brown turned around and faced Wilson. At that point, Wilson continued to fire, killing Brown. Overall, Brown was shot four times in his right arm and twice in his head. Brown’s body ended up about 35 feet from Wilson’s car.
Whether or not Brown raised his hands to surrender after he turned around, or fell toward Wilson, or decided to move toward Wilson, is now a matter of dispute. However, the four people who claim to have seen the shooting and who have been identified so far (Dorian Johnson, Piaget Crenshaw, Tiffany Mitchell and James McKnight) all indicate that Brown wasn’t threatening Officer Wilson at that point. They suggest, in fact, that Wilson executed Brown. On the other hand, Officer Wilson, who still hasn’t been directly quoted, is said to have felt threatened. The wounds Brown suffered are consistent with Brown having surrendered and fallen toward the ground, although they don’t rule out Brown having moved toward Wilson with his head down.
If this were the only evidence presented and I was on the jury, I’d have to conclude that Officer Wilson was guilty of second-degree murder. It wouldn’t be first-degree murder, since there’s no evidence of premeditation. Firing his weapon at Brown as Brown was running away indicates Wilson’s willingness to use deadly force. The consistency of the four statements from people who apparently didn’t know each other (except for the two women, one of whom supervises the other at work) implies that Brown had stopped running and was giving up. Is there reason to doubt that this is what happened? Of course, it’s possible that Brown meant to stop Officer Wilson from firing at him by moving toward Wilson. But so far there is no good reason (which is the definition of “reasonable doubt”) to think that Wilson was in danger when he killed Brown.
At some point, it would be helpful to hear a police officer admit that the deadly force he (it always seems to be “he”) applied to some black man or some crazy person wasn’t necessary. He’d explain that he was angry and excited and fearful and his emotions took over. He’d remind us that police officers hate it when their authority is challenged. He’d also remind us that he’s only human and that having the power of life and death over one’s fellow citizens will sometimes inevitably lead to misuse of that power. He’d further admit that, when it comes right down to it, he’s like too many Americans in feeling that some people’s lives just aren’t as valuable as others, especially black people’s.
Update:
The New York Times ran an article two days ago concerning “conflicting accounts” of what happened in Ferguson. To her credit, Margaret Sullivan, the Times‘ Public Editor (which is similar to an ombudsman), points out here that:
The story goes on to quote, by name, two eyewitnesses who say that Mr. Brown had his hands up as he was fired on. As for those who posit that Mr. Brown was advancing on the officer who was afraid the teenager was going to attack him, the primary source on this seems to be what Officer Wilson told his colleagues on the police force. The Times follows this with an unattributed statement: “Some witnesses have backed up that account.” But we never learn any more than that…[The Times story] sets up an apparently equal dichotomy between named eyewitnesses on one hand and ghosts on the other.
Kitty Genovese Was Raped and Killed 50 Years Ago, But…
Everybody who was around in 1964 knows the story of Kitty Genovese. She’s the young woman who was stabbed to death on a street in New York City while 38 witnesses supposedly did nothing to help.
The lesson we all learned back then was that society was falling apart. People would listen to somebody screaming outside their window and do nothing because “they didn’t want to get involved”, especially a bunch of self-centered, cowardly, unfeeling big-city types. I was only 12 at the time, living on the other side of the continent, but it was easy for me and everyone else to form a mental image of what happened that night: a woman repeatedly crying for help in a narrow street or alley as onlookers looked down from their windows or sat on their fire escapes doing nothing.
An article in the New York Post (by the way, one of the most unreliable newspapers in America) tells a very different story, based on a new book called Kitty Genovese: The Murder, the Bystanders, the Crime that Changed America.
It was 3 a.m. Somebody called the police immediately after Genovese was stabbed on the street (although the police didn’t show up, not realizing the nature of the incident). She was able to walk home but collapsed in her apartment building’s vestibule, not outside where people could hear her. Her killer was initially scared away by a witness, but then followed her into the building and attacked her again. That’s where she died as one of her neighbors held her in her arms.
According to the article, there were two witnesses who were certainly blameworthy. One of them even said “he didn’t want to get involved”. But if you believe the Post article, this is another case in which a story got told and retold because it confirmed something people already believed: people who live in big cities aren’t real Americans and don’t care enough about anyone else to bother calling the cops when a young woman is being raped and murdered. Which, if you’ve ever spent much time in New York City, where you tend to rub shoulders with lots of different people every day, you know isn’t true at all.
On a related note, does living in a city like New York make you more or less accepting of people who don’t look or sound like you? You see people whose families came from everywhere in the world going about their daily business, sitting next to you on the subway, or waiting in line at the deli. Familiarity breeds contempt sometimes, or a bad experience does the same, but I think that sharing space with a wide variety of people all behaving in similar ways tends to make city-dwellers more favorable toward democracy and social programs. Maybe it’s easier to be a liberal, less fearful or disdainful of those “other” people, if you see all manner of human beings up close, following the rules, doing the same things you do every day.
Hearing Amanda Knox
Amanda Knox has again been found guilty of Meredith Kercher’s murder in Perugia, Italy, four years ago. Fortunately, she has no plans to visit Italy again. It also seems highly unlikely that she will ever be extradited, given the highly questionable evidence in the case and the way in which she has been treated by the Italian criminal justice system. It’s worth repeating that there was no physical evidence implicating her, the prosecution couldn’t come up with a motive and she (a 19-year old in a foreign country) was pressured into confessing.
A few months ago, I wrote a few posts about my experience as a prospective juror in a criminal trial (not murder, just insurance fraud). For some reason, people (or computer programs) kept accessing those posts as the months went by. Maybe it was because I expressed some relatively “non-liberal” opinions about our own legal system. But cases like Amanda Knox’s should make us wonder how often innocent people confess or plead guilty in order to stop their interrogations or get a shorter sentence.
In a similar vein, it’s amazing how often our legal system plods along, refusing to respond when new evidence comes out showing that someone in prison was wrongly convicted. It’s as if the judges and prosecutors are more committed to defending their earlier decisions and victories than in serving justice (maybe that shouldn’t be amazing at all). That’s one of the points Amanda Knox makes in a recent interview she gave to the Guardian (the video is available here). Some in the British press were especially merciless in depicting her as a sex-crazed nut job. I hope this interview gets widespread attention. It shows her in a very different light.
Money: a Better Explanation for the NJ Bridge Scandal
The biggest mystery about the Fort Lee, New Jersey, bridge scandal isn’t whether our governor, who is well-known as a loudmouthed, hotheaded bully, was behind the whole thing. The biggest mystery is why Christie or his inner circle would bother messing with Fort Lee at all. Why was it “time for some traffic in Fort Lee”? Because the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee (population 35,000, the 23rd largest city in the state) didn’t endorse Christie’s reelection? It doesn’t make any sense.
No, a much better explanation is offered by Steve Kornacki, a journalist who knows New Jersey politics. He suggests that the reason for creating that massive days-long traffic jam may have been to interfere with a billion-dollar real estate development that just happens to sit at the Fort Lee entrance to the George Washington Bridge.
As Kornacki explains, the development is premised on excellent access to the bridge and New York City. With one access lane instead of three, the location would be significantly less valuable. If the closure lasted any length of time, the deal might have collapsed. If the deal collapsed, the lanes could then be reopened, allowing some other real estate developer to jump in.
Or maybe it was merely a way to extort some campaign contributions from the kind of people politicians love – in this case, rich people who develop real estate.
One way or another, those traffic lanes involve serious money!
On top of that, it’s clear from Kornacki’s report that Christie and his minions knew about the development and access to the bridge. They’re on record suggesting the access should be limited. That’s why they keep bringing up the “traffic study” nobody else knows anything about.
But it wasn’t a traffic study at all. It looks more like a traffic demonstration: this is what will happen to your major real estate development if we cut access to the bridge by 67%. This would explain why they kept the traffic jam going for days. They had to show they meant business!
Of course, it isn’t clear yet why Christie or his pals would want to use their power this way. But it shouldn’t be surprising if it’s eventually revealed that the fate of a billion dollar real estate deal – and who will profit from that deal – had much more to do with it than some stupid revenge against a Democratic mayor who didn’t endorse the reelection of our Republican governor (even though our governor is known to be a especially vindictive).
Chalk one up for the freedom of the press, even if money had nothing to do with it.
The video with Steve Kornacki’s quite interesting report is here at the aptly-named Crooks and Liars site.
Update: The New York Times reports that the Christie administration became very cooperative with Jersey City’s Democratic mayor, even setting up a whole day of meetings with top state officials, after Christie asked the mayor for his endorsement. When the mayor announced he wasn’t going to endorse Christie’s reelection, the state officials immediately canceled their day of meetings. So maybe Christie and his inner circle were just playing politics in Fort Lee (although playing it very badly).
Meanwhile, the Federal government is looking into Christie’s use of hurricane Sandy relief funds, some of which were used to run TV advertising encouraging tourists to return to the Jersey Shore. Two ad agencies bid on the project. Christie picked the campaign in which he himself would appear, even though it cost a couple million dollars more than the other bid. Christie was running for reelection at the time, so he must have figured it was federal money well-spent.
Whereof One Can Speak 🇺🇦 
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