Editor’s Note: February 2, 2016
After uncovering misattributed quotes in stories written by Juan Thompson, a former staff reporter, The Intercept conducted a review of his work. We were unable to confirm the quote in this piece attributed to Odetta Cantwell.
SAINT LOUIS, Mo. — The St. Louis region found itself in a strange and uncertain recovery mode Tuesday, following a night of unrest after officials announced there would be no indictment against Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown.
On the ground in Ferguson, some residents came out at 6 a.m. to clean up the streets and to repair damaged buildings. In downtown St. Louis, 300 protesters marched through largely empty streets chanting “hands up don’t shoot,” “black lives matter,” and “You didn’t indict. We shall fight.”
Interstate 44 was temporarily shut down after the same demonstrators blocked traffic. Police in riot gear eventually pushed the demonstrators back and reopened the freeway. “What’s happening in St. Louis is an injustice,” said protestor Odetta Cantwell.
The Brown family held a press conference Tuesday afternoon. Neither Michael Brown’s mother nor his father spoke, leaving remarks instead to their attorney Benjamin Crump. “The whole process is broken and should be indicted,” an angry Crump thundered. Crump also called for a national “Michael Brown Law,” which would make body cameras on police officers mandatory.
Missouri Governor Jay Nixon, who has received criticisms from all sides for the events that unfolded Monday night, told reporters, “The violence we saw in Ferguson last night cannot be repeated. The National Guard presence will be ramped up significantly.” More than 2000 guardsmen will be on hand tonight to squash any potential troubles. Nixon stressed that the Guardsmen would be stationed outside the Ferguson Police Department headquarters, which has been the hub of demonstrations since Brown’s killing.
Meanwhile, ABC News scored the first public interview with Wilson. The interview is scheduled to air on World News Tonight Tuesday. There is no information as to where or when the sit-down was recorded.
Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty
Contact the author:
Juan Thompson
I think it does a disservice whenever we speak of Ferguson only in terms of national race issues. The truth of the matter is – per http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/11/26/how-segregation-led-to-speed-traps-traffic-tickets-and-distrust-outside-st-louis/ – the town is considering a reform to cap traffic tickets at 15% of its revenue. Think about what this means — people there are constantly being pulled over and searched, like a counterinsurgency. Many residents have good reason to be paranoid about “Driving While Black”, so there will be racial issues and jaded cops used to dealing with sometimes unfounded racial issues. But it doesn’t really have much to do with race relations in America — it has to do with the constant push from progressive taxation to PER CAPITA taxation. The rich have all the money, but the poor pay almost all the traffic tickets because there are so many of them. The same with soft drink tax, 911 access fee, tobacco and alcohol taxes and all the others. As the U.S. converts from a society of opportunity to one of privilege, the common people become insurgents, and are treated like insurgents, and behave like insurgents.
Yes, those 2 words have exceptionally different meanings. Any person who quotes another — especially if a journalist quotes someone and uses that quote as a headline for their article — must be as certain as possible to ensure the quoted material is factual. Mr. Thompson’s error has been noted in 2 of his Ferguson-related articles within the comment sections so that he might take note of his obvious error and make a correction.
However, he must never read the comments to his articles or he simply does not care that his article contains nonfactual, clearly erroneous quotes. I simply will never consider his other articles as credible and/or factual unless he (or another TI staff member/proofreader/editor) acknowledges and corrects the error. Although I understand his frustration with the ‘system’, Mr. Brown’s stepfather was patently wrong for inciting property destruction via arson especially since many innocent business owners lost property and their employees lost jobs.
My previous comment was intended as a reply to another commenter (Ethan Allen) within the first comment of this section that I entered below on the 25th.
Uncertain you say.
May it please the court to look closely at the confiscation under way in Detroit.
We humbly also submit that the Governors of both States where unjustified murders, by State security personnel, of young black men are Democrat Party members.
Who we must point out are in urgent need of the “black vote” in 2016, unless the women (aka feminist?) vote can make up the difference.
Apologies to the court for the inconvenience.
It seems unlikely that we will be better at policing our police any time soon. The grand jury process, within the larger adversarial judicial process that we have, is greatly flawed in this respect. Our judicial system is structured such that there are two sides, with a magistrate acting as referee. On one side is the defense team, on the other is the prosectors team. The 2 main players on the prosectorial team are law enforcement and the prosecutor’s office. Each relies on the other every day, before now and after. Successful performance in their respective departments means complete dependency of one upon the other. So, how in this present system could we ever expect a prosecutors office to even undermine the police, much less hold them to legal account? The Grand Jury process for police must be advocated by independent council: council that is employed exclusively for this task.
Boycott bread! Get it out of the house! Out of the store! Don’t let them make anymore! It is common knowledge that a grand jury can indict a ham sandwich. If a pig can not be indicted, then that BREAD must be the dangerous part…
The officer reported that when attacked Brown had the face of a ‘demon’.
This observation is becoming common.
Good become evil and evil becomes good.
Know who your enemy is America.
Many news sites do not allow these ‘questioning our sanity’ posts. For example my post concerning censorship at Business Insider (in article about Chinese censorship) was rejected.
Is America cursed? As a country that lacks even common sense would appear so. I vote Flush!
Mike Brown 5ft 5in = 165,10 m
Darren Wilson 6ft 4 = 193,04 m
The sizes are in this article:
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/nov/24/how-darren-wilson-avoided-criminal-charges
You can get some glimpses of Wilson’s size in this video & the interviewer says: “You’re a pretty big guy.”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Llwdma6zVhA
Note as well that a witness stated that Wilson tried to pull Mike Brown into the car.
The “recovery” will be hastened when Wilson is stripped of his badge. Given that he just gave an interview to George Stephanopoulus in which he glibly announced that he would do “nothing different” he has just publicly admitted that he has neither the physical, emotional, nor psychological resources to do his job. If he honestly thinks he had NO other resources than killing an unarmed young man, then he should have been fired as he came out of the news studio.
A man who has already killed an unarmed person is a known dangerous entity. One who admits publicly he would do it again, is incomparably more so. Get this menace off the streets.
The family of Michael Brown is holding a news conference the day after a grand jury decided not to indict a Ferguson police officer in the teen’s shooting death.
The video begins after 19:20
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItDyDO1MfgA#t=1276
At 51:30
About the outburst of Mike Brown’s parent on Monday night.
At 53:50
Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! addressing the fact that the part of Ferguson-Florissant with mostly Black inhabitants was not protected by the national guard which she includes in the Democracy Now! video below.
http://www.democracynow.org/2014/11/25/riot_as_the_language_of_the
45:47
“What burned & what didn’t?”
– South Florissant, the White part of the district, didn’t. The riot police were lined up to block the protestors.
– West Florissant, where there are Black owned businesses, no national guard was in sight last night. There were people breaking windows & setting buildings on fire. N.B.: Remains the question WHO did this.
54:20
The announcement came late at night – a context of provocation.
54:45
– Over a 100 days of primarily non-violent resistance. “They gave the system a chance, & the system broke their heart.”
– The protestors had “limited resources, limited access to the civil right tradition, limited support of various institutions & infrastructures”. They taught themselves rapidly how to be organized. They should be “celebrated as heroes & not demonized”.
https://twitter.com/MattBruenig/status/537351575732518912
There is no such thing as Negative Liberty.
Meanwhile, a postscript. Seems that the medical examiner took no photos or measurements of Michael Brown, even though he had been laying there all that time.
http://crooksandliars.com/2014/11/medical-examiner-took-no-measurements
So much for McCullough’s showing the grand jury all the physical evidence.
What do you mean that the recovery is awkward?
I don’t know if I can express myself at all coherently about all this. The situation is just so disturbing.
I did see the interview of Wilson on ABC news tonight. I am not at all impressed with him. He said there was nothing he could have done differently (come on, NOTHING?). George S. asked him if this would haunt him. I can’t quote him exactly but he said no – it was just “something that happened.” Really? You kill someone and that is just “something that happened?” Even in self-defense wouldn’t one be shaken up a bit more than that?
I also saw a few minutes of an interview with a Ferguson pastor on BBC World News Tonight. One thing he said that hit me: he said that “They” said the National Guard would protect the community, but what did they really protect? The police station and gov’t interests.
There’s also an interesting article at NPR news online at how law enforcement did NOT work with the protest groups:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/11/25/366601936/ferguson-unravels-despite-planning
If you didn’t read it, do take the time to read the article avelna2001 posted in the BTSD – mayhem thread. That article also links to another article which is also worth reading the two work in tandem really.
I hear all of you who are saying that this is an issue that should not divide us. While it’s hard to find good statistics on police shootings, I wouldn’t be surprised is they disproportionately affect minorities and especially the poor (and sometimes the mentally challenged or mentally ill). There certainly is a racial subtext at work in criminal justice and law enforcement. But police abuse could happen to anyone – check out policestateusa.org for some stories from all around the country. My point is that this issue in particular, and the larger issue of the increasingly harsh and militarized brand of policing now emerging should concern everyone. We need real reforms. Lapel cameras are a good idea. Two gentlemen from the Ferguson area indicated two items they thought could make a real difference are diversifiying the police forces and having officers actually live in the communities they serve. I might also add better training on how NOT to escalate situations – including protests and better training on handling the mentally challenged and mentally ill. We probably need better screening and communication procedures so that 911 calls don’t inflame situations more. How about better screening of potential officers? And maybe, some changes in law and procedures to make police more accountable for alleged abuses (though that might be a tough one!)
“it was just “something that happened”
If you’ve ever applied for a job in a large corporation, you most likely filled out a “Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory “. It’s probably old news to most here, but this “inventory” is required for applicants to police departments, of all levels. If an applicant scores too high in empathy, rejection is the order of the day. That explains, not justifies, Wilson’s reply to the question if he will be haunted. That’s the kind of person we want to authorize to carry a gun. Yyyyep
Hi jgreen7801 –
Yes, I do remember the MMPI – I probably did fill it out at one time or another (I also have some pcych background although I’ve forgotten much by this time. You’ve certainly added a dimension to this discussion. You know, I did get the feeling through the interview that Wilson did seem a bit “cold.” So if this is the kind of recruits we’re getting, yes, it would explain quite a bit.
I agree with you, but the context for such measures is not a given. Without taking into account the underlying ideology which is the cause that a whole population is sacked in many respects, deprives us first of understanding what is going on & secondly to take appropriate measures. It is not only a national problem, but an international one. The wars & regime changes worldwide caused by the US which cost thousands & thousands of lives are the outcome of the same ideology. The fearmongering, the creating of bogeymen & the rejection of diversity are parts of the “new world order”. Just scary.
& as jgreen7801 says below, the fact that empathy is the most unwelcomed feature, implicates that a nurturing & caring education is suppressed. & school education adds to this. People cling to traditional methods of education, although they are proven to cause braindamage & to destroy the personality of a child. Insane children become insane adults – obedient citizens.
Hi Gina –
I didn’t quite understand your first two sentences. However, yes, there probably is national and international dimensions to our problems .
I’m not sure I quite agree with you on education, though. I’m a retired educator. The problem I’m seeing in education now is NOT the “old” teaching methods, but some of the new emphases on incrased use of technology and less human contact teacher/student. There are other problems, such as a decreased emphasis on critical thinking.
I don’t necessarily think “old” teaching methods preclude empathy (I certainly hope not in my case as I’m a product of them), but what of students with very little academic contact with others – or only with others very similar in beliefs and/or social status?
Of course all of that could be an entirely new discussion.
Hi feline16 –
I think as to education we mean the same. By “traditional methods” I meant the way parents & caregivers raise the children, being authoritarian, spanking etc. There is a sad video on what school today is doing to our children.
Paste into YouTube search:
The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America Neal Fox
As to my first two sentences I refer to this whole ideology of the “new world order”. People speak of the Israel Lobby, but there is more context. The point is also, that we have a theocratic state. A general religiosity is simply a good basis for that. As Karl Marx said: “Religion is the opium of the people” (1844). There are crusader fantasies, which are plainly expressed, behind the wars in the Middle East. The drone wars are the sterile version of it.
There is also the fact, that al Qaida & ISIS are proxy military troops of the US.
Paste in Google search:
popular resistance the covert origins of isis
The printed text is the transcription of the first video.
The video is as well on YouTube:
the covert origins of isis
It is certainly not very effective to complain about the atrocities of ISIS when the US itself has created them. We should expose the cause not the effect.
The fall of Dominique Strauss-Kahn is due to the fact that he wanted to counterbalance the petro-dollar by allowing also payment in euro concerning crude oil. When the moralists are getting loud, there is something they want to drown out.
Google search:
global research was dominique strauss-kahn trying to torpedo the dollar?
Hi Gina –
Interesting reply. I have indeed done a bit of reading re: NWO.
In regards to “authoritarian education”, there’s a lot of factors to consider. First, I’m a boomer and you would probably say I grew up with “authoritarian education” I’m not so sure. My feeling is that the authoritarian mindset it a bit more recent. I think there has also been a trend to overly micromanage curriculum. I also feel that, as I said this trend to overuse of technology is not as productvie as some would believe and doesn’t lead to good social relationships with teachers and other students. I think you’ll find most good and great teachers tend to create a real community or family atmosphere in their classrooms.
Also, in education the trend has definitely been to shield students from physical punishment by teachers. Yes, it has happened sometimes in the past and there are still some isolated incidents, but the hammer can really come down on teachers who have been shown to be abusive.
As far as parents spanking… well, that’s a tough one. I don’t think ANYONE, me included, would in anyway condone physical abuse of children. But generations have survived a “swat” to the bottom. Is that the best way? I’ll let others debate that one.
I do think that parents need to be authorities to their children… it needn’t be so heavy handed, but children- and even teens – need guidance. I think sometimes that teens are too much peer-oriented now when they still need some guidance from parents. It must be tough especially now to raise kids (I don’t have any!), and each family needs to find a correct balance.
And one more thing I’d like to mention from my experience. I have often wished our students were more motivated. Just getting them to do basic things like attending class, reading the text and doing homework, handing in assignments, could be challenging. And as much as we like to fault our educational system, that’s something that comes from the individual student, and the educational support of family or other mentors can be instrumental. There are probably many reasons our students don’t shine on international academic tests – motivation, socio-economic problems, etc. The schools CANNOT solve these problems alone.
Whew! Sorry to go on so long, but on this topic I really can get wound up. Hope you’ve had a Great Thanksgiving – you and all TI’ers.
P.S.:
As to The Covert Origins of ISIS I’d like to correct one point :
Typo: “Tte”-> The
Good article
The problem with a corrupt system is that facts don’t matter. Brown or Wilson were not guilty based on any evidence or due process, but on the basis of their membership.
Prosecutors who can indict “a ham sandwich” manage to not do so.
Compare Wilson’s treatment with http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/06/law-3
One group goes to jail even when innocent, another never goes to jail no matter how clear the evidence or grave the crime.
First of all, kudos to THE//INTERCEPT writers and editors, and a select few commenters, for resisting the urge to participate in the “trial by media circus” that has, yet again, besmirched informed journalism in the “main stream corporate media”; as well as the oft-times insane rantings that pass for cyber communications. Like many concerned citizens, I have watched this human tragedy unfold, at a great distance, via said MSCM and several other more credible sources, like Al Jazeera America and this venue.
As of this writing, I have accessed and read the transcripts of the Grand Jury witness testimony and presentation of physical evidence provided on-line by the court.
As Juan Thompson properly stated in his opening paragraph herein, The Grand Jury determined that “…there would be no indictment against Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown.”; and he deserves credit for not parroting language that continues to characterize the tragic untimely death of Michael Brown as a “murder” or “killing”.
The facts leading up to and during the fatal incident speak for themselves, virtually nothing political or racist occurred. Michael Brown threatened and assaulted both a store clerk and a police officer before he was fired upon, and continued to resist arrest after several non-fatal wounds. The fiction that officer Darren Wilson had not been made aware of the theft and ensuing assault of the convenience store clerk >u>before his attempted apprehension of Michael Brown and his accomplice, is debunked by two separate time-stamped police-band radio alerts that were occasioned by a 911 call made to the police by a customer/witness to Michael Brown/s theft and assault of the store clerk.
There are indeed many important issues that have been exposed surrounding this incident, the absurd militarization of local police forces, an irresponsible news media that intentionally creates havoc and confusion, and then “reports” on its own fictions as factual information, and a feckless and hapless citizenry that rails at corrupt and unrepresentative elected governance, but never casts a vote.
If the citizens of Ferguson, Missouri choose to burn their town down, when the smoke clears, the responsibility of rebuilding it is theirs alone; lest an important first lesson go unlearned.
“Work is love made visible.” KG
As Usual,
EA
We should always have trial by Grand Jury and skip all of this nonsense about having actual trials out in the open. It always turns out just right.
Do you know this? “According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. attorneys prosecuted 162,000 federal cases in 2010, the most recent year for which we have data. Grand juries declined to return an indictment in 11 of them.“ So, yeah, this Ferguson Grand Jury was only remarkable in that they, along with their helpful defense attorney for Wilson — oops, I mean the prosecutor — were as brilliant as you are in that they didn’t listen to any “insane rantings that pass for cyber communications.” Power to Darren Wilson and to Ethan Allen! Go Team!
“and a feckless and hapless citizenry that rails at corrupt and unrepresentative elected governance, but never casts a vote”
To whom you are referring in the quote above is uncertain. Speaking for myself, both feckless and hapless are words I could use to describe me at one time or another in my life. I have also voted for most of my adult life yet after many election cycles I’m left wondering why. We are presented with a Republican candidate and a Democratic one and expected to make an informed choice. They make speeches promising the world and delivering little. I’m disgusted that we call this democracy and I’m white(more like tan) If I were black, well, my imagination is insufficient to describe how much I’d be railing against corrupt and unrepresentative elected governance. Voting isn’t Democracy.
The idea that the american people are the problem (the pols a mere symptom) seems to be spreading.
A similar view is posted @ http://chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1-latest-news/2445-battle-cry-candidate-paul-appeases-the-masters-of-war.html#disqus_thread :
“We don’t need new leaders. We need new citizens. Out of craven bloodlust comes craven bloodlust. This is the best we will do.”
– Sam Holloway
Yes, some fiction was percolating early in this saga, but that is not, by far, the most salient aspect of the grand jury non-indictment. Grand juries are convened to determine whether there exists probable cause that a crime occurred. Period. Not to determine whose version of of the story is true.
I’m reposting (from another comment section here) a very good essay by a criminal defense attorney:
Whether one believes Darren Wilson is irrelevant to the fact that there was probable cause to prosecute him for the killing of Mike Brown. It is for a trial jury to determine the truth — and to acquit him if persuaded — not a grand jury.
@Mona-Thank you for the clarity. It appears people hear the term “Grand Jury” and they act as if this group was chosen for their special powers or they were annointed with knowledge no-one else has. For myself, according to my 5 year old daughter, I fall into both groups. Okay, I admitt that my endless knowledge and special powers only happens when I wear my cape….
When it comes to policing our police, our grand jury process, within the larger judicial process, is ultimately flawed. Our adversarial judicial system has two side/teams, prosecutorial and defense. Prosecutors and law enforcement play on the same team and as such rely on each other for the success of, and continued employment in, their jobs. Not only is there no reason why prosecutors would seek to undermine or hold to account their own team members, rather they would strive to exculpate them. The structure of this process makes this an inherent flaw. We need a remedy for this: independent council?, civilian tribunal?
I like to think I pegged the character of the American flag waver faction a long time ago, but I still cannot grok its impulse to publicly defend its racism and racist xenophobia. Why does it pretend to care what humans think? Its favorite politicians and generals also have this weird habit of trying to explain its casual torture programs and hapless offensive war strategies.
What’s up with that?
No amount of National Guard, or Ferguson KKK cops, or SWAT type teams of military or riot cops will be able to “squash” these demonstrations and protests; not even if they just start shooting live ammo into the throngs of people gathered to express their disgust. This is game on for the people of Ferguson, and for cities around the nation.
Mr. Thompson,
As noted by commenter ‘Barncat’ within your other article, a key word in your title is wrong and needs correction since it is central to the topic. There is a link to the video of Brown’s stepfather clearly saying numerous times (at least 4) what is it that should be ‘burnt down’ and it is not what you state within your title or article.
Re: Nemo_Est_Insula – 25 Nov 2014 at 7:30 pm
What is this “key word” that you are concerned about?
How is it possible that a “commenter” is able to comment “within” any article?
“Work is love made visible.” KG
As Usual,
EA
I should have been more clear that commenter ‘Barncat’ commented within the Comment Section of the article where it is customary for commenters to post.
Here is the relevant link so you can hear the word clearly — as.Mr. Thompson should do.
http://www.nytimes.com/video/us/100000003254183/michael-browns-mother-reacts.html
So….the important distinction your calling attention to is that which lies between the words “shit” and “bitch”? What about the “Burn…..down!” element; that seems to have evoked more interest?