St. Louis Post-Dispatch Ferguson coverage - August 13

T H E N O . 1 S T. L O U I S W E B S I T E A N D N E W S P A P E R

Wednesday • 08.13.2014 • $1.50

outcry and resolve sharpton takes pulpit: ‘you’ve got issues in this city’ tense quiet returns to ferguson; leaders meet to reassure residents

PHOTOS BY Chris Lee • clee@post-dispatch.com

A group of young protesters left the QuikTrip area Tuesday night and walked to Greater St. Mark Missionary Baptist Church to join a gathering with Michael Brown’s family and the Rev. Al Sharpton. They entered the church chanting, “Hands up, don’t shoot.” The gathering at the church was in response to the police shooting of Brown, 18, on Saturday.

Al Sharpton brings the glare of the national spotlight back to St. Louis

FROM STAFF REPORTS

FERGUSON • At two meetings with distinctly different tones, the call Tuesday night was for justice.

Packed houses at two churches heard speakers discuss the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, 18, by a Ferguson police officer on Saturday afternoon — a killing that has rocked that suburb and drawn international attention to St. Louis.

At Christ the King United Church of Christ near Black Jack, speakers included Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon, who told the standing-room audience, “Justice must not simply be pursued, but in fact achieved. Instead of burning bridges in anger, we must rebuild them with love.”

The racially diverse audience of about 400, many of whom were ministers, politely applauded the speakers, even Ferguson Police See Brown • Page A9

• A8

Justice Department gets more involved in police matters • A7 Blacks account for 86 pct. of traffic stops in Ferguson • A7 Children exposed to unrest feel purpose — and fear • A8 Hacker activists target Ferguson, county police chief • A8 McClellan: All killings should stir equal outrage • A13 Nixon should start planning a Ferguson Commission • Our View, A14 Letters, social media and other opinions • A14-A15

Louis Head, stepfather of Michael Brown and Lesley McSpadden, Michael Brown’s mother, comfort each other Tuesday at the church.

Live updates • STLTODAY.COM

At-home DNA-based test for colon cancer is approved

‘Travel Safe Zones’ being removed from interstates

With Fox left in disarray, board seeks state audit

From staff and wire reports

Sarah Sise, a partner at Bryan Cave, was diagnosed with colon cancer when she was 40. She had no family history of colon cancer and was 10 years younger than the recommended age for her first colonoscopy screening.

She is now in remission after multiple rounds of chemotherapy and surgery following her 2012 diagnosis. She’s hoping that those who are reluctant to

By Ken Leiser kleiser@post-dispatch.com > 314-340-8215

By Leah Thorsen lthorsen@post-dispatch.com > 636-937-6249

ST. LOUIS • In the past month, Missouri transportation officials quietly removed signs marking a Travel Safe Zone on the seven-mile stretch of Interstate 70 just west of the city limit.

The special designation had doubled the fines for speeders ticketed on that part of I-70, angering motorists who declared it a poorly disguised money grab.

ARNOLD • Former Fox School District employees shredded documents and destroyed electronic files, the district’s chief financial officer said at a School Board meeting Tuesday in which the board asked for a state audit.

The district also paid people at rates above those authorized by the board and apparently used money

See Colon • Page A6

See Interstates • Page A6

See Fox • Page A6

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Golden Age leading lady Lauren Bacall dies at 89

Robin Williams battled depression and drinking

Obituaries • A17

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1 M Vol. 136, No. 225 ©2014

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08.13.2014 • Wednesday • M 1 ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH • A7

Ferguson Police Shooting POLICE STOPS IN FERGUSON

WHAT ARE THE NUMBERS? Breakdown of driver stops by race in Ferguson

WHITES BLACKS

Local population % 34 % Disparity index

0.38

Search rate 6.85 %

63 % 1.37 12.13 %

Contraband hit rate 34.04 % 21.71 % Arrest rate 5.25 % 10.43 %

• Population figures are 2010 census estimates for persons 16 and older who designated a single race.

• The disparity index is the proportion of stops divided by the proportion of population for a given race.

SOURCE: Missouri attorney general’s office

By Walker Moskop wmoskop@post-dispatch.com 314-340-8349

Ferguson police are much more likely to stop, search and arrest African-American drivers than white ones. Last year, blacks, who make up a little less than two-thirds of the driving-age population in the North County city, accounted for 86 percent of all stops. When stopped, they were almost twice as likely to be searched as whites and twice as likely to be arrested, though police were less likely to find contraband on them.

Pronounced as those statistics may seem, they don’t necessarily make Ferguson an outlier.

The figures are provided by the state’s attorney general’s office, which collects the data from police agencies and creates a disparity index comparing the racial breakdown of drivers stopped to the racial breakdown of the driving age population in the police jurisdiction where they were stopped. An index of one means there is no disparity for a particular race. The index for blacks in Ferguson is 1.37.

Statewide, the disparity index for blacks — 1.59 — is higher than in Ferguson. The same is true for many other local police jurisdictions.

On the other hand, the disparity index for whites, at 0.38, is one of the lowest in the state.

The statewide index is 0.96.

University of Missouri-St. Louis criminologist Rick Rosenfeld said the statistics for Ferguson don’t stand out from many other St. Louis County municipalities.

“I don’t think Ferguson would be at the top of many people’s lists for racial tension between police and the community,” he said.

Rosenfeld also noted that the attorney general’s data has some limitations, specifically that it doesn’t account for whether drivers live in the jurisdiction where they’re stopped.

This means that an index could be skewed in an area with interstate highways, busy roads or shopping centers. Additionally, an officer may not know the race of a driver when making the decision to stop someone.

Rosenfeld said the rate at which drivers are searched is a more useful metric. While the data doesn’t prove the existence of racial profiling, the fact that Ferguson police were more likely to search a vehicle when the driver was black yet less likely to find contraband than when the driver was white could be more indicative of a problem, he said.

Last year, Ferguson police searched 12.1 percent of black drivers they stopped, compared to 6.9 percent for whites. Contraband was found 22 percent of the time when the driver was black and 34 percent when the driver was white.

Rosenfeld said he was puzzled about why the stop rate for whites was so low in Ferguson. He said one possible factor is that the black population in the area, as a whole, is younger than the white population. Older people are less likely to be stopped, he said, and are less likely to be on the roads in general.

Laurie Skrivan • lskrivan@post-dispatch.com

Betty Davis stands with her daughter Rose Harrison and family friend John McFadden on Tuesday near the burned QuikTrip in Ferguson. Davis’ son was shot and killed by police in 2013.

Justice dept. GETS involved in police matters

By Chuck Raasch craasch@post-dispatch.com 202-298-6880

WASHINGTON • The U.S. Justice Department has intervened in cases involving more than two dozen local or state law enforcement departments over the last 20 years.

The most recent intervention is coming in the fatal police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson on Saturday.

Since 1997, 21 police departments — ranging from East Haven, Conn., to Los Angeles — have signed consent agreements with the Justice Department to improve procedures and policies. They often have involved use of force or relationships with minority communities, according to Samuel Walker, a national authority on civil liberties, policing and criminal justice policy.

Not all Justice Department involvement goes as far as consent decrees, and the department does not announce all its investigative activities, particularly if it investigates and closes without further action.

Consent agreements or investigations reached between

the Justice Department and police forces usually came after broad allegations of police misconduct or, in a few cases, where specific instances spark broader action against a police force with a history of complaints against it.

The Justice Department involvement in the Ferguson case has so far been what Attorney General Eric Holder describes as supplementary to local law enforcement investigations of the shooting.

U.S. Rep. William Lacy Clay, D-St. Louis, and two other members of Congress on Monday called for a broader investigation than the parallel track laid by Holder.

The concurrent investigation “may be insufficient for two reasons,” Clay wrote Holder, in a letter co-signed by Reps. John Conyers, D-Mich., and Marcia Fudge, D-Ohio. “First, the St. Louis County Police Department may not be the most objective or credible body to investigate civil rights matters involving law enforcement given evidence of racial profiling by that department in the recent past, which Congressman Clay had asked the Department of Justice to investigate.

“Second, only the federal government has the resources, the experience, and the full independence to give this case the close scrutiny that the citizens of Ferguson and the greater St. Louis area deserve.”

The Missouri State Conference of the NAACP in November 2013 filed a federal civil rights complaint alleging that St. Louis County police officers racially profiled blacks in and around stores in south St. Louis County and that racism is rampant in the department’s hiring, firing and discipline.

The attorney general’s reach in cases where race and civil rights violations are potential factors grew in the 1994 Violent Crime Act that passed in the aftermath of the late Rodney King’s beating by Los Angeles police officers.

The law gave the Justice Department power to bring civil suits against law enforcement agencies where a “pattern or practice of conduct by law enforcement officers” exists that “deprives persons of rights, privileges, and immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States or by the Constitution or laws of state.”

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A8 • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

M 1 • Wednesday • 08.13.2014

Ferguson Police Shooting Looking back

Comparisons to four other racially charged killings in the U.S.

Images and videos View events as they transpired

Live updates

Tweets and instant reports from the shooting scene

stltoday.com

children exposed to unrest feel purpose, fear

al sharpton in St. Louis

under spotlight’s glare

Aisha Sultan • asultan@post-dispatch.com > 314-340-8300

Four-year-old Aubrey Glover struggled with a broom even taller than her to sweep broken glass in the parking lot of a burnedout convenience store the morning after a riot in Fer-

guson.

Her mother, Erica Hampton, 31, woke up Aubrey and her brother, Jaden, 10, early Monday in their north St. Louis County home and said they were going to do some cleaning.

“Tearing up buildings and trashing places is not the way to solve anything,” she told them. They brought large white trash bags and brooms.

She called her sister, Dede Patterson, 29, who lives near the street where 18-yearold Michael Brown was shot and killed by a police officer on Saturday. Patterson’s young children have slept in the bed with her the past few nights while they heard shouts from the crowds outside.

“I didn’t even explain it to them,” Patterson said. She wasn’t sure what to tell them. “It was just too much.” The QuikTrip is where her 9- and 7-year-old walk for snacks. “My kids can’t ever come to the store anymore.”

“Let’s go clean it up,” her sister said to her. “Let’s go.”

Patterson agreed: “What I seen I didn’t like. ... It’s not going to bring him back.”

There is an urgency to do something, anything, to dull the terribleness of the past week. For Hampton, who will complete her master’s degree in counseling in December, she wanted her children to see her picking up trash around the destroyed building.

“This what you do for your community,” she told them.

There is anger here, not just about the shooting, but toward the vandals who destroyed their businesses in their neighborhood. Toward those who have changed the conversation from trying to find out what happened and seek justice to the criminal reaction of some.

“They are judging us by this,” Patterson said, waving her arms around the parking lot.

Shamika Williams, 36, stood in the lot with two of her three daughters. They had seen Brown’s body lying in the street in broad daylight when he was killed. Their mother has been at protests, wanting to add her voice to those calling for a change in the way residents are treated by law enforcement.

“I don’t want them growing up getting mistreated,” Williams said. “I don’t want them growing up afraid of the cops. Why can’t we protest? Why can’t we grieve?

Let us get this out of our system.”

The stories she’s heard and things she’s seen make her glad she doesn’t have a son.

“If I had a boy, I’d be afraid to let him walk the street.”

Beyond anger and grief, there is weariness in this area.

How many times have we seen this scene? How long will we march in streets?

“It seems like this has been going on a while,” said Kenyana Shaw, 25, of St. Louis. “I can’t imagine if this happened to my son.”

A small child stood next to a young, black man speaking angrily to an older man in a parking lot. When I told him I wanted to speak to parents in the area, he became even more upset.

He shook his head and started walking away from me but kept talking. He said he knew what it was like to be Michael Brown. He said he knew how it felt to be stopped walking down these streets, automatically a suspect.

There was anguish in his voice: “They hate us! Their daddies, their granddaddies hated us, and now they hate us!”

There is fear.

A woman who owns a hair-braiding salon said she told her children to stay inside all day. She only came to check on her store and planned to lock up and stay home. Her older boys had been friends with Brown.

“I’m so scared,” she said.

There were still parents pushing baby carriages down the debris-scattered street, past cracked and broken storefront windows, past graffiti that said “kill the police” and “RIP.” Randy Casson, 37, stood in a small group with his 11-year-old son, who partially hid behind his father’s legs. His son’s eyes were sad. His face somber.

Casson tried to explain to him that the people who rioted had not learned a better way to express themselves. That they were angry and lashing out in the wrong way.

“It seems like the police and the people are about to go to war,” Randy Jr. said.

I couldn’t help my immediate response.

“Oh, baby, no. That’s not going to happen. Why do you think that?”

“I heard there are tanks coming down.”

This is not Gaza. This is not Iraq.

This is the heartland of America.

Photos by J.B. Forbes • jforbes@post-dispatch.com

The Rev. Al Sharpton addresses reporters Tuesday on the steps of the Old Courthouse downtown about the shooting in Ferguson of Michael Brown. Behind Sharpton (from left) is Michael Brown Sr., attorney Benjamin Crump, and Lesley McSpadden, Brown’s mother.

By Lilly Fowler lfowler@post-dispatch.com 314-340-8221 And Doug Moore dmoore@post-dispatch.com 314-340-8225

Where civil rights activist Al Sharpton goes, national attention follows.

So as the Rev. Sharpton arrived in St. Louis on Tuesday to add his voice to the many who have protested the shooting of Michael Brown, it was seen as an event — a kind of validation that the incident had become a national cause.

Sharpton walked arm-in-arm downtown Tuesday morning with Brown’s family members, their attorney and clergy, before speaking to a crowd at the Old Courthouse.

About 50 people and twice as many reporters heard him call for peace, prayer and a continued push for justice.

By evening, more than 1,000 people packed a church located half a mile from the shooting as the Baptist preacher and TV host hit on similar themes.

Known for crisscrossing the country to deploy to civil rights controversies, this is Sharpton’s mode of operation. Recently, he led the charge against the handling of the Trayvon Martin case, calling the acquittal of George Zimmerman last year an “atrocity” and “a slap in the face to those that believe in justice.”

To his critics, Sharpton is a spectacle — and a divisive and self-serving one at that.

To others, he is a galvanizing and potent orator and a mouthpiece for the message of justice.

Flanked by Michael Brown’s parents at the Old Courthouse, Sharpton sought to keep the focus on that message.

“This is not a cause for them,” Sharpton said. “This is not some prop for politics.

This is their child.”

Sharpton said the purpose of his visit was to help the Brown family gain justice

and to ensure federal authorities complete a full investigation.

He said Brown was killed while showing an arms-in-the-air surrender sign to the police officer.

“Deal with the last sign he had shown,” Sharpton said in a booming voice to a responsive crowd, with some clapping in agreement. “We want answers why that sign was not respected.”

Sharpton lashed out against violent protests. “To become violent in Michael Brown’s name is to betray the gentile giant that he was,” Sharpton said. “Don’t be a traitor to Michael Brown.”

Baltimore-based Pastor Jamal Bryant joined Sharpton, saying the Brown shooting has become a national event.

“St. Louis is in fact bearing witness for America,” he said. “The Band-Aid has been ripped off, and all of America is seeing the open wound of racism exists.”

Tuesday wasn’t the first time Sharpton has sought to draw attention to events in St. Louis.

Perhaps his most notable visit came in 1999, when he was among 125 people arrested for standing on Interstate 70, bringing Monday morning rush hour traffic to a halt.

The action was taken to seek to increase minority participation on highway projects. A construction training program was initiated as a result, and including minority contractors has become a more common practice on various capital projects.

Four years later, Sharpton was back in St. Louis as a Democratic presidential candidate to push Metro to hire more minority contractors for a MetroLink expansion project.

Less than two months later, in September 2003, Sharpton was here urging students to boycott the first day of classes at St. Louis Public Schools. Opponents were upset that a New York management company had been hired to run the school district that year, which included some

school closings. High first-day attendance numbers showed that Sharpton’s appearance had little bearing.

Critics have accused Sharpton of stoking controversy instead of working for resolution.

Perhaps Sharpton’s biggest stumble as a civil rights activist came in 1987 when he fiercely defended Tawana Brawley, a 15-year-old African-American girl who claimed she had been assaulted and raped by six white men, some of them police officers, in upstate New York.

A grand jury determined Brawley had fabricated her story. Sharpton and two other men were successfully sued for defamation.

On Tuesday, Sharpton drew a packed crowd to the Greater St. Mark Missionary Baptist Church, 9950 Glen Owen Drive.

He did so at the same hour that faith leaders had already organized a competing forum at Christ the King United Church of Christ, on Old Halls Ferry Road.

Michael Brown’s cousin, Eric Davis, spoke prior to Sharpton.

“He wasn’t the type of kid who wanted to hurt anyone,” Davis said of his cousin.

“What happened on Saturday was they cut my cousin’s life short.”

Sharpton took to the podium and spoke for more than a half-hour, with the Brown family behind him.

“If you think you are mad, think about how they feel,” he said to a crowd that repeatedly thundered in applause and amens.

Sharpton said he knows St. Louis and mentioned his prior activism here. He said he has been shining a light on injustices for years, making sure what is done in the dark is seen by the world.

This battle, he told the crowd, will take time.

“People should be in it for the long haul,” he said. “You have to have a longterm strategy. You can’t be mad for two weeks.”

hacker activists target ferguson, police chief

By David Hunn dhunn@post-dispatch.com 314-340-8121

FERGUSON • The Internet crashed at City Hall here on Tuesday morning. Ferguson’s website went dark. The phones died.

City officials didn’t say what happened — only that a flood of traffic aimed at the City Hall website “just kept coming.”

But an international group of unnamed computer hackers had warned it would happen. In the hours after 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot and killed by a Ferguson police officer, the group, Anonymous, urged residents to the streets.

And the hackers vowed retribution if police harmed protesters.

“We are watching you very closely,” Anonymous’ distinctive electronic voice rasped in a video posted Monday on Twitter. “If you abuse, harass or harm the protesters in Ferguson we will take every Web-based asset of your departments and federal agencies offline.”

The hackers would also, the video continued, begin publicly releasing police officers’ personal information.

Then they did. Early Tuesday morning, someone posted the home address and phone number of Jon Belmar, the relatively new chief of St. Louis County police. And that was just the beginning.

The Ferguson protests have been in-

formed, if not fueled, by a stream of moment-by-moment posts, largely on Twitter. Published instantaneously via cellphones by residents at the scene, the messages have told the world when crowds amass, when police line up, when tear gas flies.

But Anonymous hackers have reached beyond the Web. Anonymous has been operating for nearly a decade. It’s hard to even call it a group — those insiders who have spoken publicly about the organization describe it more in terms of each individual mission.

“It is an anarchist collective of autonomous individuals,” wrote one hacker who responded to an email from the PostDispatch. “Most of us are friends and work together, but we are not responsible for anything anyone else in the global collective does.”

That team member, who declined to be identified but said he was out of the country, said the core Ferguson operation is run by about a half-dozen Anonymous operatives, invited by St. Louis activists, with thousands of “Anons” from about 75 different countries “joining in to help.”

And in the wee hours of Tuesday morning, at least one of those hackers began following standard Anonymous protocol: He began scouring the Internet for personal documents regarding Chief Belmar — “doxxing” — the man Anony-

mous estimated was keeping the shooter’s name secret.

Just after midnight, someone posting as @TheAnonMessage linked to a Web page listing Belmar’s address, phone number and the names of his wife and kids.

At 12:36 a.m., TheAnonMessage posted a photo of Belmar’s house; at 12:41, his phone number and address, and at 12:46, another missive: “... you said our threats were just hollow. See, that makes us mad.”

Then came the photos, all allegedly portraying his family: His son, asleep on a couch. His wife and daughter, armin-arm. He and his wife, together. “Nice photo, Jon,” TheAnonMessage added.

“Your wife actually looks good for her age.

“Have you had enough?”Finally, at 1:34 p.m. on Tuesday, TheAnonMessage leveled an ultimatum: “Jon Belmar, if you don’t release the officer’s name, we’re releasing your daughter’s info. You have one hour.”

Then Anonymous gave up.

“We recognize that Jon Belmar has had enough damage done to him,” TheAnonMessage wrote at 12:46 p.m. “We will save the rest of our energy for the true perpetrator.”

Belmar declined to comment for this story.

Joel Currier of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.

08.13.2014 • Wednesday • M 2 ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH • A9

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‘the whole world is watching’ Brown

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Chief Thomas Jackson, who told them, “I want what you want. I want the truth and I want justice and I want it as soon as possible.”

The other assembly at Greater St. Mark Missionary Baptist Church on Chambers Road east of Ferguson also was standing-room. It also was much louder and less formal — rocking at times — and the audience chanted and cheered as they waited for the Rev. Al Sharpton to speak.

When he took the pulpit, he led them in a thunderous chant, “No justice, no peace.” He noted that Ferguson has only a few black police officers and that most of the arrests are of black people.

“You’ve got issues in this city,” Sharpton said. People jumped to their feet when he spoke of seeking the truth and said, “As soon as you turn on the lights, the roaches start running.”

Outside the church on Chambers, several hundred people marched back and forth, their leaders urging everyone to be peaceful. A man yelled into a bullhorn, “The whole world is watching... We are going to do this the right way. No violence, just justice.”

At the church in Florissant, other speakers included Ferguson Mayor James Knowles III and the pastor, the Rev. Traci Blackmon, who said, “We are here because we will not rest until we have justice.” Also attending were St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay and Police Chief Sam Dotson.

After the speeches, members of the audience asked questions. Someone asked why the Ferguson officer’s name hasn’t been released. St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch responded, “It’s a matter of protocol. We don’t release names until charges are filed.”

STILL TENSE Across the area Tuesday, events remained peaceful, if occasionally tense.

Shortly after 6 p.m., more than 100 protesters gathered near the hulk of the QuikTrip at 9240 West Florissant Avenue, which was looted and burned during violence Sunday night and has been ground zero for the protests ever since. It also was where police in riot gear formed in sturdy formations and fired tear gas into a crowd Monday evening, scattering that night’s protest.

On Tuesday evening, protesters again chanted, “Hands up, don’t shoot” — a rallying cry of the string of protests since Saturday. Riot police, backed by SWAT armored vehicles, blocked West Florissant. The crowd then marched toward the church where Sharpton was to speak.

Dominque Bishop, 22, of Florissant, said she was marching for her two brothers. “It could have been one of my siblings,” Bishop said.

Later in the evening, another crowd had again gathered at the QuikTrip but by about 11:30 p.m. it had mostly dispersed.

There has been no violence since the looting rampage overnight Sunday.

For the most part, the talk Tuesday was more redress, less outrage. From the Old Courthouse downtown to the White House in Washington, the calls were for nonviolence. President

Laurie Skrivan • lskrivan@post-dispatch.com

“I am out here because I am part of the masses of people in St. Louis and soon to be in the nation that are exhausted and fatigued with the progression of police genocide. It’s not police brutality anymore, it’s genocide against young black Americans,” said Sunny Ford during a rally on Tuesday in Clayton, protesting the fatal shooting of Michael Brown by a Ferguson police officer.

D-Mo., whose district includes Ferguson, called for an “expanded” federal investigation to specifically explore “the potential for any pattern or practice of police misconduct by the Ferguson Police Department.”

At the place where Brown was killed in the 2900 block of Canfield Drive, his parents and other relatives gathered briefly Tuesday afternoon and released about a dozen red balloons. Then they walked to his grandmother’s apartment, which they said had been his destination when he was shot Saturday afternoon.

In Clayton on Robert Cohen • rcohen@post-dispatch.com Tuesday morning, St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar police closed Caron(center) joins other officials for a prayer to delet Avenue near the open a community forum on the death of Michael Brown held Tuesday at Christ the King county Justice Center during a march by United Church of Christ near Black Jack. about 250 people.

“Hey hey, ho ho, racist cops Barack Obama issued a statement urging Americans to re- have got to go,” some in the member Brown through “reflec- crowd chanted. They also complained that there aren’t enough tion and understanding.”

“We should comfort each African-Americans working as other and talk with one an- police officers and in the prosother in a way that heals, not in ecutor’s office.

Clayton police cars were incha way that wounds,” Obama said.

“Along with our prayers, that’s ing along, trailing protesters as what Michael and his family, and they snaked through the streets our broader American commu- that surround the county police headquarters and courthouse. nity, deserve.”

On the steps of the Old Court- March leaders demanded that house on Tuesday morning, authorities release the name of Sharpton stood with Brown’s the Ferguson officer, fire and family and their lawyer and charge him.

County police officials said said people “want answers,” but Tuesday they had not fired rubshould pursue them peacefully.

“I know you are angry,” he told ber bullets Monday, as some the gathering on the courthouse protesters had claimed. Neither steps. “I know this is outrageous did assisting St. Louis officers, a ... But we cannot be more out- spokeswoman said. Five people raged than his mom and dad. If were treated for minor injuries at they can hold their heads in dig- DePaul Health Center after the nity, then we can hold our heads demonstrations Monday evening, a spokeswoman said. up in dignity.”

Also Tuesday, McCulloch anU.S. Rep. William Lacy Clay,

nounced that nine people were charged with felony burglary, accused of looting Sunday night at three Ferguson stores along West Florissant — the Princess Beauty Supply, the Footlocker and the Nu Fashion Beauty Supply.

Charged were Beonca McGrath, 19, of the 4400 block of Jennings Station Road in Pine Lawn; Michael L. Davis, 27,of the 8300 block of Wabash Avenue in Berkeley; Robert Lee Stephenson, 28, of the 9500 block of Guthrie Avenue in Woodson Terrace; Trey T. Brewer, 18, of Dallas; Nikko Fiertag, 23, of the 9300 block of Clarion Drive in Ferguson; Andrew Henry, 30, of the 4100 block of Appleberry Lane in Berkeley; Steven C. Martin, 27, of the 8800 block of Maya Lane in Ferguson; Stephon D. Thompson, 19, of 5700 block of Goodfellow Boulevard in St. Louis; and DeMarco Harris, 38, of the 1200 block of Gimblin Avenue in St. Louis.

McGrath and Harris also were charged with misdemeanor possession of a stolen hair weave, and Fiertag was charged with misdemeanor stealing of a pair of sneakers.

The felony charges carry a maximum sentence of seven years.

BUSINESSES REOPEN Repairs continued along the looted district, and some businesses in Ferguson reopened Tuesday, including both locations that had been damaged and those that were closed as precaution. Zisser Tire & Auto, which was ransacked, reopened. So did a Taco Bell nearby. But others, including Shoe Carnival and AutoZone, remained closed.

Looting occurred Sunday night along West Florissant and at some stores to the north near Interstate 270, including the Walmart. Fear of fast-traveling replays caused some stores in Brentwood to close early Monday evening.

Ferguson City Hall was closed Tuesday morning due to “safety concerns,” but classes began in

the Jennings School District, just east of Ferguson. The Jennings district had canceled classes on Monday.

The Federal Aviation Administration barred private aircraft, including news helicopters, from the airspace over Ferguson for the next week. Commercial aircraft are exempt. The county police department made the request.

Shortly before midnight Monday, a group of 30 to 40 people in a caravan of vehicles attacked and looted a Shoe Carnival store near Gravois Avenue in south St. Louis, far from Ferguson, St. Louis police said. Covering their faces with shirts, they smashed windows and stole shoes and other merchandise.

The group also tried to break into a nearby Radio Shack also in Gravois Plaza, in the 3500 block of Bamberger Avenue. An unarmed security guard saw the attacks and called police.

A police spokesman said it wasn’t known whether the attack was related to Ferguson, but called the tactics of mass burglary unusual. Mayor Francis Slay said city police were “closely watching incidents” for any connections.

Spokesmen at several area gun shops said sales had jumped, and they attributed the change to the violence in Ferguson.

At Metro Shooting Supplies in Bridgeton, “Sales have been absolutely amazing for three days,” said general manager John Stephenson.

Al Rothweiler, an owner of Mid America Arms at 8205 Gravois Road in South County, said sales were up about 50 percent. “The things that have gone on have made people act,” Rothweiler said, although he added, “I don’t like selling on fear.”

Koran Addo, Tim Barker, Kim Bell, Jesse Bogan, Nancy Cambria, Joel Currier, Stephen Deere, Lilly Fowler, Ian Froeb, Jim Gallagher, Steve Giegerich, Valerie Schremp Hahn, Joe Holleman, Jeremy Kohler, Ken Leiser, Samantha Liss, Chuck Raasch and Michael Sorkin, all of the Post-Dispatch, contributed to this report.

Protesters pressing for peace struggle to be heard

By Elisa Crouch ecrouch@post-dispatch.com 314-340-8119

FERGUSON • They sat under

a shade tree, putting marker to poster board in the parking lot of a strip mall.

As the Rev. Al Sharpton held the media’s attention in downtown St. Louis on Tuesday, an Illinois pastor and a Missouri state senator were across the street from the Ferguson Fire Station organizing their own rally to protest Saturday’s police shooting of Michael Brown.

“The young people aren’t going to listen to Al Sharpton,” said Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal, DUniversity City “They do not listen to older people. They do not listen to pretentious people.”

So instead, she and the Rev.

Derrick Robinson, who pastors a church in East St. Louis, organized a rally hoping to attract anyone — young people especially — who wanted to join them, as long as it was in peace.

“It’s our generation that’s being affected,” said Jerika Tyler, 21, a student at Harris-Stowe State University. “I have a 15-year-old brother. He could have been Michael Brown.”

Small rallies and vigils like this one have popped up daily since Brown was shot and killed by a Ferguson police officer on a street outside Canfield Apartments.

But they have been overshadowed by what’s taken place after sunset, when crowds have become violent, and police have deployed tear gas, rubber bullets and riot gear. Their prayer vigils, they feel, have gone unnoticed.

The looting, Stefan Hornaday, 21, said, “sickens me.” But so does police brutality, he said.

For hours protesters came and went, standing along the strip of grass separating the parking lot from the curb. Some drove in from St. Louis. Many lived in Ferguson. The conversations they held tapped into the undercurrent of the fear and frustration they’ve felt for years with police in and around this north St. Louis County community.

Tamika McClain, of Breckenridge, said she’s been pulled over numerous times, ticketed for such things as having a nonworking taillight or a broken blinker — allegations she said were false. Anthony Walsh said he isn’t sure how to tell his children how to avoid being arrested.

It’s one thing to understand not

to break the law, he said. “But how to tell him how to deal with an ignorant cop?”

In many ways, the death of 18-year-old Brown ignited anger that had been building for some time.

Poverty in the area is rising, with the highest concentrations in African-American neighborhoods. In several school districts, the quality of education is declining. A disproportionate number of foreclosures has taken its toll, and property values haven’t recovered.

But the anger on Tuesday concerned the police — and skepticism that the investigation into what led to the shooting will bring justice.

“We’re fed up,” McClain said.

“We’re tired. We want answers.”

She stood beside a friend who

choked back emotion as she thought of her own children.

“They walk up and down that street all the time,” Nicole Chissem said.

Her family lives near Canfield Avenue, the street on which Brown was shot. “That could have been me on TV saying how I need justice for my child.”

For the next several hours, protesters of various ages and races came and went from the rally, stopping by during lunch breaks.

They denounced the looting and the violence.

“If you’re out here fighting for something and the other messes up what you’re fighting for, you don’t get anywhere,” said Dante Taylor, 22, of St. Louis.

He held the marker and white poster board, trying to figure out what his sign should say.

08.13.2014 • Wednesday • M 1 ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH • A13

Stl Wednesday Inside this section A13 • Heads Up‌ A14 • Opinion‌ A15 • Other views‌ A16 • Funeral notices‌ A18 • Weather‌

Bill McClellan • bmcclellan@post-dispatch.com > 314-340-8143

All killings should spark outrage

‌COLUMNIST SCHEDULE Sunday • Bill McClellan‌ Monday • Bill McClellan‌ Wednesday • Bill McClellan‌ Friday • Bill McClellan‌ Saturday • Joe Holleman’s “Joe’s St. Louis”‌

‌

I was in Michigan last week, and the lead story in the Detroit papers was the trial of a 55-year-old man who was awakened at 4:30 in the morning last November by somebody pounding on his door and walls.

He didn’t have a land line, and said he couldn’t find his cellphone, so he grabbed a shotgun from his closet. He opened his front door and saw a person on his porch.

He shot through the screen door.

The person on his porch was a 19-year-old woman. She was intoxicated. She had been in an accident three hours earlier and had wandered away.

She was killed by the shotgun blast.

The man was white and the woman was black. The man was convicted of second-degree murder last week, and the headline in one of the papers was a quote from the woman’s mother. “Her Life Mattered.”

From the coverage in the papers, you’d have thought this was the first fatal shooting in Detroit in years.

But, of course, it wasn’t. Detroit is like St. Louis. Murders are commonplace.

What made this one so sensational was the racial angle. Still, why did this victim’s life matter more than the lives of all the other victims?

I thought of a column “Donnybrook” panelist Alvin Reid wrote a couple of weeks ago. This newspaper had just published a cartoon of St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley sitting at his desk with Harry Truman’s famous slogan in front of him — “The buck stops here.” In the cartoon, Dooley had scratched off the final word.

Some of Dooley’s supporters claimed the cartoon was racist, and that Dooley was being called a buck. I thought their contentions were ridiculous.

Reid wrote that as soon as he saw the cartoon, he thought the paper should not have published it. He compared it to an autostereogram. That is an illustration that has a hidden image in it. Not everybody can see it, he wrote. Maybe because I miss a lot of things, I liked that analogy.

I thought about it again when I returned from vacation and Ferguson was on fire.

I can readily understand the black community’s anger in the wake of the shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown.

I like to give cops the benefit of the doubt, but I have a very hard time trying to figure out a justification for this shooting. Even if you accept the police version of events, the officer got out of

What’s up • From events.stltoday.com

08.23

08.24

08.28

Disc golf tournament • Participants will compete for cash and prizes at the annual Disc Golf Glow Tournament at Quail Ridge Park, 5501 Quail Ridge Parkway in Wentzville, beginning at 8 p.m. Aug. 23. In partnership with the St. Charles County Disc Golf Club, the St. Charles County Parks Department has devised a disc-tossing tournament. Using baskets lined with more than 100 glow sticks to mark the course, a shotgun start will begin the 18-hole contest. Participants will compete individually, and LED lights for discs will be available during the event, 2 for $3 or 4 for $5. Cash prizes will be awarded to top finishers in each flight. The entry fee is $10 per player, but registration is limited to the first 72 players.

Registration will be accepted from 7-7:45 p.m. the day of the tournament at shelter No. 1 inside the park; but pre-registration is recommended.

For more information or to register, call 314-413-4773 or send email to andymajesky@live.com.

Used book sale • The Jewish Community Center will hold its annual used book sale from Aug. 24-28 at the Staenberg Family Complex, Arts and Education Building, 2 Millstone Campus Drive, Creve Coeur. The sale will feature thousands of books for all interests and ages. Aug. 24 is Preview Day, from 10 a.m.-4 p.m., with an admission charge of $10 at the door.

There is free admission from Aug. 25-28. The event runs from 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Aug. 25-27, and from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Aug. 28. The last day is Bag Day, where buyers can fill a bag with books for just $5. Thousands of titles will include mystery and intrigue, novels, biographies, politics, religion, sports, cookbooks, history and more. There will also be miscellaneous videos, books on tape, CDs and DVDs. jccstl.com/programs/arts-culture/ used-book-sale Benefit for Pony Bird • Pony Bird home for severely disabled people is partnering with the Tenderloin Room restaurant in a benefit event to help the home, which is in Mapaville in Jefferson County. The benefit dinner and program will be from 6:30-10 p.m. Aug. 28 at the Tenderloin Room, 232 North Kingshighway. Tickets are $125, with proceeds to help Pony Bird build two new residential buildings. The price includes a fourcourse dinner, cocktails, a presentation by the founder of Pony Bird and a special gift bag for all attendees. A live auction will top off the evening.

For tickets and more information, visit ponybird.org or facebook.com/ thetenderloinroom.

To list a community event or meeting, submit it online at events.stltoday.com.

Heads up Supply drive for troops • To show appreciation for U.S. troops deployed overseas, donations of other useful supplies are being collected through the O’Fallon, Mo., Support Our Troops Supply Drive. The drive is continuing through Sept. 11, with donation sites throughout the city of O’Fallon. The donations will be shipped overseas as part of the National Day of Service and Remembrance projects coordinated by Volunteer O’Fallon. People are also encouraged to contribute signed thank-you notes and cards for the troops. The items that troops most often request include: beef jerky, Vienna sausages, canned tuna and packages of sunflower seeds, nuts, trail mix, deodorant, disposable razors, tweezers, hair brushes, combs, fingernail clippers, nail files, lip balm, Band-Aids, foot powder, baby powder, markers (highlighters or permanent), batteries (AA and AAA) and small flashlights. For a map and list of donation sites, visit ofallon.mo.us/volunteer. For more information about the supply drive and other local volunteer opportunities, call Volunteer O’Fallon at 636-379-5417.

To submit items, email them to headsup@post-dispatch.com or fax them to 314-340-3050.

his car and fired at an unarmed person.

Maybe you shoot Carlos the Jackal if you think he might escape, but Michael Brown doesn’t appear to have been an international terrorist.

Then, too, there is the notion of being shot to death by the people who are supposed to protect us. Plus, of course, you have to factor in the long-standing animosity between law enforcement and young black males.

So, yes, I understand the anger and consider it justifiable. (Not the looting, though. I heard St. Louis Alderman Antonio French on the radio saying that the white community would be wrong to consider it thuggery and leave it at that.

French is smart and thoughtful, and all things are complicated, but looting as a form of righteous protest is beyond me.

Maybe it’s an autostereogram.)

But here is where I really get lost: Why not get angry at all the other killings?

When a community gets together and rises up, it has power. In this case, the authorities are not going to be able to sweep this shooting under the rug. No way. Authorities in Detroit were not able to ignore the shooting of that 19-yearold woman.

And yet, had that young woman been shot a couple of hours earlier by a young black man, it would not have been big news.

Had Michael Brown been shot a couple of hours later by a young black man, his killing would have been scarcely noted.

Not by the media, and not by the black community. No marches, no protests, no nothing.

It is not condoning police shootings to point out that they constitute a minuscule fraction of the shootings that ravage black neighborhoods. It’s not the cops, and it’s not the Klan. It’s the residents themselves.

If the black community would come together on those shootings and say, “No more,” there would be no more. Where was the outrage when 11-year-old Antonio Johnson was shot to death as he sat in his apartment doing homework in March? The gunman climbed to the window ledge and fired into the apartment.

There were three teens in that apartment. Presumably, one was the intended target. I say presumably because the family did not cooperate with the police.

No celebrities came to town to demand justice for Antonio. In fact, nobody said much.

It’s another autostereogram. I can’t see the picture.

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WEDNESDAY • 08.13.2014 • A14

WHERE BETTER BEGINS

Our view • Gov. Nixon should start planning the Ferguson Commission.

As soon as the unrest in Ferguson is over — and let it be soon — there must be a thorough, independent and timely investigation into how and why it happened and the police response to it. This inquiry would go beyond the parallel criminal investigations and get into the root causes of this madness.

Yes, the immediate cause — the “tipping point” they call it in the literature of civil unrest — was the fatal shooting Saturday of 18-year-old Michael Brown by a still-unidentified Ferguson police officer.

(By the way, the failure to identify the officer violates every principle of transparency recommended by law enforcement experts. Society grants police officers the right to use deadly force.

That right carries special obligations, one of which is strict public accountability. The longer the officer stays anonymous, the more public confidence is undermined.)

When the independent investigation deconstructs the Ferguson incident, as it must, it should explore the history and conditions that may have helped precipitate Saturday’s shooting and the subsequent public protests. That includes racial segregation. That includes the training and qualifications of Ferguson police officers.

It includes command-and-control decisions by the Ferguson and St. Louis County police forces and the Missouri Highway Patrol.

One big problem with convening such an investigative panel is that it’s not clear who has jurisdiction.

The same problem plagues the entire response in Ferguson: Who has command authority? Who is accountable for the decisions that are being made?

The fragmentation may be deliberate; it certainly mirrors the fragmentation that is the bane of the entire region. But the first rule of restoring public confidence is to earn it. Someone must step forward and take responsibility — both for the law enforcement effort that’s currently underway and then for the investigation that must follow.

It will have to be Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon, a man whose every instinct is to dodge bad news whenever possible. Sorry, governor. But you asked for the job.

By law, cities and counties are political subdivisions of the state.

The state patrol already appears to be taking a lead role in crowd

J.B. FORBES • jforbes@post-dispatch.com

A police officer holds his dog in check while protesters march past the Ferguson police station protesting the police shooting.

ROBERT COHEN • rcohen@post-dispatch.com

SWAT officers from the Missouri State Highway Patrol man the burned QuikTrip on West Florissant Rd.

control efforts, though no one is saying so officially.

It can’t be the city of Ferguson.

It is one of 90 municipalities in St. Louis County. It has 21,000 residents, two-thirds of whom are black, and a police force of 53 commissioned officers, 90 percent of whom are white.

Nor can it be St. Louis County.

The county has more than 800

police officers but no formal jurisdiction over law enforcement in Ferguson. At Ferguson’s request, the county police force is helping out through mutual aid agreements, as are the state patrol and other municipal police forces.

Mr. Nixon is the only public official with the authority to create an independent investigative commission. Public confidence

demands that he announce plans to do so immediately. Its membership should be diverse and of unquestioned integrity.

Its members should come from law enforcement, civil rights, academia and civic leadership. It’s time to step up.

The police agencies may know who’s in charge, but the public deserves to know, too. At whose

order were police dogs brought in?

Who authorized the use of tear gas and non-lethal baton rounds?

What central command authority is making sure that officers from multiple jurisdictions are singing from the same hymnal? Is anyone up to speed on the latest thinking in law enforcement about dealing with mass protests?

There is a lot of literature on that subject, dating back to the “police riot” at the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago and forward to the 2011 London riots and “Occupy Wall Street” protests.

A “best practices” study published in the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin two years ago says it’s generally accepted that “crowd violence escalates if people think police offers treat them unfairly.”

Furthermore, the study says, when a crowd perceives that “officers act with justice and legitimacy,” disorder becomes less likely.

Cops are human beings, and human beings get scared. Their first impulse is to gear-up as if they were patrolling outside Baghdad’s Assassin’s Gate. As in foreign policy, the academic types may say that dialogue and soft power are better, but that defies the average’s cop’s attitudes.

What the public generally regards as “riot gear” — helmets, shields, Kevlar vests — is known in police circles as “hard gear.” Here’s what the FBI bulletin says about that: “Officers must avoid donning their hard gear as a first step. They should remember the lessons learned from the 1960s civil rights movement and Vietnam War protests. Police should not rely solely on their equipment and tools.”

What we’ve seen in Ferguson is skirmish lines of officers in hard gear and videos of tear gas canisters lobbed onto roofs.

Individual officers generally have shown great restraint. But those images are doing incalculable harm, and not just to community relations in Ferguson. The nation and the world have seen horrible images from St. Louis that suggest that race relations here have a long way to go.

They’re not wrong.

There are people of good will on all sides who want better. Ferguson should be the place where better begins. Mr. Nixon must get it started.

THE KILLING OF MICHAEL BROWN: ST. LOUIS REACTS JEFFREY Q. MCCUNE JR.

A revolt against violence Outrage over shooting • Response is a scene of public disgust — a lawless reaction to a lawless white terrorizing history and present.

Monday, Aug. 11, marked the 39th anniversary of the beginning of the Watts Riots (Revolt), which took place in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles in 1965. This uprising was incited by a set of events, one of them being police violence against a young black man and a young black pregnant woman.

Today, we see a similar revolt taking place in Ferguson, right outside of St. Louis, where young, unarmed Michael Brown was shot and killed by an officer on his way to his grandmother’s home.

Michael Brown’s killing and the ensuing outrage, at the same time of this historic event, ironically pivots the question, “How can we best demonstrate our outrage about a historic violent tradition which leaves the blood of our children — young black men and women — repeatedly on the ground?” If America has not fixed its “problem with the negro,” what must African-Americans do to demand a cease-fire across the nation and a new lens through

which to see black bodies as more than indicators of the propensity toward crime and violence? It requires that we do more than pray.

On Sunday, I attended an interfaith, interracial prayer vigil in front of the Ferguson Police Department, the occupational home of the officer who shot 18-year-old Michael Brown.

As the ministers prayed — and I reflected on how many I had attended over the last two years — this constant refrain for “peace” and “justice” was starting to feel like a way to shut up the screaming parents and loved ones of those afflicted, silence the radical youth most directly impacted by these violences, and to privilege white desires for black people to always appear civil while reacting to uncivil manner. The latter is perhaps the ugliest requirement of those who suffer often at the hands of white racist attack and criminalization.

As I stood in front of the big

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brick police building, I found myself asking “how such national peace-vigil moments activate anything more than a quick fix, or an anesthetic for this murder and the many violences which people of similar communities experience too frequently?” In such a race-antagonistic America, can peace be the instrument of change, especially when the policies, employment of the law, and distribution of freedoms continue to disregard the demands and desires of those furthest down below?

As I was having these thoughts, I hear a minister say “Amen,” concluding a powerful prayer that moved from peace talk to that of war. She is invested in addressing spiritual war: the heartache, pain and tears produced at the site of violence. My mind was moving to the more literal: a scene of rage, verbal exchange that produces powerful policy, and maybe even some threats to police power by the legislature. A group of young men and women, marching came

GILBERT BAILON EDITOR

to the center of Ferguson Road, parallel to the police department, first putting their hands in the air (a gesture which Michael Brown reportedly made to the police offer in order to show he was unarmed), then proceeded to sit in the street.

Ironically, the ministers had began their vigil singing, “We shall not be moved.” The main organizer of the vigil discouraged this moment of outrage and sitting over her microphone, deeming it as having the potential to distract from the peaceful work we were doing as we gathered in prayer.

This attitude that the extreme rhetoric, sitting demonstrations and subsequent resistance of these grief-stricken, justifiably angered, and frustrated young is misplaced, inadvertently suggests that there is only one way to seek justice.

For me, these young people are not simply saying ignore law enforcement, or disregard the law, but rather they voice a disinterest in the application of the law and the law enforcement we have

difference in its cardinal principles, that it will always fight for progress and reform, never tolerate injustice or corruption, always fight demagogues of all parties, never belong to any party, always oppose privileged classes and public plunderers, never lack sympathy with the poor, always remain devoted to the public welfare, never be satisfied with merely printing news, always be drastically independent, never be afraid to attack wrong, whether by predatory plutocracy or predatory poverty • JOSEPH PULITZER • APRIL 10, 1907

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come to know. Historically, the neighborhood where Michael Brown was killed has been ridden with racial tension, a police force which has rarely if ever understood itself as having a “race problem.”

Constantly, young black men and women are subjected to verbal, if not physical violence and harassment from officers and those in the surrounding communities — who so often refer to this community as having a “bad element.”

Most of us, standing at the vigil in our clergy uniforms adorned with our varying degrees, were not subjected to these violences daily.

Therefore, our call for peace and reconciliation is much easier. Most of us are not living in povertystricken communities, where the constant entitlement to our space, our property, and even our bodies angers us so, to claim entitlement to resources and material goods denied us historically (i.e. looting).

Most of us, reading this post, have

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08.13.2014 • Wednesday • M 1 ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH • A15

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Richard A. Murray of St. Louis County says Monday’s editorial is “filled with venom and self-righteous indignation against the police officer involved and drawing a most damning conclusion. Could this alleged newspaper share with us the facts that led to your editorial? Is there something the Post-Dispatch knows that is not being shared with your readers?”

Read and talk about this letter and more letters online at STLtoday.com/letters

The killing of

MICHAEL BROWN Honor Michael Brown’s memory in a positive way The tragic death of a young man, who was eager to continue his education and make a better life for himself, should not be tarnished by a small number of hooligans who take out their frustrations by looting, burning and rioting. Those actions only serve to compound the grief felt by the members of Michael Brown’s family. For those who wish to honor Michael’s memory in a positive way, I suggest these alternatives: • Collect donations at intersections in your community to help the family pay for funeral expenses.

• Go to a local bank and establish a scholarship fund that will allow other high school graduates in the community to continue their education at colleges and technical schools.

• Line the James streets to enBirmingham wrote: sure children’s “It just kills me how the safety as they new media turns this and walk to and spins it into a race issue. I from school don’t see it as a race issue. this week. JenI see it as a police officer nings School and suspect issue. I hate District felt it how society jumps the gun necessary to and makes up their mind cancel school on an issue without the Monday in the full facts in the case. Just aftermath of as any witness you will Sunday night’s not and cannot issue the violence. whole picture.”

Once the investigation into this shooting has been completed, the citizens of Ferguson can decide what is needed to resolve the problems confronting their community.

Barbara Blacksher • Florissant

graduated.

What, in his lifetime, had Michael Brown done to capture your sympathy and your incredible unending belief that those in/of his surroundings are deserving of the life Ms. Boken was living because of a dedication to hard work and extra effort she made to secure that life.

Can we assume that there is a phenomenal component Patricia Bynes of jealousy (@Patricialicious) that made Ms. said at 9:56 p.m. Aug. 10: Boken, in your “Watching them break into eyes and the these businesses is HEARTactions of the BREAKING. THIS IS NOT protesters, a #MikeBrown.” less important human being?

Ruth Karraker • St. Louis County

No need for police to carry deadly weapon on routine patrol

DM 14

My city of Ferguson is in denial. We don’t want to realize that we have a race problem. No, not a huge one, but one that festers and gets worse and sicker as it is ignored by those who cling to what was before.

I first noticed it in a big way when my fellow Ferguson residents insisted that the Ferguson-Florissant School District go back to the drawing board when the board kept its promise to the city of Berkeley to keep the name Berkeley on the replacement high school. This was a little over 10 years ago.

Last year was another big moment, when the all-white school board tripped all over themselves to suspend and dismiss a well-qualified superintendent who was AfricanAmerican, first saying there was no

Little outrage over other senseless murders

My heart goes out to the family of the Ferguson teen who was shot down by a police officer, but I can’t help thinking of the many other senseless murders of young men and children that occur every day. Unlike the people’s stuff got to do with the tragic case of Michael Brown, these death of an 18-year-old? What is it receive hardly any attention from about social and economic condimedia and organizations. tions that can justify the looting and Consider, the same thing happens the burning a QuikTrip gas station? every night in Chicago, with multiple The next morning after the QT deaths at the hands of other black was burned, some said the riots are men; and then there’s north St. Louis symptoms of hopelessness brought and St. Louis City. Where’s the naon by a lack of economic opportional spotlight then? Where is the tunity. When adults show any acNAACP then? Yes, outrage is pourceptance of rioters, that acceptance ing out onto the streets in Ferguson, becomes an invitation to the next but how often, when it’s black on round of rioting. black crime, does the community reThe St. Louis media, St. Louis fuse to snitch on the suspect or those commentators and politicians must involved? think twice before talking once.

And then there are the savage murders of Iraqi Christian children Lee A. Presser • Manchester by the invading militant ISIS group that’s currently in the news. People Argument that Brown was are rightly outraged, but the same unarmed doesn’t work grisly murders have been going on for over 40 years behind the purple The argument that Michael Brown doors of the abortion mill in Granwas unarmed no longer works for ite City. Where is me because of the outrage for the the rioting and slaughter of these looting, and how innocents? And, is that good for Diane sadly, of the mulhis case? I am a Horning wrote: “I’m tiplied thousands little older and will not trying to start more who have perished, need hip surgery controversy, but just as over 70 percent are sometime soon, Mike Brown was not given black children. but I am confident a chance to be proven When it comes that I could make innocent of anything, neiright down to it, it an officer fear for ther has the police officer. seems to me that his/her life. And if Let’s not judge either of some of these outI am really deterthem and leave judgment raged people need mined, it would be where it belongs — in the to do some soulwithin the officer’s courts.” searching before interests to shoot they beat their me while I am out chests and point of arm’s reach.

The rioting gave me a chance to think fingers. Different weapons; same results. from a different perspective that I otherwise might not have.

Angela Michael • Highland I would like to see justice and mercy, but rioting and looting are NAACP makes neither. The target of the anger is not inflammatory statement harmed, but some of your neighbors and friends and brothers and sisters I would like to call to task the are now jobless.

NAACP for the irresponsible and inflammatory statement that they Dean Fry • St. Ann released after the shooting death of Michael Brown by a Ferguson Death of Brown gets more police officer. coverage than another To characterize that shooting as a “slaughter” without knowing I am wondering why you have all the facts of the case, besides given such an inordinate amount of being irresponsible, is harmful and sympathy to the fracas surroundinciteful. It helps nothing! Instead ing the death of Michael Brown of calling for calm and order, it had and why, in comparison, you gave the opposite effect. In the future, I so little space to the equally sensewould urge the NAACP to consider less death of Megan Boken. Why its words more carefully before was her life so much less important issuing such acrimonious statethan his? She had gone to college ments. (she was employed) and was here to benefit the school from which she Steve Cummings • Maryville

ST. LOUIS REACTS

wrongdoing — just “philosophical difference.” They were actually surprised to learn that African-Americans do pay attention to what decisions are made that may impact their child’s education. What should have been outrage by the entire commuLooting, burning do nothing nity was only experienced by many to settle differences African-Americans, as most whites sat it out waiting for the board to Someone once wrote: “Violence is reveal its “real” reason, as the board the last refuge of the incompetent.” kept hiding behind “personnel confiViolence certainly does nothing to dentiality” struggling to find a legitisettle differences or resolve issues. mate reason.

The actions of Meanwhile, the crowd in many white the wake of the Umar Lee (@ STLAbuBadu) voters elected tragic death of said at 6:55 p.m. Aug. 10: two of the inthe young man “We all want a positive future. Not cumbents back in Ferguson will, one where unarmed kids or police to the board. if anything, have officers are killed.”

And now, effects oppoour mayor site of what is desired. They certainly will not bring says during Sunday and Monday interviews that our community is a back the young man. “close-knit” one, and the looters are The business that was looted and outsiders. Mr. Mayor, although you burned did not cause the death. may consider the looters as outsidWhat is accomplished by this burners, I assure you that some of them ing and looting? It certainly does are Ferguson residents. I don’t think not give incentive for this business they feel part of the “close-knit” to rebuild, or for other businesses to community. In fact, I don’t think that come into this neighborhood. The most of the African-Americans who people who worked there did not attended the School Board meetings cause the young man’s death, but are feeling the love of a close-knit they are certainly out of a job as a community either. result.

My fellow Ferguson residents, it’s What has been gained by this time. Let’s talk about race. activity? Not much. It does nothing to bring much needed improvement Cassandra Butler • Ferguson in relations between people.

Jon Marx • Oakville Media should think

Ferguson residents don’t want to realize they have a race problem

Why? In 2014 and the age of the Taser, why should any police officer on routine patrol need to carry a deadly weapon?

Anthony Wippold • Clayton

Michael Brown 1996-2014

twice before further stoking the fires

Was it justified? That is the one question to be answered in the shooting death of Michael Brown. If the answer is no, the courts will deal with the crime. If the answer is yes, then the police officer goes back to work.

Yet, before the investigation is complete, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial board has rendered its verdict on the editorial page (Aug. 11): “Michael Brown didn’t get due process.”

An important area of North County is in tatters, caused by rioters determined to take other people’s stuff, and the Post-Dispatch decides this is the time to further stoke the fires.

Already there is talk on St. Louis media that while the rioting is not justified, it is understandable. Understandable? What has taking other

revolt • from a14 Peace marches and demonstrations often are not enough not felt without voice for many years and had an opportunity to speak publicly about the deepest terror we face at the hands of those who are supposed to protect us. This is not an indictment on those who stand where they stand, but rather commentary on the driving impulse of a different approach to the urgent

hour. Indeed, if violence is approaching one’s neighborhood, one can wait for gradual peace and justice; but when violence has arrived, one’s actions can be strategically impulsive to demand urgent action.

Knowing this, I cannot see the responses to the killing of Michael Brown as anything but a

scene of public disgust — a lawless reaction to a lawless white terrorizing history and present.

Unfortunately, peace marches and demonstration have not been able to powerfully capture, or shift, this ugly reality. Indeed, Dr. King was very right in his framing, “ A riot is the language of the unheard!” And these

revolts must not be stopped by government, tear gas, or the guilt of the respectable others who are embarrassed by public expressions of pain and rage. May we allow this moment of revolt to remind us of the necessity of prayer and its companion we can call resistant, radical and inconvenient work! May this shaking

of the streets remind the nation that the Michael Browning of our young men and women must stop!

Jeffrey Q. McCune Jr. is an associate professor of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies and Performance Studies at Washington University in St. Louis. McCune has written extensively on masculinity, race and cultural politics. He is the author of “Sexual Discretion: Black Masculinity and the Politics of Passing.