St. Louis Post-Dispatch Ferguson coverage - Aug. 23

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

Saturday • 08.23.2014 • $1.50

ferguson police, chief no-shows • oFFICERS SUSPENDED

RIDING OUT the storm

Commander learned by first living there, knowing the people Johnson endures turmoil

By Paul Hampel phampel@post-dispatch.com 314-340-8104

FERGUSON • When the stress of commanding cops and controlling crowds on the streets of Ferguson has threatened to crack the calm demeanor Missouri Highway Patrol Capt.

Ronald S. Johnson has projected to the world, he has retreated to an unusual refuge.

It is a restroom in a vacant

Peacekeepers promote calm

storefront at the police command center at Buzz Westfall Plaza. That’s about a mile south of the nightly protests since Aug. 9, when Ferguson police Officer Darren Wilson fatally shot Michael Brown, 18.

“I know it sounds strange, but that restroom has become my refuge, my place to cry,” Johnson, 51, said Friday. “I like to cry alone, wipe my tears and See Johnson • Page A4

By Steve Giegerich sgiegerich@post-dispatch.com 314-725-6758

FERGUSON • Artez Hurston

Capt. Ronald S. Johnson

was initially content to watch Ferguson seesaw between calm and violence from the comfort of his St. Louis living room.

On the fourth night, no longer able to sit on the sidelines, he headed to north St. Louis County with two objectives: To support the outcry over

the shooting death of Michael Brown by a Ferguson police officer and fill what he saw as a critical gap in a situation marred by escalating tension between police and demonstrators.

“I figured I better get out here so we could police ourselves and get the police to stop teargassing us,” Hurston, 34, a selfemployed landscaper, said.

See cOALITION • Page A4

Robert Cohen • rcohen@post-dispatch.co

Lohgan Booker stopped to visit a mural tribute to Michael Brown painted by Joseph Albanese on the side of Signature Screenprinting at Union Boulevard and Cote Brilliante Avenue on Friday. “I just want to let this man rest,” Booker said. The screenprinting business’s co-owner Natasha Harris said she was looking for a statement with a positive effect.

PROTEST SCENE GROWS QUIETER • DROP-IN CENTER OFFERS VITAL AID • BUDDHIST MONKS MADE STIR ON SOCIAL MEDIA • A4-5

Judge tosses out much of suit over jail mistake Man was held on other’s charges.

Syria is newest front in battle with Islamic State

By Robert Patrick rpatrick@post-dispatch.com > 314-621-5154

Two police shootings are alike, and not Video raises questions but not ire.

By Hannah Allam and Jonathan S. Landay McClatchy Washington Bureau

By Joel Currier jcurrier@post-dispatch.com > 314-340-8256

WASHINGTON • Despite two

ST. LOUIS • Michael Brown and Kajieme

See Shootings • Page A3

ST. LOUIS • A federal judge tossed out late Friday the bulk of a lawsuit filed by a man who spent two months in jail here on someone else’s charges.

Cedric Wright filed a series of constitutional claims in 2012 against St. Louis police officials, officers, employees and the Board of Police Commissioners, as well as officials and employees of the sheriff’s Wright office and the city division of corrections.

Attorneys for the defendants asked U.S. District Court Judge Audrey Fleissig to rule in their favor without a trial. She did that Friday, except for a single count against a sheriff’s deputy, Benjamin Goins Jr. Reached Friday evening, Wright’s attorney, James Hacking, said he was “disappointed” but “respected” the ruling.

Maggie Crane, spokeswoman for Mayor Francis Slay, said: “We’re not perfect. But,

‘Can they (the Islamic State) be defeated without addressing that part of their organization which resides in Syria?

The answer is no.’

weeks of U.S. airstrikes in northern Iraq, the Islamic State retains its bloody grip on roughly half of the country and is rolling up new conquests in Syria, piling pressure on President Barack Obama to develop a comprehensive, cross-border strategy to crush the group.

The lack of such a response to the Islamic State’s use of Syria as a springboard for attacking Iraq is the most glaring omission of Obama’s approach to the current crisis.

Hitting the group in Syria carries huge risks, not the least being aiding the Assad regime in its war with the Islamic State and other insurgents.

Yet not quickly eradicating what senior U.S. officials

See Mistake • Page A9

Army Gen. Martin Dempsey Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

See Obama • Page A6

Powell were killed by police about 10 days and 2½ miles apart.

Both were within walking distance of their grandmothers’ homes, police say. Both allegedly shoplifted from convenience stores before encountering officers on the street about noon. Both were shot multiple times.

In both cases, black men were killed by white officers.

But Brown’s death has drawn two weeks of protests, while tension over Powell’s seemed to ease quickly — presumably because he was carrying a weapon and the whole incident was recorded on video.

There is no dispute that Brown, 18, was unarmed in a confrontation with an officer on the street outside a Ferguson apartment complex at 2947 Canfield Drive on Aug 9. Police said there was a struggle and a shooting, but in the two weeks since have provided no detailed explanation. Some witnesses say Brown was killed while trying to surrender.

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1 M Vol. 136, No. 235 ©2014

08.23.2014 • Saturday • M 1

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH • A3

From A1

Feeling hot, hot, hot!

St. Louis firefighter Todd Hall (right) cools off in a multipurpose air conditioned department bus after battling a fire at an abandoned cement company at Riverview Drive and Scranton Avenue on Friday in St. Louis.

Huy Mach • hmach@post-dispatch.com

Shootings

• from A1

Witnesses differ on whether police were justified in killing man armed with knife Powell, 25, was pacing and muttering outside the Six Stars Market, 8701 Riverview Boulevard, in St. Louis on Tuesday, police say. Witnesses saw he had a knife and called for help. After two officers rolled up, Powell held a steak knife and approached, urging them to shoot, according to police and a bystander’s video.

Each officer fired six shots.

St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson, pledging transparency, released the video and 911 calls to reporters.

A witness to Powell’s shooting says police had no choice. But his grandmother says they were too quick to shoot.

Powell fell in front of a barbershop next to the market. Eddie Flowers, whose daughter, Alderman Dionne Flowers, runs the business, said he watched the whole thing through the front window.

“They made the right move,” Eddie Flowers said.

“The man was agitated and animated. He said, ‘Kill me!’ They didn’t have any alternative.”

But the grandmother, Mildred Powell, 70, said Friday, “They murdered him, plain and simple.” She said, “They had Tasers. They could have used them.”

Though there are only about 240 Tasers available to the 1,300 officers, the two involved in this incident both had them, officials said.

Dotson said this week that Tasers, which fire probes intended to deliver a debilitating electrical shock, were not an option because they aren’t always accurate and may not penetrate clothing.

He cited a policy that officers may use deadly force if an attacker with a knife is within 21 feet. He initially said Powell was two to three feet away when officers fired. After release of a video that clearly shows a greater distance, Dotson said through a spokeswoman that the estimate came from witness accounts and an investigation would determine the actual distance.

A police use-of-force consultant, Mel Tucker, is critical of the shooting. He said this week that he saw the video and thinks one officer should have tried to subdue Powell with a Taser while the other stood guard with a handgun.

“The distance here is very, very important,” said Tucker, of Raleigh, N.C., who formerly was police chief of Tallahassee, Fla. He said it appeared that Powell “was not an immediate threat to the officers when he was shot. It looked to me like he was 20 feet away and then he stumbles forward and falls over a retaining wall.”

Lt. Matt O’Neill, director of the St. Louis County Police Academy, said recruits there received 238 hours of classroom and practical exercises on use of force.

Even with that, he said, it is difficult to prepare for the stress of a real life-or-death encounter.

“The movies make it look really easy,” he said.

Neighbors said Powell was quiet, courteous and regularly walked to a nearby library branch to read.

Calvin Frazier, 54, who lives two doors from Powell’s grandmother, in the 1300 block of Hornsby Avenue, said, “He was real smart. He read books on architecture, and you have to be smart to study that.”

Another neighbor, Rolene Walker, 69, said Powell moved in with his grandmother in January. Walker said she didn’t know him but saw him frequently in the neighborhood.

In light of the Ferguson protests, and after seeing the online video of Powell’s death, Walker said, “The police could have done it differently.”

One of the officers who fired on Powell is 25 and has been on the job a little more than three years; the other, 31, has been on the force about 2½ years. Their names were withheld pending an assessment of whether disclosure would put them in danger. Police had not released the names as of Friday.

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08.23.2014 • Saturday • M 2

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH • A5

Ferguson police shooting United Way Community Resource Drop-In Center

An oasis, respite from anxieties

By Nancy Cambria nancy.cambria@post-dispatch.com 314-340-8238

They came as early as 5:30 a.m.

Friday to the Dellwood Recreation Center in need of food, supplies and comfort.

By 6 a.m. the group swelled to fill the building’s front courtyard.

The doors to the United Way Community Resource Drop-In Center did not officially open until 10. And yet they waited.

Some walked to the center in clothes soaking in sweat. Others caught rides from friends but weren’t sure how they were going to get home. And many of them came to the Dellwood Recreation Center with tales about life along West Florissant Avenue in Ferguson that could have come out of a war zone.

One resident of the nearby Northwinds Apartments recalled returning home with her daughter, 2, and her son, 7, from his football practice and driving into a cloud of tear gas.

“We all started choking, then our eyes burned and it was hard to see,” said the mother, Jasmine Williams.

Another told counselors she rolled bath towels and hastily put them at the base of her front door and windows to block the gas.

She has asthma.

Two teens recalled getting caught inside the QuikTrip as looters rushed in.

Others said their children couldn’t sleep — long after the helicopters, gunfire and chanting had died down for the night.

Situated about two miles north of the QuikTrip that burned after being looted, the Dellwood Recreation Center on West Florissant Avenue is a point of pride for the prominently African American community adjacent to Ferguson.

The aging cinderblock building has an indoor soccer arena with artificial turf and an outdoor pool.

But this past week, the pool tables inside the main recreation room were pushed aside. The picnic tables were laden with forms, and the soccer arena was partially ringed by a table with basic supplies: diapers, toilet paper, baby formula, canned goods.

Outside, cardboard boxes the size of pickup truck beds were filled fruit and vegetables. In one, residents dipped their hands into a sea of fresh green beans, crisp

Laurie Skrivan • lskrivan@post-dispatch.com Clivana Belford, 17, and her brother Tremayne, 12, of Ferguson enjoy activities at the Ferguson Community Play Day last Saturday at the Dellwood Recreation Center. Urban Sprouts Child Development Center hosted the day for families affected by the unrest in Ferguson.

and free for the taking in the sweltering heat.

Organized by the United Way of Greater St. Louis, the dropin center has been a refuge for those who have endured nearly two weeks of turmoil in the wake of the fatal shooting of Michael Brown.

It is scheduled to be open again on Sunday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Two dozen charitable agencies, including the American Red Cross and the St. Louis Area Foodbank, are working together there offering food, rides, nurses and child care. Organizers said about 1,000 people had already gone through the center. About 480 hot meals and 1,200 snacks have been served.

It is a place for reflection and displaced community, where residents can talk freely about the trauma they’ve encountered.

“It’s all about stabilizing basic needs,” said drop-in center organizer Regina Greer of the United

Way. One room of the community center has been staffed with a team of therapists, mostly tasked to just listen.

Christina Woehlke, a case therapist with Presbyterian Children’s Homes and Services said that in a time of crisis, the first thing afflicted people need is someone to give them compassion. “We’ve had a person say, ‘I’m just looking for some hope.’ ” The therapists said they were hearing stories not only about nights filled with violence and fear, but of more general concerns associated with poverty in north St. Louis County. Now these chronic problems have been amplified.

Those lacking cars and dependent on nearby markets have found themselves without food as their local shops have closed because of looting, or seem unsafe. People with health problems are afraid to leave their homes to get medicine or thera-

pies. And school — that great return to normalcy — has twice been put on hold.

“There’s a collective sense of being overwhelmed,” said Woehlke, one of four counselors on hand Friday to help.

And because of the new instability in their neighborhoods, residents who’ve previously suffered violence or loss are reliving that trauma as well. They struggle to cope with old wounds.

“They can’t just go outside and take a walk to calm down,” said Gerald Dennis of Preferred Family Healthcare.

There were also grave worries about their future. Many residents fear the locally owned businesses will not survive. They worry that people will move away and that they will live in a shell of a neighborhood.

“There’s a sense of loss,” Dennis said. “These people are fearing they are going to lose their community.”

This pressed heavily on Lisa Williams, a resident of Jennings who lives close to Canfield Green apartments where the shooting took place.

On Friday, she was sitting outside the recreation center in the soppy heat with her niece, hugging a watermelon and a bag partially filled with green beans. She was unsure how they were both going to get home until a United Way employee connected them with a free door-to-door shuttle.

Williams said she had moved to the area from St. Louis about five years ago. She liked the stability of her new neighborhood.

“I just wanted a change from city scenery,” she said.

She was asked if she thought the neighborhood would survive once the turmoil stopped.

She did not respond. She turned her head from side to side and grimaced. She asked a United Way employee when the shuttle would arrive.

Notes from Ferguson Protest scene Gets quieter FERGUSON • On a night of sultry heat, about 150

protesters gathered enough steam for one brief but lively march down West Florissant Avenue late Friday. They turned back when police cars blocked the road.

No arrests were reported. Until that only march of the night after 10 p.m., protesting had been sporadic, with crowds small all evening.

Friday’s gathering, nearly two weeks after Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson fatally shot Michael Brown, 18, was peaceful. Through the night, the numbers of marchers, police and news reporters was down significantly from the assemblies of the previous nights.

The marchers gathered at West Florissant and Canfield Drive and, chanting “I am Mike Brown,” marched south. But they reversed course when the police cars blocked the intersection at Solway Avenue, near the police command post at the Westfall shopping center. A small Missouri National Guard unit remained there. The number of TV satellite trucks parked nearby was down significantly.

The loudest place on the protest strip was the Clergy United tent at West Florissant and Ferguson Avenue, which pumped out gospel music.

Weather may have played a part. After a high Friday of 96 degrees, the temperature lingered in the mid 80s at 11 p.m., with shirt-soaking humidity of 80 percent.

Chris Hardy, who lives near the Canfield Green apartments, said difficult issues remain, but called the protest atmosphere much less tense.

“Now the people you see, that’s Ferguson,” said Hardy, who is in his 50s. “I just hope the elders in the community keep stepping up and holding things in check. (U.S. Attorney General) Eric Holder put a calm to it, and the police have done a good job of stripping the agitators off.”

Holder visited Ferguson on Wednesday.

— Joe Holleman

Latest report adds 8 arrests Eight people were arrested in the protests Thursday night, bringing the total since Aug. 9 to about 210. The St. Louis County Police Department, which has been releasing daily lists of arrests, said five people were held Thursday for failure to disperse, the most common charge lodged. A man who had driven away from police on West Florissant Avenue was stopped and later charged with careless and imprudent driving.

One of the eight is from Ferguson. Three were from St. Louis, one from Olivette and one from an unincoportated area of St. Louis County. A man from Detroit and a woman from a suburb of Minneapolis also were arrested. About 25 of the arrests over the nearly two weeks of protests have been from places far from the St. Louis area, in-

cluding San Francisco and New York.

— From staff reports

Donations for officer redirected to nonprofit A GoFundMe crowdsourcing site that raised nearly $235,000 to support Ferguson Officer Darren Wilson has been shut down, and people are asked to donate to him via Shield of Hope, a charitable foundation run by the Missouri Fraternal Order of Police.

A message on the Missouri Fraternal Order of Police website asks people to make checks out to Shield of Hope, FOP Lodge 15, 9620 Lackland, Overland, MO, 63114. Or people can donate through Shield of Hope’s GoFundMe site at https://www.gofundme.com/OfficerWilsonFundraiser An explanation on the old GoFundMe site said that the administrators of the page began the site after a Facebook page “Support Darren Wilson” grew and they wanted to create a way for people to donate. But when they found Shield of Hope, which had been “designated as the authorized charity for donations” for Wilson, they worked together to set up the new page. They had to end collecting on the old page, they explained. Shield of Hope is a certified nonprofit, and donations may be tax-deductible.

By 11:30 p.m. Friday, the new page had collected more than $40,000.

— Valerie Schremp Hahn

Clayton trying to help Ferguson The city of Clayton and its school district are partnering with Operation Food Search to help needy families in Ferguson and nearby. According to Operation Food Search, the economic impact of recent events in Ferguson will trickle down to dinner tables for months to come. Clayton and its schools are hosting a food drive from Monday through Sept. 9.

Nonperishable food items and toiletries can be dropped off at two Clayton sites: City Hall at 10 North Bemiston Avenue and The Center of Clayton at 50 Gay Avenue. Each school within the school district will have a collection area inside the building for students, parents and staff members to drop off their donations.

Operation Food Search requests no glass items, and specifically asks for canned chicken, canned tuna, Cheerios (store brands welcome), deodorant (especially men’s) and laundry detergent.

Community members also can donate by visiting www.operationfoodsearch.org/healing-ferguson-one-meal-time/ and clicking the “Donate Now” button.

— Valerie Schremp Hahn

Cristina Fletes-Boutte • cfletes-boutte@post-dispatch.com

Tom Tessereau (far left) helps Tibetan Buddhist monks from the Drepung Gomang Monastery in India lift their recently finished sand mandala on Friday.

Buddhist monks here on tour made stir on social media

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

Tibetan monks standing with protesters in Ferguson caused quite a stir on social media, but the Michael Brown shooting didn’t bring them to this part of the world — their visit to St. Louis was part of a long-planned stop on a national tour.

Photos of the Buddhist monks in Ferguson, some showing them joining protesters in the frequently seen “hands up” gesture outside the fire-gutted QuikTrip, made their way around Twitter and Instagram.

“We prayed for peace and nonviolence,” Geshe Tsewang Thinley said of the reason they went to Ferguson.

The six monks are exiled from their native Tibet by Chinese rule and live in India at the Drepung Gomang Monastery. They are touring the United States on the Sacred Tibetan Arts Tour.

On Friday, they sat on the floor at the Healing Arts Center in Warson Woods finishing a sand mandala, an intricate design made using funnels to painstakingly place colored sand on a wooden board.

The bright hues of the mandala showed the world at the center of

Stltoday.com

See some of the Twitter posts about the Tibetan monks. the circular pattern, with a dove representing peace. It also depicted symbols of world religions, as well as fire, water and mountains.

The monks spent roughly 25 hours over three days working on the mandala, hunched over as they carefully plotted the sand, their mouths and noses covered by masks.

But the beauty of their work won’t last — mandalas are made to be destroyed as a symbol of the Buddhist belief of the transitory nature of material life.

The monks are slated to be at the Festival of Nations in Tower Grove Park this weekend, where they’ll lead a parade, teach sculpture to children using Play Doh and perform on the main stage.

They’ll also be at the Royale bar and restaurant at 3132 South Kingshighway in St. Louis for a meetand-greet from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m.

Monday, after which they’ll lead a chant and stay for dinner.

The monks will be at St. Louis University’s Center for Global Citizenship on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday making another mandala. Then, they’ll head to Kansas City.

A4 • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

M 1 • Saturday • 08.23.2014

Ferguson police shooting

Two area police officers are suspended a 35-year veteran of the department, had been suspended pending a review by the internal affairs unit.

The video was brought to Belmar’s attention by CNN reporter Don Lemon, who had previously complained to the department that Page had shoved him.

The video of Page was apparently made in 2012 before a group called the Oath Keepers of St. Louis and St. Charles. It is unclear where it was shot.

Belmar told the Post-Dispatch that Page’s comments defaming President Barack Obama, the U.S. Supreme Court, Muslims and various sexual orientations would probably have triggered

By Jacob Barker and Leah Thorsen Post-Dispatch

Two St. Louis-area police officers have been suspended by their departments in incidents related to the unrest in Ferguson.

A St. Louis County officer who had been assigned to the streets of Ferguson was suspended after a YouTube video of him making incendiary comments surfaced.

A Glendale officer was suspended after posting on Facebook that he thought the Ferguson protesters should be “put down like rabid dogs.”

St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar said officer Dan Page,

disciplinary review for being “beyond the scope of acceptable police conduct.”

But it was Page’s comments in the video describing himself, in Belmar’s words, as “an indiscriminate killer, that it didn’t matter what your race or background was” that most concerned the police chief.

“With the comments on killing, that was obviously something that deeply disturbed me immediately,” Belmar said.

An internal review will start Monday, and Page will not be doing any police work until internal affairs makes an official decision on whether the officer should be suspended, Belmar said.

Glendale officer Matthew Papper was suspended after posting on Facebook that the Ferguson protesters were “a burden on society and a blight on the community,” according to posts preserved by news and opinion website “The Daily Caller.” Another post that appears to come from Pappert says the “protestors should have been put down like rabid dogs the first night.”

Jeffrey Beaton, chief of police in the small St. Louis County suburb of roughly 6,000 people, said the comments of Pappert were brought to his attention Friday morning and “an internal investigation was immediately initiated.” Pappert was immediately

suspended until the investigation is complete, Beaton said.

“These type of allegations could result in disciplinary action up to and including termination,” he said.

On Wednesday, a St. Ann police lieutenant was suspended after pointing a semi-automatic assault rifle at a protester in Ferguson the night before, police said. Lt. Ray Albers pointed the gun at a peaceful protester after a “verbal exchange.” A county sergeant witnessed the incident, forced the officer to lower his gun and escorted him away.

What’s worth a life, he asks Johnson

•

from A1

come back out and be the best leader I can be.”

Johnson has served as site commander since Aug. 14, when Gov. Jay Nixon appointed the Missouri Highway Patrol to replace St. Louis County Police to head security in Ferguson.

On Friday, Johnson reflected on his performance. On what has gone right and what has failed.

On the challenge of bringing cohesion to the disparate police agencies under his command.

And on trying, but not always succeeding, to maintain friendly relationships with other police brass.

Returning to Ferguson has been something of a homecoming, he said, and has brought with it good memories and bad.

He grew up close enough to Ferguson to ride his bike through the town. He and his wife, son and daughter still live in north St. Louis County.

As a young driver, he said, white police officers sometimes pulled him over for no apparent reason.

“I’ve experienced some of the same issues that protesters have brought up,” Johnson said. “I know what it feels like to get stopped when I did nothing wrong.

“But not every experience I had with law enforcement was negative. I try to judge every situation case by case.”

Johnson was born in north St. Louis. His father was a St. Louis University police officer. His mother worked as receiving clerk at Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals. He graduated from Riverview Gardens High School and then attended St. Louis Community College at Florissant Valley.

He rose through the ranks of the Highway Patrol, performing that agency’s usual duties — issuing traffic tickets, changing tires, helping stranded drivers get gasoline, responding to serious accidents.

Those tasks might not seem

Laurie Skrivan • lskrivan@post-dispatch.com

Missouri Highway Patrol Capt. Ron Johnson (third from left) joins a group of demonstrators marching on West Florissant Avenue in Ferguson on Aug. 15 after Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson named Darren Wilson as the shooter of Michael Brown.

conducive to policing in an urban setting. But Johnson said they taught him a fundamental lesson.

“We deal with people in their times of need. We are that caring hand and we’re that last comforting voice when people are going, sometimes, through death,” he said. “When I was appointed to this position, I wanted to bring that strategy of caring for people to Ferguson.”

MENDING FENCES First, he had fences to mend.

Nixon’s summary dismissal of St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar did not sit well with the county chief.

“Chief Belmar’s words to me were, ‘This is a hard pill to swallow,’ ” Johnson said. “But I tell you, we had a professional relationship before this happened and he knew how much respect I

had for him. And early on, he said to me, ‘I am in your corner,’ and he has been ever since.”

Johnson also praised St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson: “He’s offered me great support.”

But that warmth has not marked his dealings with Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson.

“Let’s just say that my relationship with Chief Jackson has not been like my dealings with the other chiefs,” Johnson said.

Since Johnson took command, Ferguson police have not been involved in the protest zone.

Asked why, he said, “You’ll have to ask Chief Jackson that.”

Jackson could not be reached for comment on Friday.

Implicit in Johnson’s appointment was that police under his supervision would look like average cops on the beat, rather than the heavily armed and armored officers who stood up to protest-

ers under Belmar and who were blasted by Nixon and U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., for their “militarized” appearance.

In his first night as commander, Johnson pulled officers back and trusted protesters to behave. The strategy resulted in a boisterous but mostly troublefree gathering.

“That night felt good because it shined a light on what Ferguson really is, what the people really are,” he said.

‘A HARD MOMENT’ The next day, a Friday, began with Jackson, the Ferguson chief, releasing Wilson’s name, along with surveillance tape that appeared to show Brown committing a strong-armed robbery of cigars at the Ferguson Market and Liquor store shortly before he died. Johnson publicly criticized the timing of the video’s

cOALITION• from A1

In doing so, Hurston enlisted in a small, unheralded and unofficial coalition of area peacemakers — all African-American — who voluntarily and often at great risk to themselves have acted as intermediaries between protesters and police.

Paris Caldwell, 33, of Florissant has been a constant presence in Ferguson since the night Brown was killed.

She has come to see herself a translator in a massive communications breakdown.

“The preachers and the police are older,” Caldwell said. “They’re the doctors. I’m the nurse explaining to the kids what the doctor just said.”

St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar gives the peacekeeping cadre credit for preventing a bad situation from becoming worse.

“Without them we wouldn’t have the calm that we have,” Belmar said Friday.

Arriving separately shortly before nightfall, Caldwell and Hurston gently and sometimes not-so-gently urge protesters to heed police orders to remain on the sidewalk, stay in constant motion and avoid congregating in groups.

“They tell me it’s illegal for them to make us stop walking,” Caldwell said. “I completely know where they’re coming from, but I tell them, ‘That’s not our fight right now, so keep going.’ ” Hurston has additionally encouraged young men to remove bandanas and other makeshift coverings on their faces.

“Kids,” he said with a shrug after one protester brushed aside an argument that covering their faces antagonized police.

“They never listen.”

Christian Gooden • cgooden@post-dispatch.com

Paris Caldwell talks with friends as St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar greet people during light, peaceful protesting on West Florissant Avenue in Ferguson on Friday.

Caldwell often finds herself straddling a fine line between fierce allegiance to the cause that spawned two weeks of demonstrations and a role some construe as being sympathetic to the police.

The disconnect surfaced the night she wore a T-shirt identifying her as a “PEACEKEEPER” when a protester derided Caldwell as a “house (expletive).”

The name-calling barely registers after situations that have repeatedly called upon Hurston and Caldwell to throw themselves into the midst of chaos.

On several occasions Hurston has stood, arms spread, to single-handedly guide

taunting demonstrators back from police with night sticks at the ready.

And it was Hurston on Monday night who placed himself between a surge of demonstrators and officers with automatic weapons pointed directly at the crowd rushing toward a SWAT squad forcibly removing a motorist from a vehicle leaving a parking lot. (Authorities said two handguns were confiscated from the car.)

Two nights later, Hurston and Caldwell formed a “human shield” to protect a couple who showed up to support Darren Wilson, the Ferguson officer who shot Brown.

release.

“I knew that the release of that tape would bring tension on Friday,” he said.

That night ended with mass lootings, shots fired from the crowd and drivers performing dangerous, high-speed doughnuts in the middle of West Florissant Avenue.

Johnson watched the mayhem unfold from police lines. “I was disappointed. I was hurt. There was great pain,” he said.

“I felt like the focus had been lost, turned away from a young man who lost his life and a set of parents who lost their son. It began to be focused on personal agendas.”

Throughout the night’s turmoil, which lasted almost until dawn last Saturday, police watched without interfering, as Johnson had commanded them.

But they did not stand quietly.

“I heard the grumbling among the officers on the line,” Johnson said. “They were saying, ‘Are we just going to stand here and do nothing while they loot those businesses?’ That was a hard moment.”

Johnson responded that the lives of officers and looters were not worth the items that had been stolen.

But it was clear that the handsoff approach had failed.

The next three nights were marked by militarized police forces using tear gas and making scores of arrests in the face of Molotov cocktails and bullets fired from the crowd.

Johnson said Friday that he believed that some in the crowd were performing for the media.

Since Monday, Johnson has seen a marked difference in the interactions of police and protesters.

“There was a time when I saw more stress on officers’ faces.

And there were times when I felt fear in my own heart,” he said.

“Now, there’s a different feel. I see people approaching officers to chat, and cops posing for pictures with protesters.

“I hope — I pray — that we have turned a corner.”

Caldwell says she tries not to dwell on the danger she’s faced.

Hurston is no stranger to the anger that fueled Ferguson in the aftermath of the Brown shooting.

Growing up in north St. Louis County, Hurston resided primarily in Berkeley but also, briefly, in the Canfield apartment complex where Brown was shot.

Police, he recalls, never hesitated to stop him, first as a teenage pedestrian and later as a motorist.

African-American “teens feel like the police declared war on them when they came out of the womb,” Hurston says.

Given his own experiences, Hurston acknowledges being an unlikely candidate to broker relations between demonstrators and police.

In adulthood, Hurston’s brushes with the law have been limited to probation for failing to pay support for his five children.

He feared the probation might haunt him Monday night after he ordered teargassed demonstrators into the bed of his pickup truck to escape an area torn by gunfire. Police officers who stopped Hurston shortly afterward discovered two weapons and Molotov cocktails in the truck bed. He was taken into custody and released a few hours later without charges.

The incident left Hurston shaken.

“When you help people, you don’t stop to ask if they have guns and bottle bombs,” he says.

Whatever differences he may have had with police in the past, Hurston and his fellow intermediaries are now part of an unlikely police-and-protester fraternity forged by long and tense hours on West Florissant Avenue.

“I consider them my friends,” Belmar said.

A10 • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

M 1 • Saturday • 08.23.2014

Join the conversation A place for news and views on faith www.stltoday.com/religion

Ferguson Aftermath Nation of Islam members push to Ferguson’s frontlines

By Lilly Fowler lfowler@post-dispatch.com 314-340-8221

It was the first night the curfew was tested in Ferguson.

Around the corner sat single-family homes, but here on West Florissant Avenue a car blasted “F- the police” while members of the Moorish Science Temple of America directed traffic.

Nation of Islam member J.A. Salaam believed the pouring rain was God’s doing. Sharply dressed in a blue suit with a white striped shirt underneath, Salaam explained that members were encouraging demonstrators to obey the midnight curfew, even asking that they go home early so as to stay out of harm’s way. The rain would help.

Ever since Michael Brown, a young, unarmed AfricanAmerican, was shot by a police officer on Aug. 9, various crews have played a part in achieving the tentative peace that has taken hold of the St. Louis suburb once rocked by protests.

Some wear black T-shirts with large white letters that spell out “Peacekeepers.”

Others dress in bright orange shirts and call themselves “Clergy United.” All acknowledge that the Nation of Islam has been a key player since the very beginning.

Last week, Capt. Ronald S. Johnson of the Missouri Highway Patrol, who took over the police security patrol in Ferguson, acknowledged on national television that the Nation of Islam and other groups — such as Black Lawyers for Justice — helped control the crowds on West Florissant. Others on social media pointed out that the Nation of Islam protected businesses from looters.

Yet, some find the Nation of Islam — a Muslim sect that dominated headlines during the civil rights era but has since diminished in prominence — problematic.

In many ways, Nation of Islam members are not unlike other Muslims. They worship Allah and pray five times a day. They also fast during Ramadan and require a pilgrimage to Mecca, or Hajj. But the Nation of Islam also calls for a separate nation for blacks, according to international representative Akbar Muhammad.

On Sunday, Minister Louis Farrakhan, the national representative of the Nation of Islam, addressed Brown’s death from the group’s base in Chicago.

“In every city and town where black people live, black men are being shot down by police,” Farrakhan said. “The killing of Michael Brown is one of many.” Farrakhan also spoke of a government conspiracy against black youth.

Yet, despite controversial teachings, experts say Nation of Islam members have never advocated violence and are first and foremost interested in the thriving of African-American communities.

Despite its strong presence in Ferguson, the Na-

tion of Islam, founded in 1930, is far from what it was at its peak in 1995, when Farrakhan managed to inspire hundreds of thousands of African-Americans to gather in Washington in what is known as the Million Man March. Experts estimate that current Nation of Islam membership is in the tens of thousands, though many more may find the religion’s teachings inspiring.

Part of the reason for the dwindling numbers could be attributed to a 1970s break in leadership, where one faction of the Nation of Islam moved toward Sunni Islam under the leadership of Warith Deen Muhammad, while others chose to follow Farrakhan.

On Saturday, Aug. 16, the night when the curfew was first tested in Ferguson, Malik Shabazz, founder of Black Lawyers for Justice, marched up and down West Florissant flanked by Nation of Islam members, many of whom dressed up their suits with bow ties. Like Farrakhan, Shabazz has been accused of making anti-Semitic remarks in the past.

“Don’t worry about them,” Shabazz shouted into a megaphone, referring to the police. “Don’t get distracted.” At one point he raised his arm and yelled “Black power!”

In an effort to try to persuade demonstrators to obey authorities and go home, Shabazz cried, “We’re going to dominate the streets tomorrow.”

“C’mon, let’s roll out,” he continued. “We gotta win, not them.”

O n e d e m o n s t ra to r shouted, “Yeah that’s what they want us to do. Run.” Those on the street praised the groups’ efforts.

“They’ve been doing a good job for the most part,” said Ronnie Robinson of the St. Louis City Police Department. “I don’t see anybody from the Nation of Islam causing any problem.”

St. Louis Alderman Antonio French, who has been at the protest site nightly, said the Nation of Islam members had “a relationship with these young guys that few others do. Their presence makes us feel better about being able to keep the peace.”

But the late-night protesters haven’t always heeded the pleading of Nation of Islam volunteers.

On Saturday, Shabazz and others failed, despite a long night of effort, to persuade the hangers-on to go home.

“Michael Brown can’t go home, why should we?” some demonstrators yelled.

“Ain’t no curfew for justice.”

Dozens of protesters moved to the middle of West Florissant holding their hands up in the air as curfew drew near.

Then, as if on cue, when the clock struck midnight, a torrential downpour descended on those left in the street. Demonstrators waited for the police.

Nation of Islam member Salaam might have called the rain an act from God. But he, like others, had already abandoned the streets.

Robert Cohen • rcohen@post-dispatch.com

Rabbi Randy Fleisher (left) of Central Reform Congregation joins hands with member Maria DeShields and her son Steven Harris at a community forum at Christ the King United Church of Christ in Florissant on Aug. 12.

Editor’s note: This week, several Faith Perspectives contributors on STLtoday.com shared thoughts about the unrest in Ferguson after the shooting of Michael Brown. Below are excerpts from three of those columns:

Rev. Christopher Keating

REV. Pamela Dolan

Rev. Travis Scholl

Pastor of the Woodlawn Chapel Presbyterian Church in Wildwood.

Rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd in Town and Country

Managing editor of theological publications at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis

Healing will take time

Crossing boundaries is risky business

Yearning to see clearly

Calm will come to Ferguson. Already, the rioting has subsided.

But there is a larger question that needs to be addressed. We should be asking how peace will emerge.

We cannot confuse the absence of hostility with lasting peace, or the ending of violence with reconciliation. Tension may relax, but smoldering patches of resentment will continue to fester. Children traumatized by explosive violence will not heal overnight. A community wrenched apart will not suddenly come together. Sure, it will happen. But healing will take time.

And I believe it will not happen until we become more comfortable speaking about racism.

That is the question which demands our attention now. It is heartening to see that some in the faith community have already taken up this challenge.

It is a challenge more involved than — though in some ways just as startling as — dumping a bucket of ice water on your head.

Churches and faith communities have the potential to be a significant resource in curating a conversation about race and reconciliation, provided that they begin by acknowledging their own contributions to the problem.

Sunday mornings continue to be one of the most segregated hours of the week in most communities. But it is more than learning how to worship together. Churches from predominantly white communities need to take the initiative to form relationships with members of black congregations. We need to confess our hesitancy to speak about race. We need to listen to each other, sing with each other, and pray for each other.

What many people from outside might not understand is that we live in a really complicated region. The St. Louis metro area is broken up along so many lines of demarcation that many of us live within very set boundaries without giving it much thought, or even necessarily knowing why. It took me a few years of living here to realize that there really are people who never cross over certain highways, who never go more than a few miles east or west or north of where they live. That sounds innocuous, if a little parochial, until you start to unravel the code about what these boundaries means.

There are codes here about race and class and even religion that can start with the simple, “Where’d you go to high school?” question and then get pretty dark and twisted after that. I’ve lived here for almost a decade and I still don’t know a lot of the unspoken rules. And yet I find myself mostly obeying those invisible boundaries, without really knowing why.

When people say, “This could have happened anywhere,” of course I have to agree — but that can’t be a conversation-stopper.

Acknowledging that racial divisions and class inequalities affect our whole country does not relieve us of the duty we have to scrutinize why this happened here. Not all the frustration and anger and despair we have seen this past fortnight stem from the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager, although of course that is tragedy enough.

The background, the context, the long history leading up to this moment — those matter as well.

Crossing boundaries is risky business. Those of us who try will almost certainly make mistakes. But I see no other way forward through this.

It is past time to erase those lines in the sand between “us” and “them.”

People of faith often search their Scriptures to make sense of what seems so senseless.

Today I find myself thinking about a little story from the Gospel of Mark. The people bring a blind man to Jesus. Jesus spits into his hands, lays the balm on the man’s eyes. He asks, “Can you see anything?”

And then Mark shows his keen eye for the little details that the other gospels often don’t see.

“I see people, but they look like trees walking,” the man says.

So Jesus repeats the procedure: “Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again; and he looked intently and his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.” (Mark 8:25).

I’ve been thinking about this little story because all too often we are too comfortable to remain in our blindness. And even when we’ve been given a glimpse of the humanity — and the inhumanity — around us, we are all too content to keep our vision blurry, to see trees walking instead of seeing people and things as they really are.

The flood of images and reports from Ferguson has put our institutional blindnesses on full display. And I believe none of us are without them. But two strike me as particularly destructive.

On the one hand, we are often blind to the ways our communities are structured to open opportunities to some while denying them to others. The boundaries usually follow the lines of race, class, or gender in ways that we can’t always see on the surface of things.

On the other, we are often blind to the ways anger, when it is misdirected into acts of chaos and violence, can reinforce and perpetuate these same viciously systemic cycles of hopelessness.

Our blindness is deepened when we walk away from the possibility that our eyes may be opened... I want to look intently. I want my sight restored.

I want to see everything clearly.

I pray I am not alone.

Events TODAY

womensministrycenter.org.

Fishing event • The United Methodist Church at Wentzville will hold its annual Fish For Fun Day from 7:30 a.m. to 10 a.m. This event is open for all age groups and held at the church pond. 725 Wall Street in Wentzville. 636-327-6377, livelovegrow.org.

Beauty pageant • State of Mind Beauty Pageant is a Christian production. 6 p.m. at Resurrection Life Christian Church, 1651 Redman Road.

Women’s event • Women’s Ministry Center presents the Women United in Christ Luncheon 10 a.m. at Julia’s Banquet Center, 101 Eastgate Plaza, East Alton. $20. 618-803-9078,

Trivia night • First Christian Church Of Florissant, 2890 Patterson Road, hosts a night of Disney Trivia at 6:30 p.m. $10 per person. All proceeds will go to support Robert & Kellee Gentry’s Adoption Adventure.

Youth on Fire Conference • 6:30 p.m. at Jennings Mason Temple Church, 2120 McLaren Avenue in Jennings.

SUNDAY Singles Ministry Annual Day • 8 a.m. at Southern Mission Baptist Church, 8171 Wesley Avenue. 314521-3951, SMBCSTL.org.

Catholic Mass • Join us for an inclusive and welcoming Catholic Mass. 11 a.m. at St. Catherine of Siena Catholic Church,

2613 Potomac. 314-329-8207, SaintCatherineSTL.org.

is at 6 p.m. 636-947-1821, stcharleschristianchurch.org.

GriefShare • This video seminar and support group is for those who have lost a loved one. 3 p.m. at King of Kings Lutheran Church, 13765 Olive Boulevard. 314-469-2224. www.GriefShare.org.

THURSDAY

TUESDAY Choir rehearsal • St. Charles Christian Church, 3337 Rue Royale Street, is forming a nonaudition choir. First rehearsal

Detox Your Home • This free workshop will tell you what to avoid in everyday household and beauty products to reduce your toxic load.

7 p.m. at The Center for Spiritual Living, 12875 Fee Fee Road. 314576-6772.

Submit information online at events.stltoday. com by registering on the site and following the step-by-step instructions. Only online submissions are accepted.

A L E E E N T E R P R I S E S N E W S PA P E R • F O U N D E D BY J O S E P H P U L I T Z E R D E C . 1 2 , 1 8 7 8

SATURDAY • 08.23.2014 • A12

One ray of sunshine

POSTCARD FROM MOUND CITY • By Dan Martin

Short take • At least speeding to Ferguson costs less.

Usually we devote this space on Saturday to something short and off-beat. This hardly seems the week for that, but we did note one ray of sunshine peeking through the clouds over Ferguson: Sure, cops may have detained and threatened some out-of-town reporters, but they didn’t hit them with supersized speeding fines when traveling Interstate 70 to Ferguson.

That irritating, and potentially expensive, eight-mile “Travel Safe Zone” between Lambert-St. Louis International Airport and the St. Louis city limits was eliminated this month, the PostDispatch’s Ken Leiser reports. The highway is narrow through there, and curvier than most interstate highways. With heavy truck traffic, it can be pretty hairy.

However, because speeding fines are doubled within TSZs, the I-70 stretch proved to be a boon for the eight Balkan municipalities that claim frontage on the highway.

Between court costs and doubled fines, you could easily get a $200 ticket for speeding to the airport to catch a plane. The Missouri Department of Transportation uses TSZs as a way to cut down on accidents. Most of them have now served that purpose, MoDOT says, and have been removed.

And a good thing, too. Think of the black eye that would give our image.

dmartin@post-dispatch.com

YOUR VIEWS • LETTERS FROM OUR READERS National media miss courageous efforts in Ferguson Judging from the articles and photos on the Post-Dispatch website, the national media has missed or ignored the courageous efforts of many Ferguson residents to demonstrate peace, charity and responsibility through their good works. The impressive PostDispatch photo essay is a study in contrasts and clearly supports the claims that many bad actors prompt the actions of the crowd and thus the response of authorities.

Some say it is difficult to identify the bad actors. But suppose the innocent people of character and good will made the effort to do so? Surely many of them can vouch for each other. If true, then they have the means to identify those who exploit their numbers and their anguish to create chaos and terror. Bad enough that police action has been ill-advised, even provocative. Worse that the pool of victims is expanded and made to suffer more because of the dark agendas of a few. Ultimately, the peace and safety of the Ferguson neighborhoods will be secured by the people who live there.

If peace is restored by oppression, then the seeds of the next uprising will be sewn.

But if it comes through the action of those with the greatest stake in their own security, then the way toward justice and reconciliation is open. This will not only serve to restore calm and trust to Ferguson, but also to set an example for other communities, and for much of the media, which seem more drawn to blood than the provocateurs who have so skillfully manipulated them.

John Scott Geare • Crozet, Va.

Disgusted with police handling of situation New Zealanders may be thousands of miles away, however this may actually give us a clearer, more dispassionate view.

We join with most of the rest of the world in being disgusted with the way the situation in Ferguson is being handled by the police in your city. There are other ways!

An obvious start would be firing the police chief and working to quickly ensure a racial balance in the police force.

“Peace-making” by people with little empathy for those being policed can seldom solve difficult situations. It’s more likely to be seen as military-type tactics, and only make matters worse.

Pat Bolster • Wellington, New Zealand

Chief of police should be an elected office As someone who teaches public policy for a living, I read news from Ferguson and am shocked the following policy proposal has not been made. The chief of police for Ferguson should be made an elected office immediately, with a special election set for the earliest practicable date. Not only would this require current and future incumbents to pay attention to the sentiment of their employers (the people of Ferguson), and probably have other positive effects (like improving voter turnout and political involvement among youth and people of color), but it would make an important statement that shifts in organizational governance are important, and sometimes prerequisite, to shifts in organizational culture.

Best of all, there are elements of caution and restraint such a policy silently embraces, for instance that it’s awfully hard to win votes from people while lobbing tear gas at them.

Missouri voters already select judges, and the selection of law enforcement officers

Council of Europe Assembly in Strasbourg, I fear that policing in the U.S. is setting a bad example to other democracies and those countries that aspire to be democracies.

Lord Kilclooney • London House of Lords

Impressed by Capt. Johnson, citizens of Ferguson

ROBERT COHEN • rcohen@post-dispatch.com

A prayer vigil was held in front of the Ferguson Police Department on Sunday.

Systemic unfairness has no place in our region St. Louis is among the most segregated metro regions in America.

Ferguson, once a destination for whites fleeing from St. Louis city, later became one of the few deliberately organized multiracial inner suburbs in the area.

As we now know, the population is quite diverse, but the police force does not reflect this diversity and there is only one African-American on the city council.

I do believe that county prosecutor Robert McCulloch needs to step aside from the investigation of the Michael Brown killing, for transparency and clarity. But over the past days of crisis, it’s become clearer and clearer that this is not just about police but about a systemic unfairness that has no place in our region.

The racial inequities that exist in our region extend well beyond who is in the local government. They extend to health: In May, Washington University reported in “For the Sake of All” that residents of ZIP codes separated by only a few miles have up to an 18-year difference in life expectancy.

They extend to jobs: Unemployment in St. Louis city stood at 26 percent for African-Americans and 6.2 percent for whites in 2012, according to the Census Department’s latest available stats on employment and race.

And they exist — perhaps most persistently, and in ways that most closely parallel the Michael Brown case — in education.

already occurs by election elsewhere in the country. The sheriff whose jurisdiction includes the city of Chicago and who commands a force roughly 100 times larger than the Ferguson Police Department is elected by popular vote.

Neither the election of Missouri judges nor the election of senior law enforcement officers around the country leads to unqualified candidates reaching office. The only question, then, is: Why might a mostlywhite police department in a municipality that is two-thirds African-American be afraid of holding an election? Why, indeed.

Karl T. Muth • Evanston, Ill.

RAY FARRIS PRESIDENT & PUBLISHER

THE PLATFORM TM STLtoday.com/ThePlatform Find us at facebook/PDPlatform Follow us on twitter @PDEditorial

Late last year, more seeds for today’s conflict were sown in a public school battle that still continues. Ferguson welcomed hundreds of children to its schools last year after changes in Missouri’s education system enabling transfer of 2,000 largely AfricanAmerican students in inner-ring suburban districts to mostly higherachieving schools elsewhere. Then, in a surprise move, the largely white Ferguson-Florissant School Board seemed to force their popular African-American superintendent, Art McCoy, to resign.

Why? We never did get a straight answer. Instead, what we saw was confusion, concern and unrest. Many were saddened by news coverage of the blatantly racist statements by white parents in many of the receiving school districts.

This should all sound sickeningly familiar in the light of events over the past two weeks. More than ever, we need clear answers. Of course we need to know what happened to Michael Brown two weeks ago, and of course we need to hold our officials accountable.

More than that, we need to talk about race and about how who you are and where you live has so much control over your opportunities in life. We need to create change for a fairer system that works for all of us. None of us can afford to wait another day.

Jim Sahaida • St. Louis President, Metropolitan Congregations United

Policing in the U.S. is setting a bad example

The tragic shooting of an unarmed teenager by your police and the resulting street clashes are damaging the image of the U.S. across the world. Sadly these events in the U.S. are not exceptional in recent years. Too often, police have used unnecessary force and at times have appeared to exercise a “shoot to kill” policy.

There can now be little doubt that U.S. policing needs to be cleaned up. In other words, there is an urgent need for reform of policing. As a former member of the

GILBERT BAILON EDITOR

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

Letters should be 250 words or fewer. Please include your name, address and phone number.

All letters are subject to editing. Writers usually will not be published more than once every 60 days. Additional letters are posted online at STLtoday.com/letters.

MAIL Letters to the editor St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 900 N. Tucker Blvd.

St. Louis, MO 63101

Why did police stop carrying billy clubs?

When I was a young man, all police carried a billy club along with their weapon. What has happen to these clubs? When did the police stop carrying them?

Seems to me they were very effective at short range and were not lethal. All police I see now just carry their guns. Once hit on the head, stomach or shoulder by these clubs took all the fight out of the aggressor.

To me, it makes more sense to temporarily cripple a man than to kill him.

Perhaps Bill McClellan could look into the billy club idea.

Les Jablonski • Keller, Texas

World is watching Ferguson The eyes of the world are now on Ferguson, Mo., and are watching to see how “small town America” reacts and handles a very difficult situation. I am sure that the world hopes that there is no rush to judgment and that when all the facts are in regarding the shooting death of Michael Brown, then and only then will all people be better served.

People must remember that a person is not guilty just because some lawyers say they are. Due process should be allowed to takes its course in Ferguson.

No matter what the circumstance surrounding the police shooting of the young Michael Brown, that does not give society the right to loot, pillage and engage in violent protests! All too often these types of things are used by certain segments of society as an excuse for lawless behavior, and the police should come down extremely hard on anyone involved in these activities.

The world is watching and praying for a peaceful resolution to the current tension in your town.

Kevin Shea • Ottawa, Ontario

TONY MESSENGER EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR

PLATFORM • I know that my retirement will make no

WE WELCOME YOUR LETTERS AND E-MAIL

The actions of one man, Capt. Ron Johnson of the Missouri Highway Patrol, have done more to improve the conditions in Ferguson than all the military equipment deployed by all the local police departments in that city. I find the actions and words of Capt. Johnson to be that of a true American hero. He would make the Founding Fathers proud.

In addition to Capt. Johnson, I have been impressed by the citizens of Ferguson. Although very few people of Ferguson have been interviewed by the national media, I have heard very intelligent, reasoned and sound questions by the people not being interviewed but surrounding the interviewer; questions I have yet to hear the media ask.

In addition, the actions of the citizens by identifying the rabblerousers among the protesters and turning them in to the police are more than commendable. It sometimes seems they are doing more to protect their community than the police wearing military camouflage.

In these time when politicians of all parties are letting us down and making statements to inflame their supporters, I have found reason to hope in America again by normal, average, everyday people such as Capt. Johnson and the citizens of Ferguson.

Jay Nawrocki • Crystal Lake, Ill.

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TONY MESSENGER tmessenger@post-dispatch.com Editorial Page Editor • 314-340-8382 KEVIN HORRIGAN khorrigan@post-dispatch.com Deputy Editorial Page Editor • 314-340-8135 FRANK REUST freust@post-dispatch.com Letters Editor • 314-340-8356 DEBORAH PETERSON dpeterson@post-dispatch.com Editorial writer • 314-340-8276