St. Louis Post-Dispatch Ferguson coverage - August 27

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 • 08.27.2014 • $1.50

Shoddy care is cited in VA report

bridge to the past

king’s daughter tells students nonviolence is way forward

But it doesn’t blame delays for deaths.

By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER Associated Press

WASHINGTON • Govern-

ment investigators found no proof that delays in care caused veterans to die at a hospital in Phoenix, but they found plenty of problems that the Veterans Affairs Department is promising to fix.

Investigators uncovered large-scale improprieties in the way VA hospitals and clinics across the nation have been scheduling veterans for appointments, according to a report released Tuesday by the VA’s Office of Inspector General.

The report said workers falsified waiting lists while their supervisors looked the other way or even directed it, resulting in chronic delays for veterans seeking care.

“Inappropriate scheduling practices are a nationwide systemic problem,” said the report by Richard Griffin, the VA’s acting inspector general.

“These practices became systemic because (the Veterans Health Administration) did not hold senior headquarters and facility leadership responsible and accountable.”

The report could deflate an explosive allegation that helped launch the scandal in the spring: that as many as 40 veterans died while awaiting care at the Phoenix VA hospital. Investigators identified 40 patients who died while awaiting appointments in Phoenix, the report said, but added: “While the case reviews in this report document poor quality of care, we are unable to conclusively assert that the absence of timely quality care caused the deaths of these veterans.”

Nevertheless, top VA officials said the report’s findings were troubling.

“I’m glad that veterans didn’t die because of delays in care, or at least they weren’t able to conclude that they did,” Deputy VA Secretary Sloan Gibson said in an

See VA • Page A7

Laurie Skrivan • lskrivan@post-dispatch.com

“Why would I stay at home? This movement is real. We want justice. I go through many of these issues every day,” said Tamara Dodd (left), who joined hands with Georgia Soliz at a rally for Michael Brown on Tuesday outside the Thomas F. Eagleton U.S. Courthouse downtown.

‘My dad’s legacy is on the line,’ King tells students

Shots fired at Brown may have been recorded

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

By Stephen Deere and David Hunn Post-Dispatch

BELLEFONTAINE NEIGHBORS •

A man stares into the camera and says, “You are pretty,” but before he can finish the sentence, the pop, pop, pop of gunfire erupts in the background.

Six or seven shots can be heard during that first volley.

Then a three-second pause.

Followed by four more shots.

The man doesn’t blink and continues recording the video.

The 12-second recording, made on a smartphone with the app Glide, a video messaging service, is believed to have captured Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson shooting to death Michael Brown on Aug. 9.

If authentic, it is the first recording of the shooting that has

The youngest child of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. leaned toward the 30 students facing her inside the library at Riverview Gardens High School on Tuesday. Many of them live near the epicenter of the chaos that erupted in Ferguson. It’s why Bernice King chose this school for this discussion.

The students seemed curious about this visitor, whose late father led the marches and protests that they’ve read about in class. But before she arrived, a school district administrator asked for a show of hands of those who thought nonviolent protests and peaceful resistance used during the American civil rights movement remain relevant in

See King • Page A6

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

Riverview Gardens students pose Tuesday with Bernice King, daughter of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., at Riverview Gardens High School, where she talked with students about the Michael Brown shooting.

County council sends relief • Page A2 Hear the recording • STLtoday.com

Checkmate, or a knockout?

Chess fans — including “chess-boxing” enthusiast George Krasnopolskiy — lined up Tuesday to greet six of the top 10 players in the world, here to compete in the Sinquefield Cup, starting today at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of St. Louis. • Page A4

See Brown • Page A6

Israel and Hamas agree to an open-ended cease-fire But dealing with contentious issues is put off.

By KARIN LAUB and MOHAMMED DARAGHMEH Associated Press

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip • Israel

and Gaza’s ruling Hamas agreed Tuesday to an open-ended ceasefire after seven weeks of fighting — an uneasy deal that halts the deadliest war the sides have fought in years, with more than 2,200 killed, but puts off the most difficult issues.

In the end, both sides settled for an ambiguous interim agreement in exchange for a period of calm.

Hamas, though badly battered, remains in control of Gaza with part of its military arsenal intact. Israel and Egypt will continue to control

access to blockaded Gaza, despite Hamas’ long-running demand that the border closures imposed in 2007 be lifted.

Hamas declared victory, even though it had little to show for a war that killed 2,143 Palestinians, wounded more than 11,000 and left some 100,000 homeless. On the Israeli side, 64 soldiers and five civilians were killed, the last a man killed by Palestinian mortar fire shortly before the cease-fire was announced.

Large crowds gathered in Gaza City after the truce took effect at dusk, some waving the green flags of Hamas, while celebratory See Gaza • Page A7

Ukraine-Russia talks Leaders come to no quick resolution on fighting; key issue remains ties with EU vs. Russia.

Huy Mach • hmach@post-dispatch.com

Hikaru Nakamura (left), a chess grandmaster who lives in St. Louis, signs boxing gloves for George Krasnopolskiy, of St. Charles, on Tuesday in the Central West End. Krasnopolskiy uses the gloves for “chess-boxing”: “It’s circuit training for the body and the mind,” he said.

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Putin

Duncan Hines was more than a cake mix

Burger King deal draws heavy fire

• A10

McClellan: A frank talk about race

• A13

He was one of the most influential food writers of the 1940s and ’50s.

Late homer lifts Pirates over Cards

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Let’s Eat • L1

Local colleges gear up for football

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Poroshenko

1 M Vol. 136, No. 239 ©2014

A6 • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

M 2 • Wednesday • 08.27.2014

Ferguson Police shooting

Peaceful marches continue Demonstrators at federal courthouse downtown meet with U.S. attorney to voice demands.

By Lilly Fowler and Valerie Schremp Hahn Post-Dispatch

Dozens of demonstrators marched to the federal courthouse downtown on Tuesday afternoon to hand deliver specific demands surrounding the investigation of Michael Brown’s death.

“The fight is not over. The fire is still burning,” cried St. Louis artist Tef Poe, as about 100 gathered at St. Louis City Hall in the sweltering heat. “It could get a lot hotter if we don’t get justice.

“We’re bringing Darren Wilson to justice, and I put that on my life,” Poe said.

Later in the evening, another 100 or so people walked in a peaceful march from Greater St. Mark Family Church off Chambers Road to the QuikTrip on West Florissant Avenue, which had been the focal point of earlier, sometimes violent protests.

The group, which is calling itself the St. Louis Peacewalkers, is made up of members of the Clergy Coalition, 100 Black Men of America Inc. and other groups.

“We want to encourage the community to stay engaged in a peaceful, nonviolent way,” said Joseph Anderson, the president of the St. Louis chapter of 100 Black Men. “We wanted to make sure African-American males were at the table discussing these issues. We’re seeking long-term and short-term solutions,” such as political action, encouraging voter registration, and addressing economic issues.

At the earlier march, representatives from Hands Up United, Organization for Black Struggle, Dream Defenders, a group led by African-American youths, the

Christian Gooden • cgooden@post-dispatch.com

About 100 people march peacefully Tuesday along Chambers Road in Ferguson. Participants started at Greater St. Mark Family Church on Chambers and walked about 1½ miles to the burned-out QuikTrip.

faith-based PICO National Network, and Show Me 15, which demands living wages for fastfood workers, all took part.

Once outside the Thomas F. Eagleton U.S. Courthouse, protesters threatened to enter the building, shouting, “Tell me what democracy looks like; this is what democracy looks like!”

Some jumped up and down as various demonstrators used a megaphone to yell alternating slogans, several directed at officials standing guard at the courthouse, such as, “Who do you protect, who do you serve?”

Eight demonstrators pushed their way inside the courthouse,

and five met personally with U.S. Attorney Richard Callahan. Protesters said Callahan pledged to take their demands to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder but made no further promises.

Protesters said they demanded an expanded Department of Justice investigation into patterns of civil rights violations by police across north St. Louis County and the firing of Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson.

Demonstrators also said they wanted St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch to step down, allowing a special prosecutor to be appointed.

Outside the courthouse, the

Rev. William Barber, of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People of North Carolina, explained why he had traveled to St. Louis to join the march.

“We have been baptized in the blood,” Barber said. “And the blood of the martyrs will cement us together.”

On Thursday, representatives from the Organization for Black Struggle plan to meet with White House officials to deliver a petition with 600,000 signatures to demand that the Department of Justice act immediately.

“This is about making sure there are no more Mike Browns,”

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

Marlon Wharton (center), 40, is hugged Tuesday at Riverview Gardens High School by Charles Alphin, who works at the King Center in Atlanta with Bernice King (right), daughter of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

King

• from A1

light of Ferguson. Only one hand shot up.

King is aware of this disconnect. “My dad’s legacy is on the line,” King told the students. “If this doesn’t turn out the right way, it could begin to have people question what happened years ago.”

King believes the community is at a critical moment as it continues to confront the police shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown. And like the students she spoke with on Tuesday, much of her concern is centered on the violence that may return as the legal process moves forward.

“If he’s not indicted, what’s going to happen?” asked Justin Fowler, a senior, referring to Darren Wilson, the officer who shot Brown.

“You tell me. You live here,” King said. “That’s the big question out there right now. So what’s going to happen?”

“Everything will go bad,” he said.

Defenders of Wilson say he shot Brown in self-defense. The fear that a grand jury may not indict him is why King and others with the King Center in Atlanta are in the St. Louis area listening to groups of youths to determine the best way to advocate nonviolence.

They plan to develop a relationship with Riverview Gardens students, who are predominantly African-American and live closest to the unrest. They hope to develop a strategy to help young people channel their anger in a nonviolent way, defusing a potentially explosive situation if the investigation doesn’t produce the results that many hope for.

“That part is out of our hands,” King said of the investigation. “We’ve got to find a way to not make it worse....

We can’t destroy each other. We’re all we’ve got. We’ve got to band together as a community. But we’ve also got to wipe out the ‘us-and-them’ mentality.”

The Ferguson situation has worn on the students who met Tuesday with King. They are the leaders of Riverview Gardens High. They’re the captains of the football team. The class officers.

Members of junior ROTC. Some also live in the Canfield Green

apartments, along the street where Brown was shot. D’Aja Washington, a sophomore, is friends with Brown’s sister.

Some have participated in the protests on West Florissant Avenue. Some have gone there to hand out water.

Some stayed home, where they still couldn’t escape the sounds of violence at night.

Those who participated in the civil rights marches of Martin Luther King Jr.’s era have had trouble connecting with the young people on the streets of Ferguson this month who see the 1960s as irrelevant. Bernice King tried to bridge that divide.

Her father, she said, “helped people channel that anger into something positive to bring about the change they were hoping for.”

“They saw tanks too,” she said. “You think this is the first time tanks have been in a community? It’s not. You all think this was the first time tear gas was used? It was used on my daddy. In Selma. Tear gas, tanks. So really you’ve got to start thinking: What is the vision you want to see come out of this?

It’s got to be big. You’ve go to see well beyond this moment.”

King was just 5 years old when her father was assassinated in 1968. She dealt with death throughout her childhood, losing her uncle to a drowning and her grandmother to a fatal shooting. Her anger built, turning into rage at times. She’s since directed that energy into advocating the nonviolent philosophies of her father through the King Center.

“I don’t know if you realize this, but anger is anger,” she told the students.

“It has no mind. It has no rationality.

It’s mad and it just wants to destroy.

At the end of the day, you have to find a way to arrest that anger.”

Ronada Hood, a senior, said she appreciated the conversation. The situation in Ferguson has made it more difficult for her to find a part-time job, since many of the businesses near where she lives have been looted and destroyed. “The violence didn’t solve anything,” she said.

said Montague Simmons, chairman of the Organization for Black Struggle.

Meanwhile, at the evening’s march along West Florissant, people carried signs with single words such as “unity,” “justice,” “peace,” “love” and “prayer.”

At the QuikTrip, Missouri Highway Patrol Capt. Ronald S. Johnson and County Police Chief Jon Belmar shook hands with marchers.

Julia Wilson, 33, of Ferguson, carried a sign that said “equal rights.” She marched and thought of her son, Deon Jackson, 8, who got upset by what he saw on the news about Brown. “I had to explain to him that people aren’t bad,” she said. “People make bad choices. At school, the police officer talked to the kids and reassured them that they are there to help.”

The Rev. Susan Sneed, an organizer of Metropolitan Congregations United, lives nearby and when protests got violent, she smelled the tear gas that wafted over her house and saw the tactical team trucks rumble down her street. She thinks Brown’s death has brought several issues to the front burner, issues that can’t be ignored now.

“I think there’s been lots of conversation going on over the years, but it’s small, and people haven’t been interested,” she said. “Now, I think people know, one bad traffic stop, and it could be my neighborhood. I think people want things to get back to normal. But it’s going to be a brand new normal.”

The march was peaceful but a 19-year-old man was arrested near the route after a gun was spotted in the waistband of his pants, an official said. The man was not one of the marchers.

Laurie Skrivan • lskrivan@post-dispatch.com

A man with the New Black Panther party talks to a protester among a crowd demonstrating downtown Tuesday outside the Thomas F. Eagleton U.S. Courthouse.

Brown

• from A1

surfaced. It would show that Wilson fired at least 10 times; a private autopsy said at least six shots struck Brown. The recording also chronicles a pause which over the past 36 hours has been the subject of much speculation.

Some say the pause shows that Wilson shot, had time to think about his actions, and then shot again.

Others say it means little.

“Assuming that it’s real, it tells us literally nothing, other than the fact that there was a pause between the series of gunshots,” said David Klinger, a criminal justice professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, expert on police shootings and a former police officer.

Klinger said officers are trained to shoot, then assess, and if a potential threat remains or resurfaces, to shoot again. Reading anything significant into that brief pause is the “height of absurdity,” he said.

Anthony Gray, a Clayton lawyer representing Brown’s mother and father, disagreed.

“It could be very significant,” he said.

“This is the first audio that I’ve heard that captures the number of times and succession of shots fired on that day.”

“Several witnesses,” he continued, “describe two distinct deployments of deadly force by this officer.”

And that, Gray said, tends to corroborate that Brown was running away.

The FBI and St. Louis County Police Department, which are conducting parallel investigations, declined to comment.

The video was recorded by a client of lawyer Lopa Blumenthal. She said he lives in the apartment complex where Brown was killed and captured the shooting while recording a video text message to a friend.

The man’s roommate is also a client of hers who told her about the recording last week.

Blumenthal said she knew the recording might be significant to the investigation. So she reached out to the man who made it, and met him in a parking lot on West Florissant Avenue around 9 p.m. Saturday. She said it took a lengthy discussion to convince him to let her represent him and take the recording to the FBI. Blumenthal said the FBI interviewed her client for about an hour and a half on Monday, and inspected the phone on which he made the recording.

The man who made the recording did not want to be named, Blumenthal said. She said he came forward reluctantly and feared for his safety. The Post-Dispatch agreed not to disclose the video portion of the message or the man’s identity.

The audio backs up some witness testimony. Police and some witnesses have said that one shot was fired in the police vehicle.

While the recording doesn’t seem to catch that shot, it does portray what some witnesses said happened next: Michael Brady told CNN that Wilson shot three or four times, then Brown “took like one or two steps” toward Wilson, then Wilson shot three or four more times. Tiffany Mitchell repeatedly said Wilson was shooting as he chased Brown, paused as Brown turned around to face the officer, and then continued shooting until Brown fell down.

And Piaget Crenshaw said she knew Wilson fired some rounds that didn’t hit Brown — she watched officers remove a bullet from a neighbor’s outside wall.

But Dorian Johnson, the friend with Brown in the road that day, has consistently said Wilson fired one shot in the car, one shot when he got out of the car, and then fired several more shots, “and my friend went down in the fetal position.”

Johnson’s lawyer, Freeman Bosley Jr., suggested that the audio didn’t record the entire shooting.

“There was probably a nice gap between the firing of the first shots and what you are hearing now,” Bosley said.

The shooting has sparked nightly demonstrations and attracted worldwide media attention.

Blumenthal said sympathizers to both Brown and Wilson have contacted her, saying that the three-second pause bolsters their cases.

Blumenthal said she thought the recording was important.

“There was a pause,” she said, “and to me a pause means time to think and contemplate.”

Blumenthal acknowledged that the apparent gunfire on the recording never seemed to disturb her client. When she asked him about that detail, he told her that the sound of gunshots in that complex is not unusual and he was concentrating on making the video.

“I’m 100 percent positive this is accurate,” she said. “He is not doing this for the publicity. He has no motivation to lie.”

08.27.2014 • 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

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

‌

What’s up • From events.stltoday.com

08.28

08.28

08.28

Getting the most from Facebook • “Facebook 2: I’m on Facebook — Now What?”is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Thursday at the Spencer Road Branch of the St. Charles City-County Library District, 427 Spencer Road in St Peters. This course will cover fun Facebook features, such as fan pages, photo albums, tagging, chatting and emailing. This is a follow-up to the Facebook 1 starter course. If you haven’t already taken that course, you should at least have a Facebook account and know how to post on Facebook. Registration is requested at youranswerplace.org. Free.

Community theater performance • Curtain’s Up Theater Company, a community theater group, will perform the stage version of “Annie, The Musical” Thursday through Sunday at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville’s Dunham Hall Theater on the main SIUE campus. Performances are at 7:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, with matinees at 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Tickets are $15; senior citizens, $12; and children 18 years old and younger, $10. Tickets can be bought online at curtainsuptheater.com through PayPal or at these three locations: Edwardsville Public Library, 112 South Kansas Street in Edwardsville; Ashman’s Pharmacy and Gifts, 209 East Main Street in Collinsville; and Happy Up, 6654-A Edwardsville Crossing in Edwardsville.

Group tickets of 12 or more at the same performance can be bought in advance and receive a $2 discount per ticket by emailing tickets@ curtainsuptheater.com or by calling 618-960-3300.

Drug awareness program • The Collinsville Police Department is sponsoring a community awareness event featuring a presentation by the service organization Bethany Place about the potentially lifesaving drug Narcan. The public meeting will be at 7 p.m. Thursday at Navigation Church, 1203 Vandalia Street in Collinsville. Doors will open at 6 p.m., and light refreshments will be served. Information will be given about heroin use, treatment opportunities and local HIV-AIDS statistics and prevention measures. 618-344-2131, Ext. 5126, or tlink@collinsvilleil.org To list a community event or meeting, submit it online at events.stltoday.com.

Heads up Gateway Guide maintenance • Camera feeds on the Missouri Department of Transportation’s Gateway Guide will be unavailable for a time today after the morning rush period. The server will be turned off for maintenance starting at 9 a.m. The server is expected to be back online by 3 p.m., before the afternoon rush period.

Water flushing programs • Illinois American Water is conducting its annual “free chlorine” and main-hydrant flushing programs in the Metro East area over the next two months. During this time, Illinois American Water will switch to a form of chlorine known as “free chlorine,” which does not contain ammonia. During the temporary treatment change, customers may experience a more noticeable chlorine taste or odor in their water. Annual fire hydrant-water main flushing will also be taking place. When Illinois American Water crews are working, customers may experience a temporary drop in water pressure or draw some discolored water for a short period. If this occurs, customers should simply let the water run briefly and the situation should clear up. illinoisamwater.com To submit items, email them to headsup@post-dispatch.com or fax them to 314-340-3050.

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A perspective from Japan opens our race discussion Bill McClellan • bmcclellan@post-dispatch.com > 314-340-8143 Let’s have a frank talk about race. Everybody says we should. I’ll go first.

I was raised on the South Side of Chicago. That’s the black side of the city, but I lived in a white neighborhood and didn’t know any black kids. For that matter, I didn’t know any Asian kids. I remember one Asian girl in my high school class. She was very smart. I don’t believe I ever spoke with her.

I knew only one Jewish boy, and he seemed perfectly normal. We were friends. But I instinctively recognized that one person is too small a sample size to base anything on, so I stuck with the stereotype. Jews were tight with money. Of course, Jews were successful. A Cadillac was called a Jew Canoe.

If a gentile drove a Jew Canoe, he was probably Negro rich, which meant he spent money on flashy things. Actually, we did not use the word Negro in that instance. We used the offensive word. We did not use the offensive word to describe people. For people, we used the word colored. We just didn’t use it as an adjective. Nobody was colored rich.

Such was the casual bigotry of my childhood. It was smug rather than hateful. When George Wallace said that white Americans were the greatest people who ever trod this earth, I figured he was stating the self-evident truth.

Children had freedom in those days that seems almost bizarre today. Larry Less and I used to take the Halsted bus to 63rd Street, where we would board the El — elevated train — to go to Wrigley Field on the North Side. The El sped along just feet away from tenements on the South Side.

Sometimes as the train would slow to approach a station, I would see black people sitting at their kitchen tables.

Occasionally, the train would stop in such a fashion that my car would be right next to somebody’s kitchen window, and for a moment or two, I would lock eyes with a black child. These encounters were neither hostile nor friendly. Separated by two panes of glass, we simply observed each other. Then the train would start moving and the connection would be lost.

At the University of Illinois, I met my first openly gay guys. They seemed smart and funny. I waited tables at a Jewish fraternity for my meals, so I met a number of Jewish guys. They seemed like my friend from grade school.

After I flunked out, I came back to Chicago to await my draft notice. I worked in a men’s shop on State Street. The owner was a Jewish tailor. He drove a Cadillac. He took care of the suits and sport jackets. I was one of the clerks who helped with the accessories. Mostly, shirts and ties. It was not a high-end store. We catered to people who didn’t normally dress up. Our typical customer might be a man who needed a suit for his child’s wedding.

One of the other clerks was a black guy.

In addition to selling shirts and ties, he sold matchboxes of marijuana. He said he had connections with the Blackstone Rangers, a legendary gang on the South Side. We sometimes smoked pot in the alley behind the store. He seemed sophisticated and hip.

I was drafted into the Marine Corps.

Most of the guys in my boot camp platoon were white, but it had a smattering of blacks. Everybody got along all right, but the black guys tended to hang with one another. Friendships spanned racial lines in Vietnam, but again, the blacks tended to hang with one another. They even had an elaborate handshake routine — the Dap. After nine months in Vietnam, I was sent to Japan. Just as I had not gotten to really know any Vietnamese people, I didn’t get to know any Japanese people.

I spent more than a year in Asia without getting to know any Asians.

But it was in Japan that I had a racial epiphany. One friend was a farm kid from Nebraska. He met a Japanese girl at a cultural exchange. He fell in love.

Her parents were outraged and forbid her to see him. They thought he was beneath their daughter. I was shocked.

Wasn’t my friend among the greatest people who ever trod the earth?

With my eyes now open, I came to realize that her parents were not alone. Many Japanese felt superior to us. I began imagining what it would be like to live as a minority in their society. We would be held in low regard. Us and them with them on top.

If there were ever a dispute between one of them and one of us, their guy would win.

What if we had been brought over as slaves? We’d have Japanese names, but wouldn’t really be Japanese. We’d be American-Japanese. Essentially outsiders.

It was a foreign concept to me. But as I struggle to understand our racial problems, it comes in handy.

Your turn.

08.27.2014 • Wednesday • M 1 ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH • A15

Other views More letters online

Leonard Adreon of Clayton says, “I hope the day will come when we stop dividing a community by ethnicity, skin color, religion or other such measures. When that happens, as it should, we can stop this “us versus them” attitude that exists today.”

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

The Killing of Michael Brown Stephen M. Ryals

Start police-citizen encounters the right way A simple change • Officers should be civil, if not cordial, to gain respect.

“Get the f - - - out of the road.”

Only three people know whether those were the first words exchanged between Police Officer Darren Wilson and Michael Brown, and one of them is dead.

Amid the million words spoken about the shooting of Michael Brown, there has been little discussion about the first interaction between these two men. Would Mr. Brown be alive today if, rather than a profane command, Officer Wilson had chosen a different tack?

It is not difficult to imagine the range of statements that an officer could employ in such an encounter. Pick and choose from the bracketed terms: [Gentlemen] [Fellas][Men][Hey Guys] [can you] [do you mind][please] walk(ing) on the sidewalk, [we are going to have an ambulance coming through here][and I don’t want you to get hit][and there is a person up here who needs it to get there quickly].

In my practice, I talk to a lot of

police officers. One conversation stands out. The officer had a pleasant demeanor, and I wondered whether it served him well; did he find it difficult to control situations because he was so nice?

He explained his three-step protocol for gaining compliance by a citizen: Ask. Command. Enforce.

Politely ask the subject to comply.

If that fails, tell — command — the subject to comply. Then, and only then, exercise the force necessary to gain compliance.

Officer Wilson had options that day. He could have issued citations (for violating Ferguson ordinance), made a custodial arrest, ignored the violation or, as was apparently the case here, attempted to abate the violation. Might this encounter have turned out differently if he had employed the three-step protocol?

Have the police become militarized? That is a worthy topic but may be irrelevant to the shooting of Michael Brown. Officer Wilson

did not roll up in a tank, dressed in camouflage and brandishing an AR-15. But, maybe his attitude did. Perhaps Officer Wilson has an authoritarian, aggressive and confrontational style, and perhaps, that is the culture of the Ferguson Police Department. Time will tell.

It is also possible that Mr. Brown and his friend were defiantly strolling down the middle of the street. Whatever the cause, when the F-bomb is lobbed by a police officer, regardless of race, social class or any history of abuse or oppression by law enforcement, conflict will follow.

Consider an alternative. If every officer approached every subject with a mind-set akin to “I am not armed” — if every officer adhered to the parental coax, “use your words” — we who empower and arm our police would have a measure of confidence that if the request, then the command fail, then the use of force was necessary. The certainty that force was

W

crime-free homes, recreation facilities and better education for their children.

My recent return to St. Louis has been alarmhen the city of Ferguson ing. I have noticed that the city has undergone a serious shift. As the inner core of the city exploded into protest over the brusuch as downtown lofts, Soulard, Lafayette, midtown, Central West End and the Grove have tal killing of unarmed teen Michael been refurbished and made safer for an influx of white residents, I wonder where the AfricanBrown, it hit close to home.

Americans and poor white residents that once occupied these spaces have gone. To get a sense As a native of St. Louis, I returned this year to spend time as a visiting scholar at Washington of the pulse of the city, I rode the MetroLink to Washington University’s campus each day.

University — after roughly a 20-year hiatus.

What I discovered during morning, afternoon During my childhood years, my uncle briefly and evening commutes is that these people are lived in the very complex where Mr. Brown getting off in droves in North County. So when I was murdered. Most of this summer three took my daughter to tennis lessons in Ferguson, I times each week, I took my daughter to Forunderstood why I spied so many young Africanestwood Park in Ferguson for tennis lessons, Americans walking along the streets. about three-quarters of a mile from the spot However, as many have reported, what has where Officer Darren Wilson shot and killed not changed is the ethnic makeup of the police Michael Brown. More than the daily demoniforce and other public offices. What also has zation of black men in the nation’s psyche, not changed nationwide is a philosophy among in reflecting on Brown’s senseless death, my officers to “shoot until the threat is no longer thoughts drift toward my youth as a black presenting a threat,” explains David Klinger, a male trying to safely navigate my way through former police officer and associate professor at and out of St. Louis to college in New York.

University of Missouri-St. Louis. What has not I am surprised but not shocked that the situchanged since ation is currently the Civil Rights at full throttle.

Act was signed The tension has is a significant been mountand lasting ing for quite economic and some time. As political power a young teen in shift among the 1980s I was black Ameritaught when cans. traveling through Washington any one of the University 90 or so county houses the townships in St. Henry Hampton Louis to watch “Eyes on the my speed, make Prize: American sure my vehicle Civil Rights was free of any Years 1954violations and 1965” archival make certain material. This my license and film footage registration were chronicles some accurate. The of the most pivcounty was a otal moments in place we venby Thabiti Lewis the civil rights tured to for movmovement. As ies, malls, dining I think about or the difficultsolutions to the to-find jobs that current crisis, I just seemed to be am convinced in short supply this is the in the city of St. perfect time Louis. The catch to use it to offer programming and discussion was that one had to navigate through the minefor police forces and schools across the nation field of township police without being stopped, about one of the most important periods in ticketed or arrested. Indeed, the site of one or modern American history. Such programming more young black male teens in a car was usuwill allow the nation to see how current behavior ally sure to draw the attention of police officers. such as refusal to allow even peaceful protest, Sometimes one need not even be in a car. the presence of dogs, assault rifles, tear gas and During my senior year, I, along with several tanks, creating curfews, and the initial refusal to friends, was shooting hoops in a Clayton school name the shooter or release the autopsy report is yard when suddenly a police officer drove his eerily close to the brutality of the Old South that car onto the court where we were. He wanted shook the nation over 50 years ago. But it can to know if we were residents and claimed that also teach lessons to the nihilistic youth of today someone had reported that we told a little girl to that change comes from personal responsibility get out of the school yard. After some back and and being informed citizens who change policy forth, we just left. We downplayed the injustice through the political process. by agreeing the game was nearly done and it was “Eyes on the Prize” also reminds us of the getting late. legacy of the 1964 Summer Project, called Ferguson is a microcosm of the nihilism, “Freedom Schools,” a network of 30 to 40 volanger, poverty and cultural disconnect that untary summer schools that taught subjects has gripped the country for several decades. such as black history and constitutional rights to These crisis-proportion dynamics have been intensifying for the past six or seven years. There help with confidence, voter literacy and political organization skills, as well as academic skills, to are many reports about what has happened in students from the very young to elderly adults.

Ferguson but perhaps not enough conversation A reprisal of this coalition effort, or something about what action we need to take to make it similar, is necessary if we hope to empower citiend. The simple answer seems to be the lack of zens like Ferguson’s black populace. jobs, opportunity, respect; a history of injustice, St. Louis was not among the larger urban citpersonal responsibility and cultural. However, a ies rioting during the summer of 1964, but 50 much more lengthy and complicated explanayears later, Ferguson has undoubtedly impacted tion is necessary. the question of civil rights, race, the increasing The officer harassing me and my friends did economic inequities and the color of justice in not see his son, his nephew, his neighbor’s sons, modern America. The reaction of the police to an nor did the officer who shot Mr. Brown. Instead, through his lens he perceived potential or imme- unarmed youth, the response of an angry populace, the militarized police response to protestdiate threats. Over 25 years later how much has ers, and the presence of the National Guard, FBI changed? and attorney general to ensure justice prevails is North County has historically been a space a truer measure of our progress 50 years later. where upwardly mobile working-class and middle-class African-Americans from St. Louis Thabiti Lewis is an associate professor of English and critical city fled to as soon as they could afford it. Cities culture gender and race studies at Washington State Universitysuch as Normandy, Jennings, Riverview, FlorisVancouver. sant and Ferguson offered safe, clean, fairly

MY ST. LOUIS THEN

AND NOW Civil rights struggle • We’re still seeking an economic and political power shift among black Americans.

necessary would not mean that the force was reasonable — it could have been excessive for the situation — but we should want to know that it was necessary to use some force because the cordial request, then the commanding directive, failed to gain compliance.

Not every police-citizen contact will, or should, have a chat component. As one chief testified, “If you pull a gun, we are not talking.”

There is no three-step paradigm if the first encounter is physical aggression by the citizen, nor should there be.

The events following the death of Michael Brown demonstrate the chasm between the police and the community they serve. We all should find this intolerable, and the “we” includes police officers.

There will undoubtedly be many more discussions and many more pronouncements and many more accusations and recriminations. There might even be some

meaningful solutions that emerge.

There is a simple and concrete change that can be implemented immediately. Officers, and citizens: You earn respect one encounter at a time. Address one another as you would want someone to speak to your grandmother.

Police executives: Hold your officers accountable to be civil if not cordial.

Ferguson is not unique.

Throughout our region, AfricanAmericans can tell tales of heavy-handed, authoritarian police behavior. Police officers can tell similar stories of defiance and aggression. Maybe the polite “howdy” is met by a vile response.

Maybe officers are aggressive because the populace is aggressive, and so swirls the cycle.

Who will be the first to try to break it?

Stephen M. Ryals is a civil rights lawyer in St. Louis. The focus of his practice is police misconduct cases.

Jack Glaser

Why Gov. Nixon has to remove prosecutor Nonconscious bias • People can behave discriminatorily despite their best intentions. that the rest of us do, and these biases We are a long way from knowing precan cause them to behave in ways cisely what happened in Ferguson, two they don’t consciously want to. When weeks ago, but one thing is clear: The placed in a potentially fatal situation, town’s name has become yet another they have a fight-or-flight response synonym for the chasm of experience that compromises higher level brain dividing white and black America. functioning. At that point, they have Time and again, young Africanto rely on extensive training to follow American men have been fatally shot basic protocol, but subtler distinctions by police under ambiguous circumare difficult. stances: Amadou Diallo, Oscar Grant, The issue of nonconscious bias is Sean Bell … the list goes on. Yet public also at the root of the current dispute opinion polls show that a majority of over the failure of St. Louis County whites consistently fail to see a racial Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCullcomponent to these incidents. och to recuse himself from the case.

Part of this perceptual gap stems, I The problem at issue is very serious. believe, from a fundamental misunWhen McCulloch was 12 years old, his derstanding of the nature of prejudice father, a police officer, today. Say “racism” and was shot to death most Americans visualby a black assailant. ize Bull Connor and his Because the current dogs, or Gov. Wallace at case involves a white the schoolhouse door. Yet officer allegedly being psychological scientists confronted by a black have long known that assailant, McCulloch’s the problem is far subtler personal history raises and more insidious. The reasonable questions stereotypes and prejudices about whether he can that people harbor today be objective. reside outside of their But consider conscious awareness, McCulloch’s dilemma: causing them to behave If he recuses himself discriminatorily despite Robert McCulloch from this case for this their best intentions. One of these enduring stereotypes is associ- reason, after being county prosecutor for 20 years, he will signal that ating blacks with crime and violence. his objectivity is in question for any This is just as true — but the conseprior or future case involving white quences most profound — in the split officers, black suspects and force, a second when police have to decide scenario that represents a good share whether to use lethal force. In psyof the cases he — and almost any other chological research simulating street American prosecutor — will take. conditions, police are faster to shoot In this case, however, justice must armed blacks than armed whites, and be served with unambiguous fairness. more likely to shoot unarmed blacks Mr. McCulloch’s objectivity is tainted than unarmed whites. Other research by his tragic past. We cannot blame has shown that when police officers him for this and shouldn’t fault him are subliminally influenced to think of for believing he can be objective. But black men, they are faster to identify we know that our conscious goals are weapons; when they are primed to often contravened by our nonconscious think of crime, their visual attention biases. Furthermore, even the appeargets drawn to black faces. ance of a conflict of interest is enough These behaviors are not restricted to laboratory settings. The New York State to undermine the legitimacy of this process.

Task Force on Police on Police ShootThe obvious solution is for Gov. Jay ings reported in 2010 that of the 10 fatal Nixon to remove McCulloch from the shootings of off-duty police officers case. This will allow McCulloch to by on-duty officers since 1982, nine maintain his claim of professionalism of the victims were black or Hispanic. and integrity, and it will allow the comBecause off-duty officers are unlikely munity to move forward without the to be posing a threat to on-duty offidistraction of McCulloch’s unique percers, this staggering disproportion is sonal history. It will not, however, solve evidence of an endemic problem of the endemic problem of racial bias in bias. the criminal justice system. For that, Police are normal human beings there is much work to be done. with normal human cognition doing an abnormally difficult job. Part of Jack Glaser is associate professor and associate that means that they harbor the same dean at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the implicit stereotypes and prejudices University of California-Berkeley.

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon

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