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SUNDAY • 08.17.2014 • $2.50 • FINAL EDITION
CURFEW DEFIED
POLICE MOVE IN ON HOLDOUTS WHO STAYED AFTER MIDNIGHT NIXON HAD DECLARED STATE OF EMERGENCY IN FERGUSON • SMOKE BOMBS HIT LAST OF CROWD
DAVID CARSON • dcarson@post-dispatch.com
Protesters run from smoke as police enforce a curfew in Ferguson on West Florissant Avenue early Sunday. A curfew of midnight was in effect, and police moved in just before 1 a.m.
UNDER A HARD RAIN, A TENSE STANDOFF
Marchers hope for healing Page A9
FROM STAFF REPORTS
FERGUSON • Hard rain fell upon a small
group of defiant protesters on an otherwise empty West Florissant Avenue as the midnight curfew went into effect after a week of demonstrations and occasional violence. Police officers, many in helmets and body armor, warned them to disperse. At 12:45 a.m., police put on their gas masks. All through the evening, there was concern that some protesters would ignore the curfew, which was imposed by Gov. Jay Nixon after looters raided businesses in the early hours Saturday. Protesters marched up and down the main street earlier Saturday evening, but
Economic frustration in North County Business • E1
Photo essay: Faces of Ferguson Community • B1
St. Louis needs action, not another conversation Editorial • A18
Live updates
STLtoday.com
See PROTESTS • Page A8
SHIFT IN STRATEGY CAME AFTER RIOTS FLARED ANEW BY JOEL CURRIER jcurrier@post-dispatch.com 314-340-8256
FERGUSON • Some protesters de-
fied a curfew that began at midnight this morning, as police tried to maintain calm on the city’s tense streets. Through the day and into the night Saturday, some protesters had vowed to ignore the curfew and be arrested. Gov. Jay Nixon declared a state of emergency Saturday and ordered a curfew of midnight to 5 a.m. as a new peacekeeping strategy after protests the night before unraveled into looting
and clashes with police. The curfew has no expiration date. “If we’re going to achieve justice, we must have and maintain peace,” Nixon said. “We cannot allow the ill will of the few to undermine the goodwill of the many.” Nixon’s order came during an awkward and contentious press conference Saturday hijacked by furious residents who lashed out with demands for justice for Michael Brown, an 18-yearold now known around the world after he was fatally shot by a Ferguson See CURFEW • Page A9
WHY DID IT HAPPEN HERE? IN HIGH-CRIME CORNER OF FERGUSON, NEIGHBORS SAY CONDITIONS WERE RIPE FOR POLICE SHOOTING Deidre Spottsville, 37, said Thursday that she moves her bed closer to the window at night in her Northwinds apartment, when the shooting starts. With Spottsville is her daughter, Mackenzie, 2. “It’s scary,” Spottsville said of the violence. “You never know.”
BY JESSE BOGAN • jbogan@post-dispatch.com DENISE HOLLINSHED • dhollinshed@post-dispatch.com AND STEPHEN DEERE • sdeere@post-dispatch.com
L
FERGUSON
ong before the nation rested its collective conscience on the protests along West Florissant Avenue, there was a different mobilization going on. Hundreds of people were moving out of their urban neighborhoods to this north St. Louis County suburb seeking a safe and affordable place to live. They found it in an isolated corner of Ferguson that was flush with sprawling apartment complexes. Far from Ferguson’s leafy residential streets and quaint downtown, many people didn’t even know the apartments were part of the city until young Michael Brown was shot and killed there Aug. 9. But not the police. They knew.
J.B. FORBES jforbes@ post-dispatch.com
TODAY
72°/84° CHANCE OF STORMS
See FERGUSON • Page A10
Mapping out the problem
TOMORROW
68°/86° PARTLY CLOUDY
WEATHER A23 POST-DISPATCH WEATHERBIRD ®
Illegal home day cares still collect subsidies
Bradford’s good; Packers are better Morgan Street Brewery for sale
• E1
Over 40 months, $200,000 went to centers that violated state limits.
Local celebrities’ favorite rooms
• H1
INSIDE • A4
‘X-Files’ writing legacy endures
• C1
• D1
3 M Vol. 136, No. 229 ©2014
A8 • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
M 3 • Sunday • 08.17.2014
ferguson police shooting View an interactive timeline and flip through all the pages of Post-Dispatch coverage. STLtoday.com/michaelbrown
Laurie Skrivan • lskrivan@post-dispatch.com
“This is going to be a prayer with us girls,” said the Rev. Dinah Tatman (center), of West Side Missionary Baptist Church, who prays Saturday with Minister Wanda Robinson and volunteer Yolanda Miller for justice in the Michael Brown shooting and peace in the Ferguson at the Canfield Green apartment complex.
looting, cleanup CREATE a stark contrast saturday
notes from ferguson media confined to staging area
PROTESTS
Reporters and photographers were told to report Saturday night to a staging area — the parking lot at the Ferguson Market and Liquor — before midnight or face arrest. Anyone who left the staging area before 5 a.m. had to drive straight out of town, authorities said.
from A1
— From staff reports
the crowd began thinning after 11 p.m. — and the police presence grew. A pouring rain hit the area shortly before midnight. It had rained off and on throughout the evening, but the midnight storms almost seemed providential. Police lights flashed across the wet pavement. Officers, already soaked, stood in their places. A holdout group of protesters stood on West Florissant Avenue near Canfield Drive, the entrance to the apartment complex where Michael Brown, 18, was shot to death by Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson on Aug. 9. No immediate police action was evident. Journalists were confined to a staging area in front of Ferguson Market and Liquor, facing arrest if they left, which made it difficult to know what was happening outside of view. Earlier in the evening, hundreds of chanting, horn-honking protesters stayed on West Florissant despite periodic showers. Among those concerned about a standoff was Patricia Bynes, Democratic committeewoman for Ferguson Township and a regular at the weeklong series of daily protests. “There are a lot of faces I’ve never seen before that are here just because of the curfew,” Bynes said. But most people apparently agreed with Craig Carter, 38, of Normandy, who said he’d be leaving before midnight. “I don’t want to be part of all that,” Carter said of potential trouble. “I’m here for the right reasons.” About 7 p.m. Saturday, protesters who had gathered at the gutted QuikTrip, 9240 West Florissant Ave., marched south down the street when about 50 St. Louis city officers stepped out of a Metro bus and silently formed a line in front of the businesses. In one scene by the businesses Saturday evening, a man who traveled here from Nashville, Tenn., to take part loudly insulted officers. Three members of the New Black Panthers stepped between the man, Mark Lollis, 28, and the motionless officers. One of the Panthers, who declined to identify himself, said, “We’re not protecting the police, we’re protecting the people.” The arrival of city officers was the first large presence of St. Louis police since Nixon handed over control of Ferguson’s streets to the Highway Patrol on Thursday. Nixon did so after several nights of tension and tear gas fired by heavily armored SWAT
Station apologizes for video showing officer’s home Local television station KSDK (Channel 5) posted an apology Saturday for showing a video on its 5 p.m. newscast Friday of the home of Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson, who shot Michael Brown. KSDK did not give the address of the house but “immediately felt using that video was a mistake and pulled the video of the home from future newscasts and from our website.” “We have not used the video since then and do not intend to do so,” the post said. “We apologize to our audience, to the surrounding neighborhoods, to the greater St. Louis community and to the officer for our mistake.” — From staff reports
Cristina Fletes-Boutte • cfletes-boutte@post-dispatch.com
Zealus Williams (left) helps clean up from damage Saturday from Feel Beauty Supply on West Florissant Avenue, after the shop was hit by looters overnight.
officers of the St. Louis County Police Department. Shortly before the curfew began, Jason Ross, a tall protester, removed his mask as he approached Highway Patrol Capt. Ron Johnson, who assured him, “We’ll get some answers.” Ross said, “Why don’t you incarcerate the man who did it?” Said Johnson, “I don’t have that authority.” Jason said back, “If that was me who committed murder, I’d be locked up,” then he walked away. A St. Louis County Circuit Court grand jury is investigating the case. The differences in behavior Saturday were stark: Before dawn, looters, their faces hidden, lugged stolen bottles of rum and vodka. After the sun returned, good-hearted citizens with brooms helped to clean the mess. Trouble broke out early Saturday after a night of peaceful demonstrations that verged on festive along West Florissant. But images of the brazen looting, especially at Ferguson Market and Liquor, flashed again around the world. On Saturday morning, so many people showed up to help shopkeepers clean and make repairs that some had to be turned away. Kevin Polk of Ferguson said he went to bed Friday night relieved that West Florissant Avenue was quiet. He awoke Saturday to news of the looting. “l turned on news at 5:30 (a.m.) and couldn’t believe it. I grabbed a broom and came straight here,” Polk said. Many of his fellow citizens denounced the frenzy that had marred two evenings of relative peace. “You saw positivity up and down street,” said Matthew White, also of Ferguson. “Why turn it into a negative just when it seemed we were getting the mes-
sage across?” Many of the helpers blamed alcohol. It certainly was a big draw to the looters, who filled their arms with bottles from the shelves of Ferguson Market and Liquor. One made off with a cash register. The convenience store had become a target after a security video, released Friday by Ferguson police, showed Brown stealing cigars and shoving a store clerk there shortly before he was shot to death at midday by Wilson. A woman with a small child dropped by the business and said area residents felt trapped by the demonstrations and occasional violence. “No place for us to go,” she said. “What are we supposed to do now?” But looters hit other area stores as well. At nearby Northland Chop Suey, the owners studied footprints on a counter left by vaulting looters, who stole a small amount of cash. Counters were smashed and hair braids stolen from Feel Beauty Supply. St. Louis Alderman Antonio French, who has been in Ferguson almost constantly and was arrested Wednesday during the tension that inspired Nixon to step in and assign the streets to the Missouri Highway Patrol, French, a prodigious user of Twitter, wrote that early Saturday’s looting “broke my heart,” but said he supported the Highway Patrol’s decision not to charge into the fray. “Police not coming in at this point — even with the looting — was a good thing,” French said. “It would’ve gotten very violent.” In an encouraging sign, some of the protesters who stayed overnight Friday stood in front of stores to ward off more stealing. Nancy Cambria, Joel Currier, Steve Giegerich, Jeremy Kohler, Doug Moore, Tim O’Neil and Nicholas J.C. Pistor, all of the Post-Dispatch, contributed to this report.
Journalist attacked at protest scene as police fire tear gas Independent photojournalist Abe Van Dyke said he was punched by looters and his camera equipment damaged after police began firing tear gas early Saturday. “Things just went out of control really quick,” said Van Dyke, of Waukesha, Wis. First, Van Dyke said, he saw looters breaking into a liquor store next to the McDonald’s on West Florissant Avenue, spurring police to advance in riot gear in a line and stop just before the restaurant. Police then backed up a bit, and Van Dyke thought they were retreating, but then they started launching tear gas. “It was basically a hit and run,” he said. When police stopped the action and retreated, Van Dyke went up an adjacent hill to watch and was assaulted by a looter. Other reporters witnessed the attack, he said. Van Dyke has posted his work on Facebook. — Nancy Cambria
NEWSPAPER: POST IS NOT FROM CHIEF’S WIFE The Tampa Bay Times reports that a Twitter account claiming to be associated with the hacker-activist group Anonymous is erroneously spreading a report that a Facebook post with racist language was written by the wife of the Ferguson police chief. The post is actually associated with a St. Petersburg, Fla., woman who is not the wife of the Ferguson chief, the Times says. The comments in the Facebook post have been retweeted more than 5,000 times. — From staff reports
FERGUSON WEBSITE DISABLED BY ANONYMOUS The Ferguson and St. Ann city websites were down for a time Saturday as a result of attacks by the hacker-activist group Anonymous. The company that manages websites for several local cities told customers that it had to temporarily take down the two websites because the attack was causing outages across its entire network. The attack took place about 2:30 p.m. Saturday; the websites were back online by Saturday evening. — From staff reports
demonstration in Florida attracts dozens ORLANDO, Fla. • Sheena Meade, 32, a mother from Seminole
County, Fla., said the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, 18, in Ferguson could have happened to one of her four sons. She was among dozens who gathered Saturday afternoon in downtown Orlando for the “We Are Ferguson Rally.” “I’m out here standing in solidarity with Ferguson to let them know that we’re tired of police brutality (and) our kids being shot like their lives aren’t valued,” Meade said. “I’m living in fear with my sons out and about in this world.” The activists in Orlando peacefully protested, wore T-shirts that read “No Justice, No Sleep” and chanted “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” — a cry in reference to the surrender stance witnesses say Brown took before he was killed.
— Orlando Sentinel
08.17.2014 • SUNDAY • M 3
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH • A9
FERGUSON POLICE SHOOTING
‘A WAKE-UP CALL’ MARCHERS HOPE FOR HEALING, CHANGE HERE AND ACROSS THE COUNTRY BY DOUG MOORE dmoore@post-dispatch.com 314-340-8125
FERGUSON • The march began
here, on Canfield Drive, where eight days ago an unarmed black teen was fatally shot by a white police officer. They gathered about noon Saturday, around a memorial in the middle of the road, a mix of teddy bears, candles, liquor bottles and a package of cigarillos, and prayed with the Rev. Jesse Jackson. They watched as FBI agents knocked on nearby apartment doors, gathering information in the emotionally charged case. They carried signs reading “I am Michael Brown” and “Black Lives Matter.” They chanted “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot,” a mantra that has come to symbolize the act of surrender that witnesses have said Brown displayed before the officer fired the fatal shot. “This is what is supposed to happen — getting people who don’t know each other coming together,” Jared Snyder said of the crowd, a mix of white and black, young and old. Snyder, 20, watched as hundreds of marchers gathered. He and his friends live a few blocks away, in an apartment complex behind the charred QuikTrip, a target for the anger, hurt and uncertainty that continues to gnaw at this north St. Louis County community since Brown’s death. Leroy Ward said he hoped Saturday’s march would help with the healing, moving forward not just Ferguson, but the entire nation. “Everybody’s watching,” said
ROBERT COHEN • rcohen@post-dispatch.com
Protesters march up West Florissant Avenue, making a loop from the QuikTrip station to Highmont Road, on Saturday.
“We can no longer watch it on the TV news and not take action.” The march lasted about an hour, winding its way from Canfield Drive onto West Florissant Avenue and ending on Chambers Road at Greater St. Mark Family Church. It was there, shortly after the march ended, that Gov. Jay Nixon declared a state of emergency and ordered a curfew
Ward, 38. The police shooting and its fallout continue to dominate local and national news. “We have to change things. It’s a wake-up call heard all over the country,” said Jill McGuire, executive director of the Regional Arts Commission. She marched, carrying a “Mike Brown is Our Son” sign.
for the city. The march, organized by area clergy, restricted lanes of busy West Florissant Avenue and Chambers Road. Police presence was limited to traffic control. Some marchers stopped along the route to shake hands with officers. Missouri Highway Patrol Capt. Ronald S. Johnson, whom the governor put in charge of se-
curity in Ferguson on Thursday, arrived as the march ended at the church. He agreed to pose for photos, and gave hugs and even a few pecks on the cheek. Darius Rucker, 24, of St. Louis, was among those who marched. “Being a young black male,” he said, “I felt like I needed to come out and have my voice heard.”
JOHNSON DEFENDS TELLING OFFICERS TO STAND DOWN RIOTS AND LOOTING IN THE WAKE OF THE MICHAEL BROWN SHOOTING Areas of widespread looting
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patrolman about noon Aug. 9. The patrolman, Darren Wilson, 28, of Crestwood, is on administrative leave while parallel police and FBI investigations into Brown’s death march on and officials at various levels of government wage a delicate political fight to save face before an enraged public . “It’s time to go home,” Missouri Highway Patrol Capt. Ronald S. Johnson said of the curfew Saturday. “It’s time to go home.” Johnson, who was put in command of security in Ferguson by Nixon, did not say Saturday how police would enforce the curfew but promised softer tactics to defuse tension on the streets. “We won’t enforce (the curfew) with trucks,” he said. “We won’t enforce with tear gas. We’ll communicate. We’ll talk.” Friday night’s protests played out much like those the night before, with a party atmosphere along West Florissant, jammed parking lots, blaring horns and people riding on the hoods and roofs of cars. As the night wore on, the crowd grew younger, louder and aggressive. About midnight, near Ferguson Market and Liquor, where police say Brown swiped cigars and roughed up the owner just before his fatal confrontation with Wilson, agitated protesters battled police. Johnson said at least two armored trucks pulled up, and three officers were hurt. Officers who found themselves trapped tossed flash-bang grenades, and Johnson said one officer who felt threatened made the decision to lob a can of tear gas. Three officers were injured in the conflict. Police in full body armor and carrying shields then lined up across West Florissant in an hourlong standoff with protesters that included orders that protesters leave or face arrest. Some St. Louis County officers said they felt slighted by St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson’s comments earlier in the week saying he didn’t support the county’s militarized police response. Gabe Crocker, president of the county’s police union, also questioned Johnson’s style after Friday night’s violence because officials had characterized the Highway Patrol’s approach as gentler and more understanding of the community’s rage.
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ROBERT COHEN • rcohen@post-dispatch.com
Andrew Foster walked almost four miles from his former Ferguson home to the QuikTrip on Saturday. “We’re all brown,” Foster told onlookers. “You gotta love your neighbor as you love yourself.”
“It wasn’t peaceful, and there were officers injured,” Crocker said. “The Highway Patrol doesn’t want any documented incidents of looting or violence. They were critical of our use of tear gas and SWAT team and yet, last night, they were using tear gas and SWAT teams. I’m just looking for a little consistency.” St. Louis County Police Jon Belmar has been silent about
Dotson’s comments and Nixon’s transfer of authority. Crocker also blamed Johnson for ordering police to ignore dozens of looters who ransacked stores along West Florissant after the confrontation with police. Johnson acknowledged to NBC News on Saturday that he ordered officers to stand down, saying, “We lost some meat from a store, we lost some alcohol
Post-Dispatch
from a store, things that can be replaced, but we didn’t lose a life that we can’t replace.” Kizzie Davis, owner of the Ferguson Burger Bar, which stayed open until 1 a.m. Saturday, said police should have done more to protect businesses. Her bar was spared any damage, though stores on both sides were hit. “It’s like they had given up by the end of the night,” she said. “They tried a little to protect us.” This week, Nixon stripped peacekeeping authority in Ferguson from Belmar after three nights of clashes with police. The decision handed Johnson the tricky task of restoring calm in Ferguson while protecting people’s constitutional right to assemble, protest and voice demands for justice in the case. The FBI brought an additional 40 agents to Ferguson to flood the Canfield Green apartment complex where Brown was killed. They were knocking on doors searching for witnesses to the shooting, Johnson said Saturday. Federal authorities opposed the release of surveillance video that showed Brown shoplifting Swisher Sweets cigars from a Ferguson convenience store
shortly before he was shot, fearing the release of the video would incite more violence. Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson said federal investigators urged him not to release the video but he said he felt obligated to because, with Brown being the only suspect in the robbery, that investigation is finished and thus is an open record. Asked about criticism the video’s release could have inflamed tension, Jackson said, “If they’re trying to use this piece of evidence to justify the violence, then I think that’s weak.” Jackson said he met with community leaders and will enroll his officers in diversity training. Also Saturday, St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch said that a grand jury will begin hearing evidence in the Brown shooting case next week. “We are doing it as we go along” rather than wait to present an entire body of evidence to grand jury, McCulloch said. In Saturday’s press conference, Nixon dodged questions about whether he had the authority to remove McCulloch from the investigation. U.S. Rep. William Lacy Clay, D-St. Louis, however, said that while he tipping his hat to law enforcement for “toning it down, for pulling it back” in Ferguson, he questioned the prospect for justice in St. Louis County in a case that has become the America’s new narrative for race relations with law enforcement. “You’re not going to get a fair trial in St. Louis County with this scenario,” Clay said. On Saturday night, police stood guard in front of several businesses along West Florissant Avenue. Political groups, including members of the New Black Panther Party, formed a human shield between police and protesters. Earlier in the day, a biker gang showed its support by cruising through Ferguson’s streets. As night took hold, lightning, thunder and steady rain sent demonstrators to the QuikTrip that was torched by looters six days earlier. People crowded under the canopies over the gas pumps to talk and stay dry. And as the new midnight curfew closed in, Brown’s supporters marched on, crying out for justice. Nicholas J.C. Pistor, Nancy Cambria, Jeremy Kohler, Paul Hampel, Chuck Raasch and Steve Giegerich, all of the Post-Dispatch, contributed to this report.
A10 • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
M 2 • SUNDAY • 08.17.2014
FERGUSON POLICE SHOOTING
J.B. FORBES • jforbes@post-dispatch.com
A large crowd of protesters marches out of an apartment complex on Sunday evening in Ferguson, towards West Florissant Avenue, as they protest the shooting of Michael Brown.
FERGUSON • FROM A1
VIOLENCE HAS BECOME COMMON
Some call Ferguson an affordable Kirkwood. The community is one of St. Louis County’s older suburbs, dating to the late 1850s, when a farmer named William B. Ferguson donated land for a station platform on what was then the North Missouri Railroad. It was a whistle stop on the road to the farming village of Florissant. By 1894, when Ferguson became a city, it had about 1,000 residents, and had become a commuting suburb for families who could afford to escape the noise and soot of St. Louis. It would go on to have periods of exponential growth. In the 1960s, Ferguson annexed the land where
Northwinds Apts.
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APARTMENT COMPLEXES IN FERGUSON’S SOUTHEAST CORNER sa W. Floris
After decades of relative calm and stability, the apartments have become a tinderbox for crime. Canfield Green Apartments and the nearby Oakmont and Northwinds complexes are a study of the slow encroachment of poverty and social distress into what had been suburban escapes. Angela Shaver has witnessed that sea change since she moved into Canfield Green Apartments 20 years ago. The state employee said she raised a prom queen there and sent her off to college. There used to be a swimming pool. Now, there’s a bullet hole in the door below her. That shooting, and many others, happened long before all the vigil candles melted in the middle of the street for Brown. Even as Shaver explained the frequency of gunfire, she was cut off by a sudden blast coming from Northwinds Apartments, a hulking spread with more than 400 low-income units. Boom! Shaver paused to listen. No screams. No more shots. She picked up the interview where she’d left off. “I hate to say I got used to them,” she said of the gunshots. Ferguson’s crime and poverty rate is lower than some of the other North County municipalities. But the small southeast corner of the city where the apartments are glows bright red on crime maps. That area along West Florissant Avenue and just east of it accounted for 18 percent of all serious crimes reported between 2010 and August 2012, according to a Post-Dispatch analysis of crime data provided by St. Louis County. The area accounted for 28 percent of all burglaries, 28 percent of all aggravated assaults, 30 percent of all motor vehicle thefts and 40 percent of all robberies reported in the city of 21,000 people. It’s a cluster of densely populated complexes that stand apart from the predominantly single-family streets of Ferguson. On a map, the area sticks out like an appendage, one that was added to Ferguson by annexation. Many of the children who live there aren’t even part of the Ferguson-Florissant school system. Adding to that isolation, police have blocked off nearly all access roads to the apartments with concrete barriers, fences and gates. The nearly all-white police force has struggled to maintain control and respect from many AfricanAmericans who live there as officers try to clamp down on crime. There is a common perception that police stop people without reason. “If you stay here, they basically think you are a thug,” said Gerard Fuller, 19, who is headed to Arkansas Baptist College in a few days on a basketball scholarship. The Brown shooting dug into that nerve. The response seems to have as much to do with socioeconomic factors as it does opinions about race relations and police brutality in communities across the country that have struggled to integrate. In St. Louis County alone, African-American poor are six times as likely as white poor to live in areas of concentrated poverty. The apartment complexes located on the fringe of Ferguson — the self-proclaimed “Community of Choice” — give a glimpse of what that looks like. The eruption of looting and violent protests and the national attention it drew give a glimpse of the implications.
QuikTrip burned
Park Ridge Apts. Site of shooting
Canfield Green Apts.
Source: U.S. Geological Survey
Post-Dispatch
DAVID CARSON • dcarson@post-dispatch.com
The memorial for Michael Brown on Canfield Drive in Ferguson as seen on Monday morning. Brown was shot and killed by a Ferguson police officer last week. The fatal shooting has sparked protests, looting and riots.
Brown would be shot by police. He was walking back home to his grandmother’s apartment in the Northwinds complex. Ashley Nowden, 29, had lived in Northwinds for six years before she hastily moved out in January after being burglarized three separate times. She connects the rise of crimes to an increase in lowincome renters. “It is a younger crowd now,” she said. Maine-based Eagle Point Companies bought Northwinds in 2005 and poured $12.5 million into refurbishing the complex, thanks in part to lowincome housing credits. Part of the deal was that to be eligible to live there, residents can earn no more than 60 percent of the median income in the area. Northwinds is one of 31 affordable housing properties like it that Eagle Point owns across the U.S. Laura Burns, president of the company, said she thought crime was under control at Northwinds, but she acknowledged residents tend to be nomadic. “We have a lot of turnover,” she said. “Some of our residents unfortunately are not in a position to pay the rent for whatever reason.” Louis Smith, 68, sees the sprawling apartments as yesterday’s high-rise public housing complexes,
such as Pruitt-Igoe. “After they tore these projects down, a lot of people started coming everywhere, everywhere, man,” said Smith, a retired McDonnell Douglas machinist who moved out of Canfield Green in the 1980s to buy a nearby home. He said his wife, who is involved with the neighborhood watch, has complained to city leaders about unchaperoned and unruly children who come over from the apartments and destroy property. “The women work,” he said of apartment residents. “The guys stay home, smoke dope and walk around harassing people. “You can’t say nothing to them,” he added. “They’ll cuss you out.” Ferguson real estate broker Georgia Rossel also took aim at the apartments. “Apartments don’t promote community,” said Rossel, who also serves on the planning and zoning board in nearby Jennings. “People are just in and out. They don’t stay.” But she said the rental market is so hot now because people can’t get home loans. See FERGUSON • Page A11
08.17.2014 • Sunday • M 2
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH • A11
ferguson police shooting
photos by J.B. Forbes • jforbes@post-dispatch.com
Canfield Green residents Tony Ambus, 42, and Angela Shaver, 46, look in the direction of a loud gunshot on Tuesday afternoon as they talked about the increase in crime in their Ferguson neighborhood. Shaver, a 20-year resident of the apartment complex, said that she used to work at the QuikTrip that was destroyed by rioters. “I just need out,” Shaver said.
FERGUSON • from A10
uneasy brushes with police CAGED IN Making matters worse in the eyes of some apartment residents, police have closed off nearly all access points with concrete barriers and fencing. About a year ago, a gate went up on the main thoroughfare that’s typically open only during the school year so buses can head to Koch Elementary School. When it’s closed, hundreds of residents have just one way in and out. “The city required us to put that gate in,” said Burns, of Eagle Point. Stopping the traffic, she was told, would benefit the city and the police department. Rochele Jackson, 54, a Northwinds resident, viewed it a different way. “I am wondering if it is for safety or just to cage us in,” said Jackson, who works on a cleaning crew at Washington University. The city maintains a close eye on the complex by exercising tight controls on the occupancy permitting process. “When a new resident moves in, the city has to inspect the unit and can deny a move in,” Burns said. Eagle Point recently started managing Park Ridge Apartments last fall, which is on the other side of West Florissant Avenue. A black metal perimeter fence and front gates are nearly complete.
Anthony Green, 20, said Thursday that when the shooting starts, he goes into his Northwinds apartment in Ferguson. The Canfield Green apartment complex where Michael Brown was killed is just around the corner. “This is just unreal,” Green said. Green lives with his mother, Deidre Spottsville.
POLICE GOING TOO FAR?
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The Rev. Al Sharpton brought down the house last week when he yelled to a packed audience: “You’ve got issues in this city!” According to arrest data tracked by the attorney general’s office, there were a total of 5,384 traffic stops in Ferguson in 2013. Of those, 686 involved
This map shows the concentration of crime in Ferguson, based on incidents reported by police from January 2010 to August 2012. The data are provided by St. Louis County. Ferguson stopped using the county’s crime reporting system in 2012. A Post-Dispatch request to Ferguson for more recent incidents is pending.
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Canfield Green was mostly white when Kevin Edwards and his family moved in 12 years ago. It has since been filled mostly with African-Americans. Edwards, 50, who is black, gives credit to the complex’s owners for maintaining the property. “They keep it nice,” he said of neatly trimmed lawns and shrubs. He says Canfield residents are no different from anyone else. “People here get up in the morning and go to work, try to pay their bills and raise families,” he said. But the complex attracts a rough element. People with open warrants cruise the sidewalks. And that draws in police. Edwards’ son Neal, a student at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, said he was walking on Canfield last year toward West Florissant when Ferguson police pulled up. The site is about a block east of the Brown shooting scene. An officer grabbed him by the shoulders, slammed him against the squad car and cuffed him, he said. The officer was hunting for a suspect in a red hoodie. Neal’s was deep burgundy. He was released five minutes later, without apology. Kevin Edwards thought back to the incident when he learned of the Brown shooting. “That could have been (my son) lying out there.” Tony Ambus, 42, had a similar recollection. He once pulled up to nearby Nesbit Newton Park in a maroon pickup with Illinois license plates to eat a few hot dogs he picked up at QuikTrip. The small park, which is monitored by surveillance cameras, is a passageway between the apartments and a subdivision of houses. Ambus, who is black, said four police officers rolled up around noon and yelled: “Get your hands out of the car!” He asked why he was being targeted. Officers told him he was sitting in a high traffic area for drug activity. “They drew their guns on me like it was nothing,” Ambus said.
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were white, 4,632 were black. Police were nearly two times as likely to search blacks than whites, even though whites had a much higher hit rate for contraband. The city’s demographics have been quickly changing. In 2000, Ferguson was 52 percent African-American and 45 percent white. Today, it’s 67 percent black and 29 percent white. Only three of its 53 police officers are black. Police Chief Thomas Jackson said there have been obstacles in the way of recruiting a more diverse department. “It’s been issues like pay and just the job pool,” he said. “Everybody is competing for good quality police officers of all races. We just need to continue to make ourselves more competitive.”
He said officers are required to do diversity training every year. “When my officers stop somebody they have either reasonable suspicion or probable cause,” he said. “That’s the rules. They can stop and talk to people and carry on conversations.” The area where Brown was shot was on the chief’s radar before the protests. “There are four complexes all jammed in there together, and it’s a higher-crime area,” he said. He played down complaints from residents who say officers are no longer on a first-name basis with residents, no longer known for giving people rides home during snowstorms. “That’s still the case,” he said. “You are just talking to the wrong folks.”
LIVING WITH GUNFIRE
When darkness falls, life inside Jeanisha Hill’s Northwinds apartment revolves around staying low. She said she pulls a mattress to the floor for her children to sleep on because it feels safer below the window ledge. A feeling of lawlessness came with the lease. But since Brown’s shooting, the disorder has become even more stifling. She thought about taking her daughter to join volunteers who cleaned up West Florissant Avenue last week. “It was too scary to do that,” said Hill, 33. She believes those shooting guns day and night will get bolder. She doesn’t see anything changing even after the protests eventually end. “This is just the beginning of something worse,” she said. Hill supports the protests. She, too, believes the police have overstepped their authority, but she condemns the looting. Her children are not allowed to play outside. She walks her daughter to and from the bus stop. Somebody lit a trash can on fire last week near her apartment. Several 911 calls went out to a fire department that never arrived. Hill only moved into the housing complex because she qualified for subsidies. There was a $99 move-in special at the time, just as there is now. “If I could, I would move out,” she said. Tim Bryant, Steve Giegerich, Walker Moskop and Tim O’Neil, all of the Post-Dispatch, contributed to this report.
A12 • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
M 2 • Sunday • 08.17.2014
Ferguson Police Shooting
Concussion grenades and pepper spray were used to temporarily disperse protesters on West Florissant Avenue in Ferguson early Saturday.
strife erupts police, protesters square off again early saturday
Photos by Robert Cohen • rcohen@post-dispatch.com
Protesters try to hold back others who refused to leave the middle of West Florissant Avenue, despite police orders, early Saturday in Ferguson. About an hour earlier, a SWAT team from the Missouri Highway Patrol used pepper spray and tossed concussion grenades and tear gas at the crowd after a bottle was reportedly thrown.
Looters storm Ferguson Market and Liquor early Saturday. The store was a focal point Friday when police said Michael Brown participated in a robbery there last week.
A looter escapes with electronics from St. Louis Cordless on West Florissant Avenue in Ferguson early Saturday.
Protesters use road signs and cones to make their own line in the middle of West Florissant Avenue in Ferguson, refusing to leave despite police orders early Saturday.
J O I N U S O N L I N E S T L T O D A Y. C O M / m e t r o
Sunday • 08.17.2014 • B
ONE WEEK AFTER THE KILLING OF MICHAEL BROWN
Faces of Ferguson Trying to make sense amid unanswered questions.
Huy Mach • hmach@post-dispatch.com
Lesley McSpadden drops rose petals on the blood stains from her son, Michael Brown, who was shot by police in the middle of the street earlier in the afternoon Aug. 9 in the 2900 block of Canfield Drive in Ferguson.
J.B. Forbes • jforbes@post-dispatch.com
Prince E.A., a rapper, stands in front of the burned out QuikTrip on West Florissant Avenue in Ferguson on Wednesday. He was taping a rap video.
When Amy Hunter’s twin boys turned 8, she had “the talk” with them — preparing them for a life of being judged based on stereotypes.
Robert Cohen • rcohen@post-dispatch.com
The Rev. Traci Blackmon greets Gov. Jay Nixon on Tuesday at a forum in Florissant.
residents share perspectives on why the killing resonates By Doug Moore dmoore@post-dispatch.com 314-340-8125
FERGUSON • Only a few hours
had passed since her son lay dead in a Ferguson street, shot by a police officer of the small north St. Louis County community that, until now, was best known for its farmers market and quaint downtown. Lesley McSpadden stood in the middle of Canfield Drive, dropping rose petals onto the blood stains left from the violence that took her 18-year-old son, Michael Brown, just after noon on Aug. 9. “I just wish I could have been
there to help him,” McSpadden said later at a news conference. Despite the anguish burrowed deep inside the grieving mother, her few words included: “No violence. Just justice, y’all.” But the violence came. And justice is still at bay. A week after the killing, protests, marches and prayer vigils continue to be held, all under the watchful eye of the nation and beyond, with President Barack Obama calling for “peace and calm on the streets of Ferguson.” He reminded Americans “we are united in common values and See FERGUSON • Page B2
Stay informed
Visit STLtoday. com for the latest Ferguson news.
Photo galleries
Visit STLtoday. com for the latest photos and video.
Robert Cohen • wrcohen@post-dispatch.com
Mikal Smith speaks Tuesday at a community forum held at Christ the King United Church of Christ in Florissant on growing up as a black man.
extraordinary Effort by news staff befits big story From the editor: Gilbert Bailon • gbailon@post-dispatch.com Local, national and world attention has been riveted on the St. Louis area after the Aug. 9 fatal police shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old man who was killed midday on a Saturday in Ferguson. National and international media descended on our doorstep after a local story erupted, becoming the epicenter of a huge story. The frightening images distorted how local residents
perceive their community. Ferguson has not been portrayed in a way most people in this region would feel rings familiar. Heavily armored police equipped with paramilitary-style vehicles, armaments and body protection engaged in several nights of chaos, spraying tear gas, rubber bullets and pepper pellets among protesters on a busy thoroughfare in the historic suburb. Local media across the board have stepped up to cover the quickly evolving developments See BAILON • Page B2
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M 1 • Sunday • 08.17.2014
Community
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• from B1
P-D staff worked across platforms as Ferguson story unfolded over the last week. News coverage of the Ferguson shooting aftermath provides a compelling case for journalists in our democratic, open society. And it serves as a powerful illustration of the indispensable role that newspapers and their digital editions serve in communities nationwide. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch distinguished itself with the most comprehensive coverage, offering depth, context and continuous timeliness in digital editions and social media. Compelling photos from the volatile protest area were transmitted across the nation and world. Post-Dispatch videos, capturing the many angles of the story, were viewed in record numbers. The print editions were compendiums of well-designed and extensive coverage that will serve as a permanent archive of this historic event. The editorial page took bold stances in editorials advocating immediate action. It presented a broad array of community voices with op-ed columns, letters to the editor and social media posts from Face-
FERGUSON
book and Twitter. Our community’s diverse voices were shared daily over multiple platforms in a way unique for local media. The Post-Dispatch operates the largest local newsroom, with expertise and skills that exist year-round. When this huge news story broke, the entire newsroom engaged and performed extraordinarily for days. There are too many Post-Dispatch journalists to name, all of whom made this exceptional coverage possible. Suffice to say, everyone flexed to work the extra hours or indirectly by changing shifts or filling different roles to enable the extensive coverage. It truly has been a newsroom-wide, team effort across the 24-hour news cycle. Many local media moved full force to cover the Ferguson story. Twitter and Facebook were vibrating with a steady stream of posts of developments, photos, videos and story links to online sites, including many from Post-Dispatch reporters, photographers and editors. Social media also were rife with rumors, speculation and outright misinformation.
Post-Dispatch journalists have exercised sound news judgment on sources and photo usage, and vetted all information to ensure that we published verified content on all platforms. I commend the Post-Dispatch reporters and photographers in the field along with the many editors, online editors, copy editors, page designers and graphic artists. I would like to single out reporters Steve Giegerich and Jesse Bogan and photographers David Carson, Robert Cohen and J.B. Forbes for their valiant work when Ferguson was in chaos amid looting and vandalized buildings last Sunday night. Carson and Giegerich were both physically attacked by the crowd during the dangerous looting on West Florissant Avenue, a typical suburban street usually occupied with shoppers at area businesses. Another example of the extraordinary effort occurred last Wednesday morning when police critically wounded an armed man near the Ferguson protest site. Night reporter Valerie Schremp Hahn was already home in bed when she was called about a police-involved shooting near the Ferguson protest site. She then reported on the shooting while working with editors Fred Ehrlich and Ron Wade to post the first story online early Wednesday.
The interest in Post-Dispatch coverage has spanned far beyond our local borders. The 6.4 million page views on STLtoday.com on Monday, following the night of looting, eclipsed the previous record for daily online traffic by more than 2 million page views, according to Omniture tracking data. The 4.3 million page views on Wednesday was the second-highest daily traffic for our website. The number of unique visitors on Monday and Wednesday each reached 1 million. Views of online videos also set a record of more than 1 million for the week. About a quarter of those video views were seen through other news sites linking to STLtoday.com. The Associated Press, the largest news wire service in the country, continues to include a direct link to the St. Louis PostDispatch website on its mobile news apps. Media interview requests for our staff came from throughout the country and as far away as Australia, the United Kingdom and Canada. We will be here when the outside satellite TV trucks and cable news anchors move on to the next story. We live here, too. Post-Dispatch journalists will be here serving our community for a long time.
“We wanted to provide a forum that begins to restore hope and eliminate helplessness.” Parents were told they should be pleased with son’s ‘C’ grades And give access to those She returned to report a who are not always accessible. that includes belief in equality under the law.” “We are here to stop the Gov. Jay Nixon, in a crowded church three days after peaceful shopping experience. “I really needed to do that,” bleeding in our streets,” Blackthe killing, said the country is “reeling from what feels mon said from the pulpit of like an old wound that has been torn open fresh, a wound she said. James, a lawyer, could have her north St. Louis County that hadn’t quite healed right in the first place.” settled anywhere in the region. church. “We are here to take The wound of racism, he said, will heal. He could have bought a newer our communities back. We are But how? house in a private subdivision here to take our children back. And when? with top-tier public schools. We are here to take our voices That remains elusive. But a place like that never back. The Post-Dispatch asked residents of our region to “This time, we will not go share their perspectives on the Brown killing, and why would have felt like home. “I love my city,” he said. “I away.” it resonates with so many people. Below are five of their love that everyone is not the She was speaking as a comstories. same color. I love that everymunity leader and a mom. She ‘SCARY BLACK MEN’ one is not the same religion, has sons, 24 and 23. “There have been lots of When Amy Hunter’s twin boys turned 8, she had “the and I love that everyone is not times when my children have talk” with them. Not the one about the birds and the bees. at the same economic level.” — Paul Hampel been stopped, frisked, their “At 8, they had a growth spurt and they didn’t look like Paul Hampel • phampel@post-dispatch.com cars torn up. That’s just the babies any more, and they were going to be treated like little Chuck James, standing in front of his century home A HIGHER CAUSE reality of black men. My sons men. Scary black men,” said Hunter, of University City. in the 200 block of Hereford Avenue of Ferguson. were not surprised by what “We could see how people’s heads started turning and The Rev. Traci Blackmon happened to Michael Brown. twisting to gauge how old they were.” helped organize a prayer vigil They hear of Michael Browns every day.” She and her husband called it part of “man training,” held the day after Brown’s death. On the church website is a passage from the Book of preparing their sons for a life of being judged based on “At the vigil, I wanted to move to a next step, not just Isaiah. It was posted on the site long before the Brown stereotypes that come with being a black male. pray and let that be the end of that,” Blackmon said. “It’s something you have to navigate with them and She opened her Christ the King United Church of tragedy but is remarkably fitting. “You shall be called the repairer of the breach, the refor them. It’s a conversation for their physical safety,” Christ as a place where the public could hear from those said Hunter, 43, who works as director of racial justice for on the front lines of the investigation, including Fergu- storer of streets to live in.” — Doug Moore YWCA Metro St. Louis. son’s police chief and mayor, and St. Louis County ProsWhen her sons were in third grade, she and her hus- ecuting Attorney Bob McCulloch. band attended a parent-teacher conference. One of the boys had a C average. “He’s average. You should be pleased with that,” the teacher told the parents. Hunter tried her best to remain calm, telling the teacher she and her husband have college degrees and expect their children to go to college as well. “My husband was so upset. He said: ‘Why do we have to say this every year, that they are going to college so treat them accordingly?’” The twins are now 22 and seniors in college. Ashton attends Howard University; his brother, Andrew, is at Alabama A&M. — Doug Moore • from B1
A POET’S PERSPECTIVE With the charred shell of the looted QuikTrip as a backdrop, rapper Prince E.A. posed Wednesday before a camera and laid down a hard beat. “White, black, ghetto, suburban, policeman, civilian/ We’re all human at the end of the day/No matter the costumes we wear and the characters we play.” “It’s an untitled music video at this point,” said the aspiring hip-hop artist from north St. Louis who was born Richard Williams. “But I’m thinking of calling it ‘Michael Brown.’” Prince E.A., 25, said he felt conflicted. His lyrics encourage compassion and cooperation. But he wondered if anybody would still be paying attention to the case of Michael Brown if not for the burning, looting and tear gassing. “I can’t condone it, but I understand it,” he said. “My goal is to encourage people to respect each other. My music’s not about me; it’s about helping other people.” — Paul Hampel
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DEEP ROOTS “The skin I’m in makes a big difference.” Mikal Smith said that into the microphone at a community forum a few days after Brown was killed. Like Brown, Smith is 18. Unlike Brown, Smith got to begin his first day of college, a freshman at St. Louis University. “That could have been me. That could have been my friends,” Smith said. Like so many young black men, Smith has been pulled over and questioned by police. Although a passenger in the car in April, he also was asked for his ID, and the two teens were asked where they were going, but not told why they were pulled over. Of course, the Brown killing angered Smith, he said. But it has enlightened him as well. About how things happen. How change doesn’t come unless people work together. “A lot of things have deep roots. With every question I ask comes an answer with another question. It’s very complicated to get through.” But Smith says he has to try. — Doug Moore
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STAYING PUT While crowds began building Wednesday afternoon at the site of the burned out QuikTrip, an SUV towing a rental trailer was parked on the street outside Chuck James’ residence, one of the beautifully restored historic homes on Hereford Avenue. Was James moving out? “I’m not going anywhere,” he said, explaining that the trailer was rented to move his daughter’s belongings to college. James, 58, was raised in the house. He and his wife brought up four daughters there. When looting broke out Sunday night and confrontations between protesters and police became a nightly drama, James and his family carried on, albeit a bit nervously. On Tuesday night, one of his daughters asked if it would be safe to go to the grocery store. James told her not to worry.
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The economics behind ferguson
Frustration in north county If police tactics were the spark in Ferguson, poverty and hopelessness were the tinder OPPORTUNITY-CHALLENGED
St. Louis ranked fourth from the bottom among 100 large cities for relative mobility, a measure of the prospects for people born at the bottom and the top of income distribution. Bottom five Cincinnati Ohio 0.429 Milwaukee Wisconsin 0.424 Tennessee 0.416 Memphis St. Louis Missouri 0.413 Baltimore Maryland 0.412 SOURCE: Equality of Opportunity Project
How to avoid going broke as a student
youth unemployment
David Nicklaus • dnicklaus@post-dispatch.com It was the middle-class suburb of Ferguson that boiled over last week, but to the rest of the world this was a St. Louis crisis. Folks in Los Angeles and London aren’t going to listen to our explanations about the citycounty split and 91 independent county municipalities. All they know is that greater St. Louis has some problematic relationships
between black and white, and between police and the community. All of St. Louis needs to work on healing those relationships. And when we begin that process, we can’t ignore some festering economic issues. St. Louis is not only one of the most segregated large metro areas in the U.S., it also has an unusually large economic gap
In metro St. Louis, the unemployment rate is much higher for AfricanAmerican youths than for whites. Black White 16-19-year-old males: 63% 23% 16-19-year-old females: 38% 19% 20-24-year-old males: 41% 13% 20-24-year-old females: 21% 9% SOURCE: U.S. Census Bureau, 2012 American Community Survey
See NICKLAUS • Page E3
On the market After nearly 20 years, Morgan Street Brewery is up for sale.
Avoid credit cards, consider work study and stay frugal. Jim Gallagher jgallagher@post-dispatch.com > 314-340-8390
OK, kid, so you’re heading to college. The chances are that Mom and Pop are a little nervous about letting you loose on the world. They’re worried that you may dig yourself into a finan-
cial hole. So let’s hear from a couple of people who know about students and financial trouble: Angela Whitlow, a college access consultant in St. Louis, and Susan Feigenbaum, a professor of economics at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Their first advice: Don’t get a credit card. They’re poison for students. Feigenbaum, who has triplets attending college, complains about “the attraction, which is near fatal, of accepting credit card offers which come in droves to 18-year-olds.” Too many young people lose track of their spending, then are shocked when the bill arrives. So they pay the minimum, and watch See GALLAGHER • Page E2
Missouri lags in coverage pricing transparency
photos by Roberto Rodriguez • rrodriguez@post-dispatch.com
Brewer Darren McLean, of O’Fallon, Ill., samples a freshly canned Honey Wheat beer at Morgan Street Brewery on Wednesday. Morgan Street’s owners say business is strong, with annual revenue exceeding $3 million.
By Samantha Liss sliss@post-dispatch.com > 314-340-8017
Owners say they’d like to scale back after running craft landmark.
Health insurance carriers all across the country are disclosing what they plan to charge customers for coverage in 2015 — almost everywhere, that is, except Missouri. In Connecticut, for example, Anthem Health Plans Inc. submitted its rates to the state’s insurance department in May, requesting an average increase of 12.5 percent. The state denied the request on July 25. Anthem has until Aug. 31 to submit revised rates. “We fairly dramatically pushed back on them,” said Anne Melissa Dowling, deputy commissioner of Connecticut’s Insurance Department. “They cannot sell this product without our assent.”
By Lisa Brown • lbrown@post-dispatch.com > 314-340-8127
See INSURANCE • Page E4
carriers offering plans Missourians shopping for insurance on HealthCare.gov this fall are likely to see plans offered by at least three insurance companies. UnitedHealthcare, the nation’s largest insurer, says it expects to participate in the federally run health exchange in Missouri this fall. Coventry and Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield both said they will again offer plans on the exchange, which opens for enrollment on Nov. 15.
Darren McLean fills cans with Honey Wheat beer. Morgan Street’s When Helles Freezes Over won a gold medal at a beer competition in Los Angeles in June.
The owners of Morgan Street Brewery, one of St. Louis’ oldest craft brewers, are putting the business up for sale, offering those with a thirst to brew a rare chance to buy an established brand in the fast-growing craft beer industry. When Steve Owings and Dennis Harper founded Morgan Street Brewery on Laclede’s Landing nearly two decades ago, there were just three other brewers operating locally. In addition to Anheuser-Busch, the St. Louis Brewery, maker of Schlafly beer, opened the Tap Room on downtown’s western edge in 1991. Trailhead Brewing Co. opened in St. Charles in 1995, the same year as Morgan Street. Still, it would be years before St. Louis would boast the vibrant craft beer industry it does today, with more than two dozen breweries. “Trailhead opened just before us, and there was Schlafly,” Harper said, describing the craft beer landscape in the mid1990s. Since then, demand for craft beer has prompted a wave of brewery openings, and the number of breweries operating nationally topped 3,000 this year, the most since the 1870s. Morgan Street’s owners say business is strong, with annual revenue exceeding $3 million. But Owings, who is 58 and lives in Clayton, and Harper, a Columbia, Mo., resident who’s 65, say after running the business for nearly 20 years, they want to scale back their business ventures. See MORGAN • Page E4
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ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH • E3
Business Mound City Money From David Nicklaus’ blog about St. Louis business. STLtoday. com/moundcitymoney Biogenerator invests in HealthyMe • St. Louis’ information-technology and biotechnology startups have largely occupied separate worlds, with their own funding sources and organizations. Now, for the first time, a crossover company has received support from both worlds. The Biogenerator, a key funding source for early-stage biotech companies, announced today that it has invested $25,000 in HealthyMe, which is building software designed to reduce hospital readmission rates. The program uses text messaging to help patients adjust their lifestyles after leaving the hospital. HealthyMe got early support from the Information Technology Entrepreneur Network, or ITEN, and a $50,000 investment last year from Capital Innovators, a technology accelerator. Francis Chmelir, ITEN’s director of operations, said health care technology firms such as HealthyMe represent “a very promising area of collaboration between the tech and biotech sectors.” (08.12) Isle misses targets, but CEO gets bonus • Isle of Capri Casinos Chief Executive Virginia McDowell earned a bonus for the first time in two years — even though the company missed its profit goals in fiscal 2014. McDowell’s bonus for the fiscal year, which ended April 27, was $232,500, and it brought her total pay to $1.0 million. Her salary was unchanged at $775,000. The pay figures are disclosed in a proxy statement that Isle of Capri filed Wednesday. The company said its bonus plan contained both financial and nonfinancial criteria. Profit fell short of the plan’s minimum requirement, but executives got bonuses equal to 30 percent of their target level “based on the committee’s evaluation of the achievement of team-based milestones and objectives contained in the Company’s strategic plan.” Isle of Capri posted a $127.7
million loss for fiscal 2014, and its share price fell 4 percent during the year. McDowell’s $1 million in total pay was down from $3.08 million in fiscal 2013, but the latter amount included a $2.3 million stock award that was designed to be a three-year, long-term incentive. Isle of Capri didn’t issue any long-term incentive pay in fiscal 2014. (08.13) Regional farmland prices flat • Farmland prices in the Midwest and mid-South were flat during the second quarter, according to a survey by the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank. Quality farmland in the bank’s district fell by 0.4 percent to $5,473 an acre, according to a survey of agricultural bankers. The average land price is down 3.5 percent from the same time last year. The bankers predicted that expect crop land prices will continue falling in the third quarter, but that ranch and pasture land will appreciate slightly. The survey also found that farm income and farmers’ capital spending are down, which fits with Deere & Co.’s downbeat earnings report Wednesday. Deere says its equipment sales will be down 6 percent in fiscal 2014. The figures in the St. Louis Fed’s report are not seasonally adjusted. The district covers all of Arkansas and parts of Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi. The Kansas City Fed also said Thursday that crop land values were steady, rising less than 1 percent from the first quarter to the second quarter. Crop land prices in the Kansas City district are 6 percent above their yearago level. The Chicago Fed reported a 2 percent rise in land prices during the second quarter. It said values “were partly buoyed by a spring rally in corn and soybean prices, which occurred before these crop prices started falling again in May.” Many bankers who responded to the Chicago Fed’s survey also predicted a decline in land prices during the third quarter. (08.14)
Laurie Skrivan • lskrivan@post-dispatch.com
“I can’t dress down without being racially profiled,” said Bruce Franks, who stood along West Florissant Avenue, protesting for justice for Michael Brown on Friday. “I am college-educated. I own two businesses. Yet when I go running around my neighborhood in Benton Park, people are afraid when they see a black man running. We need change,” Franks said.
NICKLAUS
• from E1
Born poor? Moving up in St. Louis is much more uncommon than in other cities called relative mobility, which compares the prospects for people born at the bottom and the top of the income distribution. In more mobile places such as San Jose or Seattle, a person born poor is twice as likely to move up the income ladder as a person born into the same circumstances in St. Louis. I should pause here to acknowledge that the demonstrations in Ferguson weren’t about jobs or lack of economic opportunity. People took to the streets out of anger over a young man’s death, and the protests grew when people felt their basic human rights were being disrespected. Still, I can’t help but think the anger was intensified by a feeling of powerlessness, and it’s hard to ignore the ways in which the economy of the past few years has been hard on north St. Louis County. North County was the epicenter of the area’s foreclosure crisis, and house prices in Ferguson are down 37 percent from their peak in 2007, according to Zillow. That’s a lot of vanished wealth. “People didn’t just wake up one day and say, ‘We’re angry,’” says Chris Krehmeyer, president of the nonprofit group Beyond Housing. “Being angry was the
between black and white. The unemployment rate for AfricanAmericans here is about three times as high as the rate for whites. According to census figures from 2012, 47 percent of the metro area’s African-American men between ages 16 and 24 are unemployed. The comparable figure for young white men is 16 percent. Those figures should be just as shocking as the images of armed police confronting unarmed demonstrators, yet we take them for granted. What’s more, poverty is more of a multigenerational phenomenon in St. Louis than elsewhere. A study called the Equality of Opportunity Project ranked us fourth from the bottom among 100 large cities on something
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result of years of frustration.” Jamie Fogel, a researcher with the Equality of Opportunity Project, says that segregated housing and underperforming schools are among the things that are highly correlated with a lack of economic mobility. So is sprawl, measured by the percentage of people who drive 15 minutes or more to work each day. He’s just described St. Louis, hasn’t he? Todd Swanstrom, a professor of public policy at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, says he wasn’t surprised to see an angry crowd take to the streets in North County, although not necessarily in Ferguson. “The city of Ferguson is not an extreme case of poverty, but it certainly is a case of rising poverty and segregation,” Swanstrom said. “Usually St. Louis is not at the cutting edge, but in terms of the suburbanization of poverty, we are.” If police tactics were the spark that set off the explosion in Ferguson this week, then poverty and hopelessness were the tinder. Those in charge of the police can begin the healing process, but it won’t be complete unless we tackle the deeper economic issues too.
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH National St. Louis
1-year average: average: CD 0.24 % 0.19 %
National St. Louis
New car average: average: loans 3.97 % 4.09 %
Credit Card
National average:
13.23%
CD & Deposit Guide ADVERTISEMENT Check rates daily at http://stltoday.interest.com
Yields Available to St. Louis Area Residents Institution/Phone
Int Chking Money Acct Mkt Acct Min Min
Address/Internet
Concord Bank 12040 Tesson Ferry Road 888-898-0491 www.concordbank.com Specials: Call for special rates.
0.10 250
0.15 250
3 mo CD Min
6 mo CD Min
12 mo CD Min
18 mo CD Min
24 mo CD Min
36 mo CD Min
60 mo CD Min
0.15 0.20 0.25 0.25 0.45 0.65 1.05 1,000 1,000 1,000 1,000 1,000 1,000 1,000
EverBank 8300 Eager Road, Suite 700 0.30 0.61 0.45 0.35 0.60 0.64 1.25 1.46 2.30 888-900-6553 www.EverBank.com 1,500 1,500 1,500 1,500 1,500 1,500 1,500 1,500 1,500 Specials: Call us to learn about a 6 month bonus rate for eligible checking and money market accounts. St. Louis Bank 14323 S. Outer Forty Road 0.05 0.30 0.10 0.15 0.45 0.55 0.75 1.00 1.50 888-963-3502 www.stlouisbank.com 100 10,000 5,000 5,000 5,000 5,000 5,000 5,000 5,000 Specials: For a complete list of our current rates, please visit us at: www.stlouisbank.com Legend: Rates effective as of 8/15/14 and may change without notice. All institutions are FDIC or NCUA insured. Rates may change after the account is opened. N/A means rates are not available or not offered at press time. Yields represent annual percentage yield (APY) paid by participating institutions. Fees may reduce the earnings on the account. A penalty may be imposed for early withdrawal. Banks, Thrifts and credit unions pay to advertise in this guide which is compiled by Bankrate.com®, a publication of Bankrate, Inc. © 2014. To appear in this table, call 888-768-4243. To report any inaccuracies, call 888-509-4636. • http://stltoday.interest.com
Savings and Loan Rates U.S. RATES
BEST BASIC CREDIT CARD DEALS
These were the highest yields available among U.S. banks These were the best standard credit card deals available surveyed by Bankrate.com® as of Tuesday: amongU.S.bankssurveyedbyBankrate.com® asofTuesday: MMA/Savings account The Palladian PrivateBank EverBank GE Capital Bank CIT Bank Barclays
Phone
Min. to Yield earn int. (APY) Carry balances
Phone
Annual Annual Grace % rate fee period
877-319-7722 $ 10000 866-242-1924 1500 855-730-7283 0 877-505-9926 25000 888-720-8756 0
1.26 1.01 0.95 0.95 0.90
Amalgamated Bank of Chicago Citizens Trust Bank Heartland Bank Westfield Bank, FSB
877-484-2372 $ 5000 800-903-8154 25000 800-353-6436 25000 305-789-8077 500 855-730-7283 500
1.10 1.10 1.08 1.06 1.05
Citizens Trust Bank Heartland Bank Westfield Bank, FSB First Command Bank
855-228-6755 $ 1500 800-903-8154 25000 888-720-8756 0 855-730-7283 500 877-734-2265 500
2.30 2.30 2.25 2.25 2.15
Rates are for standard credit cards, and information applies to purchases only. Cash advances frequently are charged interest from the date of transaction. Additional fees may be charged such as for exceeding a credit line, making an ATM transaction, or if a check is returned.B=Billing,T=Transaction,P=Posting,V=Variablerate,F=Fixed.
1-year CD
800-723-0303 404-659-5959 800-489-2660 800-368-8930
7.50 V 9.25 V 10.24 V 10.24 V
37 0 0 0
25 25 25 25
B B B B
404-659-5959 800-489-2660 800-368-8930 888-763-7600
9.25 V 10.24 V 10.24 V 10.25 V
0 0 0 0
25 25 25 25
B B B B
Pay off balances
Colorado Federal Savings Bank Synchrony Bank Silvergate Bank My e-BAnC by BAC Florida Bk GE Capital Bank
For more information visit www.bankrate.com
5-year CD EverBank Synchrony Bank Barclays GE Capital Bank State Farm Bank
Best Loan Rates
Deposit Trend
ST. LOUIS RATES
NATIONAL YIELD
These were the lowest loan rates available among St. Louis- National average is based on 100 largest institutions in area institutions surveyed by Bankrate.com® as of Friday: the top 10 U.S. markets. Home equity loan U.S. Bank Commerce Bank Bank of America
BUSINESS CENTER 270 & North Lindbergh Blvd., 320 Brookes Dr.
www.bommarito.com “Bommarito - We Make Office Space Affordable!”
Phone
Rate
800-872-2657 800-453-2265 800-432-1000
4.19 5.92 7.62
800-432-1000 800-453-2265 800-872-2657
2.34 3.35 3.37
800-432-1000 800-872-2657 800-453-2265
2.49 2.66 3.35
New car
0.25
1-Year CD National Trend
0.20 0.15
Bank of America Commerce Bank U.S. Bank
Used car Bank of America U.S. Bank Commerce Bank
0.10 0.05 0.00
28-May 4-Jun 11-Jun 18-Jun 25-Jun 2-Jul
9-Jul 16-Jul 23-Jul 30-Jul 6-Aug 13-Aug
Source: Bankrate.com 2014
Home equity loan: fixed rate, 5-year term, secured loan based on $30,000 at 80% LTV; New car: $22,000 fixed rate, 48-month term, 10% down Credit Unions have membership requirements. payment; Used car (3 years old): $10,000 fixed rate, 36-month term, 20% down payment.
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