Wednesday 26 November 2014

The events in Ferguson, Mo

"It is Officially Open Season on Black Folks": Legal Expert Decries Handling of Wilson Grand Jury

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On Monday St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch announced the grand jury had found "that no probable cause exists" to charge Officer Darren Wilson with any crime in the death of Michael Brown. 

The jury deliberated for three months and heard dozens of hours of testimony, including from Wilson himself. But did they hear the full story? McCulloch himself had faced public scrutiny throughout the grand jury investigation, with calls for him to resign over allegations of a pro-police bias and questions raised about an unusual grand jury process that resembled a trial. 

We speak to Vince Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, who is just back from Ferguson. 

"I don’t think we can take away anything from this decision not to indict other than that it is now officially open season on black folks when it comes to police violence," Warren says.



'F**k CNN!" - Angry protesters disrupt Ferguson live coverage

Screenshot from youtube.com


RT,

25 November, 2014


Police in the vicinity of Ferguson, Missouri had their hands full Monday night when the absence of an indictment against Officer Darren Wilson spawned protests, fires and looting. For the media, covering the madness was an ordeal as well.


While journalists scrambled to deliver live coverage from the region into the morning as demonstrations raged on, reporters on the ground in towns like Ferguson, Clayton and St. Louis saw themselves under attack — verbally and physically — from protesters enraged by a grand jury’s decision not to indict Wilson, the 28-year-old Ferguson cop who killed unarmed teen Michael Brown earlier this year.
In one instance on CNN, critics of the network relied on their words to express their feelings about Monday’s night coverage. At one point, a live segment was derailed when a demonstrator rushed the microphone and barked, “Fuck CNN!”

As we said, we don’t know what’s going to happen, so we apologize for that,” CNN host Don Lemon responded.

Indeed, the network again was in for a surprise when another anchor was belted in the head with a rock thrown from off camera later into their coverage.

"Sorry. I just got hit with a a rock." CNN live from just now. https://vine.co/v/O1HHO36uQhU 



A grand jury determined earlier Monday that Wilson will not be charged with any crime for now with regards to the August officer involved shooting that killed Brown, 18. Despite pleas from US President Barack Obama and others for demonstrators to stay calm, however, matters quickly escalated in town and others.

Only moments after the president addressed the nation, CNN host Don Lemon took heat after saying what Gawker could only describe as “something infuriatingly dumb and insensitive.” Broadcasting live from Ferguson, Lemon scrambled for the right words to describe the scene before explaining,"Obviously, there's a smell of marijuana in the air."
Don Lemon has become a one man [shake my damn head] factory,” DC-based writer Dave Weigel tweeted on Tuesday.

I deleted that tweet bc ad hominems are also dumb. Still: Don Lemon has become a one man smdh-factory.

Other armchair media critics were quick to pounce on that comment and others from the correspondent, but protesters rallying in Ferguson were much more apt to make their grievances against the media heard: at one point on Fox News, a mask-clad protester pried the network photographer’s video camera out of his hands and threw it to the ground on live TV.

Lorena de la Cuesta, a field reporter for RT's video agency, Ruptly, said she was injured herself after being struck with an apparent gas canister while covering Monday's events.


Online, individuals outraged by the lack of an indictment, the response from protesters and the mainstream media’s coverage of events as they unfolded took to Twitter and other outlets to make their complaints heard.

Television networks attempted to broadcast late into the evening as at least dozen structure fires erupted around Ferguson, including one at an automobile dealership, but their reporting was met with criticism both on the streets and on the web.

Of course, television coverage from the events that unfolded on Monday evening represented just a fraction of what outraged Americans were upset about in the wake of the grand jury decision. Demonstrations like the ones in Ferguson that erupted after the announcement soon were established in other locales like Washington, DC, New York City and Oakland, California, and activists have planned similar protests for Tuesday evening.


How Ferguson showed us the truth about police


On August 9th, Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson shot a black teenager named Mike Brown. Since then, the city has been protesting. The police did not react well





Watch what happened on Twitter when the Darren Wilson grand jury decision was announced





The map below uses geotagged tweets to track topics on Twitter. Watch a stunning visualization of the reaction on Twitter last night as the announcement was made that Darren Wilson would not be indicted:





Maybe that will help us to understand why he had to empty a whole magazine into someone with his hands up



Startling Photos Of Ferguson The Morning After


FERGUSON, MO — The protesting and rioting died down overnight here in Ferguson, and this morning residents were left to confront the mess left behind. At the intersection of West Florissant and Canfield, the main site of last night’s protests, and the August protests immediately following the death of 18-year-old Mike Brown at the hands of Officer Darren Wilson, the smell of smoke was still acrid in the air.



A woman tells ThinkProgress that gas continues to leak from this burned-down gas station
A woman tells ThinkProgress that gas continues to leak from this burned-down gas station
CREDIT: THINKPROGRESS/ CARIMAH TOWNES/ ERICA HELLERSTEIN

Down the road, next to a burned-down gas station, 14 burned-out cars lined the street.
14 cars were burned out  during the protests
14 cars were burned out during the protests
CREDIT: THINKPROGRESS/ CARIMAH TOWNES/ ERICA HELLERSTEIN

Ferguson morning after 11
CREDIT: THINKPROGRESS/ CARIMAH TOWNES/ ERICA HELLERSTEIN

Ferguson morning after 16
CREDIT: THINKPROGRESS/ CARIMAH TOWNES/ ERICA HELLERSTEIN


Over by the Ferguson police department, where protesters gathered last night to express their frustrations with Grand Jury decision not to indict Darren Wilson into a trial over Brown’s killing, storefronts were littered with broken glass, their windows knocked out after a night of looting.

Ferguson Combo 1
CREDIT: THINKPROGRESS/ CARIMAH TOWNES/ ERICA HELLERSTEIN
Left: A broken-in window of a storefront near the Ferguson police station. Right: Cops watch over a burned-down building on W. Florissant
Left: A broken-in window of a storefront near the Ferguson police station. Right: Cops watch over a burned-down building on W. Florissant
CREDIT: THINKPROGRESS/ CARIMAH TOWNES/ ERICA HELLERSTEIN

Ferguson morning after 14
CREDIT: THINKPROGRESS/ CARIMAH TOWNES/ ERICA HELLERSTEIN
Left: Another storefront left shattered . Right: Police stand near rising smoke on W. Florissant.
Left: Another storefront left shattered . Right: Police stand near rising smoke on W. Florissant.
CREDIT: THINKPROGRESS/ CARIMAH TOWNES/ ERICA HELLERSTEIN

Near the police station, there weren’t many people out aside from news crews. One family, owners of a shop called Andy Wurm Tire & Wheel Co., was cleaning up the area near their store. They were reluctant to talk, but told ThinkProgress that they’ve lent their expansive parking lot to demonstrators during the protests, and have overall been a support pillar to the community. The family, who are white, hadn’t locked down their store in preparation for the protests the way that other store owners had.

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Beauty supply  store that burned down. Cops block the street at W. Florissant
Beauty supply store that burned down. Cops block the street at W. Florissant
CREDIT: THINKPROGRESS/ CARIMAH TOWNES/ ERICA HELLERSTEIN

Overall, the mood was fairly calm on Ferguson’s streets this morning. Residents of the town say they weren’t surprised that people looted and set fires, but they’re astounded to see the damage in person.
Ferguson morning after 6
CREDIT: THINKPROGRESS/ CARIMAH TOWNES/ ERICA HELLERSTEI


The Guardian can't let an opportunity go to lash out at RT
Anti-Russian propaganda from the Guardian

Serial wankers at The Guardian - which desperately craves a sex change operation so it becomes a US newspaper - are SOOOOOOO incensed with the Russian (and Chinese) coverage of Ferguson. How dare those authoritarian regimes criticize the special relationship-addicted Empire of Chaos?
---Pepe Escobar



American flag ferguson
‘It’s about time the US authorities paid attention to this rather than focusing on lecturing the rest of the world on human rights,’ Konstantin Dolgov said. Photograph: Anna Erickson/AP
"Russia, China and other authoritarian regimes around the world reacted to violent protests in Ferguson with thinly disguised glee and schadenfreude on Tuesday, noting that the scenes of unrest in Missouri undermined the US’s credibility to criticise other countries on human rights.

"The liberal use of teargas by police, the firing of non-lethal rounds and the enveloping sense of chaos featured extensively in coverage by international state media, including the Kremlin-backed news channel Russia Today, which often concentrates on highlighting deficiencies in western society.

"RT broadcast live from the scene and ran a picture-gallery from Ferguson under the headline: “Ferguson burning: Torched cars, tear gas, clashes in massive night riots (DRAMATIC IMAGES).” RT also quoted UN human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein decrying America’s “troubled” record on race relations and pointing out that African Americans ended up in jail – or worse – in disproportionate numbers.

"Russian commentators and state media implied that the disorder in Ferguson was a kind of cosmic payback for the US’s meddling in Ukraine, currently the scene of a war in the east of the country. The Kremlin blames the conflict on the west and “neo-Nazis” in Kiev, rather than on Moscow’s covert invasion of Ukrainian territory. Russia’s “human rights ombudsman” Konstantin Dolgov, meanwhile, fired off a series of tweets accusing the US administration of hypocrisy and serial failure?.


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