Do politicians ever stop posturing?  This is a valid question because as the situation surrounding the protests that began in earnest as a result of the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown continues to fester, some powerful people – including current and former politicians, are seeking to take advantage of the limelight.  The President Obama haters have come out in force.

They are throwing the president into the mix right along with New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and the Reverend Al Sharpton and accusing him of having blood on his hands as a result of the recent deaths of two New York Police Department (NYPD) police officers.

According to a story in The Washington Post, former mayor Rudolph Giuliani made the following statement while on ‘Fox and Friends Weekend.’  “We’ve had four months of propaganda, starting with the president, that everybody should hate the police.  I don’t care how you want to describe it: That’s what those protests are all about.”  The same story said that Patrick Lynch who is the president of the Patrolman’s Benevolent Association said late Saturday “There’s blood on many hands tonight; those that incited violence on the street in the guise of protest, that tried to tear down what New York City police officers did every day.”

This kind of pointed criticism was not leveled only by former mayor Giuliani but also by Representative Peter King, a Republican who currently represents New York, and George Pataki who is a former governor of New York.  Based on this story, also in The Washington Post, these men have blamed Reverend Sharpton for being among those who have created the anti-police environment.  It also said that “former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik said Sharpton and others had ‘blood on their hands.’  The story further said that “conservative commentators posted pictures on Twitter of Sharpton with President Obama to paint the president as a radical on issues of race.”

President Obama is eons away from being a president who is a radical on issues of race.  Although the president was not mentioned directly by these men, the fact that they mentioned ‘anti-police’, and ‘blood on their hands’ seems to not-so-subtly seek to tie the president to this situation as being a part of the problem and not the solution.

It seems that these times would be among those when politicians put the partisan posturing aside and come together to work to resolve a grave problem that America is grappling with.  But it seems that too many of them have forgotten about why they were elected in the first place; to work together for the greater good of America and the American people!  They are not there to become political rock stars, garner the admiration of their constituent fans and gloat about their personal gain and how great they are!  They are there to work; and they certainly have not done much of that over the past few years.

Many of the young protesters are saying that Al Sharpton does not speak for them and that is okay.  They say that he is too tied to the ‘system’ so cannot be effective; he is inextricably tied to the way that our current leaders – civic and elected – do things.  To them, this way of doing things no longer works so they must take a different approach.  Again, that is okay.  They must find their own path.

That notwithstanding, our elected and non-elected leaders must realize that while these young leaders are seeking their own path, they need guidance; even if it is guidance that they are resisting.  They need to be under the auspices of leaders who have been tried and tested in civil and human rights efforts: someone who has the platform and ability to help assure that things remain below the boiling point.  Reverend Al Sharpton is among those people who can do this.

All of those politicians who are busy honing their thespian skills, positioning themselves for reelection, constructing the catapults that will propel them back into office and place them in chairmanships on coveted committees and perhaps someday make them President of the United States should wake up right now.  They should pull their heads out of the sand and step up and do the job that they were elected to do.  They should commit themselves to work for the betterment of America and the American people.

It does not matter whether they like or dislike the president, Al Sharpton or anyone else and disagree with their politics.  What matters right now is that we work to clean up this mess that we find ourselves in before it gets completely out of control.

Eulus Dennis

These are very challenging times since the deaths of a number of unarmed Black men and boys by police officers around the country.  This situation has only been made worse with the recent death of two New York police officers by a Black man; especially since he claimed to have killed them in retaliation for the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown.

The anger and frustration harbored by those who support protesters who came together as a result of the killings of unarmed Black people and that by the New York Police Department (NYPD) has now exploded into finger-pointing and unreasonable accusations.

NYPD Police Unions claim that protesters and New York mayor Bill de Blasio are responsible for the current situation and said that the blood of these two police officers is on the hands of the mayor.  They are angry with Mayor de Blasio because – according to an article by Howard Koplowitz in International Business Times – he is “seen as unfriendly to police in part because of his coziness to the Rev. Al Sharpton, who has led protests in support of Brown and Garner, and the mayor’s public statements about the circumstances of Garner’s death.”

I have read a number of recent articles where Mayor de Blasio and the protest leaders have been bombarded with blame by police unions.  While I understand the anger and frustration that is vented in these articles by the leaders of these unions, I think that this is exactly the wrong thing to do.  Their anger also prompted some police officers to turn their backs on the mayor at an appearance he made to talk about the death of the police officers who were killed.  They should not have done this.

Loved ones in both the NYPD and on the civilian side of this challenging issue have been lost.  The death of these two innocent police officers is no more the fault of Mayor de Blasio and the protesters than are the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown the fault of every single police officer in the NYPD and Ferguson Police Department.  Although these union leaders are the official spokespersons for these policemen, it is unlikely that the majority of them share these unions’ opinions.

Now is the time for all of our leaders, from President Obama down to the leaders of the protestors, to speak words of peace and healing and not heated words of anger and frustration.  These leaders include the leaders of the police unions.  Words of anger and frustration from those on either side of this issue do not help.  They only serve to escalate a situation that needs to be deescalated.

It is not hard to understand why both sides are angry and frustrated but what is hard to understand is why leaders on either side would choose to escalate rather than deescalate the problem.  A part of what we expect from our chosen leaders is for them to separate their emotions from their decision-making responsibilities and make well-founded rational decisions.

The likelihood of the masses to make irrational decisions based largely on their emotions is not unusual; but that is why we choose leaders.  The leaders of the police unions need to take a step back from the situation, take a deep breath, reevaluate their responsibilities as leaders and then move forward from there.

If they make a serious evaluation, especially in light of the implications of our current situation – even though they will no doubt still be angry and frustrated, they will take a different path in moving forward from here.  This does not mean that they should change their minds and not continue to stand against the mayor and protesters if they feel it is the right thing to do.  It simply means that they should fully evaluate the situation and find some way to calm things down yet still make their point.  Cooler heads must prevail if we are to make a reasonable effort to solve this problem and effectively mitigate its root cause and eradicate it.

Eulus Dennis

If suspect Ismaaiyl Brinsley proves to actually be the person who ambushed and killed New York police officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, he is a murderer.  It is as simple as that.  It does not matter if he did it because he sincerely felt that Eric Garner and Michael Brown did not receive justice because the grand juries did not indict the police officers responsible for their deaths or he was a sociopath, psychopath or for any other reason.

To kill two innocent police officers because it was police officers who killed Eric Garner and Michael Brown is to be no better than police officers who would discount the life of someone because of the color of their skin and kill them for no reason other than that.  Therefore, what Mr. Brinsley did is nonsensical because that kind of thing is what the protests are about.

There have been too many Black people and too many white people young and old who have come together and marched peacefully in the streets of many cities around this country in the names of Eric Garner and Michael Brown to have those names and efforts besmirched by an act of murder.  I refuse to accept even the thought that the preponderance of white people in this country does not want equal justice for all Americans.

I do not believe that the young Americans who are the catalyst of these peaceful protests and the foundation of race relations for America in the future believe that they should paint a broad-brush view of all white people as a result of what has transpired thus far in the Eric Garner and Michael Brown cases.  The rainbow of colors of the people participating in the peaceful protests support the fact that people of all colors want equal justice for all people.

There is no doubt that people of color and white people have our differences; but it is because by virtue of the history of our country and the deep-seated biases that we carry as a result of that, that we wear virtual blinders that make it all but impossible for each to see the other’s perspective.

I do not know if under these circumstances it is possible for us to achieve a level playing field but I do know that if we fail to work together and try we will never know the true answer to this thought; it is meant to be a question as well.  Surely at some time or another if this is a thought-provoking question that has not actually been verbalized by our elected leaders, it is far past time that it should be.

In the meantime, all of those who are truly protesting in the name of Eric Garner and Michael Brown should stand up and speak out about the killing of these two innocent police officers.  The killer might have evoked the names of Eric Garner and Michael Brown to try to justify what he did but what he did was wrong.  And everyone should call what he did by its true name; murder.

What he did was vigilantism.  He anointed himself judge, jury and executioner and then carried out his sentence.  He was an unwanted vigilante and what he did, did not honor Mr. Garner and Mr. Brown, it dishonored them.

Eulus Dennis

Although I have been vigilant I haven’t seen any articles or heard much said in the mainstream media about what a reporter from The Smoking Gun revealed about a witness who testified in the shooting death of Michael Brown.  Mr. Brown was killed by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri after they had a brief scuffle.  I must admit that I expected to read and hear a lot more news on this discovery especially since, based on the story in The Smoking Gun, this witness has proven to be a complete farce.

The witness is Witness No. 40.  This witness played a vital role in the support of Officer Wilson’s version of what happened that fatal day and a key statement made in their version of what happened was quoted repeatedly by Sean Hannity, host of the Fox News Channel show, Hannity.  The problem is that, again based on the story in The Smoking Gun, this witness was not even in Ferguson on the day that the shooting occurred.

This could present a big problem for the prosecutors who presented this case to the grand jury because if they did not know the background of this witness, they should have known it.

According to William Bastone, one of the authors of the article in The Smoking Gun, he was able to find out who this witness is, research their background – which is highly questionable, and write his article in about three days.  He said that since he was able to do this in a matter of days, since the prosecutors had weeks and resources available to them that he did not have, such as subpoena power, they also should have been able to look into this witness’s background.  Had they done this, he said, they would have known that this witness should not have been allowed to testify before the grand jury.

It is not yet clear what this might mean in terms of getting the grand jury’s decision set aside or if Michael Brown’s family will even consider going down that road.  Whatever the family’s decision may be, this case should not be left as is because Michael Brown still has not received justice.  My thoughts are that justice will not have been done until Officer Wilson faces a trial by jury in a court of law and not via a secretive grand jury process.

There are still too many questions left unanswered in this case, especially in light of the dismantling of Witness No. 40, and the race problem that America has and refuses to acknowledge will only be made worse if they are not answered.

What do you think?  I solicit your comments on this and any of the articles on this website.  Remember, this site is meant to bring awareness to us regarding our responsibilities as citizens and voters and to generate reasonable discussion among reasonable people.  We can agree to disagree.

By the way, in the event that you would like to read the story about Witness No. 40 in The Smoking Gun, I provided a link to it immediately following this article.  The title of the story in The Smoking Gun is “Witness 40”: Exposing A Fraud In Ferguson.

Eulus Dennis

“Witness 40”: Exposing A Fraud In Ferguson | The Smoking Gun.

To read this article in The Smoking Gun, click on the title/link immediately above.

I read an 18-page story online by writers for The Washington Post in which they detailed the Ferguson, Missouri shooting of Michael Brown tragedy.  My thoughts are that the article was written from a professional and objective perspective but it seemed to me to be favorably skewed toward law enforcement.  That is probably because I am in favor of a jury trial and biased by the decision of the grand jury not to indict.

The writers covered a lot of material while trying to keep the length of the article reasonable so even if it was skewed in favor of law enforcement, it would be unfair to say that they purposely did this so must be given the benefit of the doubt.  There are a number of reasons why I say that it was skewed in favor of law enforcement and I will explain those reasons in this article.

The sad fact is that this article will not be read by the masses anytime soon and when it is read, it will be read by far fewer people than the number that read the one in The Washington Post.  To even say ‘far fewer’ is an understatement; in reality I could easily say 0.000001 people and still likely be too high.  But I will tell it from a victim’s perspective anyway.

I will also provide a link to the story in The Washington Post following this article so that you can read the entire story for yourself should you decide to.  If for any reason the link does not work properly, the title of the article is “In three minutes, two lives collide and a nation divides.”  Do a computer search for the article under that exact title and you will find it.  Six writers contributed to the story; five in Washington and one in Ferguson.

The Washington Post’s story begins to chronicle Michael Brown’s last day alive on this earth starting shortly before noon.  By the time that it ends 18 pages later it is only shortly past 12:01 p.m., which is about the time that Officer Darren Wilson radioed the following message that included his call signal – Frank 21 – after he encountered Michael Brown and Dorian Johnson on Canfield:  “Frank 21, I’m on Canfield with two, send me another car.”

It started with Michael Brown striking up a conversation with a contractor who was trying to cut away some tree roots with his hatchet.  The article says that Michael Brown talked to the contractor for about half an hour before he left and returned a short time later with his friend, Dorian Johnson.  They talked briefly with the contractor before they headed off to the market where Michael Brown would strong-arm the clerk and take some small cigars.

The clerk reported the robbery and a description of Mr. Brown and Mr. Johnson was broadcasted to the police.  When Mr. Brown and Mr. Johnson turned onto Canfield they had a chance-meeting with Officer Wilson.  That is where things quickly went wrong and escalated and Officer Wilson shot Michael Brown to death.

The Washington Post story said that Officer Wilson shot Michael Brown at least six times and that by the time he stopped shooting, his magazine was empty.  All evidence of the shooting was turned over to a grand jury so that they could determine whether or not Officer Wilson should be indicted for killing Mr. Brown.

The Washington Post story went on to say that “no video of the incident has emerged, leaving the nation, like the grand jury that completed its work two weeks ago, dependent on a vast encyclopedia of evidence, a mountain of witness statements, forensic reports and police narratives.  It all adds up to a close consensus on the basic chronology of events and wildly varying interpretations of a few key moments.  Scientific analysis can determine how many times Brown was shot, where he was standing, even what direction he was moving in.  But the only window into Brown’s intentions come from witnesses, and what they saw blended all too confusingly with who they are.  What witnesses saw was sufficient to persuade the grand jurors not to indict Wilson…”

After this statement The Washington Post story cites statements made by various witnesses and that is where it starts to skew favorably toward law enforcement and lose sight of the victims’ perspective.  Again, I want to emphatically add that the writers covered a tremendous amount of material in 18 pages so must be given the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the question of whether or not the skew was deliberate.

It seems to me that the story was skewed favorably toward law enforcement because it seemed to be making a subtle effort to justify the grand jury’s decision by explaining that the jurors were saddled with a large amount of evidence, much of which was challenging and confusing because of witnesses incongruent statements.  But this only supports the need for a transparent trial rather than giving all evidence to a grand jury and charging it with making a decision in secret.

It is important to remember that the grand jury is not responsible to determine Officer Wilson’s guilt or innocence.  The grand jury’s responsibility is to determine whether or not there is enough evidence to show that there is probable cause to have Officer Wilson face a jury trial.  That jury would then weigh all of the evidence and determine whether he is guilty or innocent and both the prosecuting attorney and defending attorney would have the opportunity to cross-examine the other’s witnesses.

Following are some specific examples from the story in The Washington Post that caught my attention:

1. “When one witness told the grand jury that she was certain Brown had charged Wilson, the prosecutor pushed back: ‘You characterize it as a “charge;” could he have been staggering?’ The witness stuck with her account.”

“On another day, when a witness said he was certain that Brown had tried to surrender to Wilson, the prosecutor again pushed back, from the opposite direction: “It does not appear he was charging the officer?”  No, the witness said, ‘he was not charging’.”

It would not be unfair to describe what the prosecutor did in both of these instances as a gentle nudge rather than a pushback.  Can you imagine what a defense attorney or prosecuting attorney would have done upon cross-examination in this situation?  A trial by jury would have been better.  It would have been better perceived by the citizens of Ferguson and by the rest of America.

2. “One witness who testified to the grand jury, 19-year-old Piaget Crenshaw, said in an interview with The Post that although the jurors let her give her full account, she thought prosecutors were not paying attention. Crenshaw said she saw Brown put his arms up to let them know that he was compliant.”

If this is true, it sent a message – whether intentional or not – that the prosecutors either felt that this witness was unreliable or that she was not credible.  It is unlikely that this kind of conduct would have happened in a jury trial, and if it had, it would have been challenged.

3. “Witness No. 46, a woman who was listening to gospel music in her car, said she heard Brown say ‘I don’t have anything,’ loudly, ‘in a holler voice.’ That same witness said Brown kept calling out to the officer even as bullets flew: The boy kept saying, I got, my hands is up, I don’t have anything, what do you want’.”

Again, a jury trial would have been better for the purpose of arriving at what really happened, better perceived by citizens of Ferguson and the rest of America, and a verdict of Officer Wilson’s guilt or innocence would have been better accepted.

4. “Another man, who had stepped outside his apartment after the first gunshots, said he heard Brown say, ‘Don’t shoot me, stop shooting.’

“With so many versions flying about, the grand jury pressed some witnesses to be more precise.  ‘I need to know what you heard, not what you think you heard,’ one juror told the man who’d come out of his apartment.

The man replied: ‘He was getting pierced by some bullets.  He was pleading for his life’.”

5. “Brown’s hands ‘were down at his sides’ (Witness No. 30), or they were ‘into the air’ (Witness No. 16). Witness No. 10 said Brown ‘turned around and he did some type of movement. I never seen him put his hands up or anything… I’m not sure if he pulled his pants up or, or whatever he did, but I seen some type of movement and he started charging the police officer’.”
6. ” ‘It wasn’t really a run,’ said witness No. 44, ‘cuz he didn’t get far. Well, after he stopped, he turned around, and he put his hands about shoulder length. It wasn’t in the air like everybody doin’.’  This witness said Brown was ‘scrunching forward’ but not moving toward the officer.  (Later, the witness said it was possible that Brown did come forward toward Wilson but that the witness had turned away and missed that.)”

The fact that different witnesses saw different things or gave different versions of what they saw is not uncommon.  The fact that Michael Brown was shot multiple times, including shots to his face and the top of his head, and a number of witnesses said that his hands were raised when he was shot all but demanded an indictment.  It should not matter whether his hands were shoulder-level, head-level, or high above his head.

The decision to shoot Michael Brown should have been based on whether or not he was still a threat to Officer Wilson at the time that he was killed.  A regular jury would have been a better way to determine to the best degree possible if he was.

Following this article is a link to the story in The Washington Post that I said I would provide you with.  You can read the entire story for yourself and draw your own conclusions.

Eulus Dennis

JUST BEFORE LUNCHTIME on Aug. 9 in Ferguson, Mo., a contractor who was losing a battle between his hatchet and some deep-set tree roots began to fuss and cuss. A stranger who was walking by watched the laborer for a bit and then offered some soothing words. Why are you so riled up, Michael Brown asked. The Lord Jesus Christ can help you with your anger.

via In three minutes, two lives collide and a nation divides over Ferguson shooting – The Washington Post.

Click on the title/link immediately above to read the entire story in The Washington Post.

Since the time that 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot multiple times and killed by Darren Wilson – a white police officer who was never charged, some of the young people in Ferguson, Missouri have been carrying signs in that town that read ‘Black Life Counts Too.’

They also began questioning the powers that be about the way that African Americans are currently treated in Ferguson and calling their attention to the fact that things have been this way for a long time and it is past time for them to change.  They say that they are regularly harassed by the police for no valid reason and are treated differently than their white counterparts.

Many in Ferguson have been calling for St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch to charge this officer so that he can be held accountable for his actions and tried by a jury in order to determine his guilt or innocence.  Instead, Mr. McCulloch chose to impanel a grand jury to determine whether Officer Wilson should be charged.  This marked the beginning of the many problems and missteps that fueled greater mistrust of the Ferguson justice system and widened the gap between some African Americans and white community members.

Because prosecutor McCulloch’s mother, father, uncle and brother had worked for the police department and his father had been killed in the line of duty by an African American man, some community members asked that he step aside and that a special prosecutor be assigned.  Their rationale was that he was tied to closely to the police department.  On the other side of the issue were those who felt that Mr. McCulloch could be fair and impartial so should not step aside.

Mr. McCulloch also felt that he could be fair and impartial so said that he would stay and do his job.  He moved forward with the grand jury proceedings and submitted evidence collected in the case to them.  This is where another problem arose that further fueled the mistrust of the system by those who had asked him to step aside.  Mr. McCulloch submitted all of the evidence to the grand jury and did not press for an indictment against Officer Wilson or object to Officer Wilson’s intention to testify before the grand jury.

According to lawyers familiar with the grand jury process it is common practice for a prosecutor to seek an indictment and, rather than presenting all evidence, present only evidence that support their reason for seeking that indictment.  They also said that it is not common practice for the accused person to appear before the grand jury and it would be up to a regular jury to look at any exculpatory evidence during trial if an indictment were handed down.

Trust was further eroded when Missouri Governor Jay Nixon suggested that Mr. McCulloch should step aside and allow a special prosecutor to handle the case and Mr. McCulloch said that if the governor wanted him to step aside he should ask him to do so.  In the wake of this, a video from a robbery of a local market in which a small amount of cigars was taken showed a person who was allegedly Michael Brown, committing that robbery just before he was killed by Officer Wilson.  Then other information was leaked piecemeal that was all favorable to Officer Wilson.

Now, more than three months after the shooting, the grand jury has made its decision.  Mr. McCulloch announced that decision to the public and in making that announcement still further fanned the flames of the lack of trust in the justice system in Ferguson by African Americans.  He gave a 20 minute speech, which sounded like that of a defense attorney, before he announced the decision that everyone already knew was coming; officer Wilson would not be charged with any of the possible charges.  In other words, it was a righteous shooting.  This is what the Ferguson shooting boiled down to in the language sometimes used by street cops and their superiors.

There is no doubt that policemen throughout the country put their lives on the line everyday to keep us safe.  But there is a code among them that they believe helps to keep them functioning as a close-knit cohesive group.  Right or wrong, many of them buy into the idea that no cop should ever break that code regardless of how it impacts on the truth.

I think that those who do not buy into this code when it distorts the truth and allows a fellow officer to get away with abuse of their power are, quite simply, afraid of the consequences they will face from other officers if they do break it.  It is easy for me to say that they should step up and break this code when necessary because it would make for a better police force and that would build trust in the community.  But for those who are cops this is a daunting task because their life often depends on the support of their fellow officers.  Break the code and that support might not be there.

All of the missteps cited in this article and the cop code are among the many reasons why I think that Officer Wilson’s guilt or innocence should have been decided in the open by a regular jury instead of by a secretive grand jury that was guided by someone who is inextricably tied to the police force and who became a prosecutor only because he could not become a cop.   I also believe that had there been a trial by a regular jury, regardless of the outcome, it could have gone a long way toward building a foundation on which the citizens of Ferguson could have at least begun to try to build some trust in the Ferguson justice system.

Eulus Dennis