Troubling, misleading leaks 'inflame' volatile conditions in Ferguson, Mo.

By Askia Muhammad -Senior Editor- | Last updated: Nov 6, 2014 - 8:56:32 AM

Months after the killing of Black teen Mike Brown, protests and demands have continued. Photo: D.L. Phillips

WASHINGTON (FinalCall.com) - In Ferguson, Mo., where unarmed Black teenager Michael Brown was shot to death by White police officer Darren Wilson on Aug. 9, local and state law enforcement officials are anticipating mass protests and violence in the wake of an expected mid-November announcement by the grand jury investigating whether to bring criminal charges against the officer.

Reported law enforcement purchases include additional riot gear, tear gas, percussion grenades and other equipment and weapons.

A grand jury has been investigating the case since September.

Area school superintendents have urged St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch to make his announcement in the case after school hours because of safety concerns for school children.

These fears come in the wake of a flood of leaked information—reported to be evidence presented to the grand jury—which media accounts have largely framed as pointing an exoneration of the officer. In the words of one former St. Louis County police chief, according to published reports, it is “probably very unlikely” that the grand jury will indict officer Wilson and the leaks are intended “to start getting some of the facts out there to kind of let people down slowly.”

Mr. McCulloch is accused of being “very politicized”—his own father was a police officer who was killed by a Black suspect. Mr. McCulloch refused, early on, to recuse himself in the case, and in the face of complaints about his porous grand jury leaking information, Mr. McCulloch praised the “noble experiment in self-government” that is America’s jury system. He denied his secret grand jury has been the source of information leaked to news media outlets.

Leaks from the grand jury examining the police shooting of a Black teenager only inflame a volatile situation, warned a civil rights activist.

“Many people have voiced very strong opinions about the action or inaction of Michael Brown and the guilt or innocence of Darren Wilson,” Mr. McCulloch said in a lengthy statement issued Oct. 30 according to published reports, his second in as many days addressing the role and responsibilities of the grand jury. “All have done so without the benefit of examining all of the evidence and hearing all of the testimony.”

“We cannot prejudge the case based upon media accounts and bits of information. We must wait until all of the evidence is presented to and examined by the grand jury,” he added. “The purpose of the criminal justice system is to search for justice but before one can determine what is just, one must first determine what is true. … At this stage the grand jury is engaged in that search for the truth,” Mr. McCulloch said.

He refuted speculation that information published recently in The New York Times and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch came from the grand jury.

“Even a cursory reading of the news articles reporting the information refutes that claim,” Mr. McCulloch said. “As exasperating as I and others find the piecemeal release of information and documents, no information or evidence has been released by the grand jury, any individual juror or anyone associated with the grand jury.

“Whoever is releasing this information is doing great disservice to the grand jury process,” the prosecutor continued. “Additionally, anyone suggesting that the integrity of the entire grand jury process has been destroyed is wrong, irresponsible and does a great disservice to the public.”

Community concerns were heightened even more when The Washington Post reported on Nov. 1 that investigators from the Justice Department, headed by Attorney General Eric Holder—who is Black, and who visited Ferguson shortly after the shooting to help calm tensions there—have all but concluded they do not have a strong enough case to bring civil rights charges against officer Wilson.

Attorney General Holder has also weighed in, calling the leaks inappropriate and expressing his discontent with what he described as an attempt to shape public opinion in the case. “I’ve said I’m exasperated. That’s a nice way of saying I’m mad, because that’s just not how things should be done,” Mr. Holder said. “Whoever the sources of the leaks are need to shut up.”

Black youth have led protests calling for the indictment of the White officer who shot unarmed teen Mike Brown to death.

“The way they handled this, by having (officer Wilson) testify at this hearing, by not really dealing with the absence of (and contradictions between Officer Wilson’s story and the original) incident report, and allowing him the advantage of the autopsy information and all the evidence is a tragedy, an absolute corruption of the prosecution,” Barbara Arnwine, executive director of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law told The Final Call.

“Two leaks are very troubling. One is the leak from the grand jury about this non-indictment, and remember there were leaks earlier from the grand jury, weeks ago, weeks ago, about a non-indictment,” Ms. Arnwine continued. “And we also have the leaks that have been coming out from the Department of Justice officials, talking about they think they will not be able to bring a civil rights charge.

“What’s been very prejudicial about the leaks from the grand jury, especially about the reported autopsy, has been this attempt to paint Michael Brown as the aggressor, which has only hardened and made race relations in St. Louis worse.

“You know a lot of people believe in Darren Wilson, the officer,” Ms. Arnwine continued, “now saying, ‘See he’s right. These Blacks complain, and if they protest, they deserve what they get.’ And you have African Americans saying, this is yet another example, they’re trying to vilify this young man, so it has just hardened the battle lines in St. Louis, and that should not have happened. That is probably the worst consequence of all these leaks.

“All leaks do, is enflame the public. They do not make things better. Somebody thinks that they’re lowering expectations, that people will be least likely to be upset when the results come out, they’re misleading Ferguson. They’re misleading the people of Ferguson. They’re misleading the people of all of St. Louis, the 92 counties in that area. They’re misleading them. They’re misleading them,” Ms. Arnwine emphasized.

These hardened anti-Black racial attitudes from police officers, prosecutors, and judges, should come as no surprise, however, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan advised followers on his Friday social media conversation Oct. 31. “The Honorable Elijah Muhammad had a debate with the imperial wizard of the Ku Klux Klan in the late 1950s, and he said to Elijah Muhammad in his writings to him that ‘in the future we would not wear the white robe, or the white hooded sheets, but we will be in the police department, we will be in politics, we will be in the courts of law.’

“This is what you’re seeing today: The absolute hatred of Blacks that is being fed, yes, in some of these police trainings, but it’s deeper than that! It’s the nature of those who are now armed and dangerous, and full of hatred for Black people, particularly Black youth.

“Thurgood Marshall, our first Black member of the Supreme Court, said before he died, the Klan used to wear white, but now they wear black,” Minister Farrakhan continued. “Look at the reversal of all of the gains of civil rights by the Supreme Court; look at the murders that are going on—not just in Ferguson, but everywhere in America Black people, men and women and children, are being shot to death; and when we go to court, we’re killed right there while we’re in custody! And even though the facts are on our side, it’s called ‘justifiable homicide.’

“So justice has to come from somewhere else, because it does not look like it will come from those that are in power that have the same mind of hatred that the Ku Klux Klan had in the ’20s, ’30s, ’40s and ’50s. And now, I don’t see the white robes anymore.

“I see the blue and the black, and suits with white shirts and ties … Bankers that have the same mind, so you can’t get a loan. We’re living in it now: The Valley of The Shadow of Death. We have to come under the leadership of The Divinely-Appointed Shepherd; that we will not fear though we walk in The Valley of The Shadow of Death,” the Nation of Islam leader advised.

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