Ferguson – praag.org

Ferguson voids 10 000 arrest warrants

The new municipal judge in Ferguson has recalled all arrest warrants issued before 2015. The decision gives many residents of the troubled Missouri city a fresh start, just days before a court reform law is to take effect.

Issued by Ferguson Municipal Court Judge Donald McCullin, the order applies to all arrest warrants prior to December 31, 2014, whether for minor traffic violations or more serious offenses. Close to 10,000 warrants are affected by the decision, municipal prosecutor Stephanie Karr told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

“These changes should continue the process of restoring confidence in the court, alleviating fears of the consequences of appearing in court, and giving many residents a fresh start,” said McCullin, who was appointed to the post in June. His predecessor, Ronald Brockmeyer, resigned in March following a scathing Department of Justice report accused Ferguson of unconstitutional practices and racial profiling.

Voiding the warrants does not get rid of the charges for the original violations, however. To resolve those, defendants will be given new court dates as well as options to pay their fines, from payment plans to community service, Judge McCullin said. In addition, the Missouri Department of Revenue said it would reinstate drivers’ licenses suspended solely due to unpaid fines or failure to appear in court.

“It is meaningful and will have a real impact on the lives of many,” Brendan Roediger, a St. Louis-area lawyer who has represented some of the protesters in Ferguson, told Reuters. “That being said, payment plans and community service do not solve racial profiling or excessive fines.”

McCullin set out the new bond rules for both minor and major violations, with minor traffic and housing code violations requiring an unsecured bond of $200. The bond for more serious traffic violations, trespassing or marijuana possession will be $300.

Last week, the municipal judge in nearby Velda City, Wesley Bell, canceled more than 5,000 warrants and all of the city’s failure-to-appear charges. Velda City has a population of 1,410.

Judicial practices in Ferguson and the St. Louis County came under the spotlight after the August 2014 death of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager shot by Ferguson PD officer Darren Wilson during an altercation.

While the US Department of Justice cleared Wilson of all charges, it issued a 102-page report in March 2015 accusing the city authorities of systemic racism against the town’s African-American community. The report accused Ferguson police and the courts of deliberately targeting black residents for citations, arrests and charge.

Source: RT

Ferguson teen shot by police had a gun

St. Louis County police have released surveillance footage allegedly showing Tyrone Harris, a black teen, with a gun. Police said Harris fired the weapon at plainclothes officers before they shot back, leaving him critically wounded in Ferguson on Sunday.

The 13-second video comes from a surveillance camera owned by Solo Insurance Services. It opens with people casually walking past a row of shops and parked cars.

Then, some sort of disturbance off camera causes people to start running away, with some ducking behind vehicles, as a group of about 10 people comes into view, running and separating.

One person wearing a white t-shirt and darker trousers is seen separating from those fleeing. He then pulls what appears to be a pistol from his waistband with his left hand, holding it out in front of him before moving off camera.

The St. Louis County police department said detectives have identified the person in the video as Tyrone Harris, who they said was responding to shots fired by another group at the scene. The incident took place during a commemoration protest marking the one-year anniversary of Michael Brown’s killing by police.

Police claim Harris allegedly opened fire on an unmarked police van before four police officers answered in kind. He was hit eight to twelve times, according to his father, Tyrone Sr., who disputed the police account on Monday, but declined to discuss his son’s shooting on Tuesday after the video was released, according to the Associated Press.

Harris, 18, is still in critical condition in a St. Louis hospital. There were no updates on his condition on Tuesday.

Source: RT

Heavily armed whites arrive in Ferguson

Armed to teeth with semi-automatic assault rifles and handguns, members of the Oath Keepers militia, formed of former and current law enforcement and military officers, have blended into the crowd of Ferguson protesters, saying “We’re on your side.”

At least four members of the ‘Oath Keepers’ arrived in Ferguson on early Tuesday and began patrolling the West Florissant Avenue, walking through the crowds of protesters gathered there for a ‘day of civil disobedience’ following the anniversary of the killing of 18-year-old African-American Michael Brown, shot dead by white Police Officer Darren Wilson.

The appearance of heavily-armed white men stirred unease on the part of the civil rights activists from the Black Lives Matter movement, heavily represented at Ferguson protests.

“Why are there men with guns and the police are doing nothing?” prominent activist Kayla Reed demanded on Twitter.

The American nonprofit organization Oath Keepers consists mainly of former and serving US military and law enforcement personnel, as well as members of other paramilitary services, who declare their aim as protecting the US Constitution even at the cost of disobedience to official orders, in case these orders violate fundamental American law.

Expressing his disapproval at the government’s handling of the situation in Ferguson, Oath Keepers volunteer Sam Andrews told RT: “Why the National Guard was not here supporting the St. Louis County Police and supporting the highway patrol and protecting these businesses, to me, is either such a grotesque incompetence or downright criminal negligence.”

“We are family people. And you know what? Nothing is going to change unless we stop electing politician lawyers to officers,” Andrews said, as quoted by Ruptly.

“You elect Donald Trump, you put Donald Trump in office, he’ll change it all, he’ll get rid of these clowns he’ll get rid of these people that violate our rights and we’ll have somebody that actually cares about Americans again,” Andrews said, expressing his support for the Republican presidential candidate.

A year ago, during the first round of protests, they also patrolled Ferguson. The Oath Keepers were also present in November 2014, when more protests erupted in the St. Louis, Missouri, neighborhood.

“Private business people that cannot afford security have asked the volunteers to help protect their businesses. The people in Ferguson have learnt a sad and difficult lesson, that there are not enough police and National Guards to protect all the homes and all the businesses,” a man in military fatigues told Sky News.

But Andrews said it’s not just about defending businesses.

“We have people living in apartments above these businesses…so arson is a lethal threat,” he told RT.

Cincinnati braces for black violence after police shooting

An Ohio police officer who shot a black man during a routine traffic stop was charged with murder Wednesday in what prosecutors called a “senseless” act motivated by anger.

“He wasn’t dealing with someone who was wanted for murder — he was dealing with someone with a missing license plate,” Hamilton County Prosecutor Joseph Deters told reporters.

The case comes as the United States grapples with heightened racial tensions in the wake of a series of high-profile incidents of African Americans being killed by police in disputed circumstances.

Deters said he hopes the swift action by his office will show that justice is being done in this case.

University of Cincinnati campus police officer Ray Tensing initially told investigators that he shot Sam DuBose in the head after DuBose tried to drive away and dragged the officer along with him.

“You will not believe how quickly he pulls his gun and shoots him in the head. It’s maybe a second. It’s incredible. And so senseless,” Deters said as he prepared to release the video.

A lawyer for Officer Tensing, Stew Mathews, disputed Deters’s comments during an interview with an Ohio television station and said that other video of the shooting would tell a completely different story.

The university shut down its campus and placed barricades at entrances out of concern that the news could lead to protest or even violence.

City officials pressed for peace and said they were prepared “for any scenarios that present themselves.”

A series of sometimes violent protests have broken out across the United States in response to other high-profile police shootings over the past year.

Cincinnati was struck by days of violent unrest following the police shooting of an unarmed black man in 2001.

Tensing, 25, had been a police officer for four years, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported.

#Blacklives pepper-sprayed in Cleveland

Cleveland police had to use pepper spray against activists attending the national convention of the Movement for Black Lives. Scuffles and arrests were reported after the weekend conference wrapped-up and people poured onto the streets

Hundreds of activists from across the nation gathered at Cleveland State University this weekend for the first national conference to discuss escalating tensions between US police and black communities.

Following the closing session on Sunday, as most of the attendees left, dozens of people remained in the streets. Police, apparently concerned by the crowd potentially blocking traffic, moved in to disperse the gathering.

“Cleveland looks just like Ferguson, looks just like Baltimore, looks just like all of these places that have high [levels of] oppression,” said local organizer Malaya Davis, as cited by cleveland.com. “We wanted to highlight that and bring some attention to what’s going on in this city and the state of Ohio as well.”

Among notable speakers attending the conference was the father of Michael Brown, shot and killed in Ferguson. The mother of Eric Garner, who died after a police choke hold in New York City, also attended, in addition to the mother of Tamir Rice.

Two cops shot in Ferguson

Two police officers have been shot during a protest outside Ferguson Police Station, according to the St. Louis County Police chief, who said their injuries were “very serious.”

A 32-year-old officer from Webster Groves was shot in the face and a 41-year-old from St. Louis County was shot in the shoulder, Chief Jon Belmar told journalists at a press conference.

“These police officers were standing there and they were shot, just because they were police officers,” Belmar said.

The shooting broke out during the latest rally outside the police station on Thursday.

A Reuters photographer at the scene said a few dozen demonstrators fled following the sound of gunfire with some screaming, “They hit a cop.”

The St Louis County Police chief said at least three shots were fired during the rally. No suspects have yet been identified, he added.

A video has emerged featuring the moment the shots were fired. While it’s low-resolution and not much can be seen, the sounds of gunfire are distinctly heard, as well as the groaning of a man who was hit.

The protest outside the Ferguson Police Department began after Jackson’s resignation on Wednesday. He is the sixth city official to step down in the wake of a DoJ report last week lashing out at Ferguson’s courts and Police Department for racial prejudice.

Jackson oversaw the Ferguson force for nearly five years before the shooting that stirred months of unrest across the St. Louis region and drew global attention to the predominantly black city of 21,000.

The protest was a familiar scene in Ferguson, which saw similar and much larger demonstrations after the shooting death of black 18-year-old Michael Brown last summer by city police officer Darren Wilson. When Wilson, who is white, was cleared in November by a state grand jury, the decision set off further protests, looting and fires.

The acting head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division released a statement saying the U.S. government remains committed to reaching a “court-enforceable agreement” to address Ferguson’s “unconstitutional practices”.

Ferguson: Hunting down white racists only

What better way to quell a black uprising in Ferguson, Mo. than to hunt down white “racists” by exposing a number of carefully selected private emails?

One Ferguson Police Department employee has been fired and two others have been placed on leave after federal authorities identified them as responsible for writing personal emails with a “racist” content, the mayor of the city said.

The Justice Department meanwhile has cleared the police officer of civil rights violations in the death last August of the black Michael Brown.

The decision ends a lengthy investigation into the shooting last August, in which the officer, Darren Wilson shot and killed Brown in the street as he tried to stop him for a possible theft. Several witnesses said Brown, 18, had his hands up in surrender when he died, leading to violent clashes in Ferguson and nationwide protest chants of “Hands up, don’t shoot.”

But federal agents and civil rights prosecutors rejected that story, just as a state grand jury did in November.

The announcement comes as the Justice Department issued a 100-page report that found systematic racial discrimination by the Ferguson police officials and the court system against African Americans. Mayor Knowles said the city “must do better” to address racism.

The report on the shooting, an 86-page report, however demolishes the fanciful version of events that sent blacks and liberal whites into the streets chanting “hands up, don’t shoot.”

Nevertheless the DOJ report cited “racist emails” exchanged by Ferguson city employees as examples of a culture that supported “discriminatory behavior” when Wilson was actually cleared of such wrong-doing.

“Our review of documents revealed many additional email communications that exhibited racial or ethnic bias, as well as other forms of bias. Our investigation has not revealed any indication that any officer or court clerk engaged in these communications was ever disciplined,” the report said.

There were no accounts of senior officials asking others to stop sending the emails or any indication of reports being made about inappropriate emails.

– A November 2008 email about Barack Obama, then the president-elect, wondered “what black man holds a steady job for four years.”

– One March 2010 email mocked African Americans through speech stereotypes, using a story involving child support. One line from the email read: “I be so glad that dis be my last child support payment! Month after month, year after year, all dose payments!”

– An April 2011 email depicted President Barack Obama as a chimpanzee.

– Meanwhile, a June 2011 email described a man seeking to obtain “welfare” for his dogs because they are “mixed in color, unemployed, last, can’t speak English and have no frigging clue who their Daddies are.”

– Another email, from October 2011, included a photo of a bare-chested group of dancing women apparently in Africa, with the caption, “Michelle Obama’s High School Reunion.”

– A December 2011 email included jokes that are based on offensive stereotypes about Muslims.

According to the DOJ report, each of these email exchanges involved supervisors of the Ferguson patrol and court operations.

A DOJ official told reporters that some of the emails were sent by people still involved in helping to negotiate a settlement with the agency. The DOJ declined to identify them.

Regarding the discoveries made by snooping federal officials, Attorney General Eric Holder said that a “highly toxic environment” existed between Ferguson police officers and the city’s African American residents even before the death of 18-year-old Michael Brown. The unarmed teenager was killed by Officer Darren Wilson in a confrontation that set of weeks of protests locally and nationwide.

“It’s not difficult to imagine how a single tragic incident set off the city of Ferguson like a powder keg,” Holder said.

He added that excessive force was overwhelmingly used against African American residents, noting that only African Americans were bit by police dogs. Holder said there was “no alternative explanation” except racial bias exists to explain it.

Elite fear Ferguson-style riots

Davos economist Robert Johnson, who made headlines this week for revealing that the wealthy are buying secret hideaways as a hedge against global instability, warned in a subsequent interview that the elite are also afraid of more riots in the mould of Ferguson, Missouri.

Johnson, president of the Institute of New Economic Thinking, sparked interest when he asserted during an interview at the Davos Economic Forum that many hedge fund managers were purchasing land in remote locations so as to guard against an uprising of the poor caused by wealth inequality.

“I know hedge fund managers all over the world who are buying airstrips and farms in places like New Zealand because they think they need a getaway,” he said, with the New Economics Foundation’s Stewart Wallis agreeing, telling CNBC, “If they can get off, onto another planet, some of them would.”

Johnson expanded on his comments in a subsequent interview, telling RT that wealth inequality has consequences that will result in a rise of social instability worldwide.

“A lot of wealthy and powerful people are quite afraid right now – they see us on an unstable trajectory,” said Johnson, noting that the failure of political institutions to be representative is causing strain on the system.

“As the system doesn’t have proper resources, as it doesn’t represent people, things are getting more and more dangerous as say Ferguson, Missouri brings to bear,” added the economist.

Johnson’s view that the global elite are afraid of riots arising out of wealth inequality is shared by other economists such as Martin Armstrong, who last year predicted that widespread civil unrest would hit America by 2016 as a result of an economic downturn.

“It looks more and more like a serious political uprising will erupt by 2016 once the economy turns down. That is the magic ingredient. Turn the economy down and you get civil unrest and revolution,” wrote Armstrong.

Source: infowars

George Soros funded Ferguson riots

Liberal billionaire gave at least $33 million in one year to groups that emboldened activists

There’s a solitary man at the financial center of the Ferguson protest movement. No, it’s not victim Michael Brown or Officer Darren Wilson. It’s not even the Rev. Al Sharpton, despite his ubiquitous campaign on TV and the streets.

Rather, it’s liberal billionaire George Soros, who has built a business empire that dominates across the ocean in Europe while forging a political machine powered by nonprofit foundations that impacts American politics and policy, not unlike what he did with MoveOn.org.

Mr. Soros spurred the Ferguson protest movement through years of funding and mobilizing groups across the U.S., according to interviews with key players and financial records reviewed by The Washington Times.

In all, Mr. Soros gave at least $33 million in one year to support already-established groups that emboldened the grass-roots, on-the-ground activists in Ferguson, according to the most recent tax filings of his nonprofit Open Society Foundations.

The financial tether from Mr. Soros to the activist groups gave rise to a combustible protest movement that transformed a one-day criminal event in Missouri into a 24-hour-a-day national cause celebre.

“Our DNA includes a belief that having people participate in government is indispensable to living in a more just, inclusive, democratic society,” said Kenneth Zimmerman, director of Mr. Soros‘ Open Society Foundations’ U.S. programs, in an interview with The Washington Times. “Helping groups combine policy, research [and] data collection with community organizing feels very much the way our society becomes more accountable.”

Soros-sponsored organizations helped mobilize protests in Ferguson, building grass-roots coalitions on the ground backed by a nationwide online and social media campaign.

Other Soros-funded groups made it their job to remotely monitor and exploit anything related to the incident that they could portray as a conservative misstep, and to develop academic research and editorials to disseminate to the news media to keep the story alive.

The plethora of organizations involved not only shared Mr. Soros‘ funding, but they also fed off each other, using content and buzzwords developed by one organization on another’s website, referencing each other’s news columns and by creating a social media echo chamber of Facebook “likes” and Twitter hashtags that dominated the mainstream media and personal online newsfeeds.

All were aimed at keeping the media’s attention on the city and to widen the scope of the incident to focus on interrelated causes — not just the overpolicing and racial discrimination narratives that were highlighted by the news media in August.

“I went to Ferguson in a quest to be in solidarity and stand with the young organizers and affirm their leadership,” said Kassandra Frederique, policy manager at the Drug Policy Alliance, which was founded by Mr. Soros, and which receives $4 million annually from his foundation. She traveled to Ferguson in October.

“We recognized this movement is similar to the work we’re doing at DPA,” said Ms. Frederique. “The war on drugs has always been to operationalize, institutionalize and criminalize people of color. Protecting personal sovereignty is a cornerstone of the work we do and what this movement is all about.”

Ms. Frederique works with Opal Tometi, co-creator of #BlackLivesMatter — a hashtag that was developed after the killing of Trayvon Martin in Florida — and helped promote it on DPA’s news feeds. Ms. Tometi runs the Black Alliance for Just Immigration, a group to which Mr. Soros gave $100,000 in 2011, according to the most recent of his foundation’s tax filings.

“I think #BlackLivesMatter’s success is because of organizing. This was created after Trayvon Martin, and there has been sustained organizing and conversations about police violence since then,” said Ms. Frederique. “Its explosion into the mainstream recently is because it connects all the dots at a time when everyone was lost for words. ‘Black Lives Matter’ is liberating, unapologetic and leaves no room for confusion.”

With the backing of national civil rights organizations and Mr. Soros‘ funding, “Black Lives Matter” grew from a hashtag into a social media phenomenon, including a #BlackLivesMatter bus tour and march in September.

“More than 500 of us have traveled from Boston, Chicago, Columbus, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Nashville, Portland, Tucson, Washington, D.C., Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and other cities to support the people of Ferguson and help turn a local moment into a national movement,” wrote Akiba Solomon, a journalist at Colorlines, describing the event.

Colorlines is an online news site that focuses on race issues and is published by Race Forward, a group that received $200,000 from Mr. Soros’s foundation in 2011. Colorlines has published tirelessly on the activities in Ferguson and heavily promoted the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag and activities.

Mr. Soros gave $5.4 million to Ferguson and Staten Island grass-roots efforts last year to help “further police reform, accountability and public transparency,” the Open Society Foundations said in a blog post in December. About half of those funds were earmarked to Ferguson, with the money primarily going to OBS and MORE, the foundation said.

OBS and MORE, along with the Dream Defenders, established the “Hands Up Coalition” — another so-called “grass-roots” organization in Missouri, whose name was based on now-known-to-be-false claims that Brown had his hands up before being shot. The Defenders were built to rally support and awareness for the Trayvon Martin case and were funded by the Tides Foundation, another recipient of Soros cash.

Hands Up Coalition has made it its mission to recruit and organize youth nationwide to start local events in their communities — trying to take Ferguson nationwide.

Hands Up Coalition has dubbed 2015 as “The Year of Resistance,” and its outreach program strongly resembles how President Obama’s political action committee — Organizing for Action — rallies youth for its causes, complete with a similarly designed Web page and call to action.

Mr. Soros‘ two largest foundations manage almost $3 billion in assets per year, according to their most recent respective tax returns. The Foundation to Promote Open Society managed $2.2 billion in assets in 2011, and his Open Society Institute managed $685.9 million in 2012.

In comparison, David and Charles Koch, the billionaire brothers whom liberals often call a threat to democracy — and worse — for their conservative influence, had $308 million tied up in their foundation and institute in 2011.

One of the organizations that Mr. Soros funds, and which fueled the demonstrations in Ferguson, is the Gamaliel Foundation, a network of grass-roots, interreligious and interracial organizations. Mr. Obama started his career as a community organizer at a Gamaliel affiliate in Chicago.

The Rev. Traci Blackmon of Christ the King United Church of Christ in Florissant, Missouri, which is part of the Gamaliel network, said in one of the group’s webinars that clergy involved with Gamaliel must be “protectors of the narrative” of what happened in Ferguson.

Source: Washington Times

Eric Garner: 100% innocent under libertarian law

Eric Garner was doing nothing naturally illicit when he was tackled and placed in the chokehold that killed him. It can be argued, if anything, that Garner was being entrepreneurial. He had been trading untaxed cigarettes in defiance of the state’s “slave patrol” and “Comrade” Andrew Cuomo’s “Cigarette Strike Force,” in the words of liberty’s Don Quixote, William Norman Grigg.

Had Garner’s naturally licit trade not been criminalized by today’s Tammany Hall, he’d be alive today.

“Garner,” wrote Grigg, “had suffered years of pointless and unnecessary harassment by the costumed predators employed by the New York Police Department,” when he declared, minutes before he was killed: “Every time you see me, you want to mess with me! I’m tired of it! It stops today!”

Grigg noted: “Eric Garner’s exasperated proclamation ‘It stops today!’ is cognate with ‘Don’t tread on me.’”

The killing of Eric Garner was caught on camera and uploaded to YouTube. A grand jury, however, failed to see what was as plain as day to everyone else as well as to the city medical examiner. An autopsy revealed that the Garner death was a homicide, brought on, July 17, by “compression of the neck and chest, along with Garner’s positioning on the ground while being restrained by police.”

The footage also shows that the cops who jumped Eric Garner with such enthusiasm were oblivious to his repeated pleas for air. Neither was an attempt at resuscitation commenced once they realized Garner was unresponsive. Instead, the cops panicked, barking orders at observes to disperse.

Garner’s manner of death conjures the manner in which Carol Anne Gotbaum met her untimely demise, in 2008. Gotbaum, a petite, 45-year-old slip of a woman – she weighed 105 pounds – was likely asphyxiated in Phoenix’s Sky Harbor Airport by some corpulent cops. She had become distraught – not dangerous – after she was detained at the airport and not permitted to proceed to her destination. Unhinged, Gotbaum took off down the concourse hollering. She was quickly scrummed by meaty policemen, tackled to the ground, a colossal knee jabbed into her skinny spine. Gotbaum was then thrown in a holding cell, where she was shackled and chained to a bench. Minutes later Gotbaum was dead.

Her bruised body was autopsied. As inevitably as water spiraling down a plughole, the police were exonerated. Famous forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden said: “… the most likely cause of death has to do with asphyxia and could be a result of too much pressure on her chest when they were putting on the handcuffs and the shackles.”

Carol Anne Gotbaum was white. Cops are equal-opportunity offenders. Factoring into account the disproportionate representation of blacks among the population of law-breakers, cops aggress against whites and blacks more or less equally. (Except that whites don’t riot and loot.)

Not to be conflated are the cases of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, of Ferguson fame. While the evidence of police wrongdoing in Garner’s death is incontrovertible, the reverse is true in Brown versus Officer Darren Wilson.

As the evidence shows, Michael Brown initiated aggression. He had aggressed against the store keeper and the policeman, who protected himself from this rushing mountain of flesh. In libertarian law, the individual may defends himself against initiated aggression. He may not initiate aggression against a non-aggressor.

Eric Garner, on the other hand, had aggressed against nobody. Whereas Brown was stealing cigarillos; Garner was selling his own cigarettes. The “law” he violated was one that violated Garner’s individual, natural right to dispose of his own property – “loosies” – at will.

In libertarian law, Garner is thus 100 percent innocent, for the good libertarian abides by the axiom of non-aggression. When enforcers of the shakedown syndicate came around to bust him, Garner raised his voice, gestured and turned to walk away from his harassers. He did not aggress against or hurt any of the goons.

To plagiarize myself in “Tasers ‘R’ Us,” “Liberty is a simple thing. It’s the unassailable right to shout, flail your arms, even verbally provoke a politician [or policeman] unmolested. Tyranny is when those small things can get you assaulted, incarcerated, injured, even killed.”

Again: Garner had obeyed the libertarian, natural law absolutely. He was trading peacefully. In the same spirit, he turned to walk away from a confrontation. Befitting this pacific pattern, Garner had broken up a street fight prior to his murder.

The government has a monopoly over making and enforcing law – it decides what is legal and what isn’t. Thus it behooves thinking people to question the monopolist and his laws. After all, cautioned the great Southern constitutional scholar James McClellan, “What is legally just, may not be what is naturally just.” “Statutory man-made law” is not necessarily just law.

Unlike the positive law, which is state-created; natural law in not enacted. Rather, it is a higher law – a system of ethics – knowable through reason, revelation and experience. “By natural law,” propounded McClellan in “Liberty, Order, And Justice,” “we mean those principles which are inherent in man’s nature as a rational, moral, and social being, and which cannot be casually ignored.”

Eric Garner was on “public” property. Had he been trespassing on private property, the proprietor would have been in his right to remove him. However, Garner was not violating anyone’s rights or harming anyone by standing on a street corner and peddling his wares – that is unless the malevolent competition that sicced the cops on him has a property right in their prior profits. They don’t.

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Ferguson: Thankful for the Founding Fathers’ legal legacy

Grand-jury deliberations were conducted behind closed doors. The decision was announced at night. It was too dark. Jurors were given too much information to absorb. The St. Louis County prosecuting attorney was not sufficiently involved in the proceedings. The latter, Bob McCulloch, was too “cold” in sharing the cold, hard facts of the case with the public. His remarks were excessively long or redundant all. The police were too passive in their response to the pillage that followed the unpopular decision.

These are a few of the complaints voiced by the “Racism Industrial Complex (RIC)” against a grand-jury decision in the shooting death of Michael Brown, in Ferguson, Missouri. A quorum of ordinary Americans has determined that Officer Darren Wilson was not “the initial aggressor,” that the officer “acted in self-defense”; that he “was authorized to use deadly force,” in a situation in which he found himself being punched—and then bull-rushed by a demonic-looking mountain of flesh, Michael Brown.

Brown’s interactions with Officer Wilson would have been fueled by a consciousness of guilt which likely amplified the young man’s aggression. For prior to being shot, surveillance video had surfaced of Brown roughing up and robbing a shopkeeper. The “Big Kid” was no gentle giant; he was a brute. At the time of their fateful encounter, Officer Wilson suspected Brown of robbing a convenience store.

“The Racism Industrial Complex (RIC),” explains originator Jack Kerwick, “include the majority of journalists and commentators in corporate media; most academics in the liberal arts and humanities departments of America’s colleges and universities; entertainers; and politicians. In concert, they labor fast and furiously to ensconce within the American consciousness the idea that blacks and other racial minorities are perpetual victims of ‘white racism.'”

Commensurate with the “RIC” narrative, Michael Brown’s blackness is mentioned always in mitigation; Wilson’s whiteness as an aggravating condition.

Right away, the governor of Missouri, Jay Nixon, promised “a vigorous prosecution.” Feeling the heat from the head honchos of the “Racism Industrial Complex” (Attorney General Eric Holder and President Barack Obama), Nixon had sought to indict the white officer as a gesture to the Brown family. It is alleged, moreover, that Missouri’s governor and the DC “RIC” are behind the meek response to the November riots, underway across the country.

I hate to say it, but these riots are an object lesson as to what transpires in certain chaotic communities when the police practice peaceful resistance.

Let’s face it: Had St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Bob McCulloch, a Democrat, opted for an open, probable-cause hearing before a judge, as opposed to convening a grand jury, the “Racism Industrial Complex”—forced to face a decision not to its liking—would be decrying the despotism of this single judge. They’d be calling for a jury of the people’s representatives, as bequeathed by the Founding Fathers, in the 5th Amendment of the Bill of Rights. The grand jury institution, as legal analyst Paul Callan has explained, “was actually created by the Founders to provide a wall of citizen protection against overzealous prosecutors.”

Had the decision been revealed in the AM, the RIC herd would have argued for a night-time reveal.

Had Mr. McCulloch meddled with the jury, he’d still be accused of rigging the outcome against Brown.

Had McCulloch hand-picked the evidence for the grand jury, instead of providing the 12 jurors with access to all of it—a “document dump,” brayed Big Media—he’d have been accused of concealing information.

Had the cops moved to curtail the crowds from “venting” over “legitimate issues,” caused by “the legacy of racial discrimination”—the president words—they’d have been convicted of police brutality.

As to the affective dimension, McCulloch’s alleged frigid demeanor: A silent majority whose “culture” is being crowded out still finds such WASPY mannerisms comforting and familiar; a sign of professionalism, dignity, decorum and rationality. Profoundly alien and disturbing was the wretched excesses of Michael Brown’s mother (Lesley McSpadden) and her new husband (Louis Head)—both of whom have had brushes with the law—howling, “Burn this bitch down.”

Regrettably, at the time of the shooting, this libertarian column had expressed the opinion that Brown was the victim of murder-by-cop. I was wrong. Far from the militarized mob, a remarkable process has unfolded in Ferguson. Praise for it belongs to Prosecuting Attorney Bob McCulloch and a grand jury selected by a judge, in May of 2014, long before the shooting occurred.

McCulloch’s remarks were impressive. They revealed the exhaustive scope of the search for truth undertaken by a grand jury that was left to its own devices. Since the text of the statement has not been disseminated, I’ve summarized some of it for interested Americans. Particularly brilliant is the manner in which McCulloch co-opted the DC “RIC” in support of the rule of law, in Ferguson, Missouri:

St. Louis county police conducted an extensive investigation at the crime scene together with agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, at the direction of Attorney General Eric Holder. Together they sought out witnesses and gathered additional information over a period of three months, beginning on the day of the shooting death of Michael Brown. Fully aware of the growing concerns in parts of the community that the investigation and review of the death would not be full and fair, St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Bob McCulloch decided to hand over to a grand jury all physical evidence related to the case, all individuals claiming to have witnessed any aspect of the events and any and all related matters. The grand jury comprised of 12 members of the community.

Federal investigators worked closely with local law enforcement, with the St. Louis county police and persecutor and Attorney General Holder and his department vowing to follow where the evidence led. These federal investigators shared information with St. Louis county investigator and vice versa. In addition, the Department of Justice conducted its own investigation and performed its own autopsy. Yet another autopsy was carried out by the Brown family and all information was shared and collated. All testimony before the grand jury was immediate forwarded to the DOJ. Eyewitness accounts were compared with the physical evidence. Many witnesses contradicted their own statements and the physical evidence.

As an example of witness testimony that contradicted the physical evidence McCulloch offered numerous statements that claimed to have seen Officer Wilson stand above Michael Brown and fire many rounds into his back. Others claimed that Officer Wilson shot Mr. Brown in the back as he was running away. Once the autopsy was released showing that the deceased did not sustain injuries to his back, statements to that effect were retracted. Others admitted they had, in fact, not witnessed the shooting.

All statements were recorded and presented to the grand jury before the autopsy results were released. There was no “document dump,” as some media claimed. Two of Bob McCulloch’s assistants presented the information to the jury in an organized, systematic manner. All jurors heard every word of testimony and examined every item of evidence presented. McCulloch described a proactive and engaged group working since August 9th to do their due diligence.

In the course of 25 days, the jury dissected over 70 hours of testimony and listened to 60 witnesses. They heard from three medical examiners and many other DNA and forensic experts. They examined hundreds of photographs and looked at various pieces of physical evidence. They were instructed in the law and presented with five possible indictments. Their burden was to determine, based on all the evidence, if probable cause existed to determine that a crime was committed and Daren Wilson committed that crime.
There is no question that Officer Wilson caused the death of Michael Brown by shooting him. However the law authorizes an officer of the law, and all people, to use deadly force to defend themselves in certain situations.

The grand jury considered whether Officer Wilson was the initial aggressor, or whether he was authorized to use deadly force in the situation and acted in self-defense. They were the only people who examined every piece of evidence and heard every witness. They debated among themselves. After an exhaustive review of the evidence the grand jury deliberated further over two days to arrive at their final decision. And it is that no probable cause exists to file any charges against Officer Darren Wilson. They returned a “No True” bill on each of the five indictments. All the evidence, witness statements included, was made public.

Not even the unethical, ongoing, subversive interventions from the attorney general of black America and the president of black America, on the side of the Brown family, swayed a grand jury guided by the search for truth. For fact-finding is the essence of the law—the law is not an abstract idea of imaged social justice that exists in the arid minds of the perpetually aggrieved. Unfortunately, “the Racism Industrial Complex (RIC), also “the hegemonic power of our generation,” sees law as a weapon, to be co-opted to its ends.

Today, we should give thanks for a prosecuting attorney and grand jury who grasped the evidently archaic idea of ordered liberty. This is a good day for American justice.

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London protest against Ferguson verdict

Hundreds, mostly white people have gathered around the US Embassy in London, condemning the grand jury verdict not to charge US white police officer who killed African-American teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, BBC reported Thursday.

The Stand Up To Racism and London Black Revolutionaries Group organized protests around the US Embassy in London, condemning the grand jury verdict over Darren Wilson, a police officer who shot an African-American teenager in Ferguson.

According to the news agency, the protest campaign was organized by Stand Up To Racism and London Black Revolutionaries Group.

The vigil is intended to raise protest against non-indictment verdict for the US police officer Darren Wilson, which was delivered by the grand jury in Ferguson on Monday, the statement on the Stand Up For Racism official website says. The statement adds that the US jury’s decision comes on the day of similar incident in Cleveland, where a policeman shot dead 12-year-old African-American Tamir Rice, who was carrying a toy gun.

The court decision not to charge Wilson over the August 9 shooting has led to a wave of protests across the United States, raising issues of race discrimination and police brutality within the US law enforcement system. Demonstrations took place in 38 US states, Washington DC and over 170 other US cities on Tuesday.

Whites asked to stay away from rallies for Brown in Canada

Organizers of pro-Ferguson events in Ottawa and Toronto, asked white people not to appropriate vigils for Michael Brown, sparking intense debate on social media.

White people were told by organizers to not appropriate a recent vigil for Michael Brown and Ferguson in Canada, sparking intense debate on social media.

Hundreds of protesters chanted and carried signs through the streets of Washington, DC, Tuesday night to show solidarity with Michael Brown, a black teen offender shot dead by a police officer in Ferguson in August and other victims of police violence.

In a post, published on the Facebook page of the Ottawa vigil, she stressed that fair-skinned people “are there in support of black folks, so should never be at the centre of anything,” adding that “black voices are crucial” to the movement at the moment.

The same suggestion was posted on the Facebook page of a similar event in Toronto.

Arte’s post attracted nearly 300 comments, prompting one user, Hamdi Loukoum, to ask: “Wow, is this an anti-racist rally or a pro-segregation one?”

In response to the appeal Darian Parsons, stated: “I’m not sure why white people would have to refrain from taking up space…. won’t that push them away from coming to support and won’t it help to have support from the whole world, not just the black community…? I think it would be a terrible idea to ask non-black people to not talk to the media.”

Other participants were sympathetic with Arte’s message. “For us, it’s really important to come up and show our solidarity and make sure black voices are leading this — that their feelings and opinions are front and centre for everything happening here. We’re just here to show support and be allies,” Paige Jackson and Rebecca Macintyre, both white, told CBC News. “It’s not about us. It’s about showing solidarity with people whose lives are affected by Ferguson — and that’s not really us. That’s not really white people,” Macintyre added.

The peaceful rallies were held in Ottawa and Toronto under the banner “BlackLivesMatter” following a night of rioting in Ferguson, sparked by the grand jury’s decision not to indict Darren Wilson, a white police officer who fatally shot the African-American teenager. Thousands have reportedly participated in the two vigils braving cold weather.

“Those folks who are here tonight don’t believe that’s OK,” said Lena Peters, the leader of the protests, as quoted by the Huffington Post. “We believe that it is part of a larger system that doesn’t value black life,” she added during the rally held outside the US Consulate in Toronto.

“Our message is that black lives matter,” said Janaya Khan, one of the organizers of the Toronto vigil, as quoted by the Global News. “Our message is that we unequivocally stand against the no indictment ruled in favour of Darren Wilson and that we completely support Mike Brown and Mike Brown’s family. We support any kind of actions against state sanctioned violence and police brutality and we want to draw parallels to what is happening here in Canada to black and African peoples.”

The grand jury’s decision came after nearly three months of deliberation over a case that has highlighted issues of race and police brutality throughout the United States, inciting massive protests around the country over the summer.

Thirty-eight US states, Washington DC and over 140 other US cities have organized demonstrations throughout the day on Tuesday under the banner of “Emergency Response Protests to Ferguson Grand Jury Decision”.

Ferguson launches race war

Monday night on MSNBC’s “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell,” Missouri State Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadali (D) said of the riots after the grand jury announcement that Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson will not face charges for fatally shooting Michael Brown, “This is St. Louis’s race war. We didn’t have a race war like other cities throughout the U.S. This is our race war.”

Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadali is black. “I have to tell you that there has been systematic racism, institutionally in state government for decades, including my own state party. So what we are looking at right now is a symptom of racism that has been swept under the rug for decades. and I am so glad now that the truth is out, and I’m very grateful to your network for telling the truth in reporting the truth of what’s going to go down in the coming days.

“As it was said earlier today, and because of the systematic racism that we have in our state government, and our state party, and we do not bring the truth to bear, then we will not recover from what we are going on. What we are experiencing right now, and I have to tell you, this is St. Louis’s race war. We didn’t have a race war like other cities throughout the this is our race war. country. and people have to be open, and they have to be honest. and they have to earnest, and they have not been earnest for decades. I know people in my own party, in my own government structure who disregard things that we say and how we feel, and we are not going to allow it anymore,” she added.

A crowd gathered around a car from which the verdict was being broadcast on a stereo. When the decision was announced, Michael Brown’s mother, Lesley McSpadden, who was sitting atop the car, burst into tears and began screaming before being whisked away by supporters.

The crowd erupted in anger, converging on the barricade where police in riot gear were standing. They pushed down the barricade and began pelting police with items, including a bullhorn. Police stood their ground.

As the night when on, at least seven Ferguson-area businesses were set on fire. Several more were hit by looters. Fires were reported at the Fashions R Boutique, Title Max loan center, AutoZone, Walgreen’s, Public Storage, Little Caesars and others.

The county police department is also saying that officers reported heavy automatic gunfire. Police cars were been vandalized and several gunshots were heard on the streets.

A KMOX News vehicle was also damaged while covering protests in south St. Louis.Ferguson Police responded to protesters with smoke and pepper spray.

Protesters insisted it was tear gas. Video shows protesters setting fires and breaking store windows. Protesters were also throwing bottles and rocks at officers.

Video shows protesters setting fires and breaking store windows. Protesters were also throwing bottles and rocks at officers.

Demonstrations are also taking place in a number of large cities across the country, including outside the White House in Washington, DC.

New York protesters are causing havoc to the city’s transport systems and have already taken over three bridges, which have all been shut down.

Despite sub-zero temperatures in the Windy City Chicago, protesters are out in force and have already shut down a major intersection in the city center.

There are reports that protests in the West Coast city of Oakland are beginning to turn violent. They have started to light fires on the city’s main streets, while police are maintaining a heavy and visible presenc